Lost and Found (37 page)

“What are you offering?”

He did not reply. Instead, he typed the message and
then shifted slightly in the chair so that Cady could read over his shoulder.

Cady straightened. “Think he’ll get in touch with you?”

“Don’t know.” Mack shut down the computer. “But it’s worth a try.”

T
he following morning he poured freshly brewed green tea into two mugs. It wasn’t that he was getting used to the tea, he told himself. It was simply that it was too much work to make a pot of tea and a pot of coffee. Settling for tea was more efficient.

Besides the tea wasn’t so bad. Hell, maybe he
was
getting used to it.

Cady wandered into the kitchen, sat down at the table and picked up the mug he placed in front of her. She said nothing. Just took a long swallow. He studied her closely. The strain around her eyes told him that she had not slept any better than he had.

“Did you do your yoga?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t look like it did much good.”

“Thanks. Good morning to you, too.”

He took the seat across from her and helped himself to a slice of toast. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

She blinked owlishly. “Like what?”

“Like this.” He moved a hand to indicate the sunlit
kitchen. “You. Me. Having cozy little chats after you nearly get killed. It’s hard on my nerves.”

To his chagrin there was no answering glint of amusement in her eyes.

“You don’t have to make it sound like it’s a regular habit,” she muttered into her tea. “We’re only talking two occasions here, that’s all. Hardly a routine occurrence.”

“You probably won’t believe this, but a lot of people go through an entire lifetime without having even one close call with a murderer.”

“Is this the start of the lecture? Because if it is, I’d better warn you that I am not in the mood for it.”

“No, this is an attempt at breakfast banter. I’m saving the lecture for later.”

“I can’t wait.”

He eased his own mug aside and folded his arms on the table. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Just a little tired, that’s all.”

“Any sign of a panic attack?”

“No.” She put the mug down very hard on the table. “Look, if you’re afraid that I’m going to have a nervous breakdown on you—”

“Take it easy.”

“I’m not crazy, you know.”

“I know.”

“And neither was my aunt.” Cady tightened both hands around the mug. “Everyone likes to say that she was flaky and eccentric, and maybe she was. Sylvia talked her into semiretirement, but the bottom line is that she was perfectly capable of running Chatelaine’s right up until the day she died. She was not losing it, like everyone believes.”

“I never said she was crazy.”

“And I’m not going to lose it, either,” she continued with dogged determination. “Just because Aunt Vesta and I had some things in common, just because of the tendency toward
panic attacks, just because she never married and my marriage was a nonevent, and she didn’t have kids and it’s starting to look like I won’t ever have any either,
that doesn’t mean that I’m a walking photocopy of Aunt Vesta.”

“Stop it.” He flattened both hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet, suddenly furious. “Not another damn word or I’m the one who’s going to lose it. And it won’t be a pretty sight.”

She looked up at him with the expression of a woman who has been snapped out of a trance. “What?”

“Stop talking about losing it. And don’t put words in my mouth. I have never implied that I thought you or your aunt were borderline nutcases.”

“Sorry.” She looked down into her tea. “Guess I’m still a little stressed out.”

“You’ve got a good reason to be stressed.” He moved his shoulders, working out the kinks. “I’m a little tense myself. Maybe it would help to get to work.”

She got slowly to her feet, cradling the mug in her hands. “Good idea.”

“I’ve been thinking.” He picked up his mug and walked to the door that opened onto the hall. “We’ve got two sets of facts. One set fits the murder of your aunt to promote the merger. The second set fits the fraudulent furniture scam. There’s some overlap. I want to see if that tells us anything new.”

He felt her hesitate behind him.

“Mack?”

He stopped at the door and turned. “Yes?”

“You really don’t think I’m a wacko?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you’re a wacko. Let’s go see if we can figure out who murdered your aunt.”

F
orty minutes later Cady sat back in her chair and surveyed the stacks of printouts that had been sorted into
three piles on top of the desk. “I’m pretty good at detecting forgeries but reading runes is not my forte. What does it all mean?”

