Trust Me (37 page)

Especially not Max. Carly’s strength faltered for a moment, shimmering around her like a mirage. He was gone. She couldn’t
think about it. If she let herself think, then the pain would swallow her, and there was no time for that.

She pulled her keys out of her bag and unlocked the front door of the clinic. Even if Richard had been showing her false accounting,
he couldn’t have created such a financial morass without leaving a trail of genuine paperwork. If all of this was true, then
somewhere in his office there had to be loan papers and accurate bank statements, and with the help of Michelle’s spare key,
Carly intended to find them. And when she found them, she thought grimly, she would photocopy them. And then, first thing
in the morning, she would find herself the meanest, toughest bulldog of a lawyer she could afford. The world was about to
see a very different Carly Martin.

T
he clinic was dark and silent, except for a light burning down the hall in the staff room. They had several animals staying
overnight in the wards, a first for the clinic, as the patients who needed extended care were usually transferred to a twenty-four-hour
hospital nearby. But the hospital had been having power outage problems since the weekend, and so Brian had volunteered to
do “night nurse” duty, sleeping on a cot in the staff room and making periodic checks of the wards.

Carly went back to say a brief hello and to tell him that she had stopped by to pick up some files. He was so involved with
his science-fiction novel that he barely looked up, which was fine with Carly. She did not know if she looked as wild-eyed
as she felt, and she did not want to find out. It didn’t particularly matter that Brian was there. He would not question her
even if he found her on her hands and knees shredding client files behind the front desk.

She found the key in Michelle’s drawer and let herself into Richard’s office. It was more of a mess than she had ever seen
it. Richard had never been neat in his personal space, but there had always been some general order to it. Now there was no
order apparent at all. Several months ago, Richard had complained about their weekly cleaning service and forbidden them to
go into his office when he wasn’t around to supervise, which basically meant never. It showed, Carly thought. Dirty coffee
mugs littered the room, and the wastebasket was overflowing. Deep piles of books and papers obscured the surface of the desk,
and the shelves were stuffed with files, books, stacks of photocopied articles, and several years’ worth of accumulated veterinary
journals.

His file drawers were behind the desk. Carly slid each open in turn and flicked through the files without finding much of
interest. She hadn’t expected to. Judging from the state of his office, Richard’s world was rapidly destabilizing, and Carly
thought that she would be unlikely to turn up a neat folder labeled “Mortgages, Debts, and Other Cold-Blooded Deceptions.”
Where, then, should she look? If Richard was smart, she thought, he wouldn’t keep those documents in the office at all. But
he wasn’t smart, and he would have no reason—yet—to expect her to be suspicious. She opened the top drawer of the desk and
found it full of miscellaneous office supplies, most branded with the names of pet food or pharmaceutical companies. The next
drawer held notepads, professional stationery, and a half-eaten bag of pretzels. The bottom drawer was locked.

“Damn,” Carly muttered, rattling it. It was an old metal desk, and she could feel the locking bar hitting against the inside
of the drawer as she pulled. It was not a sturdy lock, but it was effective enough to keep her out. Or was it? She narrowed
her eyes, studying it. Maybe not, she thought. She had a screwdriver in her office, left over from putting up some storage
shelves. If she just slipped it into the lip of the drawer and pulled…

Moments later, she was back with the screwdriver in hand. If she was successful, it would be obvious to Richard that someone
had broken into his desk, but what did that really matter? It wasn’t as if she needed to maintain good working relations with
him at this point.

She wedged the blade of the screwdriver down into the narrow space between the desk frame and the lip of the drawer, and pried
it back, pulling as hard as she could. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the metal groaned and the lock broke with
a sudden, loud crack. The drawer gave way, and Carly sat down hard on the floor.

She put down the screwdriver. “Not bad,” she said, surprised.

The drawer was haphazardly stuffed with papers, and at first, all that Carly saw were the bills. There were overdue notices
for everything from the utilities, to the telephone, to the payments on their newest medical equipment. Many of the envelopes
had not even been opened. It looked as if Richard had just been tossing every new notice into the drawer, then locking it
up again.

Gradually, the paper trail began to come together. It was a sickening story, and almost exactly as Max had said. Six months
after she joined the clinic, Richard had had their building appraised and had taken out a second mortgage for the staggering
sum of four hundred thousand dollars. A more recent document from the bank showed another loan, this one against the total
value of their medical equipment.

So much money
, Carly thought, suddenly feeling weak. It was more than she could imagine having, much less spending. Could it really be
gone? How could so much money just vanish? Judging from the letters from the bank—increasingly terse in tone—Richard had not
made any loan payments in months. The most recent letter, which had been shoved into the middle of the pile, stated the bank’s
intention to begin foreclosure proceedings against the clinic building.

Carly felt hysteria bubbling up inside her. It really was true, then. Everything was gone. The clinic, her savings, her credit
rating, her reputation. It was too much, she thought. All of this, the loans, the debt, the drug use—had been going on for
so long, and she had known nothing. Nothing. What was the matter with her? How could she have been so stupid? She closed her
eyes for a moment, trying to calm down, reminding herself that she could stand up and scream as loudly and as long as she
wanted to, but it would not make a whisper of difference. All she could do for the moment was to make copies of everything
and take them to someone who might be able to help her.

She reached into the drawer to grab the remainder of the pile, then noticed something that she hadn’t seen before. A single,
folded sheet of notepaper; thick and elegantly ecru-toned, it stood out from the mass of cheap commercial paper like a leather-bound
book in a newsstand.

