Golden Lies (6 page)

* * *

An hour later, Riley was less concerned about his mother's whereabouts and more interested in when David Hathaway would show up with his grandmother's dragon. They'd been cooling their heels in the executive offices of Hathaway's for fifteen minutes and there was no sign of David or his daughter, Paige.

"This is ridiculous," he said with irritation. He'd never been good at waiting, but he especially didn't like waiting for what belonged to him.

Nan worked her knitting needles with quiet, competent hands. He had no doubt that by his April birthday he'd have another sweater to put in his closet.

"Relax, Riley," she said. "I'm sure they'll be with us at any moment."

"It's after five. We should take our dragon and leave. There are plenty of other potential buyers out there. We don't need Hathaway's."

"Why don't we wait and see what they have to say? They gave us that lovely tea yesterday, and Paige is such a sweetheart. Pretty, too, don't you think?"

He frowned as he stretched out his long legs. "I didn't notice."

"Blind now, too, as well as hard of hearing," she teased.

Riley ignored that and jumped to his feet when the receptionist said, "Miss Hathaway will see you now."

Paige met them at the door to her office. She wore a blue suit with a lacy white see-through blouse that offered just enough cleavage to distract him. But he wouldn't be distracted, not today, not by someone he had no intention of ever seeing again.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting—" she began.

He cut her off. "Where's the dragon?"

"Why don't you come in?"

Riley followed her into her office, his grandmother close behind. He'd hoped to see David Hathaway, or at the very least, the ugly dragon statue, but neither was there. Paige looked decidedly nervous as she stood behind her desk, motioning for them to sit down in the chairs in front of her desk. Nan did as suggested. Riley decided he preferred to stand.

"Well?" he asked.

"My father has been delayed."

"Where's the statue?"

"He'll be here very soon, I'm sure." She offered him a tentative smile. "Can I get you some of that strong coffee you like so much?"

"No."

"Mrs. Delaney?"

"I'm fine, dear." Nan pulled out her knitting and sat back in her chair, content to wait. During the past year, Nan had spent a lot of time waiting for doctors to come back and tell her what was happening with her husband. She didn't deserve to have to wait for this, too.

"Miss Hathaway," he began again.

"I know. I'm very sorry. My father probably lost track of time. He does that sometimes. He doesn't mean to make anyone feel as if they're unimportant. He just gets caught up in the moment."

"I used to know someone like that," Nan said, a sad note in her voice. She glanced over at Riley, but he looked away.

She was talking about his mother, and he didn't want to go down that road. "This is ridiculous." He waved an impatient hand as he glared at Paige. "You're running a business here, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I can assure you that everything will be fine. This is just a small delay. If you'd rather come back tomorrow—"

"Absolutely not. I don't know what kind of scam you're running, but I'm not putting up with it."

She stiffened, her conciliatory smile turning angry. "I'm not running a scam. My father is simply late."

Riley's instincts told him that something was wrong, the same instincts that had been raising goose bumps along his arms since they'd discovered the damn dragon might be worth something. He leaned forward, rapping his knuckles on the top of Paige's mahogany desk. "I don't give a damn about whether or not your father is late for our meeting. I want the dragon."

"I can't conjure it up out of thin air."

"Why don't you have someone bring it up here? Isn't it in one of the vaults or a clean room of some sort?" He didn't like the way she avoided his gaze. "Isn't it?"

"The dragon doesn't appear to be in the lab. My father must have already retrieved it."

"And where is he?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"Are you saying your father took the dragon out of the store? I don't believe we gave him permission to do that."

"I don't believe I said that he left the store. I just haven't been able to track him down."

"What the hell are you up to?"

"Look. I appreciate the fact that you're angry, but there's nothing going on here. I can assure you of that. Hathaway's has never lost a piece of art, and we're not starting with yours. I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience."

"Inconvenience, my ass!"

"Riley, I don't like it when you swear," Nan chided. "Now stop yelling at Miss Hathaway. There's nothing she can do about the delay. I'm sure Mr. Hathaway will have a reasonable explanation when he returns."

"I'm sure he will," Paige said.

The door behind them opened. Riley turned, expecting to see David, not another nervous young woman.

"I'm sorry for interrupting you, Miss Hathaway," she said.

"It's all right, Monica. Did you find my father?"

"That's the thing. He doesn't seem to be in the store." She paused, darting a worried look at Riley. "And the dragon isn't here, either."

Victoria Hathaway sat down in front of the mirror on her dressing room table and began to brush her hair. It was a pre-bedtime ritual that she'd followed every night since she was a little girl, living in a small two-bedroom apartment with her drunk of a mother and her two older sisters. Her mother had used one bedroom, her sisters the other. She'd had the couch, the bumpy, lumpy, bright red couch that her mother thought was so pretty.

Her surroundings now were quite different. Her elegant four-poster bed could be seen through the gold-edged mirror that David had bought her for their fifth wedding anniversary. As she pulled the brush through her smooth blond hair, she remembered a time when David had actually brushed her hair. She could almost see his reflection now in the glass, his dark hair rumpled, his brown eyes warm and caring.

It was foolish to turn her head, to see nothing but blank air. She knew he wasn't there. She couldn't remember the last time he'd been in her bedroom. David had moved out a few years earlier, because he was a night owl and she was an early bird, because he liked to read in bed, and she liked to get up early and do her hundred sit-ups in the privacy of her own room. God forbid anyone should know how hard she worked to keep her size-six figure. But those were only the reasons he said out loud, not the real reasons, not the ones that had isolated them in their own very private and personal hells for too many years to count.

