Leslie LaFoy (44 page)

“Not that I want to add to your obvious distress,” he said, stepping around her to sit down on the edge of her bed, “but I reckon I probably ought to mention that it came to the office in a box containing a dismembered rat. It was left in the seat of the desk chair. Ben didn't know anything about it, which means either he's lying or someone besides you, Richard, and Ben have a key to the office.”

“When did you find it?” she asked, handing the note back to him. “And, by the way, I don't recognize the handwriting.”

“I figured you wouldn't. The package was waiting for me the morning we sailed out.”

She nodded and pursed her lips in the way she always did when considering how to approach a problem. “Which was the morning after the terrible scene with Henry and Agatha,” she observed after a moment.

Lord, he loved to watch her mind work. It was a
wonderful thing to behold. Jack reined in his smile before Lindsay could catch a glimpse of it. The matter of someone threatening to kill him was serious, but not so much so that he couldn't appreciate how effectively it was diverting her thoughts from the day's other calamities. He leaned back on his elbows, settling in for the show, and willing to play his usual part in it. “Think either one of them could have done something like that? And could either one of them have a key to the office?”

“I just don't know, Jack,” she answered, beginning to pace the length of the bed. “But if we look at all that's happened since you've arrived, we know that you had several brushes with near disaster before either of them ever knew about the second Will and the changes in their circumstances. There was the fire, the explosion of the apartment, the beam falling on your head, and then the carriage accident.”

“The fire had to have been set,” he offered. “The explosion was probably a natural consequence of the heat building up inside a closed room. And it wasn't a beam that took me down on those stairs. A man ran past me and when I called him back to help me drag O'Malley out, he hit me with something. As for the carriage wheel… It might have been an accident. Or it might have been deliberate sabotage. And it happened the afternoon of the day the story came out in the
Herald.
They knew by then.”

She stopped her pacing to meet his gaze squarely. “You didn't tell me someone had deliberately hit you.”

Jack shrugged. “It didn't seem important at the time. I figured it was someone who wanted to get some belongings out before it was too late and didn't have the patience to be waylaid.”

“But what if your assumption is wrong, Jack? What if he went up those stairs for the express purpose of finding you?”

“I would have died a hero's death,” he drawled. “There'd have been a great newspaper story about me. Pretty good way to go, all in all.” He gave her a chagrined smile and added, “Not that I was thinking so at the time.”

“Please don't make light of it,” she admonished, gath-
ering her skirts in hand and climbing up on the bed beside him. “This is very serious business.”

“All right,” he agreed, thinking that he was going to get around to the serious business of making love to her in a few minutes and it was nice to have her within such easy reach. “If you hadn't come in after me, it would have looked like I'd died in a tragic accident. No suspicions would have been aroused and no questions would have been asked.”

Kneeling, she settled back on her heels and pursed her lips again as she studied him for a long moment. “Who knew we were going to Jeb and Lucy's?”

“Ben. Remember? As we were leaving the office, you told him he could find us there if he needed us.”

“I don't think he was behind it, Jack. In the first place, he wouldn't have had time to arrange for someone to try to kill you in the fire. In the second place, and most importantly I think, is the fact that he has absolutely no reason to want you dead.” She slowly shook her head. “Frankly, I can't see any reason why anyone would want to kill you. It wouldn't accomplish anything.”

“It would complicate the hell out of the transfer of Billy's estate,” he pointed out. “And in the end, when all the lawyers and all the judges were through with it, everything I own would go to you, Henry, and Agatha.”

She shook her head. “You mean my father's estate would come back to us.”

“No. Everything I own, Lindsay. Elmer—you remember, the lawyer in Texas—believes that every man who owns so much as a saddle ought to have a Will and he's damn persistent about doing things right. I finally gave in and let him make me one. Since Billy was the closest I had to family, I figured that he was the one who ought to get my worldly possessions if I happened to go to the great pasture in the sky. I didn't remake it after he died. Didn't even cross my mind.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, and he went on, adding, “Of course, I didn't know Billy had three children. Didn't know he'd ever even been married, for that matter. But you know how lawyers are, Lindsay. They gotta stick in all the
right words to cover every possibility no matter how unlikely. Elmer stuck them in because they're supposed to be in a Will, and so, if for some reason Billy couldn't inherit from me, what I own would go to any legitimate heirs he might have.”

