The Matchmaker (27 page)

Cyrus hesitated,
then
sighed roughly. "Gabe, I know
you're a practical man with a logical mind, and what I'm
about to say fits none of your criteria in determining facts
or evidence, but bear with me, all right?"

"I've known you a long time, Cy," Rushton
replied,
his
eyes unreadable now. "I won't discount or dismiss
anything you tell me without a great deal of thought."

"Do you believe in fate?" Cyrus asked.

"Sometimes."

"I never did." Cyrus leaned back in his chair and
shook his head wryly. "Or maybe... Hell, I don't
know anymore. But what I do know is that someone
wants to destroy me. I think.
..
I feel... it's been
going on a long time.
Years.
For some reason I don't understand, he's wary of me.
Perhaps afraid of me.
So
much so he hasn't been able to attack me directly."

"So he used Drummond?"

Cyrus hesitated, struggling to bring his thoughts into
focus; it was becoming easier, yet because he lacked
pieces of the puzzle, the picture forming in his mind was
still incomplete. "I think he saw Drummond as a tool,
yes, but I believe his initial motive was to keep Julia out
of my reach."

"What?" Rushton said softly, frowning. "Why?"

"I'm... more of a threat to him since I met Julia,
since I fell in love with her."

"How could that be?"

Frustrated himself because he didn't have all the
answers he needed, Cyrus was almost angry. "Because I
can't fight him until I'm complete, and I won't be
complete without her. And he knows that somehow, he
knows. Oh, hell, I realize it sounds mad. Gabe, from the
moment I first saw Julia, I've been changing inside. I
don't mean just falling in love with her. It's as if I were half blind until I met her, and now I'm beginning to see
things I never knew were there."

"What things?" Rushton asked quietly.

"Patterns.
Patterns of fate.
When I came back to
Richmond, I was doing more than coming home. I was
obeying an urge so strong it was a compulsion. I had to be here. The day I returned, I saw Julia walking with
Drummond, and I was obsessed with her from that
moment. I didn't understand what I felt at first, but I know now it was a sense of recognition. I knew we
belonged together."

After a moment the lawyer said, "People say love at
first sight's a myth, but I felt it the moment I saw my wife. I understand—and believe—that much. Go on."

Cyrus spoke slowly now, tentatively but with an
underlying tone of absolute certainty. "She was meant to
be a part of my life. We were destined to be together. And it was meant to happen this year.
This summer.
I know that as surely as I know my heart's beating. It's why
I had to come home, why I had to be here." He
hesitated,
then
said, "But the pattern's wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it wasn't meant to happen the way it did. Someone or something tried to change what had to be, and they were partly successful."

Rushton shook his head a little, frowning now. "For
give me, Cy, but that sounds—"

"I know. But you said yourself you didn't believe in
coincidence, and I know you have a healthy skepticism
regarding convenient accidents. Correct?"

"Yes to both."

"Then I'll give you a series of coincidences and
convenient accidents. They prove nothing—but if you look at them from my point of view, there is a pattern. And if you'll accept, for the sake of argument, that my enemy knew I needed Julia in order to be complete, and knew he would be in danger from me once I fell in love
with her, the pattern becomes clearer."

"All right, I'm listening."

Cyrus nodded, and paused a moment to think, just as he'd been thinking for days now. "Four years ago, Julia was preparing to leave the schoolroom behind and come
out into society—where I would certainly have met her.
I was fixed here in Richmond, and had no plans to leave.
Then Tate was murdered."

"Murdered?"

"The longer I think about it, the more convinced I am
his death wasn't the accident it appeared to be. He'd
been hunting for fifty years and wasn't the least feeble; he wouldn't have carried his gun in such a way that it
would have gone off even if he'd fallen. And what
happened to his dog? That animal never left his side, but it vanished when Tate was 'accidentally' shot."

Rushton was frowning, in thought rather than in
disbelief.
"The first convenient accident?"

"I believe so.
And my fault, in a way."

"How could it have been?"

"A few weeks before Tate was killed, I was at the
racetrack with a group of friends. I don't remember how
the subject came up, but I said something idly about
how I'd always wanted to go west, and probably would
one day. Someone—I can't remember who—asked what
was keeping me here. I said Tate. He was getting old,
and I didn't want to be away from him in his last years."

"And someone heard?"

Cyrus nodded. "I can't even know if it was one of the
group
of men I was with; we were at the rail, not in a private box, and there were people all around. Anyone
could have heard what I said."

Rushton was silent for a long moment,
then
said, "If
someone did want you out of Richmond, I suppose
killing Tate might have seemed a solution. But it's a fiendish idea,
Cy
."

"Wait." Cyrus smiled thinly. "There's more."

"Julia?"

"Yes. After Tate died, I left Richmond. It wasn't going
to be permanent, everyone knew that. I just closed up
this house, I didn't sell it. Obviously, I meant to return. My enemy knew that. Even more, he knew I'd be drawn back here—this summer."

"He knows a great deal," Rushton muttered.

"That," Cyrus said wryly, "is the worst of it. He's known more than I all along. I have a distinct feeling he's
never been half blind."

"I can certainly understand why you'd want to find him—assuming, of course, all this is true." The qualifi
cation was more or less automatic. "So he knew you'd be
back. Is this where Drummond comes into the picture?"

