Masquerade (38 page)

"I let you handle it the last time, and look what almost happened."

"But nothing did happen, did it?"

"And I'm not going to take the chance of something happening this time. I've gone too far, come too close. I'm not going to lose everything now."

"You won't.
We
won't."

"You're damned right we won't. Because I'm having her watched every time she leaves that house—and if I find out she's opening her mouth to anybody else, I'll persuade her to shut it."

"We agreed, going in, that there'd be no violence—no one would get hurt. You—"

"The ground rules have changed. Remy's changed them. No one's going to ruin me—not her, not you, no one. Do you understand?"

"Of course."

"Then do something about her, or I will."

There was a sharp click and the connection was broken. He held the receiver to his ear a second longer, then slammed it down and leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, and not at the darkness that loomed outside.

 

Crowds lined St. Charles Avenue and filled the neutral strip in the middle. Small children sat perched atop stepladders in seat contraptions specially designed for the occasion. More youngsters were on the ground, gripping bags brought to hold the afternoon's booty. Some wore masks, others didn't, but all—young and old and everyone in between—stood with eager hands outstretched to the parade of riders in spangled costumes and the maskers on mountainous papier-mâché floats and screamed, begged, and cajoled—"Throw me something!" "I want the pearls!" "Over here!" Occasionally Remy heard someone erroneously call out, "Throw me something,
mister!"
as the all-female krewe of Iris, which by tradition always paraded on the Saturday afternoon before Mardi Gras, rolled by, launching the start of what amounted to a four-day weekend.

Carnival parades in New Orleans were never a spectator sport. The fun, the thrill, the excitement of them was in catching the prizes thrown from the floats—the plastic beads, the coasters, the toys, the aluminum doubloons. It didn't matter that today's treasure invariably became tomorrow's trash, not when the mask of adulthood was shed to reveal the child in everyone. But Remy didn't join the throng that surged against the barricade to catch the trinkets hurled at them by an obliging masker. Instead, she took advantage of a brief open space along the outer fringe and quickened her pace. During the mad scramble to retrieve necklaces that had fallen through ensnaring fingers to the ground, she reached the corner and turned, heading toward the river.

Away from the parade route, the congestion lessened along the sidewalks, if not on the streets. Traffic going into the city proceeded at a crawl when it moved at all. As Remy walked past cars inching their way along, she knew it would only get worse the closer she got to Canal Street and the Vieux Carré. There was no doubt in her mind that she'd made the right choice in leaving the Jaguar in the garage.

When she entered the doors of the International Trade Mart twenty minutes later, the quiet of the building was a welcome shock after the ceaseless din of the parade crowds, marching bands, blaring car horns, and tooting kazoos. She smiled at the security guard on duty at the desk and went straight to the elevators. She hadn't realized she was on edge until she felt the tension falling away as the elevator whisked her to the fifteenth floor and the corporate offices of the Crescent Line.

She stepped out of the elevator and glanced at her watch, mentally giving herself an hour to locate the Coast Guard report. From a zipper pocket in her purse, she took the shiny new key that an all-night locksmith had made for her, copied from her father's set, and inserted it in the lock. It turned easily under her hand. She stepped inside and locked the door behind her. She paused long enough to drop the key in her purse, then crossed the reception lobby and turned down the corridor toward the file room.

Voices. She heard voices. She stopped to listen, telling herself it was ridiculous—no one would be here on a Saturday especially not the Saturday before Mardi Gras. She was probably hearing the shouts from the parade crowd on Canal Street— or a band. On the fifteenth floor? No, the voices seemed to be coming from the wing of executive offices at the opposite end of the hall. There was definitely someone there—more than one "someone." Remy started to quietly retreat, then paused near the opening to the reception area.

That voice—its pitch, its rhythm—it sounded like Gabe's. That was impossible. He and her father had left the house about ten minutes before she had—to go to the krewe's float barn, they'd said. Then she heard the deep rumble of a second voice, and she frowned. Gabe was with Cole? Why?

