Black Rose (14 page)

Her eyes widened as she looked at the charges, the total. Over eight thousand dollars. Eight
thousand
? It was ridiculous, absurd.

She didn’t have a card with this company, and certainly hadn’t charged eight thousand dollars. Restaurants, electronics, the men’s department at Dillard’s.

Baffled, she picked up the phone to report the mistake, then spent the next half hour winding her way through tangled and sticky red tape.

The next call she made was to her lawyer.

Once the wheels were set in motion, she sat back, the sinking sensation in her stomach making her queasy. The card had been taken out in her name, with all her information—her address, her Social Security number, even her mother’s maiden name. The other user on the card was listed as Ashby Harper.

Clever, she thought. Very clever.

He hadn’t used his own name, and hadn’t accumulated charges at his most usual haunts. By now, she had no doubt the card was destroyed. The last charge had been made three days before the end of the billing cycle.

Covered all the bases as usual—that bastard Bryce.

The money wouldn’t have been the main thrust, she thought now. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy the benefits of eight thousand and change. But the point would have been the trouble for her, the irritation, and most of all the
reminder
that he was still in her face. And there was little she could do about it.

It was doubtful the charges could be traced back to him, that it could be proved he’d defrauded the credit card company. It was she who would be forced to untangle the knots, spending the time, the effort, and paying any legal fees.

It was mean and small of him, and suited him perfectly.

And Harper, poor Harper, worried she’d make that kind of mistake again. Not in a million years.

To give herself more time to settle, she skipped dinner, then wrote long, detailed posts to her two younger sons before calling Harper.

Once she knew the children were in bed for the night, she asked Harper, David, along with Stella and Hayley to join her in the front parlor.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I know some of you might have plans for the night. I don’t think this will take long.”

“It’s all right,” Stella told her. “Something’s the matter. Just tell us what it is.”

“I’ve already taken steps to deal with it, but it’s likely all of you will be asked, at least, to answer some questions. In going through my bills this evening, I came upon a credit card bill—a card I don’t have, charges I didn’t make. However, it was applied for and taken out with considerable personal information. The credit card company will, of course, follow this through. But as I was obliged to list all
those who live in this house, I wanted you to be aware. I’ve no doubt the card was taken out by Bryce. He’d know the information, and it’s just his style.”

“You don’t have to pay it,” Hayley said quickly. “This kind of thing happened in the bookstore once where I used to work. You don’t have to pay it.”

“No, I won’t pay it. It simply costs me time and energy, and upsets me—which would have been the motive. It also upsets the household, which he’d enjoy, I’m sure. I’m sorry for that.” She looked at Harper. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that again.” He spoke very softly. “I don’t want to hear you say you’re sorry again, Mama. What about the police?”

“They may very well be involved. But I’m going to tell you what my lawyer told me. While the credit card company will follow through, it’ll be very difficult to prove he’s the one who used the card. He didn’t use his name, and he didn’t charge so much at any given time or place to raise an eyebrow. No one’s going to remember he breezed into Dillard’s and bought some shirts or a pair of shoes. This is the sort of thing he knows how to do quite well.”

She had to get up, to move, so rose to add a log to the fire. “The best we can do is step back from it, as much as we can, and let it play out. Sooner or later, and I believe this, he’ll do one of three things. He’ll get bored with it, he’ll find someone else to harass, or he’ll go just a little too far and hang himself.”

“I vote for Door Number Three,” David put in.

“Your mouth, God’s ear,” Roz assured him, and made herself sit again. “I’ve written both Austin and Mason, because I want them, and all of you, to be on guard. He may very well choose to amuse himself by doing this same sort of thing to one or more of you.”

At the thought of it, the tension in her shoulders increased until her muscles felt like iron rods under her
skin. “And Stella, you and I should be particularly vigilant regarding any charges to the business.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t get by us. Roz, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. Anything I can do—anything any of us can do?”

