Fool Me Once (17 page)

“I'm not going out to work, Dennis, so get that idea right out of your head. I retired, the way you retired. I agreed to all this because you made it sound so wonderful. You don't know enough about boats, because if you did, you wouldn't have bought this lemon. They saw you coming. You spent all our money, and now we're broke with no means to get any more. Unless—”

“Don't go there, Lea. The answer is no. I said I'd get a job. You're half of this team, too, you know. It wouldn't hurt you to get a job to help out.”

Lea's lips set in a grim line. Her blue eyes sparked dangerously. “Dennis, Olivia said
she
wanted to buy you a top-of-the-line boat. Why won't you accept the offer? You're being incredibly stupid. If you'd use the brain you were born with, you'd realize you could pay
her estate
back with all the extra charters you'd get with a new boat. Think of it as a loan and forget where it came from. We're talking about our very survival here, Dennis. I hate it when you act like this.”

“I don't much care for the way you're acting, either. What's happened to you?”

“What's happened to me?” Lea screeched as loud as the gulls were screeching. “We're broke! We might not have a roof over our heads! We only have a few hundred dollars in our bank account, and our pensions won't do more than feed us. Do you even know how much you owe for all the gas you charged for this boat? Thousands, that's how much. They're dunning us, Dennis. Everyone is dunning us. I can't take it.”

Dennis bit down on his lower lip so he wouldn't cry. “Say it, Lea. Just say it.”

Lea leaned forward, her shoulders hunched over, her face a mask of hate. “All right, I will, Dennis. You promised me so many things. I believed you. I put all my money into that boat of yours, and now it's all gone. Ask your daughter for the money. She's sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars. That's what you told me. What can she possibly do with all that money? You certainly, of all people, have a right to share in it. You raised that bitch's daughter. Now collect on that. Get over that imagined shame you're feeling. Give me the life you promised. I'm going home. I expect an answer from you by this afternoon, Dennis.” She tossed him the cell phone. Dennis caught it in his lap.

This time when his eyes filled with tears, Dennis didn't blink them away. He was oblivious to the screeching gulls and the sights and sounds that made up the marina. He just sat there and cried.

O
livia was staring out the kitchen window when the phone rang. Maybe she should just let it ring, she thought, her shoulders sagging. Nothing was going right. Whoever was on the other end of the line was probably someone with more depressing news. Still, she wouldn't know that for sure unless she answered the phone. It was also possible it could be Jeff, and she did want to talk to him. She picked up the portable phone on the seventh ring.

“Ollie! It's Dad. How are you, honey?”

Olivia cleared her throat. Her thoughts ricocheted backward to her conversation with Lea. Was her father calling for the same reason? Suddenly, Olivia felt sick to her stomach. “Hello, Dad. I'm fine. How are you?” Her voice came out flat and cool.

“Ollie, I'm having a bit of a problem here. The hydraulics on the boat went out. I need to ask you something. Can you take out an equity loan or a second mortgage on the house? I'll make the payments. I've got some outstanding bills that are past due, and the creditors are dunning me. I've lost quite a few charters. Can you see your way clear to helping me out here, honey?”

Olivia felt so light-headed with the question she had to reach out to grab hold of the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
He doesn't want Adrian Ames's money. Thank you, God. Oh, yes, thank you, God.
It took her several seconds before she could get her tongue and lips to work. “Okay, Dad. I'll go online and see what I can do. You can do all this stuff online these days. How much should I borrow?”

“As much as you can. I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but when you buy a secondhand boat you buy someone else's problems. Guess that's why the guy wanted to get rid of it. Thanks, honey. You're saving my retirement life. I want you to know that.”

Just you and me, kid.
“Glad to help out, Dad.” This was where she would ordinarily ask about Lea. Instead, she clamped her lips shut and waited for her father's next comment.

“How is everything, Ollie? Are you getting more snow? How are the dogs?”

Olivia stared out the kitchen window again. It was another gray day, and the weatherman had promised light snow by evening but with no real accumulation. She said so. “The dogs are fine. Jeff has been coming out to help. He's really nice, Dad, and I like him a lot.”

“That's nice, Ollie. When do you think you can go online?”

Olivia winced. “When we hang up, Dad. I'll send you an e-mail, is that okay?”

The silence on the other end of the phone was unnerving. “Well, honey, I'm thinking it might be better if you call me on my cell phone. I'm staying on the boat for a little while. I would hate for any vandalism to occur with it being disabled. I can't expect the other boat owners, nice as they are, to spend all their free time watching my boat. We've had a few incidents with some unsavory characters during the past few weeks.”

