“Meggie . . .”
There was hurt, and longing, and desire in his voice, and finally I heard what he wasn’t saying. And I tried, clumsily, to answer. “Not to mention,” I said briskly, “that I’ve kind of missed you, and I’m hoping you’ve missed me too, even if it’s only been a couple days.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. Then, in a low voice, “Look, I’m not going to let you use me for whatever it is you’re using me for. I’m done with you calling me when you want something and never any other time.”
“Are you saying I’m selfish?”
He took his time answering. Finally, grudgingly, he said, “I don’t think you’re selfish. Not most of the time. Just with me.”
“You told me last year I should assert myself more often, demand what I wanted, not pay so much attention to what everyone else wanted.”
“That referred to people who were exploiting your good nature. Not me.”
“Oh. So what am I supposed to do with you?”
“Be honest. If you want me to give you some advice you will promptly ignore, let’s do it over the phone and get it over with. If you want to go to dinner, hold hands, share some champagne, laugh a little, and then discuss whatever it is you think is so important, I’ll come get you.”
It sounded good. Too good. He was so tempting . . . and I was so temptable. I surrendered, almost. “But you know, I haven’t been completely selfish. I brought you those brownies. And you haven’t even mentioned them.”
“Was that what was in the plastic pan?”
Oh, no. The squirrels must have pried off the Tupperware lid and eaten it all. I shouldn’t have put walnuts in. “Yes. Brownies. You didn’t get any?”
“Never saw it. Beth came home with five friends. They were like a horde of locusts. Even the freezer’s empty. I guess she didn’t want to tell me they’d eaten the brownies, so she washed the pan and left it on the counter. I was wondering where it came from.”
Thank God I hadn’t put in a mushy note. “Oh, gee, and here I’d added that aphrodisiac powder.”
There was a moment’s silence. “The father in me hopes you’re just joking.”
“What about the man in you?”
“The man in me thinks you owe me a pan of brownies. And this time, bring them in person, and stay to share, all right?”
“I’ll consider it.” Flirting. Was that what I was doing? Maybe I was a bit rusty, but it felt good, it felt light, it felt like a way back to him. “But dinner first. There’s just one problem. I’m at Wanda’s house—long story. Don’t ask why. But I’ve got Tommy on his way back in about an hour, and I’ll have to run him home before you pick me up.” Then I caught myself. I had to do better than that. If Mike was going to matter to me, I couldn’t relegate him and Tommy to entirely separate spheres.
Even then, cautions assailed me. What if Tommy was awful, what if Mike didn’t like him, what if they were both terrific and liked each other and then we broke up—gamble, I told myself. And I added, “Or maybe I can leave my car here. Would you mind picking us up here and dropping him off at my house, and we can go somewhere in East Bank?”
For a moment there was no reply. Then he said, “Okay. In an hour.”
I gave him directions to Wanda’s house, marveling to myself at the anomalies therein: my new man collecting me at my ex’s widow’s home. It was certainly a brave new world that I was joining.
Then, with a song in my heart, and it wasn’t lovesick blues, thank you very much, Janis, I got back to work.
This time I tackled something I could read as easily as a Dave Barry column—the company account registers. Credits and debits. Receivables and payables. Deposits and withdrawals. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew I’d recognize it when I found it.
First the check register. I started with the month Don had invested in Murdoch’s fertilizer project and worked backwards. That check, written on the sixth, was easy to find—the two hundred thousand dollar amount was highlighted in blue and underlined, like a hyperlink on a website. I clicked, and the image of the check appeared, the laconic memo loan per agreement typed at the bottom. The cause of all the trouble, I thought, copying and pasting it into my file. On a hunch, I found the notation for 8/4—August fourth, two days earlier—and clicked on the amount of three thousand dollars. There was the check to Don’s corporate attorney, and the note for Murdoch agreement in the memo space. A lot of money to pay for a simple loan agreement, but then, this wasn’t simple, as it would involve some pretty little tricks to allow Don to call it in without notice, and to foreclose without recourse.
I flipped up a month, unsure of what I was looking for—an earlier investment in Murdoch, perhaps? When I saw the hundred thousand dollar check, I clicked on it, hoping to see his name. Instead it was made payable to Sylva Foundation. The memo made this even more confusing: R-M final.
