by Lisa Jackson
Ashley didn’t hear Claud open the door. She was so wrapped up in her own morbid thoughts that Claud had advanced upon the desk before she realized he was in the room.
He slapped a magazine down on the polished walnut desk. The glossy periodical was open to the current events section. Accompanying a short article on politics in Oregon was a snapshot of Trevor. Ashley’s heart nearly skipped a beat as she looked at Trevor’s intense expression and the glitter of determination in his eyes, The bold letters of the headline were a question: TREVOR DANIELS, OREGON’S NEXT SENATOR?
“We’ve got to stop this before it turns into popular opinion,” Claud stated. One of his short fingers poked at the snapshot of Trevor.
“Stop what?”
“Daniels, for God’s sake.” Claud dropped into a chair near the desk. His dark eyes were clouded in disgust. “Read the article. The reporter acts as if Daniels is a shoo-in in the primary!”
“The latest polls show that—”
“The hell with the polls. It’s the election that counts.”
“And you’re afraid that Trevor will win.”
Claud let out an angry gust of air. “Damn right. If he does, we may as well close down.”
Ashley’s arched brows pulled together as she studied her cousin. Her heart was pounding warily in her chest. “Why?”
“He’s out to crucify us.”
“By us, do you mean you and me, or the company?”
“Same thing.”
Ashley gathered her courage and met her cousin’s furious glare. “Why does Trevor Daniels threaten you?”
Claud looked at her as if she were insane. “You still don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?”
“The man’s sworn that he’ll get us one way or the other. He still blames your father and the timber company for the fact that his old man ran off with another woman—or whatever. Not only that, he thinks that someone here was involved in the bribery charges leveled against him last summer.”
Ashley held her breath, watching, waiting, while Claud confided in her. Claud paused, rose from the chair and, after ramming his hands into his pockets, walked over to the window.
“Were we?” she asked softly.
Claud braced himself on the window ledge and smiled cynically. “Of course not, Ash! What would be the point?”
“To discredit a political adversary—”
“Bah!”
“You just stated that we had to do something about him.”
“We do.” Claud’s fingers drummed nervously on the window sill. “But something legal.”
“Such as?” Ashley held her chin in her hand and her wide sea-green eyes noted all of Claud’s aggravated movements.
“Back the other candidate.”
“Orson?”
“Right. Bill Orson is Trevor’s biggest competition in the primary. He was also pretty tight with your dad. He’s the logical choice.” Claud frowned thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure—”
“Look, Ashley, we’re running out of time. Daniels is beginning to get a lot of press.” He pointed a condemning finger toward the magazine. “National publicity. We’ve got to do what we can to protect our interests.”
“Don’t you think you’re jumping off the deep end?” Ashley asked. “We’re only talking about the primary and it’s still several months away. Even if Trevor wins in May, he’ll still face the other party’s candidate in November.”
“If he gets the chance.”
“Which you want to thwart.”
Claud pulled at the edge of his mustache. “That’s putting it a little bluntly, but sure, let’s call a spade a spade. If Daniels somehow managed to get himself elected, it would be a disaster!”
“His own family is in the logging business,” Ashley replied. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
A cruel smile touched Claud’s thin lips. “What I think is that you’re still carrying a torch for that bastard! God, Ashley, when will you ever grow up? He used you!”
Ashley crossed her arms over her chest. “And I think you’re boxing with shadows.”
Claud laughed out loud. “You still think you have a chance with him, don’t you?” Ashley had to bite back the hot retort forming on her tongue. Angering Claud any further wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Well, I’m inclined to agree. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Trevor came sniffing around you, at least until after the election. That way he could stop the opposition before it began. All the easier for him.”
Ashley swallowed back her indignation. “If you think you can get me to go along with whatever it is you want by insulting me, Claud, you’re wrong.”
Claud shrugged his bulky shoulders. “I wouldn’t want to do that, cousin dear. After all, you’re my boss.”
“And that still sticks in your craw.”
“A little.” Claud frowned to himself. “But what concerns me more is the upcoming primary. You may as well reconcile yourself to the fact that we’ve got to do all we can to stop Daniels before all hell breaks loose.”
With his final words, Claud walked past the desk, took one last look at the magazine article and left the office.
“You’re wrong,” Ashley whispered as the door closed behind her cousin, but his accusations had hit their mark. Had Trevor pretended interest in her just to get what he wanted from her?
The long nights of lovemaking came to her mind and Ashley remembered the honesty in Trevor’s clear blue eyes. “If anyone’s being deceptive,” she thought aloud, “I’m willing to bet it’s you, dear cousin,” she mimicked. “And I’m not about to back a bastard like Bill Orson!”
Finding new resolve, she reached for the phone, intent on calling John Ellis. The sooner she found answers to Trevor’s questions, the better.
Chapter Nine
“That’s it,” John announced, his weary voice filled with relief.