“I’ll let you know, I promise. All right.” Roz got to her feet. “That’s all, then. I’m going to go on up, get to some work I’ve put off.”

“You haven’t had any dinner,” David reminded her. “Why don’t I bring you something?”

“Not now. I’ll get something later.”

David stayed on his feet, watching her walk out. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered when she was out of earshot. “Smarmy, sleazy, last-season Ferrogamo-wearing son of a bitch.”

“Why don’t you and I go pay him a visit?” Harper stayed in his chair. His voice was still soft, as it had been, but now it had an edge to it, a predatory edge.

“That’s a damn good idea.” Hayley sprang up, fists clenched at her sides. “Let’s all go pay him a call. Right now.”

“Stand down, Xena.” David patted her shoulder. “While there’s little more I can think of that would be more entertaining than breaking a few of his caps, it’s not the answer.”

“I hear four when you add two and two,” Harper said. “I say it’s the right answer.”

“David’s right,” Stella pointed out. “It would upset and embarrass Roz, more than she’s already upset and embarrassed.”

“Then we won’t tell her.” Hayley threw out her arms. “We can’t just
sit
here.”

“I’m not,” Harper said. “You are.”

“Just a damn minute—”

“Hold on.” Like a referee, David stepped between them. “Think, Harper, past your temper. We go take a few very deserved hits at Clerk, his bruises’ll heal soon enough. And he’ll have the satisfaction of knowing he got to her, that he
upset her. That’s the last thing she wants, and you and I know that. The most important weapon she has against him is indifference. She won’t have that when she has to bail you out on assault charges.”

“I’ll tell you what else.” Stella continued to sit, her hands gripped tight in her lap. “The more we make of it, the more upset she’ll be. The best thing we can do for her is to take a page from her book. Treat it coolly, like business. And to remember, if it’s hard for us to do that, how much harder it is for her.”

“I hate it,” Hayley raged. “I hate that you’re right, and I wish you’d been right
after
we’d beat the hell out of him. It shows character, Harper, that you want to stand up for her. And it shows character, I guess, to know it’s not the way.”

M
AYBE NOT
,
BUT
Harper couldn’t quite erase the picture of Bryce in a bloody pulp at his feet. It probably didn’t hurt that he didn’t know exactly where to find the man. Oh, he could find out, a few calls would do the trick. But those calls might trickle back to the source before he got there.

And in the end, he knew David was right.

But he couldn’t just sit at home and stew. There was another matter he could deal with, and he didn’t give a damn whether or not his mother liked it.

He was still spoiling for a fight when he knocked on Mitch’s apartment door.

He half hoped he’d find Mitch with another woman. Then he could punch him in the mouth and defuse the sparking end of his temper.

But when Mitch answered, he appeared to be alone. Unless you counted the noise that Harper recognized as a televised basketball game.

“Hey. How’s it going? Come on in.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Sure. Wait.” Mitch’s attention had already swung back to the huge television screen that dominated one wall. “Less than a minute to halftime. We’re down two. Damn it. Goddamn it, loose ball.”

Despite himself, Harper found himself standing there, caught up in the action, calling out when number eight recovered the ball and, pivoting with a kind of magical grace, sent it sailing through the air.

“Three! That’s three.” Mitch punched Harper companionably in the arm. “And there’s the buzzer. Want a drink?”

“Could use a beer.”

“Don’t have any, sorry. Coke?”

“Fine, thanks.” He slipped his hands into his pockets as Mitch wandered off. Alone, he scanned the room, brow knitting over some coins dangling from red ribbons. “Hell of a TV,” he said when Mitch came back with a can.

“Next to my son, my pride and joy. Have a seat.”

“I’ll get right to it. Where’s this thing you’ve got going with my mother heading?”

Mitch sat, studied Harper as he lifted his own can. “I can’t tell you, as a lot of it depends on her, and where she wants it to head. Obviously, since I’m not blind, deaf, or dead, I find her very attractive. I admire what she’s done with her life, and enjoy her company.”