R-M was Ross-Munssen, of course. Final? I supposed this could be the final payout of some pledge Ross-Munssen had made to a charitable foundation, but as comptroller, I would have known about any pledge of that size. Or maybe not, I reminded myself. There was a lot I didn’t know about. I’d have to check out this Sylva Foundation later.
That name rang a bell, or at least pinged a chime. I stared at it, and then the date. July 22rd. So right before he paid out that big amount to Murdoch, Don was donating another big sum to an unknown foundation.
It just didn’t make any sense. Don had always done his part for charity, but never like this. And to give that much to a single private foundation, with no press releases, no publicity—that wasn’t the way businesses did business.
On a hunch, I clicked on the View menu and then on the option Back. What a nice little imaging program this was. The check front disappeared and the back image appeared. I glanced at the hand-written endorsement, and then looked again, and then, my hand trembling on the mouse, I zoomed in for a closer view.
Sylva Foundation was penned in Brad’s elegant hand. In the broad feathery ink of a fountain pen.
I’d seen him sign a hundred documents; I’d read a thousand of his handwritten memos. I knew his writing almost as well as I knew Don’s.
It didn’t mean anything. Brad was a philanthropist. He could have a private foundation. And I remembered, dimly, where I’d heard that name Sylva before—there at the Cellar, when we met for drinks, and he told me about his sister Sylva, who had drowned when they were children.
Clicking back to the desktop, I brought up a calendar program and started building a timeline, filling in all the dates of relevance from the sale of the company, to our divorce, to Don’s investment, to the foreclosure on Murdoch’s property.
And then, reluctant, afraid of my own suppositions, I reached into my purse and pulled out the silver box. There it was, creased, the slick reduction of the survey. I slid it into the all-purpose printer and hit “scan,” and once the transfer was made, I pulled the page out and jammed it back into my purse. I sat back down and watched as slowly the image unfolded full-size on my screen.
I’d assumed this was the survey Murdoch and Don had done before the land sale. But I scrolled down to the date stamped at the bottom. July 20. And beside that, in tiny print, “Proposed.” I zoomed closer to see the jagged line near the bank of the river, on the very eastern edge of the land.
A flood-plain survey. I’d seen them before. I’d actually seen one very like this in the paper, the one that declared my own neighborhood on the opposite bank out of the floodway. But that survey had been published in September.
I stared at the screen and calculated. This survey was dated six weeks before the newspaper had published the new flood zone definition.
And two weeks before Don had bought land from Murdoch, at a floodplain price.
Thunder rolled ominously across the roof and then broke, a clap that shook the h
ouse and made the lights blink. The computer’s surge protector did its job, but quickly I saved what I had done in case the power went out entirely. A drum roll of rain started up. Another storm. More flooding ahead.
Hmm. I went back online and checked the local newspaper’s website for its annual wrap-up issue and added to my timeline the wider-world dates that might apply: the big New Year’s flood eighteen months ago, the city election and the mayor’s appointment of the new cabinet, including his new environmental advisor, the late summer announcement of the re-drawing of the flood zone.
My cursor blinked on and off, on and off, there beside those last two items.
Somewhere far away, I heard a car drive up, the tires skidding on the wet pavement. Tommy? Or maybe Mike was here early, I thought. Good. I could show him my timeline and ask if, in his professional opinion, I was crazy. This didn’t make much sense, did it? Or maybe it made too much sense. One way or another, I could count on Mike to let me know what he thought.
Getting up from the desk, I stretched the kinks out of my back and ran my fingers through my hair to fluff up some of the waves wilted by the humidity. No use. Better that Mike see me in my natural state, anyway, and get used to it.
My sandals clicked along the parquet floor of the hallway, a rhythm to my alternately grim and eager thoughts. I had to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong. And maybe Mike would tell me I was wrong, and this time I’d accept it.
Then, just as I reached the entry, the deadbolt turned. Not Tommy. Not Mike. They didn’t have keys. I fell back a step as the door opened slowly.
Not Wanda.
Brad.
His slim, elegant figure was outlined against the crystalline lashing rain—the streetlamps had come on early in the gathering darkness of the storm.
He stepped into the light, drawing his umbrella in, turning to shake it out over the porch. This prosaic move looked paradoxically eerie with the yellowish aura of the storm behind him. But he turned back to me with the old, affectionate smile, with just a little anxiety attached.
