Leslie LaFoy (37 page)

“A good attitude to have in a frustrating situation, sir,” Ben said with a tight smile.

“Good attitude is my middle name,” Jackson countered, turning away. “I'll be in the office.”

“This morning's mail is on your desk, sir. Along with the report.”

“Thank you, Ben.”

Jackson ignored the mail, not wanting to know what new crises had arisen or which of the existing ones had worsened. There wasn't much he could do about them until after the auction anyway. The reports were a different matter entirely. Not bothering with planting himself in the chair, he picked them up, propped a hip against the corner of the desk, and began to read.

The McBride Manufacturing Company, makers of buggy whips and plagued by a long series of equipment breakdowns, had been sold to the MacWillman Company of Richmond for half its purchase price. City records showed that the business had ceased operations a year and a half later. Whether it had been relocated, dissolved, or sold wasn't known.

The story was essentially the same for the Candlish Barrel Company. A year-long combination of material thefts, a collapsed roof, and reoccurring small fires had been its downfall. The buyer had been the Michaels, Katz, and Osborne Company out of Charleston. The purchase price had been only a third of what the MacPhaull Company had invested in it. M, K, and O had held it for almost four years and then sold it to a local company, Brooks and Langan Investments, for seven times the price they'd originally paid for it. Ben, ever thorough, noted that J. Y. Brooks and R. R. Langan were well-known and highly respected in the New York business community.

Jack tossed the report down on the desk, his gut hard with certainty. There was a varmint loose in the MacPhaull Company and it had been steadily chewing away at the holdings for the better part of fifteen years. By now it had to have a very full nest, stuffed floor to ceiling with money that was rightfully Lindsay's.

Henry had a sufficient sense of self-importance to think of robbing the company blind, but lacked the intelligence and long-range thinking capabilities to pull it off for any extended period of time. Agatha would have considered the effort as being too akin to real work and thus beneath her. Ben was a bookkeeper, and while he possessed the mental acumen necessary, hadn't been with the company that long and was far too honest and loyal to consider stealing the company assets. Lindsay had been a child when the game had begun. The fact that she'd never questioned the selling patterns was a telling fact as well. She trusted the thief implicitly. That left only two real possibilities as to who the rat bastard could be: Patterson or Vanderhagen.

His money was on Patterson and the odds were good that he'd have proof of that in as many days as it took for the mail to get from New York to Boston. He intended to be sitting on the doorstep of the address of Little, Bates and Company when the post was delivered. Whoever received his response to Percival Little's offer was going to answer some questions and answer them honestly. And Lindsay was going to be standing right by his side when the truth spilled out. If he thought there was any way he could spare
her the pain of discovery, he'd leave her behind and make the journey alone. But he knew Lindsay. She was going to hear the truth with her own two ears so that she couldn't deny it or accuse him of trying to blacken the reputation of the man whom she considered to be more her father than Billy. There was no other way and he'd made the decision.

He looked at the clock on Richard's desk, noting the time. Just an hour before he needed to leave for the docks where he'd meet Lindsay. She'd have questions and since he preferred not to answer them in a crowded public place, he needed a plan for distracting her attention. Jackson scooped up the mail, thinking that a few new quagmires would do nicely for that purpose, and moved around the desk toward the chair, flipping through the packets as he went.

The bank left holding the bag for the Todasca fiasco had written again. There was correspondence from the Two Rivers Bank in Frankfort, Kentucky. What had Lindsay told him about that crisis? Something about a bank run and calling in loans to meet depositor withdrawals? Why did he expect the letter to say that the doors were still closed and that the manager was requesting funds to install barricades? There was also a letter from an architect. Henry's, Jack surmised. He'd have to have Ben draft another letter, he decided, pulling out the chair.

A flash of white caught his attention, pulling it away from the mail. A smallish box, wrapped in white paper and tied with string had been put in the seat of the chair. Jack tossed the mail onto the desk and picked up the parcel. The string loosened with a single tug and the paper fell open. Jack lifted the lid and froze. A rat was inside. Or, more accurately, pieces of what had been a rat. Atop it lay a folded note. Jack carefully removed the note before replacing the lid. The paper was fine vellum, folded in half. Inside, written in clumsily formed block letters, was a simple message:
LEAVE OR DIE
.