“If any of that attraction has to do with her money or her position, you’re going to want to step away, right now.”

With apparent calm, Mitch picked up the remote, hit the mute button, then set it down again. “That’s a very ugly thing to say.”

“She had a very ugly time not that long ago.”

“Which is why I’m not kicking you out of my home. Such as it is.” He reached down below the insult and got a tenuous hold on patience. “Your mother doesn’t need money or position to be attractive. She’s one of the most
beautiful and fascinating women I’ve ever known. I feel something for her, and I believe she feels something for me. I’m hoping we’ll be able to explore those feelings.”

“Your first marriage cracked up.”

“It did. I cracked it.” He turned the Coke can in his hand. “There’s no beer in the fridge because I don’t drink anymore, and haven’t for fourteen years. I’m an alcoholic, and I destroyed my first marriage. All of which I’ve told your mother, in more detail than I’m willing to tell you. Because I thought she deserved to know before we took those initial steps into what I’m hoping is a relationship.”

“I apologize for embarrassing you.”

“You haven’t. Pissed me off some.”

“I’m not sorry about that. She’s my mother, and you weren’t there to see what she went through. What she’s still dealing with.”

“How do you mean, still?”

“She found out tonight he opened a credit card in her name—can’t prove it, not yet anyway, but it was him. Charged on it, so she’s got the hassle of closing it down, dealing with the legal end—and having to tell the rest of us about it.”

Mitch set the drink aside, pushed out of the chair to pace a circle around the room. And it was the temper pumping off him that calmed Harper.

“I thought about hunting him down, beating the crap out of him.”

“I’ll hold your coat, then you can hold mine.”

Another knot in Harper’s belly loosened. It was exactly the sentiment he could respect. “David talked me out of it. David and Stella, actually. Mama would hate it. It’s one of those things she’d find . . . unseemly—then there’d be the gossip that rolled out of it. So I came here to take a few punches at you instead. Work off some of the mad.”

“Mission accomplished?”

“Seems like it.”

“That’s something.” Mitch scooped both hands through his hair. “Is she okay? How’s she handling it?”

“Like she handles everything. Straightforward, takes the steps. She deals. But she’s churned up. More worried that he’ll take the same sort of shot at me, or my brothers. Embarrassed, too,” he added. “It’s the kind of thing that embarrasses her.”

Mitch’s expression went grim. “He’d know that, wouldn’t he? That’ll be the perk, even more than whatever he charged on the bogus account.”

“Yeah, you got that right. I want you to know, if you hurt her, any way, shape, or form, I’ll make you pay for it. Seems fair to tell you up-front.”

“Okay.” Mitch came back to the chair, sat. “Let me lay this out so we understand each other. I’m forty-eight. I make a good living. Nothing spectacular, but I do fine. I like my work, I’m good at my work, and lucky for me it pays the bills and gives me enough to be comfortable.”

As an afterthought, Mitch shoved the open bag of chips on the table in Harper’s direction. “My ex-wife and her husband are good people, and between us—without much help from me for the first six years, we raised a hell of a young man. I’m proud of that. I’ve had two serious relationships since my divorce, and a few that weren’t so serious. I care about your mother, I respect what she’s accomplished, and I have no intention of causing her any sort of harm or unhappiness. If I do, I have a feeling she’ll pay me back for it before you can get off the mark.”

He paused, took a drink. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Just one thing right now.” Harper picked up the bag, dug in. “Can I hang out and watch the rest of the game?”

W
ITH HER HANDS
on her hips, Roz studied her newly arranged In the Garden potting soil preparation area. It had taken two full days, eking out time between other chores and working with the precise-minded Stella to set it up.

In Roz’s estimation it would have taken her half that time alone, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as practical a work space. There were tubs of soil she’d already mixed herself, the worktables, the bag storage, the scale, scoops, bag sealer, stools.

Everything was arranged in assembly-line efficiency.

