Pulse (7 page)

He pulled right into the empty driveway. The cat didn’t run this time. It purred around Rory’s legs as she unlocked the front door. Inside, a trio of kittens performed rough-and-tumble aerobatics around the stairs, peering between the wooden balustrades, attacking each other with mock ferocity.

“Where’s Daniel’s study?”

“Upstairs.”

He extended his arm. “Shall we?” She could lean on him, he would be the pillar of strength and see her through this, he thought.

She hesitated, halfway up the stairs. “The key! I forgot the key. Be right back.” She turned and ran down, hair flying.

Briefcase in one hand, the other on the polished banister, he gazed up at the arched window at the top of the stairs, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of déjà vu. He had seen that glimpse of sky and treetops through that glass before. The memory was not pleasant.

She rejoined him moments later, breathless, with a single key dangling from a simple ring. “Didn’t want Billy snooping around in there,” she explained.

The carpeted hall beckoned to him as Rory prattled on, oblivious. “It was originally a guest room, but Daniel converted it to his home office.”

He knew which door it would be before she stopped and handed him the key.

“Ready?” His stomach clenched into a knot.

She nodded and smiled. He inserted the key, the bolt snapped back and the door swung open. The blinds were closed, the drapes drawn. The smell of bleach hung on the air, masking another faint foul odor.

“The light switch is to your right,” she said. Her voice echoed as though from the bottom of a well.

He hit the lights. He had intended to support Rory should she falter. Instead, details of the room flashed in relief before the light exposed them, the wall-to-wall carpeting, the massive file cabinet, the heavy desk with its bordered blotter. The effect was that of a baseball bat slammed into his midsection. An explosion echoed in his ears and his knees buckled. The drapes, the lamp, the molding at the top of the door, were all familiar parts of the recent dreams that had haunted him. For an instant he heard and saw chaos, but the image vanished before he could see it clearly, gone like a forgotten dream.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” She was on her knees beside him. “I’ll call the rescue squad!”

Slumped against the wall, he flailed out. “No! No!” His hand caught hers, his heart already beating wildly, a racehorse pounding down the stretch.

“Is it your heart?” She held his arm. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you need your medication?”

He shook his head, fighting to breathe, eyes wildly roving the room. “It’s a flashback,” he gasped.

“I didn’t know you were in Vietnam.”

The spinning slowed. “I wasn’t.”

CHAPTER SIX

“S
hall I call your wife?” Rory asked as she helped him into a sitting position.

“No, no.” Frank got to his feet, embarrassed, leaning for a moment against the wall. “No reason to alarm her. I’m sorry. That room.” He shuddered and shook his head. “I just felt queasy.”

“It’s the smell.” She wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “I should have aired it out first. I’ll open the windows and turn on the ceiling fan. We should do this another day.”

“No, I’m fine.” He had to know why this was happening to him, what had happened in this house, in that room.

Despite his resolve, his knees trembled when he stepped back into the room, his eyes drawn like magnets to the faint outline of stains, scrubbed but not entirely obliterated, on theceiling and the wall behind Daniel Alexander’s massive mahogany desk. The rug beneath the leather chair was discolored, bleached from efforts to clean it. The hair prickled on the back of his neck and he wanted to close his eyes to shut out the sight.

They decided to lug the boxes and the file folders downstairs to the dining room table.

Frank set up his notebook computer and took out his reading glasses. “Is there a copy here of your husband’s will?”

He glanced up when she didn’t answer. “Did Daniel have a will, or a living trust?”

“I’m not sure.” She sat at the end of the table, her back rigid. “We talked about it once, right after Billy was born, about who was to raise him if somethin’ happened to both of us. But I don’t know. Daniel was goin’ into the restaurant business at the time and I remember signin’ lots of papers with him.”

“Have you heard from his lawyer?”

She shook her head.

He sighed. “Well, let’s see what we can find. How much life insurance did he have?”

“Quite a lot,” she said with certainty. “One policy for fifty thousand dollars that he got when we were first married. Later he changed it to another one, for half a million dollars.”

He frowned. “Actually, five hundred thousand is not a lot. Not with a wife, and a son to raise and educate. You’ve got a good ten, eleven years before he’s ready for college, and with inflation …” He did some rapid calculations. “It’s not a great deal. You’ll have to invest wisely.”

He looked up at her. “Is there a mortgage on this house?”

She nodded, toying with a paper flower that had fallen on the table when they set up the files. “We bought it nineyears ago, when I was pregnant. Has a twenty-year mortgage.”

“Good, so you’ve built up some equity. Mortgage insurance? The kind that pays off the principal if the primary breadwinner dies?”

“I think so,” she said slowly. “He mentioned once that the house was free and clear if anythin’ happened to him.”