“Damnation,” he muttered, thinking back to the fire in the apartment house, the explosion, the man who had struck him on the stairs, and then the carriage crash. Individually, they had appeared to be nothing more than singular events in a run of miserable luck. In hindsight, and taken
all together, they seemed much more than mere coincidence. Jack touched the tender stitches in the back of his head. Maybe someone
was
trying to kill him. Or maybe someone was making use of what had already happened to threaten him into turning tail and running.

In either case, whoever it was didn't know Jackson Stennett well at all. Which was everyone in New York except Lindsay, who knew him better than anyone living and who had been with him at every accident. His blood chilled. Jesus, he'd die of guilt if anything happened to her in an attempt to do him in.

Jackson scowled. He sure as hell didn't need another set of
who?
questions right at the moment. Of course, it was logical to think that the someone who wanted him dead or gone was the same someone who'd been stealing the company assets. Which meant that unless Richard Patterson was a consummate actor and shimmying down drainpipes in the middle of the night to hack up rodents, it put a big dent in Jackson's suspicions about the man.

“Damn, I don't need this,” he groused, picking up the box and heading toward the office door. “Ben, who sent the package?” he asked the second he entered the anteroom.

Ben didn't look up from his writing. “What package?”

“This one,” he said, holding up the box. “I found it in the seat of the desk chair.”

Ben crossed a
t
and lifted the pen away from the paper before glancing up. He considered the box for a moment and then shook his head. “I have no idea, sir. I've been here alone since I unlocked an hour ago. Jeb went straight from MacPhaull House to the clerk's office this morning.”

“Who, besides yourself, has a key to the office?”

“Miss Lindsay and Mr. Patterson are the only others that I'm aware of,” Ben answered. “If anyone else has one, they've obtained it on the sly.”

Jackson handed the note to the bookkeeper, asking, “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

“No, sir,” he replied, again shaking his head. He turned it over to look at both the front and back sides before observing, “It would appear that it was either written by a
young child or that some deliberate effort was made to disguise the handwriting.” Handing it back to Jackson, he added, “May I inquire as to what is in the box?”

“You don't want to know,” Jack assured him. “Do you have the stove fired up?”

“Yes, sir. The coffee's on and almost done.”

“One more question, Ben,” Jack said, his mind clicking through what he needed to do and the time he had to do it in. “Where can I find the nearest gunsmith?”

“MacDavit's is two blocks east and one block south,” Ben said. “He's supposed to be the best. It's said that his prices reflect it.”

“Money's no object.” Actually, Jack mentally amended as he walked toward the stove at the rear of the office, money was the only object of the web in which he'd become entangled.

L
INDSAY HURRIED DOWN THE STAIRS
, the last of her bags in hand. “I'll get the door, Mrs. Beechum,” she called as the knock sounded again. Breathless, she opened it to find Otis Vanderhagen standing on the front step. He whipped his bowler from his head even as his gaze went past her and came to rest on the luggage stacked in the center of the foyer.

“Are you going somewhere, Lindsay?” he boomed.

As always, she answered quietly in the hope that he'd take a polite hint and lower the volume of his own speech. “A brief out-of-town excursion, Mr. Vanderhagen. We'll be gone for just a few days.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice still loud enough to carry to the back of the house.

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “Jackson didn't say.”

“Well, in case you see Mr. Stennett before I do,” Otis said, “would you be kind enough to tell him that I've perused the letter to Percival Little, seen nothing amiss in it, and sent it on its way?”

“Certainly. Is there something you need from me this morning?”

“No, I can't think of anything. I was on my way to a
meeting and had some extra time. I thought I'd come visit Richard for a bit.”

“That's very kind of you,” Lindsay said sincerely. She stepped to the side and gestured into the foyer. “Please come in.”