The outlay had been relatively little, which had pleased Stella, who had a head for profit as well as precision. With the simple design of the bags, some clever marketing, and what she knew to be an excellent product, Roz felt confident they’d do very well. Very well indeed.

Her mood was very bright when she turned to greet Harper as he came through the door of the work shed.

“What do you think of our new enterprise?” She held
out her arms. With a laugh, she picked up a five-pound bag she’d already filled and sealed and tossed it over to him.

“Good look,” he said, turning the bag over. “No frills. It says this is serious dirt. Looks like something you’d see in a high-end garden boutique.”

“Exactly, and we’ll keep the price down initially, to get it moving. I’m having the bags overfilled by a couple ounces to give me a safety zone. I thought we’d put Ruby on the job, for a start anyway. Maybe see if Steve wants to take some part-time work. It won’t be that labor intensive, or take that much time.”

“It’s smart business, Mama.” He laid the bag down. “You’ve got a knack for it.”

“I like to think so. We still mad at each other?”

“No, but we might be after I finish telling you I went into Memphis to see Mitch Carnegie.”

Her face went blank; her voice turned cool. “Why would you do that, Harper?”

“One, I was pissed off. Two, David and Stella talked me out of hunting up Clerk and beating his face in. Third, I wanted to hear for myself what Mitch had to say about what’s going on between you.”

“I understand one perfectly. I appreciate two, on several levels. But I fail to comprehend why you would assume to interrogate a man I’m seeing. It’s unpardonably rude and interfering. I don’t run around snooping on the women you choose to see.”

“It wasn’t snooping, and I’ve never chosen to see a woman who stole from me or set out to interfere with my life or smear my reputation.”

“You’re young yet.” Ice dripped from the words. “Do you think I’m the only woman foolish enough to get tangled up with an asshole?”

“No, I don’t. But I don’t much care about other women. You’re my only mother.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to—”

“I love you.”

“Don’t use that weapon on me.”

“I can’t help it. It’s all I’ve got.”

She pressed her fingers to the center of her forehead, rubbed hard. “It would help if you added a little trust and respect to that love, Harper.”

“I’ve got all the trust and respect in the world for you, Mama. It’s the men I’m not so sure about. But if it helps any, I worked up plenty of trust and respect for Mitch last night. He might almost be worthy enough to court my mama.”

“He’s not courting me, for God’s sake. Where do you get this sort of . . . We went to a college basketball game, we had dinner.”

“I think he’s stuck on you.”

She stared, and this time lifted both hands to the sides of her head. “My head is reeling.”

He walked to her, slid his arms around her, and drew her in. “I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt again.”

“Bryce only hurt my pride.”

“That’s a mortal wound for us Harpers. And he did more than that. I don’t think Mitch will do the same, at least not deliberately.”

“So, you approve.”

He grinned when she tipped her head up to look at him. “That’s a trick question, and my mama didn’t raise any fools. I say yes, and you’ll rip my butt reminding me you don’t need my approval. So I’m just going to say I like him. I like him a lot.”

“You’re a slippery one, Harper Ashby. Tell you what.” She patted his back, eased away. “You can give me a hand in here for a while. I want to do up twenty bags of each weight category.”

“I thought you wanted Ruby to do that.”

“Changed my mind. Doing some uncomplicated and
monotonous work ought to give you some time to reflect on the error of your ways.”

“Talk about slippery.”

“The day you can outwit me, my baby, is the day I see about moving myself into a home. Let’s get started.”

A
FTER WORK SHE
went straight home, and directly upstairs to clean up. Wary now, she checked the mail on her desk, looked through the bills. She couldn’t say she was relieved when she found nothing. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

There had been a similar sort of harassment right after the divorce, then a nice period of peace. When, she assumed, he’d had some other woman on the string and was too involved to waste his time poking sticks at an ex-wife.

She’d handled it then; she’d handle it now.

As she was dressing the phone rang. When it hit the third ring, she assumed David was otherwise occupied and answered herself.