“For starters, they’re credit card receipts, bank statements and financial records, not mysterious runes. I had Ambrose pull information from the accounts of everyone on our list who had something to gain by the merger or the scam. Now we look for overlap.”

She shrugged. “The biggest overlapper was Stanford Felgrove. He had a lot to gain from both scam and merger. But he’s dead.”

“Whoever murdered him must have figured to gain something by it. The more I go over this, the more I’m convinced that Arden didn’t shoot him. He had nothing to gain and a lot to lose.”

“Maybe he thought Stanford would implicate him in Aunt Vesta’s murder.”

“I think that’s a very remote possibility. If we’re right in assuming that Arden wasn’t the killer last night, then we need to find someone else who had something to gain.”

“Or to lose,” Cady said softly.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“You’re thinking of Brooke Langworth, aren’t you?”

“She’s on my list, yes. She had a personal investment in the merger because she intends to marry Randall after her husband dies.”

“All right, for the sake of argument, let’s say she had a motive to murder Aunt Vesta. Where’s the connection to the forgery scam?”

“I’ll admit I don’t see an obvious link, but that doesn’t mean I won’t find one.”

Cady thought about the afternoon she had talked to Brooke in the hushed mansion where impending death had hung in heavy folds. “I just can’t see her killing someone in cold blood. If she was the type to do that, she
probably would have gotten rid of George by now. It would have been easy enough to push him into the grave. He’s a very ill man. There must be a lot of drugs in that house, including some strong opiates.”

He hesitated, tapping the tip of the pen against a bank statement. “All right, I’ll give you that point. I’m not sure I buy the logic, but you have raised a legitimate issue.”

Cady made a face. “Well, there goes our one and only suspect. I sure wish Jonathan Arden would call or e-mail you. Maybe he really does know something we could use.”

“Contacting him was a very long shot,” Mack warned. “We can’t count on help from that quarter.”

“So, now what?”

“I’m going to call Gardner.” Mack reached for the telephone. “He knows more about the financial aspects of this situation than anyone else, and it all comes down to the money.”

S
ylvia stood at the window of her living room and peered out into the garden where the twins played with the dogs and their new toys. Cady knew that she was brooding.

“Do you think Gardner can help Mack get to the bottom of the mess?” Sylvia asked.

“I don’t know.” Cady slouched deeper into her chair and rested her arms along the curved cushions. “I sure hope so. I have to tell you, Sylvia, this whole thing is getting on my nerves.”

“It’s getting on everyone’s nerves.” Sylvia folded her arms. “Damn. I thought it was all settled last night. Arden killed Felgrove to avoid being implicated in the fraud scheme. It made perfect sense to me and to the cops, apparently.”

“Mack doesn’t think it makes sense, and neither do I. We’re both sure that Arden is too smart to have worn that
costume. He had to know that someone might see it and trace it back to the shop where he purchased it.”

“You really do believe that Aunt Vesta was murdered, don’t you, Cady?”

“Yes. I’ve had a bad feeling about the way she died right from the start.”

“One of your feelings,” Sylvia repeated softly.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me, is it the same kind of
feeling
you get that allows you to tell a fraud from the real thing?”

“Sylvia—”

Sylvia turned around. “It’s all right. I’ve always known that when it came to an eye for art and antiques, I would never be as good as you or Aunt Vesta. That’s why she left the shares to you, of course. In the end, she just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Chatelaine’s entirely in my hands.”

“No, that’s not true.” Cady shoved herself up out of the chair. “That isn’t why she did it.”

“She wanted someone like herself at the helm. Someone who could look at a piece of furniture or jewelry and see the truth in it. Someone with that special sixth sense.”

“That’s not why she left me the shares,” Cady said very steadily.