Olivia didn't believe him for a minute. She ground her teeth together so she wouldn't blurt out what she was thinking. It didn't work. The words slipped out: “Is this something Lea isn't supposed to know about, Dad?”

Another unnerving silence. “For now, Ollie.”

Olivia knew her father. He wasn't going to say any more. They said their good-byes. Olivia stood staring out the window for a long time after she broke the connection. She thought she saw snowflakes starting to fall. Would this winter ever
end?
She could feel tears filling her eyes as she made her way down the hall to her little office.

An hour later, Olivia stared at the screen in front of her. The bank would give her $165,000 on a second mortgage, thanks to her excellent credit and timely mortgage payments. All she had to do was go to the bank in the morning, sign the papers, and a check would be issued in her name. She crossed her fingers the way she had when she was a child, hoping her father would be able to make the payments every month. If he couldn't, her less than robust savings account would fade away very quickly.

Olivia knew her father was sitting on his boat waiting for her return call.
Just you and me, kid.
She eyed the phone on her small desk but didn't pick it up. Instead, she whistled for the dogs. “Suppertime!” she called out in a choked voice. The dogs, as one, flew down the hall to the kitchen.

Their supper over, Olivia opened the sliding door. While the dogs played outside in the snow, Olivia paced, clenching and unclenching her fists. She alternated between anger, sadness, and frustration. Life had been so wonderful before Prentice O'Brien showed up on her doorstep to tell her she'd inherited Allison Matthews's estate. Now everything was so cockeyed she was no longer sure about anything. Even her own feelings.

Olivia chewed on her thumbnail as her thoughts ran wild. The Private Detective Agency should have called her. Jeff should have called. Right now she'd accept a phone call from anyone not involved in this mess, even Clarence. Well, maybe not Clarence. She opened the door for the dogs to come back in. They lined up like a miniparade to await their dog treats, then scurried off to devour them as Olivia walked back to the office to call her father.

She wasn't the least bit surprised when her father answered the phone on the first ring. He also took the initiative. “I hope you have good news, Ollie.”

“I guess I do, Dad. How much do you need?”

“As much as you can get me. Did you have a problem?”

Olivia's mind raced. She could tap into the money in the account Prentice O'Brien had set up. She hated the desperate sound in her father's voice. “The bank said they could give me two hundred thousand,” she fibbed. “Is that enough, Dad?”

Another unnerving silence. “If it was just the hydraulics, it would work, but Lea wants me to sell the boat and give her back what she invested. By the time I pay all our outstanding bills, I'm going to be down for the count. Do you think you could borrow on the business, Ollie?”

Olivia's heart fluttered.
Just you and me, kid.
“I can try, Dad, but it won't be that much. You know that. Do you want me to wire the money into your account? If you do, you have to give me the account number.”

“No, no. I want you to send me a certified check and send it by overnight mail. Send it to the marina. I can pick it up there.”

“Dad, what's going on? I've never heard you like this. Are you and Lea having problems?”

The sensor lights outside flickered to life. Olivia could see swirling snowflakes in the yellow dimness. She waited for her father's response.

“You could say we've hit a rough patch. She gave me an ultimatum this morning. I don't do well with ultimatums. That's why I'm staying on the boat. Look, Ollie, this isn't your problem. I'll work it out somehow.”

“How, Dad? How much money did Lea put into the boat?”

“Lea put in eighty-six thousand. She put in another twenty thousand on the cottage we bought, so it's a total of a hundred and six thousand.”

“Look, Dad, I know you won't accept money from Adrian Ames's estate, but that doesn't have to mean Lea can't accept it. I can send you a check for the hundred and six thousand on top of the two hundred thousand from the home equity loan, and you can pay her back. She doesn't have to know where it came from. Just say we took out a second mortgage. What you do after that is entirely up to you. Did you make a mistake, Dad?”

“Let's just say there's no fool like an old fool. I'm so sorry, Ollie. Okay, send two checks. Make them both out to me. I'll deposit them and write her out a check for her investment. You're saving my life, kiddo. You know that, don't you?”

“It's not
my
money, Dad. I don't want you to sell the boat. I know how much you love it. It's your dream. Are you going to live on the boat or what?”

“I think so. Most of the old codgers like me without a spouse live on theirs. We're all good friends. It will work for me, and there won't be any overhead. With no overhead, I can get a leg up. Of course, it might take a while to sell the little house, and mortgage payments still have to be made. I'll try to rent it out until it can be sold. It will be dicey, but I think I can make it work for me.”