“Good evening. Is Rosalind Harper available?”

“This is she.”

“Ms. Harper, this is Derek from the Carrington Gallery in New York. We’re just following up to let you know the Vergano will be shipped to you tomorrow.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Derek, is it? I didn’t order anything from your gallery.”

“The Cristina Vergano, Ms. Harper. Your representative spoke with me personally only last week.”

“I don’t have a representative.”

“Ms. Harper, I’m very confused. The charge has already been cleared to your account. Your representative indicated that you were very taken with the painting, and wished to have it shipped as soon as the showing was over. We’ve had considerable interest in this work, but as it was already sold—”

She rubbed hard at the back of her neck where the tension had settled. “It looks like we both have a problem, Derek. Let me give you some of the bad news.” She explained briefly, caught herself pacing as she spoke, and as a fresh headache brewed. She noted down the credit card company and number.

“This is very upsetting.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “it certainly is. I’m sorry you and your gallery have been inconvenienced by this. Would you mind, just for curiosity’s sake, telling me the name of the painting?”

“Vergano’s a very powerful and dynamic artist. This oil on linen, custom framed by the artist, is from her Bitches collection. It’s called
The Amazing Bitch
.”

“Of course it is,” Roz replied.

She went though the routine, calling the credit card company, and her lawyer, then writing to both to document the incident.

She took aspirin before going down to the kitchen and pouring herself a large glass of wine.

David’s note sat propped on the counter.

Hot date. An exceptional lasagna’s on warm in the oven. Hayley and the baby went over to Logan’s with Stella and the boys. They’re having a little painting party. More than enough lasagna for two. Dr. Studly’s in the library. Just warm up the bread, toss the salad—in the fridge—and you’re set.
Buon appetito!

David

 

P.S. Appropriate CDs already loaded in the player. Now
please
go up and put on those Jimmy Choo’s.

“Well.” She noted David had set the kitchen nook with festive plates, fat candles, a bottle of San Pellegrino, pale
green glasses. And it explained why a bottle of good Italian red was breathing on the counter.

“Lasagna’s fine,” she said aloud. “But I’m not putting on those shoes to eat it.”

Content and comfortable in the thick gray socks she habitually wore around the house, she walked to the library.

He was sitting at the table, wearing his glasses and a Memphis Tigers sweatshirt. His fingers were moving quickly over the keyboard of his laptop. On the desk was a large bottle of water. David’s doing, no doubt. He’d have nagged Mitch to rotate water with his habitual coffee.

He looked . . . studiously sexy, she decided, with his intellectual glasses and the mass of thick, disordered hair. That rich brown, with just a hint of chestnut.

There were good eyes behind those glasses, she thought. Not just the color, so deep, so unique, but good, direct eyes. A little intense, unnervingly intense, and she had to admit she found that exciting.

Even as she watched, he paused in his typing to scoop the fingers of one hand through his hair. And muttered to himself.

It was interesting to hear him mutter to himself, since she often caught herself doing the same.

It was interesting, too, to feel this long slow pull in her belly, and the little dance of lust up her spine. Wasn’t it good to know those instinctive charges still had spark? And wasn’t she curious to see what would happen if she took a chance, and lit the fuse?

Even as she thought it, books flew off the shelf, slammed into each other, then the walls, the floor. In the fireplace, flames leaped in hot reds, while the air shivered with cold.

“Jesus Christ.”

Mitch shoved back from the table so fast his chair hit the floor. He managed to duck one book, then block another. As Roz rushed forward, everything stopped.

“You see that? Did you
see
that?” He bent, picked up a book, then dropped it on the table. It wasn’t fear in that lovely, liquid drawl, she noted. It was fascination. “It’s like ice.”

“Temper tantrums.” She picked up a book herself, and the cold nearly numbed her fingers.

“Impressive ones. I’ve been working in here since about three.” Grinning like a boy, he checked his watch. “Nearly four hours. It’s been quiet as, you’ll excuse the expression, a tomb. Until now.”