“Women can't own property in their own names,” she said quietly, slowly. “All of it would go to Henry. Unless the Will specifies that he's to set up trusts for Agatha and me, he wouldn't legally have to share the windfall.”

He hadn't thought about that. The idea of Henry getting everything and Lindsay nothing was galling. He'd get a codicil written to protect her as soon as he could. “The MacPhaull Company assets combined with what I own would make him a very rich man. As motives to kill someone go, it'd be a good one.”

“But how would Henry know about your Will? He couldn't have assumed that you had one or what its provisions might be. And he didn't know about his being disinherited until after the fire.”

“It's a helluva complicated web, isn't it?”

“Who
does
know about your Will, Jack? Aside from Elmer. Who in New York?”

“Otis Vanderhagen,” he answered, remembering and mentally kicking himself for not seeing the connection before then. God, he needed to keep Lindsay around just to help him think straight. “He came into the office the morning of the fire. Said he had a responsibility as the family attorney to see that the company was legally covered if something should happen to me. I told him about my Will. He offered to write up a codicil for me so that the lawyer wrangling wouldn't go on as long as it would without one.” The rest of that morning played out in his mind and he winced with a realization. “But he left before you got there and so he couldn't have heard us tell Ben we were going to Jeb and Lucy's.”

“He didn't have to be there,” Lindsay instantly countered, her tone calm and certain. “He was at MacPhaull House that morning when the note came from Jeb about the baby being born. He was there when Abigail and I discussed me taking the gifts over once it became a suitable hour for calling.”

“Mrs. Beechum knew we were going to Jeb and Lucy's?” Even as the question was spoken, he regretted it. The last thing Lindsay needed was to be reminded of her housekeeper's involvement in the scheme.

“Not
we
, Jack,” she replied, clearly not the least bit disturbed by the possibility he'd suggested. “Abigail had no idea you would go with me. She's obviously involved insofar as she's the one sending the rent money, but she hasn't tried to have you killed.”

“All right. I'll buy that one,” he agreed, utterly relieved to see that she wasn't going to slide back into the gloomy shadows. “Henry was waiting for you out on the walk. He might have overheard you telling Ben that we were going to Jeb and Lucy's.”

“The requirements of intelligence and long-term dedication aside, I rather doubt that Henry has any idea of who Jeb and Lucy are, much less where they lived. And I also doubt that the possibility of a Will and its provisions would have crossed his mind. Besides, Jack, at that point, he didn't know anything had happened to upset his expectations. He didn't know you'd inherited until he read the story about the fire in the paper the next morning.”

“That's assuming that Otis Vanderhagen didn't actually waddle to the boathouse, find your brother, and tell him everything the first day.”

“Oh God, Jack,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Henry? Hiring someone to kill you would be such a deliberate and concerted act. And it had be done quickly. Henry's just not capable of such a thing.”

He thought it would be just the sort of thing Henry would do. Hell, hiring a murderer might be the one and only thing Henry would be good at. But Lindsay wasn't ready to consider her brother in such a light and Jack was willing to take his time and work his way around to the possibility. “We'll focus on Vanderhagen,” he said. “Why would he want me dead? He isn't going to inherit anything except a monumental legal mess to sort out.”

“For equally monumental fees. And when he's done sorting, he'll have a very large estate to control, through Henry.”

“Yeah, there is that. And then, too, if he's been the one stripping the company assets all along, he'd be able to keep right on doing it when Henry owned it all.”

“And it would be easier than it ever has been. He could make an even bigger fortune than he has already. My God, Jack. It is Otis Vanderhagen, isn't it?”

“My money's on him for the correspondence part anyway. But how would he have known that I was going with you to Jeb and Lucy's? He left the office as you were arriving.”