“Excellent.” He began to sift through and enter into a computer file records that soon indicated that Rory was a wealthy woman, or would be someday. At the very least, she and Billy would be comfortable. Daniel’s investments were, for the most part, growth-oriented and well chosen. In addition to a healthy stock portfolio stuffed with blue chips and thriving mutual funds, he had contributed the maximum, about thirty thousand dollars annually, to a deferred-compensation tax-empt retirement pension each year for the past seven years. He’d bought a number of technological stocks, including Intel and Microsoft at precisely the right time, making a killing. Nice going, Daniel, he thought.

“I told you he was smart.” Rory looked wistful when he commented on her husband’s astute investments. She pulled her chair up closer and sat beside him, studying the computer screen as he listed the assets. She smelled like cookies and cream. What was that scent? he wondered. Vanilla, she smelled like vanilla.

There were bank statements for two jumbo certificates of deposit, a liquid asset account and three interest-bearing checking accounts. With all this, he wondered how did she ever manage to get herself into such a bind?

“Have you been receiving the monthly income from the restaurants?” She could have paid her bills with that, he thought, shuffling through a stack of rubber-banded receipts.

“No, that ended. Daniel sold his half of the business tohis partner, Ron Harrington, five or six months ago. He wanted to invest the money and move into somethin’ else. He was tired of the restaurant business, too many hours, too many hassles,” she said. “He was stayin’ on temporarily, as executive manager on a weekly salary, until Ron found a replacement.”

“How much did he get, and where did he put it?”

“I’m not sure. He didn’t talk much about business at home.”

Curiously, Frank found no recent bank statements; all were six months to a year old. “We need the current file with the latest statements,” Frank said. “We must have overlooked it.”

She shook her head. “I think we’ve got them all. I’ll check upstairs, but those other boxes are all old tax records.”

He frowned. “Then he must have kept another file at the office, or with your accountant.”

She shrugged. “I think Ron sent me all of Daniel’s things after the funeral …”

“Do you remember any statements coming in the mail?”

She looked guilty. “Maybe.” She went to a hall closet and dug out two shopping bags stuffed with unopened mail. “There’s a few more bags in there,” she confessed. “It’s all addressed to him. I just couldn’t deal with it. I never opened his mail. I …” She shrugged again. “The more it piled up, the less able I felt to deal with it.”

“Okay,” he instructed. “Find a letter opener. You start opening, I’ll sort.”

She began stacking the opened envelopes next to him, assembly-line fashion. Most were bills, late notices; some, with more recent postmarks, were plastered with red stickers demanding “Remit Now” or “Third Notice.”

“Good God, Rory.” He glanced apprehensively at the lightfixture above them. “Florida Power and Light is about to cut off your service. The phone company, too. How could you let this happen?”

“Well …” She ran her fingers through an unruly mound of red hair. “What checks I did write were returned. I sure didn’t want to write any more bad ones. When I tried to use my ATM card, the machine ate it.”

“What have you been living on?”

“Been chargin’ food and gas on my Visa card. I know, I know.” She held up a hand in her defense. “I was plannin’ to get squared away soon and straighten all this out.” She looked at him plaintively. “But I was feeling lower than a snake’s belly and it just got worse and worse, ‘til I didn’t know where to start.”

He nodded, fingering three overdue notices from Visa. He had arrived just in the nick of time.

“Some damn bank officer should have stepped in to assist you. Even with the accounts in your husband’s name, you appear on them as beneficiary. All you need to switch them to your name is a copy of his death certificate. Sam Townsend, chairman of Southern Savings, is a friend of mine,” Frank said hotly. “He needs to know how callous and insensitive his people are. Next time make sure your name is on everything.”

The long eyelashes dipped. “I don’t think I’ll be gettin’ married again. Daniel was one of a kind. I thought he walked on water.”

He wondered if Kathleen would say something as touching about him.

“Who is your broker?”

She wasn’t sure.

“No matter, I’ll find it in here somewhere. I’ll call and ask that you be sent copies of your most recent statementsso we can establish the current value of your portfolio. That’ll give us a better idea of your net worth. We have to start putting things together for tax purposes.”

Even while focused on the task before him, his eyes betrayed him, straying to the stairs and the second-floor hallway to the room beyond.

Two blasts from a car horn startled them both. Rory flew out of her chair.

“My gosh, it’s that time already, Billy’s home!”

She opened the door and hugged the boy, who darted inside wearing a book-stuffed backpack. A woman followed, riding the crest of children’s shouts behind her. Her blonde ponytail bounced, head swiveled, eyes darting. She wore leggings and an oversized T-shirt.

“Just wanted to make sure you were all right, Rory.” She peered inquisitively into the dining room. “Saw the strange car in the drive. Did they find yours yet?”

“Oh, Jill, this is Frank Douglas, he’s …” Rory seemed at a sudden loss for words.

“The police are still looking for the car,” he lied, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “I’m Mrs. Alexander’s accountant.”

“Oh,” the woman said archly. “Billy told us it was repossessed.”