“Okay, Dad, I'll take care of everything. What are you going to do now?”

“Ollie, I'm going to sit here on this old, ratty canvas chair and wait for the stars to come out. I'm going to see if I can find the Ollie Lowell star and stare at it until I fall asleep. I haven't been sleeping, kiddo—I've been too worried. I think I'll sleep really good tonight. Thanks for helping your old dad.”

“Okay, Dad. Stay in touch.”

Olivia tapped her fingers on her desk. It always came down to money. Life was getting more complicated by the second.

Olivia looked at the clock on the mantel. It was almost midnight, and she still hadn't heard from Jeff or the detective agency. She'd never felt more alone in her life. She'd spent the entire evening thinking about her father and his problem. She knew he was devastated with what was going on in his life. What would Lea do? Would she hang around because of Adrian Ames's money, hoping Dennis would agree to accept what she would consider to be his share of his ex-wife's estate? If that was her thinking, she didn't know Dennis Lowell very well. She wondered if her father had told Lea where Adrian Ames's money had come from. Probably not. Her father didn't like to think or talk about his ex-wife. She also wondered what Lea would do with that information if she did know. Would she consider blackmail as a possibility?

Damn, no one was who she seemed to be.

She should go to bed and try to sleep. Like that was going to happen with everything swirling around in her brain! A glass of wine, a big glass, might be the answer. Or maybe a whole container of ice cream. A fried bologna sandwich might do it, too. Ice cream, a bologna sandwich, and a glass of wine. For sure she'd have nightmares all night long.

In the end, Olivia did nothing but add some extra logs to the fire before she curled up with the dogs on a mound of pillows. She eyed the all-cotton afghan Lea had made for her. In a fit of anger, she tossed it into the fire. Then she stomped her way back to her bedroom for a quilt. She gathered the dogs close. Within seconds she was asleep, the heat from the fire drying the tears on her cheeks.

Olivia woke grimly determined to make the day count for something in her quest to get her life back on track. As she prepared her breakfast she reviewed the past weeks. There was nothing more she could do for her father. She'd found Gwen, and now Gwen was more or less out of the equation. Jill was in the hands of the detective agency, and until they came up with something, Jill too, was on the sidelines. Jeff was busy with his own career. Until he made a move in her direction, he was also on the sidelines. Cecil was safe for the moment and being well taken care of. That just left Olivia herself and Adrian Ames.

She crunched down on a crisp slice of bacon, surprised at how hungry she was. She literally wolfed down three scrambled eggs and two slices of toast, sharing the last slice of bacon with the dogs before tidying up the kitchen and turning on the dishwasher.

She knew what she was going to do next. The minute she took care of her father's banking needs, she was going to climb into her car and drive to Adrian Ames's estate. It was time to see exactly who Adrian Ames really had been in life. The sooner she came to terms with the woman who gave birth to her, the sooner she could put all this behind her.

Olivia was out of the house and on her way to the bank in an hour's time. She waved to the dog-sitter. Her banking business took all of twenty-two minutes. Her hand shook slightly, later in the car, when she wrote out the checks to her father, and her sigh of relief when she sealed the FedEx envelope in the car was so loud it startled her. She drove to a drop box to deposit the envelope.

Done.

Move on to Adrian Ames,
she told herself.

The caretaker and Brutus were waiting on the other side of the gate when Olivia pressed in the code. She'd called ahead to have the heat turned on in the house. Driving slowly, she talked to Cyrus Somers through her car window as he accompanied her up the driveway.

“Made a pot of coffee for you, miss. You said you wanted to talk to me. I talk better with coffee. You here to stay?”

“No, I'm not here to stay. I need…I want…”

“To know the woman who left you all this,” he said, waving his arms about.

“Yes. I would appreciate it if you can tell me everything you know about her. You worked for her for a long time, so you must have formed opinions. Did she share her life with you? Her secrets? By the way, where is she buried?”

The old man tugged at the earflaps on the fur-lined cap he was wearing. He looked to Olivia like he was trying to figure out what to tell her and what not to tell her. “I was wondering when you were going to ask me that. Most daughters would have asked that right off.”

“I'm not your regulation daughter, as I'm sure you know very well. I was told she died thirty-four years ago. In my mind, she was buried somewhere in Mississippi. I don't know why I thought that. It probably had something to do with her going to Ole Miss. As I got older, I never asked. What would have been the point?”