Carly immediately recognized the stationery, because she had her own collection of polite notes penned on that very paper.
Frowning, she picked it up, unfolded it, and saw Henry Tremayne’s familiar spidery handwriting. But why would Henry have written
a letter to Richard? They barely knew each other. Puzzled, she sat down on the floor and began to read.

You were absolutely right about Richard.

Carly’s words, and the expression on her face, had engraved themselves into Max’s brain. He found himself mentally replaying
that moment over and over again as he sat in his hotel suite, staring down at his untouched dinner.

The cliché that kept coming to him was that she had looked as if she’d seen a ghost. It had been a look of utterly horrified
comprehension, as if something that could not possibly exist had suddenly popped up in front of her and forced her to believe
in it.

He picked up the television remote, turned on CNN, and tried to focus on the news. He couldn’t. All he could see was Carly’s
face. How, he asked himself, could anyone—no matter how skilled an actress—fake a look like that? He had expected one of a
variety of possible reactions when he confronted her, and nothing that she had said or done had matched anything that he had
imagined. She had not shown guilt, or fear, or defiance. She had not confessed, or begged him to listen to her side of the
story, or tried to seduce him. It was as if his statements had shocked her so completely that she had stopped thinking about
him—and Henry—at all. What had she said, finally?
I have to go.

What the hell was that about? It made no sense to Max. Carly’s reaction had been that of a woman who was absolutely stunned
to hear that she was a month away from bankruptcy. It really seemed as if she had been totally unaware of the mess she was
in.

But that was insane. How could you not know something so fundamental? Although… He frowned, considering. Wexler owned the
major share of the business—that was a fact, confirmed by Tom Meyer. And that meant that Carly’s signature would not have
been required on the loan agreements. If Wexler had taken out the loans on his own and concealed the truth from Carly, then
she could, possibly, have been unaware of the true situation.

Max shook his head. It was almost inconceivable to him that anyone could own—or even partially own—a business without scrutinizing
every detail of what was going on. He had done all of the accounting for his own company for years, until the job became so
huge that he was finally forced to delegate it. Even then, he had obsessively audited his own accountants and executives.
If you didn’t pay attention to these things, he had always believed, you inevitably got screwed by someone.

An idea came to him. He stood up, walked to his desk, and a moment later, he had Tom Meyer on the phone.

“Max,” said the lawyer. “It’s only ten. You’re slipping.”

Max didn’t waste any time. “You told me two weeks ago that Carly Martin’s personal credit was fine?”

“It was. She’s got one charge card and some student loans, all paid up to date. She owns her car, so no payments there. If
you overlook the business disaster, she’s got the credit rating of the average schoolteacher.”

“Did you check out Wexler? Her business partner?”

Tom snorted. “Five cards, maxed out. All overdue. Car payments… well, let’s just say that if I were him, I wouldn’t be parking
the Porsche in the same place for two nights in a row. I know homeless people with better credit than that guy.”

“I’ll be damned,” Max said slowly. It was not proof that Wexler had been the only one behind the problems at the clinic; but
if a pattern of behavior counted for anything, this certainly supported that possibility.

He thanked the lawyer and hung up, his mind moving quickly. Even if Carly hadn’t known about the state of her business, he
thought, that still didn’t explain any of the other indications that she had been involved with Henry’s injury. And yet…

And yet, before he had been given that final piece of damning evidence, he had been ready to write off everything else—except
for the strange question of the van—as coincidence. Hope and caution mixed uneasily inside him, and he thought of the way
that Carly had looked at him when she told him that she never wanted to see him again.

Be careful
, he thought.
Very careful.
He would do himself no favor by rushing back into this.

Dear Mr. Wexler:

I have recently become aware of the unfortunate fact that your business is in serious financial trouble because of your nonrepayment
of several large loans. While I do not consider your accounts to be any of my affair, I want to emphasize that I do have the
greatest interest in the welfare of your partner, Carly Martin…

Carly read slowly, her astonishment growing as she gradually deciphered Henry Tremayne’s elegantly looped handwriting. It
had Henry’s style, she thought, but the voice in the letter was far sterner and more formidable than the gentle old man she
knew.

… while I do not believe that an honorable man would have behaved as you did in the first place, I feel that it is my duty
to give you one last chance to do the honorable thing before I involve myself further…

He was threatening Richard, Carly realized. Not overtly, of course, but his meaning was clear. She read on. Richard was to
immediately tell Carly the truth, then liquidate all of his assets, business and personal, to pay off the loans and return
Carly’s investment. If Richard did not do so, Henry wrote, he would be forced to go to the police with a report of his “full
knowledge” of Richard’s “various unlawful activities.” He did not specify what those activities were, but Carly had no doubt
that Richard knew exactly what the old man was talking about. His drug use? Maybe. Or anything else that Henry had managed
to turn up. He had obviously had someone investigating Richard, although Carly couldn’t imagine why he would have done such
a thing. Perhaps he had started with her, she thought, when he was setting up the trust. And then he had turned up the muddy
finances just as Max had.
Am I the only one around
, she wondered,
who doesn’t employ a full-time private eye?
Too bad she hadn’t. It would have saved her a lot of grief.

Carly stared at the letter. Richard would have panicked when he read it, she thought. A cold feeling began to seep through
her body, and for the first time, she took notice of the date on the top of the page. Sunday, April 20. Henry had written
the letter three days before the accident. Allowing for time in the mail, it had very likely landed on Richard’s desk on Wednesday
morning, the day that someone had confronted Henry Tremayne outside the front door of his house.