“It hurts to see him in such a condition,” Vanderhagen went on, crossing the threshold, “but we've been friends for a good many years and I can't pretend that he's already gone. If he's aware of anything, I want him to know that his associations continue as they always have.”

It occurred to her that the negative opinion she'd always had of the man might have come from never having had the chance, before now, to see him as a person, as a friend to Richard. The guilt was compounded by the realization that she could very well have spent a lifetime misjudging the man.

“Ah, I see that the hack's arrived,” he announced as the hired carriage rolled to a stop in front of MacPhaull House. “I'll see myself upstairs. No need to trouble yourself with it. I know the way.”

Lindsay nodded, still grappling with her new and unexpected perspective of the man. “While the driver's loading my bags, I'll ask Primrose to bring up coffee and some pastries for you.”

“That would be lovely,” the attorney said, already moving toward the stairs. “I'm starving. Travel safely.”

She thanked him absently, watching the driver tie off his reins and climb down from the box. Where was she so blithely going? she wondered. Was traveling safely really the greatest of her concerns? Maybe she should be staying here, letting Jack make the mysterious journey on his own. Why did he need her along?

The driver stopped on the other side of the open door, tipped his hat, and asked if he could begin loading the bags. Lindsay hesitated and then nodded as she deliberately set her doubts aside.

T
HEIR BAGS SAFELY STOWED
, Lindsay emerged from the small cabin area of the packet ship, tilting her head so that her bonnet brim better shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight. Overhead, the crew climbed in the ropes, preparing the vessel for departure from port. Judging by the flutter of her hems and the rocking of the deck beneath her feet, it was going to be a rather quick and lunging jump from berth. All in all, an exhilarating ride, she knew. She'd have to remember to thank Jack for having arranged to make their journey—to wherever it was they were going—by sea. She loved to sail, and the wilder the water, the better.

A crewman rang the hour of noon as she turned a slow circle, scanning the deck for some sign that Jack was going to arrive in time to sail with her. She finally found him, standing at the rear of the vessel, his hands on the rail and his gaze fixed firmly on the wharf as though he was looking for something or someone. Picking her way through cargo and coils of rope, Lindsay made her way to him, her step steady on the gently rolling deck.

As she reached his side, she realized that he wasn't
searching the docks at all. In fact, his eyes were closed and he gripped the rail so tightly that his hands were white. His face was a pale and sickly shade of green.

“You're not looking at all well, Jack.”

“I don't do very well the first two or three days on a ship,” he said, his eyes still closed. “After that, I'm all right. Captain Morris—on the way here—told me I was one of those who had to get his sea legs the hard way.”

“Then why are we sailing? Can we not get to wherever we're going overland?”

“We're going to Boston, and yes, we could go overland, but sailing the distance is faster. I don't want to take the chance of getting there too late.”

“Boston,” Lindsay repeated, moving around to stand on the windward side of him. “May I assume that this jaunt has something to do with the offer from Percival Little? Are you thinking to meet with him in person?”

He drew a long, slow breath before opening his eyes and turning to face her. “I don't think there's any such person, Lindsay. I think he and Little, Bates and Company are fictitious. They're made-up, just like the stories of ogres and fairies.”

Knowing that he could better battle his stomach if he kept his eyes open and focused on something close, she stepped closer and met his gaze squarely. “I'm compelled to remind you, Jack, that the MacPhaull Company has conducted quite a bit of business with the ogre over the years. And that his bank drafts have always been good.”

“Lindsay, anyone can sign a letter with anyone's name and banks don't give a damn who owns an account under what name as long as they can take a cut from the transactions.”

Recognizing his seriousness, she saw no choice but to counter his assertion with cool logic. “Why would anyone want to hide behind such a facade? What would be the point of it, Jack? The MacPhaull Company has no list of persons we're unwilling to do business with.”

“Let me give you a hypothetical situation.” He swallowed and took another long breath as his skin tone edged toward ashen. “Let's say that someone wanted to make a
whole lot of money without risking any of theirs in the process. Let's say that person knew of a company that owned a bunch of different kinds of companies all over the country.”