She glanced back at the mirror and sighed. She could keep her body lean and trim, but not even the most expensive creams in the world or BOTOX treatments were managing to keep the wrinkles at bay. Already she could see the tiny lines around her eyes and lips. She could cover them in the daytime, but with her makeup removed, they were clearly visible. Perhaps some women would have turned away, but she forced herself to look, to examine, to be critical. It was the only way she knew to be.

When she was a young girl, she had made herself look at her life, her family, the way they lived and the manner in which they behaved. She remembered cutting out pictures from magazines of big houses and fancy restaurants. She'd made a list of how to get what she wanted, and she had followed that list to the letter. She'd gotten an education when many of her friends had dropped out, taken ugly, messy jobs in order to make enough money to go to college, always keeping her eye on the prize. Putting herself in a position to meet David at a party, marrying him, making her way into the Hathaway business had all been steps in the plan. She was no longer Vicky Siminski; she was Victoria Hathaway, and no one could ever take that away from her. She would not allow her life to be tarnished in any way.

Which brought David again to her mind. He'd postponed a trip to China when that old woman had discovered the dragon statue in her attic. David never postponed trips to China, which meant the dragon was special. She didn't know why it was different from any other artifact that had come to light, but something about it had filled him with barely restrained energy. He knew something about that dragon, something he had not seen fit to share with her and she didn't like it. Nor did she like the fact that he'd been out of the office all day.

A knock at her bedroom door cut into her thoughts. For a moment, the quiet tap reminded her of other times when the loneliness had grown too keen, and David had come to the door. A shiver ran down her straight, stiff spine. What would she say if he'd come to her tonight?

The knock came again, followed by a voice. "Mother? Are you awake?"

Paige. The disappointment was not as annoying as the anger Victoria felt at herself. She didn't need David. She had everything she wanted in life.

"Come in," she said. "What are you doing here so late on a Wednesday night?" she added as Paige came into the room wearing running shoes, tight-fitting navy blue leggings, and a short matching warm-up jacket. "What on earth do you have on?"

"I came from my gym," Paige replied. "I'm sorry it's so late, but I need to speak to you."

"Why? What's wrong? And you know you can work out here in the house. The gym downstairs is state of the art and completely private."

"I like to be around other people when I exercise. It's inspiring."

"It's unsanitary. All that sweat on the machines after people use them. Heaven only knows what you might catch."

"I wipe the machines down with a towel, but that's not what I came to talk to you about." Paige sat down on the chaise next to the bed. "Have you seen Dad today or tonight?"

"No." Victoria picked up her brush and ran it through her hair, watching Paige through the glass. Her daughter was biting her nails, a nasty little habit Victoria had never been able to break her of. She remembered when she'd painted Paige's hands with a bad-tasting black polish just to make her aware of how many times she put her fingers in her mouth. It had worked for a while, but apparently the fix had not been permanent. Why was she surprised? Paige had a lot of her father in her.

"Dad didn't show up for an important meeting this afternoon," Paige said. "He's also not answering his cell phone, and no one seems to know where he is, not even Georgia."

Victoria's lips tightened. She hated the fact that David's secretary was more up-to-date on his whereabouts than she was, but she didn't particularly want to waste her time keeping track of him, so she'd allowed that to slide.

"I can't imagine where he is," Paige muttered.

Victoria heard the worried note in Paige's voice and tried not to let it concern her. Paige was a natural-born worrier. David's unexplained absence meant nothing, absolutely nothing. He was always missing. She'd spent too many hours to count waiting for David to show his face, to be where he'd promised to be, to support her when times got tough. All that had gotten her were more lines on her face. "He'll turn up. He always does—sooner or later."

"This isn't just about Dad. The dragon is missing, too."

Victoria's hand paused in mid stroke. "The dragon he was so eager to acquire?"

"Yes, but he never made an evaluation or an offer. He must have taken it somewhere for some reason. Mrs. Delaney is being incredibly patient. Her grandson is another matter. If Dad doesn't bring that dragon back to the store tomorrow, Mr. McAllister will be a huge problem."

That would be bad publicity for the store. Damn David. He never thought before he acted.

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" Paige asked.

Victoria had a terrible idea, one she didn't care to contemplate, one she couldn't possibly speak to her daughter about. "I'll see if I can find him." She set down the brush and got to her feet. "Why don't you go home and let me worry about your father?"

Paige rose, hesitating. "Do you think I should speak to Grandfather?"

"Good heavens, no. Why on earth would you want to do that?"

"Maybe he and Dad—"

"No, absolutely not. Your father doesn't confide in your grandfather. You know that. And let's not borrow trouble. Your father will turn up, he always does. There's no reason to upset Wallace." Her father-in-law was hard enough to please as it was, always looking for reasons to keep her in her place, to remind her that she could never run the store as well as he could.

"I guess you're right," Paige said slowly.

"Is there something else?"

"I just wonder—"

"Don't wonder, Paige. It's pointless where your father is concerned."

"Don't you ever worry about him?"

"Does he ever worry about us?" She knew her words hurt Paige, and she wished she could take them back. Hurting her daughter was never her intention, but sometimes it seemed inevitable. Paige had been disappointed by her father time and time again, yet she never seemed to see him for who he really was.

"You're right," Paige said.

"Well, he does worry about you," Victoria amended. "You're very important to him. And to me. Since you're here, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."