“Maybe she was right,” Sylvia whispered. “I’ve got a head for business. I have a vision for the future of Chatelaine’s. I can make the company a major force in the art world. I can do a lot of things as the CEO of the firm. But I’ll never have her special talent and she knew that.”

“Chatelaine’s doesn’t need someone with a great eye for art and antiques. It needs someone with great business instincts. You’ve got those, Sylvia. You can always
hire
the art experts you need. Heck, you can hire me to consult for that matter. But having a good eye doesn’t mean I can run a huge business successfully. And it certainly doesn’t mean that I want to run one. For the record, I don’t.”

“What are you saying, Cady?”

“I’m saying that when this is over, I intend to transfer my voting shares to you. I’ll retain my nonvoting stock, but I do not want to be actively involved in the day-to-day operations of the firm.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Absolutely. I trust you to do what’s best for Chatelaine’s. Aunt Vesta trusted you, too. She understood that the firm needed sound business skills at the top. She always meant for you to take over.”

“Then why did she leave her shares to you?” Sylvia asked.

“From what I can figure out, she changed her will at the same time that she uncovered the forgery scam. She wanted to be sure that Chatelaine’s wouldn’t go through with the merger if something happened to her before she could figure out what was going on. She wanted to protect the company. I was her insurance policy.”

“You mean she knew that you would sense that something was wrong and push for answers?”

“I think so, yes.”

Sylvia groaned. “Why didn’t she talk to me and to Randall? Why didn’t she discuss her concerns?”

“Because she was going on a hunch and she knew that no one would pay any attention to her if she explained that she had one of her feelings. Also, I think that, deep down, she was afraid that Randall might be involved in the scam. She wanted to be absolutely certain of her facts before she made any move.”

“Nonsense,” Sylvia said dryly. “She didn’t explain herself because she was secretive, obsessive and weird. And getting more so by the day.”

Cady exhaled wearily. “That, too.”

There was another pause before Sylvia spoke.

“Are you really going to walk away from Chatelaine’s again?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Sylvia shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t understand how you can give it all up without a second thought.”

“I don’t like the corporate world,” Cady said patiently. “I’ve never liked it. I much prefer my small consulting business. Aunt Vesta understood that.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me to know that she had some premonition of her own death,” Sylvia said quietly. “She seemed more withdrawn than usual there at the end. I thought she was depressed and suggested she talk to her doctor about medication but she refused.”

“Does that mean that you’re buying into my theory that she was murdered?”

“At this point, I’m willing to look at all possibilities.”

Cady grinned briefly. “The mark of a born CEO.”

Sylvia’s face relaxed into an answering smile. “Thanks, cousin.”

“Hey, Syl?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think I’m secretive, obsessive and weird? And getting more so by the day?”

“Truth?”

Cady steeled herself. “Yes.”

“I think you have definite tendencies in that direction.”

“Damn, I was afraid you were going-to say that.”

“But,” Sylvia added very deliberately, “I don’t think you’ll end up like Aunt Vesta, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“It is worrying me. What makes you think I won’t end up like her?”

“Because you’re going to get married one of these days and have a family.”

“Having a family will save me?”

“Definitely. A husband and kids of your own are just what you need to keep you from turning inward the way
Aunt Vesta did. Our poor aunt never knew how to love anything or anyone except Chatelaine’s.”

“That’s not true.” For some reason she felt obliged to leap to Vesta’s defense once more. “She loved us, you and me. In her own way.”

“She did not
love
us. She was heavily
invested
in us because we represented the future of Chatelaine’s. The company was all she cared about.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Well, it’s an interesting psychological theory, but I’m not sure it really explains why Aunt Vesta turned out the way she did.”

“Got a better theory?”

Cady wrapped one hand around the wooden frame of the window. “I think that Aunt Vesta lived alone all of her life because she never found anyone who could understand and accept her.”

Sylvia made a small, dismissive sound. “I’ll bet she never tried very hard to understand and accept someone else, either. She was the most self-absorbed person I have ever met.”