“You’re sure?” Ashley couldn’t believe that the task that had seemed so monumental a few weeks ago was now finished.
“There’s nothing else.” John’s expression was one of certainty. Other than the incriminating invoices and memo from Lazarus, John had found nothing to substantiate Trevor’s accusations against Stephens Timber.
Ashley should have been jubilant, but she wasn’t. “You’ve checked through everything?” Her fingers tapped nervously against her chin as she sat in the chair facing the desk. John was sitting behind mounds of computer printouts, each carefully labeled and banded together on the top of Lazarus’s desk in the den of the stately old manor.
“I’ve gone over every piece of paper you’ve brought me.” John leaned back in the chair and propped his boots on the desk in a gesture of satisfaction. He stretched and even from where she was sitting, Ashley could hear his vertebrae crack. How many hours had the poor accountant sat at her father’s desk, poring over black-and-white figures?
Ashley tried to accept John’s audit as final, but during the last couple of weeks with Claud at the office, she had begun to doubt her earlier convictions about her family’s innocence. Working with Claud on a daily basis had forced her to face up to the fact that the man had no sense of moral responsibility. Dollars and cents were his only motivation.
Abruptly she got out of her chair and paced anxiously between the desk and the window. The city lights of Portland winked seductively in the clear, black night.
“I thought you would be relieved,” John remarked.
“I am—sort of.”
“But?”
“These reports are all recent—all in the last six months.”
“What’re you getting at?”
She stopped near the window and stared at the cloudless night. “I want to clear the family name once and for all. There are a couple of things I want to check out, but it will have to be done at the office. If I take home the reports I need, Claud will become suspicious.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re old. Some of the documents won’t e
ven be on the computer,” she thought aloud, her eyes piercing the blackness of the still night.
“What will you be looking for?”
Ashley smiled cryptically and faced him. “I don’t know. I won’t until I see it. But I want to check the records about the time of the Springfield spraying.” She saw the look of protest in the accountant’s eyes and she continued. “I want to see the books from day one—when Dad started the company—”
“Because of Robert Daniels’s disappearance?”
Ashley let out a long sigh. “Right.”
“I don’t think you’ll find anything,” John offered, hoping to give some comfort to her worried mind.
“Let’s just pray that you’re right.”
Later, after John had left for home, Ashley sat in her father’s desk chair, worrying about the future. Several times she considered calling Trevor and once she had even gone so far as to reach for the phone. But she hadn’t. Her pride forbade it. She sighed and let her hand fall to her side.
Ashley felt that she couldn’t go to Trevor until she was certain of all the facts. The small piece of evidence against Claud and Lazarus would only add fuel to Trevor’s inquisitive nature and Ashley wanted to be prepared with all the answers to his accusations before she saw him again.
If she saw him again. The argument between them was still unresolved and Ashley doubted if there would ever be a time when they could feel the freedom and love they had shared while alone in the mountains. It was all just a lie, she tried to convince herself, but the memory of Trevor’s intense blue eyes, filled with honesty and raw passion, still touched a very vital part of her. She found herself hoping that he still cared, if only a little.
For the last two weeks, each time she had picked up a newspaper, Trevor’s face had been plastered all over it. Claud was no longer worried about Trevor’s bid for the Senate, he was downright furious that the polls showed Trevor Daniels leading the race.
Just the previous week Ashley had walked into Claud’s office and overheard the tail end of a telephone conversation.
“I don’t care what we have to do,” Claud had stated emphatically, his lips white with rage, just as Ashley had walked into the room, “we can’t let that son of a bitch win!”
Ashley had known instinctively that Claud was referring to Trevor, but she pretended that she hadn’t understood the conversation.
Claud had glanced in her direction, paled slightly and then changed the course of the discussion, as if he were talking to an advertising executive about a future ad campaign.
Ashley’s step faltered slightly and her heart filled with dread, but she didn’t call Claud on the lie, knowing that it would be better for everyone concerned if Claud didn’t think she was suspicious of him.
At that point, she had become convinced that Trevor’s accusations about her family weren’t completely idle speculation on his part. The look of pure hatred and ruthlessness that had crossed Claud’s face while he was on the phone had been blood-chilling.
Just a few more weeks, she had thought to herself. Just until John and I have all the evidence available. Then, when I know what really happened in the past, I’ll confront Claud and give him his walking papers. No matter how valuable he was to the timber company, Ashley knew that Claud was power-hungry and dangerous. Just like her father.
* * *
In the days that followed, John had returned to the office and when Claud would go out for an afternoon, John and Ashley would go over the old records of the timber company. There never seemed to be enough time to sort through all the handwritten documents, but at least Ashley felt certain that Claud wasn’t suspicious, not yet anyway.
Ashley’s industrious work at the office seemed to convince Claud that she was interested only in the timber company. If he had any earlier thoughts about her relationship with Trevor, he didn’t voice them.