“I suppose I set her off, as I was about to ask if you’d like to have dinner. David left a meal.”

Together they began to retrieve the rest of the books. “No question that she doesn’t like the two of us together.”

“Apparently not.”

He set the last book on the shelf. “So . . . what’s for dinner?”

She glanced over at him, smiled. And in that moment realized that beyond the lust, there wasn’t anything about him she didn’t like. “Lasagna, which David bills as exceptional. As I’ve sampled it in the past, I can vouch for his claim.”

“Sounds great. God, you smell good. Sorry,” he added when her eyebrows lifted. “Thinking out loud. Listen, I’ve been able to eliminate more names, and I’ve been transcribing the interviews we’ve done so far. I’ve got a file here for you.”

“All right.”

“I’m going to work on tracking down some of the descendants of staff, and what we’ll call the outer branches of the family tree. But what I’m seeing as the oldest living relative is your cousin Clarise—and happily she’s local. I’d like to talk to her.”

“Good luck with that.”

“She’s still in the area, at the . . .”

“Riverbank Center. Yes, I know.”

“She puts me a full generation closer to Amelia. It’d be simpler, I’d think, to approach her if you spoke to her first.”

“I’m afraid Cousin Clarise and I aren’t on speaking terms, or any sort of terms whatsoever.”

“I know you said there was a rift, but wouldn’t she be interested in what I’m doing with the family?”

“Possibly. But I can assure you, she wouldn’t take my call if I made one.”

“Look, I understand about family schisms, but in this case—”

“You don’t understand Clarise Harper. She dropped her surname years ago, choosing to go legally by her first and middle names. That’s how entrenched in the Harper name she is. She never married. My opinion being she never found anyone soft or stupid enough to take her on.”

Frowning, he hitched a hip on the table. “Is this your way of telling me you don’t want me contacting her, because—”

“I hired you to do a job, and don’t intend to tell you how to go about it, so don’t get your back up. I’m telling you she’s chosen to banish me and mine from her plane of existence, which is just fine by me. The one good thing I can say about her is once she’s made up her mind on something, she follows through.”

“But you don’t have any objection to me talking to her, involving her.”

“None. Your best bet is to write her—very formally—and introduce yourself, being sure to use the doctor part, and any other impressive credentials you might have at hand. If you tell her you intend to do a family history on the Harpers, and play up how honored you would be to interview her, and so on, she might agree.”

“This is the one you kicked out of the house, right?”

“In a manner of speaking. I don’t recall telling you about that.”

“I talk to people. She’s not the one you chased off with a Weedwacker.”

Amusement, very faint, ran over her face. “You are talking to people.”

“Part of the job.”

“I suppose. No, I didn’t chase her with a Weedwacker. That was the gardeners. And it wasn’t a Weedwacker, come to that. It was a fan rake, which was unlikely to do any serious damage. If I hadn’t been so mad and thinking more clearly, I’d’ve grabbed the loppers those idiots had used on my mimosa trees. At least with those I could’ve given them a good jab in the ass as they skeddadled.”

“Loppers. Would those be . . .” He made wide scissoring motions with both arms.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ouch. Back to your cousin. Why’d you give her the boot?”

“Because when I invited her, to my lasting regret, to a family barbecue here years ago, she called my sons disreputable brats and stated—she without chick or child—that if I were a proper mother I’d’ve taken a switch to them regularly. She then called Harper a born liar, as he was entertaining some of his young cousins with stories about the Bride, and told him to shut his mouth.”

He angled his head. “And still she lives.”

Temper had brought a flush to her cheeks, but his comment had a small smile curving her lips. “She was on shaky ground already as she constantly criticized my parenting, my housekeeping, my lifestyle, and occasionally my morals. But nobody stands on my ground and attacks my children. While I did consider murder, knowing my quarry, I was certain banishment from Harper House was a more painful punishment.”