“We didn't stay long. He knew where I was going. Maybe he saw us leaving together and made a logical assumption. How long would it take to find a stranger on the street and then arrange for a fire and an assault?”

Jack contemplated the possibility. Not long at all, and for the right price a hungry man would be willing to act quickly. But if Otis Vanderhagen had had the time to arrange the fire and the assault, then so had Ben. And so had Henry. Lindsay's reasons for eliminating both men from consideration were good ones, but he wasn't willing to exclude the secretary or her brother on her assumptions alone. She'd had enough betrayal for one day, though, and he wasn't willing to hammer away at more no matter how likely they looked. “Vanderhagen's hands sure look dirty to me,” he said, and then added diplomatically, “but I'm thinking his aren't the only ones.”

“You're back to Richard Patterson being involved, aren't you?”

Another likely betrayal. He didn't want to talk about Richard Patterson's possible role any more than he did Ben's or Henry's. “I just don't see how he couldn't have known, Lindsay. Tell me how you think he could have been oblivious for fifteen long years of company decline.”

“Why would he want to steal the company assets, Jack?”

She was so certain, so steadfastly faithful, that it made his chest ache. “Maybe he thought he wasn't being paid well enough for managing them,” he guessed halfheartedly.

“He could have had whatever salary he wanted.”

“Maybe it wasn't the money that mattered to him. Maybe it was the sense of ownership.”

“Then he could have offered to buy them outright. I would have agreed—without hesitation—to sell them to him. He had to have known that. Richard had no reason to steal them, Jack. Admit it.”

He silently groaned and then resolved to ease her into acceptance as best he could. “All right, so maybe it wasn't the money. Maybe it wasn't a sense of needing to own that drove him. Maybe it was something personal. You've said he had a low opinion of Henry. Could it be that he didn't want there to be anything left for him to inherit?”

“Perhaps,” she agreed, nodding. “But in leaving Henry nothing, he would be leaving all of us nothing. I can't believe that Richard would do that to me. I just can't.”

“Vanderhagen said that morning when we were discussing Wills that Richard's includes bequeaths to those who meant something to him during the course of his life. I took that to mean that he's leaving you some of his money or property.”

“It would have to be in a trust.”

“So it's in a trust,” he pressed gently. “It'd still be yours and not Henry's. And Richard's conscience would be eased by throwing you a bone in the end.”

She considered the idea for a moment and then quietly said, “If the thefts have been going on as long as they apparently have and in the magnitude you think, Jack, then there's several hundred thousand dollars to be accounted for.”

Jack heard the softening of her faith, and while he found absolutely no satisfaction in it, he knew it was necessary. “It's cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to live over the years. I'm thinking Emile wasn't the only cook and that Havers wouldn't deign to clean a house. There was a big household staff, wasn't there?”

She nodded and he went on, saying, “It all costs money, Lindsay. And when the Panic hit and there wasn't a salary to be had from the MacPhaull Company, Richard didn't change one little thing about the way he lived, did he?”

“No.”

“To keep on paying for it all he just dipped into the piggy bank he'd stuffed full over the years. There isn't going to be much left in it to give away to others, Lindsay.”

Lindsay closed her eyes as a bone-deep weariness settled over her. She didn't care anymore about the business, about property or money or any of it. Thinking about all the possibilities, all the causes and consequences, was exhausting. It would be a blessing to have it all over with, to have nothing, to be free of all the responsibility and worry. “We need to go back to New York,” she said, hoping in her heart that they'd get there to discover the end in sight.

“Yes, we do,” Jack agreed. She felt him shift his position on the bed as he added, “And that brings me full circle. The reason I started this whole conversation is that I'm worried you might get caught in the cross fire and I want you to be able to protect yourself in case something happens to me and I'm not able to step between you and danger.”

Lindsay nodded, hearing his words, but not really hearing them.

“Please open your eyes, sweetheart.”

She reluctantly complied with the gentle request and started at the sight of a small silver-plated, pearl-handled pistol lying in the palm of Jack's open hand.