Cyrus nodded. "Yes. And again, I'm partly to blame
for what happened. My interest in married women was well known. It wasn't something my enemy was likely to
forget. So when he chose a husband for Julia, he chose
carefully."

Rushton frowned again. "Why not simply kill her? I
mean, if he had no compunction about killing Tate, and
if he's responsible for the Bradshaw girl's death, it's clear
he doesn't balk at murder. Why shouldn't he have taken
the easiest and most foolproof way to keep Julia from you
permanently?"

"I don't know.
Perhaps because it amused him to see
her married to an animal.
He's... arrogant beyond
belief, I feel that. Intricate plans seem to please him,
and I think he is or was convinced of his own infallibility.
Perhaps he was confident he had put her beyond my
reach and, moreover, had found a weapon for himself in
Drummond."

Shifting a bit in his chair, Rushton murmured, "My
God, Cy, if you're right about this monster—"

"Yes, I know.
Frightening.
You don't seem quite so
disbelieving now, Gabe."

"The whole thing's insane," Rushton said flatly, but
immediately added, "Go on. How did he arrange the
marriage?"

"He killed again. I've found out from one of his friends
that Julia's father didn't care much for Drummond, and
wasn't happy to have the man courting his daughter. Rather than openly object to Drummond, he'd told them he didn't want her to marry until she turned twenty-one.
She's twenty-one now."

"You mean your enemy was afraid she'd still be single
when you came back to Richmond?"

"I believe so." Cyrus paused, frowning in thought.
"Here's where I may be able to gather some hard
evidence, given time. A little over two years ago, Richard
Brand made a series of bad business investments; so far, I haven't been able to find out who was advising him. If I can, I may be a step closer to identifying my enemy— because it was he. It had to be. In any case, Brand was up to his ears in debt when he and his wife went sailing
on the river and drowned. The police were never
satisfied as to the reason their boat went down."

"Another convenient accident," Rushton said.

"Exactly.
Julia found herself, at nineteen, grieving,
impoverished, and alone in the world except for a young
sister. Because of her father's insistence, she hadn't gone away to school and wasn't trained to do anything except
run a house. She had nowhere to turn. That's when Drummond stepped in. He was well off, handsome,
charming, and he'd been courting her for more than a year. He asked her to marry him. She said yes."

Rushton leaned forward to put his cigar out in a crystal
ashtray on Cyrus's desk, sending the younger man a very
direct look. "You told me he mistreated her."

"As I said, my enemy chose well for his purposes."
Cyrus met the steady gaze just as directly. "Julia's marriage didn't stop me from pursuing her, but the pain and terror she had suffered at Drummond's hands made an affair virtually impossible.
Or should have.
Except
that I fell in love with her, which made me very
determined, and by some miracle, despite her fear and
the torment Drummond had put her through, she was able to feel something for me in return. Not love, not
yet, but something."

The attorney sat back, his gaze still intent on Cyrus's face. "So, your enemy took another step to keep Julia
away from you. He somehow persuaded the Bradshaw girl to deliver a false message intended to place Julia in a compromising position and alert Drummond to the
danger you posed to his marriage."

"Yes. But the plan failed. I think that's important. He was beginning to lose his mastery over events. The plan should have driven another wedge between Julia and
me. Instead, it alerted me to the fact that someone
intended her harm. For the first time, I became aware of one of his actions."

"And he killed the Bradshaw girl because
... ?"

"Because he blamed her for the plan's failure.
And because I knew who had left the message. I would have
questioned her, and that would have led me to him."

"What about yesterday? You said Drummond came
home before he should have, and knew Julia was leaving
him?"

Cyrus nodded. "I don't know if my enemy planned all along to goad Drummond into trying to kill me, or if he
hoped the lunatic would kill Julia. I do believe he'd
realized he could no longer control Adrian, the man was
coming apart, and had been for weeks. I'd done my part
in pushing him, because I was trying to protect Julia and
discover who was behind him. Then, yesterday, I knew
I couldn't wait. I had to get Julia away from Adrian."

"I assume you're trying to trace Drummond's move
ments yesterday, find out who he talked to?"

"Yes, I have a Pinkerton man on that."

"All right," Rushton said slowly. "Now Julia's here,
under your roof, and you plan to marry her as soon as
possible. You believe your enemy's still too wary to
strike directly at you?
That he'll try to hurt Julia?"

"I'm sure of it. For now, at least, he doesn't want to
come after me. If he can take Julia away from me
before.
.."

"Before what?"
Rushton asked intently.

Cyrus half closed his eyes, struggling to grasp the
elusive snippet of knowledge. "I don't know." He
sounded frustrated.
Was frustrated.
"Julia being with
me, even marrying me, isn't the worst threat to him. There's something else. And he's running out of time.
The pattern is.
..
reweaving itself. He can't control it
any longer. I'm almost where I was meant to be now,
despite everything he's tried to do to change that,
because Julia's a part of my life, as she was intended to
be."

"So you'll be able to fight him, unless he manages
to—to alter the pattern by taking Julia away from you?"

"Yes. I can't tell you how I know, but I'm certain of it."

Gabriel Rushton was silent for a long time, his gaze
turned inward now as he brooded. Finally, his eyes
focused on Cyrus again, and his voice was matter-of-fact.
"I sure as hell wouldn't want to argue any of this to a jury.
But I believe it. All right, I'll tell you all I know about
Drummond's business affairs, if you think it might help."