“Kids.” Frank shook his head, smiling fondly at Billy, who clung to his mother and stared back. “They say the darndest things.”

“An accountant?” The woman inspected the living room with the thorough eye of a vice squad detective seeking signs of an orgy. “I didn’t know they made house calls.” She flashed a shiny white-toothed smile. “How nice. We have to go to our accountant’s office. Do you have a business card?”

He patted himself down in a halfhearted motion. “No, I don’t seem to have one—”

“Jill,” Rory interrupted, “it looks like my car won’t be back by morning. Could you … ?”

The woman sighed loudly, rolled her eyes and slung a hip to one side. “This is screwing up my whole schedule,” she complained petulantly. “You know we agreed—”

“As soon as I have wheels, I’ll drive for two of your weeks, I promise.”

Cries of “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy” chorused from the driveway.

“Okay,” Jill said reluctantly, “but in the future we’ve got to stick to the schedule. It’s not fair to everybody if we don’t.” She cast a last curious glance over her shoulder as she left. “Good luck with the car.”

“She’s got a big mouth,” Rory whispered, as Billy scampered into the kitchen. “A
biggg
mouth.” She glanced after her son. “And, of course, so does he.”

“All right.” Frank folded his reading glasses and stacked the files. “Too late to tackle the banks today. I’ll call Sam Townsend at home tonight and rattle his cage so he can pursue it full throttle in the morning. We can straighten them out in the a.m. When we do”—he thumped a stack of papers clipped to attached envelopes—“these are the bills that must be paid immediately, first thing tomorrow. I’ll have my lawyer make some calls about the car.”

“Do I try to bail it out, or buy a new one?”

“It’s healthier for your credit to make things right with the lender. Then you can decide whether to keep it.” He snapped shut the notebook computer.

“Now, while Billy works on his homework, you need to tackle yours. This is your assignment. Call the utility compa-nies, now, before five, explain the circumstances, promise full payment and tell them the checks are going out tomorrow. We want to forestall any inconvenience and additional charges for restoring service. With your prior good record you may be able to talk them out of some or all of the late charges. After five o’clock you start calling the credit card companies.”

“Gotcha.” She gave a little salute. “How can I ever thank you?”

“You already did. Besides, there’s nothing to thank me for yet. We still have a lot of work to do, but we’re off to a good start. I’ll call you in the morning.” He leaned into the kitchen. “See ya, Billy. Take care of things around here.”

“ ‘Bye.” The boy scarcely looked up from his workbook at the table.

Frank drove home in the state of euphoria reserved for good Samaritans on a roll. He tuned in to the evening stock market report on the radio, mulling over the investments he would suggest once the Alexander finances were in order. Suddenly he slapped the steering wheel, struck by a thought. They hadn’t booted up Alexander’s computer! Perhaps the man had begun entering his statements into a computer file. But he would still keep hard copies, wouldn’t he? They had to be there somewhere.

He found Kathleen at a Chippendale table in the front hall, arranging fresh-cut flowers in a crystal vase. She glanced up coolly as he came in and kissed her cheek. “Have a good day?”

“Got a lot done,” he said enthusiastically, and headed for his study.

“Glad to hear it. My day certainly could have gone better.”

He paused, suddenly wary. “What happened?”

“I was concerned. We all were. Sue Ann said you never arrived at the office. She had no clue where to reach you.” She used a small tool to snip the stem end of a Chinese peony. The severed clipping flew into the air and bounced on the marble floor. She ignored it and slid the sheath into the half-filled vase.

“Who says I have to punch a time clock with her?” He spoke with the righteous indignation of an innocent man. He stooped to pluck the green snippet off the floor. It was wet and slick, as hard as bone and smelled like a dark woods. “I told you I planned to work on something today. Since when do you check up on me?”

“Since you spent months in the hospital, underwent major surgery and nearly died.” The curved jaws of the sharp little tool in her hand gaped open as she turned toward him.

Perhaps, he thought, she will snip out my new heart right here. He envisioned it flying through the air and bouncing messily onto the marble floor.

“Your detective Lucca was here,” she said, blue eyes frosty. “So were the alarm people, ready and able to carry out your instructions—but you weren’t here to give them.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I forgot all about it.” He put down his briefcase and nuzzled her neck. “Sorry. It’s just security cameras. I didn’t ask them to coordinate the Manhattan project.”

“But they kept asking questions.” She placed the tool on the polished tabletop with a click and faced him. “Do you want split-screen monitoring? Should the cameras be fixed or scanning? Should they use one of the empty cable channels on our television sets? Should all the sets be used to monitor, or only those with the picture in a picture?”

“I’ll call them in the morning.”

“No need,” she said lightly. “I handled it, made all the decisions myself.”

“So okay, what’s the uproar about?”

“You.” She crossed her arms, her expression wounded. “It was as though you had vanished between here and the office. I didn’t know whether you were okay or I should report you missing.”