Curiosity overcame caution as she slipped down the hall, hugging the wall, intent on getting close enough to hear what they were saying. Remy caught the sound of a third voice—its tone smooth, charming, disarming. Then Cole interrupted, and it was a full second before she realized that the third voice belonged to Marc Jardin. Her uncle was there too?

Farther along the corridor, a door stood partially open. She saw the ice-blue fabric on a side wall and instantly pictured the rest of the room. It was windowless, the expanse of cool color relieved by a single impressionistic painting of the New Orleans waterfront with the triple spires of St. Louis Cathedral rising in the background. A long table of pale pecan and eight chairs with seat cushions covered in a matching ice-blue fabric filled the rest of the room—the boardroom.

They were all in the boardroom. Remy stiffened, sharply recalling her conversation with Gabe at the breakfast table the day before, when she'd suggested they should ask Cole about his meeting with the insurance company instead of wondering what had transpired. Gabe had indicated that they'd consider it.

But they'd done more than consider it; they'd acted—acted and deliberately excluded her from the meeting, without even telling her one was scheduled.

Damn them, she thought, yet she wasn't at all surprised, only irritated at their overly protective attitude.

"The insurance company has you scared, Frazier. Why?" So her father was with them!

When Remy heard Cole speak, his words now as distinct as his deep voice, she discovered that she'd moved closer without even realizing it.

"The reputation of this company happens to be at stake," her father responded in a clipped and angry voice.

"Then you should want me to defend it, instead of insisting that I capitulate to their demands," Cole fired back, equally curt, and Remy immediately sensed the hostility in the air, a hostility that neither man seemed to be attempting to conceal.

Marc Jardin attempted to inject a measure of calm and reason. "I don't think you understand, Buchanan, how very damaging it would be for these accusations of fraud to become public."

"Damaging to whom? To you. Marc?" Cole challenged. "Are you afraid all the publicity might make your political friends decide you aren't the most likely candidate for governor in the next election? I don't know why they should mind—corruption and fraud aren't new to Louisiana politics."

"I won't pretend that isn't a concern of mine," her uncle asserted stiffly. "But it is hardly my only concern. Like the rest of the family, I'm thinking not only of myself but of the good of the company. There is no reason for any of this to become public. An amicable and
quiet
settlement with the insurance company can be negotiated."

"The Crescent Line is not repaying one dime of the claim. If you're all so anxious to hush this thing up, then I suggest you dig into your own pockets and buy them off with the money you've been siphoning from the company for years," Cole retorted. He paused and then added in a harshly amused and cutting voice, "Of course, if you did that, then you wouldn't have the funds to buy your election, would you, Marc? As I understand it, between the problems in the oil patch and Wall Street's Black Monday, you've taken a financial bath, Frazier. As for the good counselor and our genius with figures—the thirty-six-twenty-four-thirty-six kind—it must be hell not to be able to get your hands on all that money your granddaddy socked away in a trust fund for you."

"All of that is irrelevant and immaterial, Buchanan," Gabe spoke up. "The insurance company isn't looking to any of us. They're looking to the company for their money."

"They can look and threaten all they want. The company lost a ship that was fully loaded with a cargo of crude paid for in advance. We collected for that loss legally. And we both know, Counselor, that an anonymous phone call claiming there was no oil on board when the tanker went down and a signature on a receipt for plastic explosives hardly constitute incontrovertible evidence that a crime was even committed. And I'm not about to jeopardize the financial stability of this company simply because the board of directors is afraid of bad publicity. Look at the balance sheet." There was a thump on the table, accompanied by a whisper of paper. "To pay back even a portion of the claim would destroy the progress the company's made this past year and cripple it for the next five, if not longer."