Even though she ached to see Trevor, she had made a point of avoiding him for two reasons. The first was that she couldn’t face him without being certain of the facts. The argument with him still cut her to the bone and she knew that she could never confront him until she had uncovered all of the truth and had solid facts to present to him.
The other reason was Claud. If anyone saw Ashley with Trevor, or overheard a telephone conversation between them and reported it to Claud, the results would be disastrous. For, as each day passed, Ashley was beginning to believe that Claud might have been involved in the planning of Trevor’s accident. But she didn’t have any proof. Not yet. She was working on gut instinct alone and that wouldn’t hold up in court, which was exactly where she supposed her snaky cousin would wind up facing criminal charges.
* * *
Claud had business in Seattle. For the first time since Ashley had returned from the mountain cabin and her tryst with Trevor, Claud had been called out of town. Ashley, as president of the timber company, insisted that he go; the matter in Seattle was pressing and Claud’s legal expertise was desperately needed. Or at least she managed to convince Claud that his business acumen was without compare. Though his ego was stroked, he boarded the plane to Seattle reluctantly, casting Ashley a final glance that made her shiver with inward dread.
Once back in the office, she forgot Claud’s cruel, cautionary stare. For the first time in several weeks, Ashley felt free. There were things she had to accomplish, one of which was to contact Trevor. Her heart raced at the thought and she wondered what kind of a reception she would receive.
He didn’t answer when she tried contacting him at home, and when she called his campaign headquarters an efficient but cold voice told her that Mr. Daniels would get back to her. Ashley waited impatiently all afternoon, busying herself in the office, studying the old ledgers for the company, but Trevor didn’t return her call.
At seven o’clock, she went home, helpless to shake the uneasiness beginning to settle on her shoulders. She told herself that he was busy, and for him not to call her wasn’t out of the ordinary. Maybe he wanted to wait until he was sure that she was alone. Perhaps he would call tonight.
Frustrated from waiting, Ashley changed her clothes and tried, once again, to reach Trevor at home. There was still no answer and her nerves were frayed as she tried the campaign headquarters. The phone was answered by a recording machine, which played a message about the hours of business.
Ashley slammed the receiver back into the cradle and stalked downstairs. Was Trevor purposely avoiding her? It wasn’t unlikely considering the circumstances, except that he had been so damned interested in the records of the timber company. Maybe that was because his accident had been so recent, and now, nearly six weeks later, his attention was focused on the future rather than the past.
A past which included Ashley, and a future which couldn’t.
As outspoken as he had been against the Stephens Timber Corporation, Trevor couldn’t risk a clandestine relationship with Ashley even if he wanted to, which Ashley seriously doubted.
“Hard day at the office?” Mrs. Deveraux asked when Ashley finally went downstairs and into the kitchen. The housekeeper had prepared Ashley her favorite dinner of pot roast and potatoes. The table was set for one.
“A little rough,” Ashley admitted.
The lady with the perfectly coiled white hair pursed her thin lips together thoughtfully as she placed the steaming serving bowls onto the table. “You don’t have to go around killing yourself, you know.”
“Pardon me?” Ashley was taken aback. Mrs. Deveraux had never made personal comments to her, not since she had moved out of the house at eighteen.
“Just because your father left you the company, doesn’t mean that you have to run it.”
“But I enjoy it—”
“Bah! It doesn’t take a genius to see that you’re miserable. How much weight have you lost since you moved back here?”
“Only about five pounds.” Ashley set a platter of beef onto the table.
“And on my cooking!”
“I haven’t been pa
rticularly hungry,” Ashley said with a shrug.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, no appetite, I guess.”
“Hmph! It’s the timber company,” Mrs. Deveraux pointed out. “It killed your father and it’s doing the same with you. Either that, or you’re pining for some man you left back at the college.”
Ashley felt an uncomfortable lump form in her throat. Because Mrs. Deveraux was the only mother Ashley had known since she was in her early teens, the kindly old woman had a way of making Ashley feel like a contrite child. “I wasn’t seeing anyone there.”
“Well, sit . . . sit.” Francine pointed a plump finger toward the table.
“You’re not eating?”
A twinkle lighted the elderly woman’s blue eyes. “Not tonight. I’m going out.”
“With George again?” Ashley accused and clucked her tongue. “Another hot date? My, my, this is getting serious.”
Mrs. Deveraux chuckled but the smile curving her lips at the mention of her beau quickly faded. “You should be the one going out. You’re young and single.”
“Divorced.”
“Makes no difference. So am I.”
Ashley forced a grin she didn’t feel. “When I find the right man—”
“Well, you certainly won’t find him here.” The doorbell chimed and Francine Deveraux smiled. “ You’re too young and pretty to be losing weight over that damned company. Sell it to your cousin, he would like to own it. Then you’ll be a wealthy lady without all these worries.”
“And afterward what would I do?”
“Marry a duke, an earl. . . .”
A senator, Ashley thought wistfully to herself.