"And if that happened, you wouldn't be entitled to the ten-percent ownership share your agreement calls for in the event that you succeed in turning the company around in three years, would you?" Lance inserted, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "You accuse us of having selfish motives, but you aren't looking out for the company's interest—only your own. You've always hated us, Buchanan. Half the reason you signed on was so you could show a bunch of rich bastards you were better than they were. Only you found out you weren't the wonder boy you thought you were, didn't you? That's why you came up with this insurance scam, isn't it? It brought in the working capital the company so badly needed before it could even hope to turn the corner. Plus you probably sold that shipment of crude on the black market and salted away six or seven million dollars in some Swiss account. There's no doubt, Buchanan, that you had the motive, the means, and the opportunity. Sooner or later that insurance investigator will prove that. And it galls me that by settling with the insurance company, we'll be saving your ass."

Stunned by the brutal logic of Lance's indictment, Remy discovered she was holding her breath, waiting for a quick, angry denial from Cole. But it didn't come. Instead, there was a long and heavy silence.

When Cole did speak, it was with a deadly calm. "That's the family line, is it? I figured it would be something like that."

"On Monday morning," her father began, "you will contact the insurance company and set up a meeting with them. Marc will handle the settlement negotiations—"

"No." Cole's flat, quiet refusal cut him off in midsentence.

"What?"

"No," he repeated, in an even firmer tone. "I'm still running this company, Frazier. There will be no settlement talks."

"I don't think you understood Lance. Either you work out a deal with the insurance company, or this board will be forced to demand your resignation."

"You can demand till hell freezes over," Cole snapped.

"I strongly advise you to reconsider," Gabe said quietly. "The insurance company's allegations and limited evidence of attempted fraud are sufficient cause for this board to question your conduct. If you refuse to resign, this board will remove you from office for malfeasance, and will terminate your contract."

"Try it," came Cole's quick and cold challenge, followed by the sound of a chair being pushed back. "You try it, and I'll file so many charges and countercharges of malfeasance against this board that the Jardin name will make headlines every damned day. If it's a fight you want, Frazier, you've got it."

"You can't win."

"Maybe not. But if I go down, you'll all go with me.

Without warning, the door was yanked the rest of the way open and Cole came striding out—not in a business suit and tie, but in a pair of soft, washed-out jeans and a bulky pullover of ecru that made him look rougher, tougher. There was the smallest break in his stride when he saw her in the corridor. Hostile gray eyes washed over her, their coldness a shock to her numbed senses.

"I assume you brought your rubber stamp," he muttered as he swept past her.

Realizing that he thought she approved of their decision, Remy whirled around to tell him that she'd had no knowlddge of this meeting, then stopped. The things she'd heard—Lance's accusations, Gabe's warnings, Cole's threat—what did she think? Were they right?
 

"He's bluffing," she heard Marc say.

"Don't kid yourself," Lance snapped. "The bastard means it."

"Damn him," Gabe swore, and slammed a hand on the table. "Why can't he see it makes more sense to settle with the insurance company than to get involved in a long and costly legal battle? That was a perfectly sound argument, and he didn't even listen to it."

"You can't reason with a man like that," her father murmured tightly just as Remy heard Cole go out the front door.

"We've got to do something," Marc insisted. "Dammit, Frazier, we can't let him ruin us. My God, you know what will happen if any of this gets out."

It suddenly hit her what they were saying. They weren't solely concerned with whether Cole was guilty or innocent, or even with whether the fraud charges were true or false. Their approach was much more pragmatic: find a solution that would have the least damaging effect on the company overall. In their opinion, that solution was to negotiate a settlement with the insurance company before any further action was taken. Wasn't that the sensible thing to do? Couldn't the rest come later? Remy went after Cole.

When she reached the street, she caught a glimpse of him crossing Canal, heading for the Quarter, then immediately lost sight of him. The parade was over, and the crowds that had gathered to watch it pass along Canal Street now flooded onto the narrow streets of the Vieux Carré. She hurried after him, joining the streaming mass of revelers, tourists, and college kids as they sauntered along, a look of anticipation on their faces, searching for something—they weren't sure what, but they were confident they'd know it when they found it.