“Meggie, I’m glad I caught you. I tried to call, but didn’t get through. When I checked in with the mayor’s office, the chief was monitoring. Said lightning took down some of the cell towers. I just got a disconnect announcement when I called your phone.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him. I made a big show of pulling my phone out of my pocket, and he was telling the truth. The display read: No Signal. “How did you know I was here?”
“Wanda said you were working here. We got worried because I thought you might not have heard the news. She gave me a key, so I thought I’d drop by.”
He had guessed what I was doing. Or Wanda had told him.
All the training I’d had in community theater finally paid off. Some Oscar-caliber acting ability showed up right on cue, and I asked casually, curiously, “What news?”
“After Murdoch was released a couple hours ago, I started to think about what he’d do if he couldn’t find Will, and realized he might go after you. So come on. Let’s get out of here.”
A dozen questions shoved through my mind, chief among them was how would Murdoch know I was here, but I couldn’t ask them. All I could do was play dumb. “Uh, but I’m right in the middle of something.”
“It can wait. What’s important is getting you out of here safely.”
Not a chance. Wanda’s house suddenly seemed like a refuge. I wasn’t about to leave, certainly not with Brad. Maybe I could stall until he left. Or until someone came to get me out of here.
Then I caught sight of the grandfather clock ticking away in the corner. Tommy’s movie was over, and Jamie’s mom would be dropping him off any minute, and Mike might arrive right after that. And they’d be in danger too. I had to try to get him to leave, get him somewhere in the open.
“You’re right. I’m being dumb.” I managed a smile. “All this has me spooked, Murdoch and Will, and there’s another storm, just like the storm the night Will got into the accident. I’d rather not drive in this mess. Maybe you could drop me at my place.”
Brad looked at my empty hands. “Don’t you have a bag?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll just run and get it.”
I didn’t run—if I started, I’d panic—but I walked briskly back to the office, all too aware that Brad was right behind me. That’s okay, I told myself. The farther he is from the door, the farther he would be from Tommy. And maybe I could get him out of there before Tommy arrived.
In the office, I had to search for my bag amidst the boxes of files, my ears straining all along for any sound of a car approaching. When my hand closed on the strap, I rose and said, “Let’s go.”
But Brad wasn’t listening. He’d taken my seat at the desk and was staring at the screen. Oh, God, I thought, he’ll understand and know. I better run.
Then he clicked on an icon and the computer directory came up, and before I knew what was happening, he’d highlighted the entire list of files. All my painstaking work, everything I’d collected and copied. He was going to delete them.
There was only one thing I knew to do. I kicked a box and threw myself forward towards the side of the desk, cursing as if I’d tripped, and with one hand I chopped at the power cord, pulling the plug out of the socket. Then I rose, rubbing at the all-too-real pain in my knee. “Goddamnit,” I muttered. “All these boxes. It’s like an obstacle course.”
“Too late, Meggie.” His voice was just as warm, just as casual. But a chill shivered through me. He added, “It’s deleted. The entire directory.”
My breath caught somewhere in my throat. It was okay, I told myself. There were recovery programs. Nothing is ever lost on a simple delete.
Brad added, “I know what you’re thinking. The information is still out there somewhere—backups, paper. But you’re the only one who’s put it together. No one else will even know what to look for. No one else will even look.”
It all came clear to me then, in a flash like the lightning that kept illuminating the darkness outside. “Except Murdoch. And his lawyer. All those discovery documents, the stuff already transferred and the bank records under subpoena. You can’t delete that, can you? All you can do is force an end to the lawsuit.”
“A settlement. Or a dismissal. That’s all I need.” He seemed content to sit there in front of the black screen, regarding me with that benign, quizzical expression. He was in no real hurry, probably because of the gun he’d just drawn out of his Burberry pocket, making the theoretical threat entirely concrete.
“But Brad, look, you can’t think you’ll get away with it.” I couldn’t really believe what I said next, and the anxiety made my voice waver. “You can’t shoot me. The neighbors will hear the gunshot.”
“The nearest neighbor is hundreds of yards away. And there’s a storm. Whatever they hear, they’ll assume is thunder.”
Defiantly, I added, “They’ll find me and know something is up.”
“They’ll think it was Murdoch. He was released an hour ago. I had to wait until then. And they won’t find the . . . you near here. It’ll be days before anyone finds you.”
“But Brad—” I couldn’t stop saying that. Couldn’t stop assuming that if he could just hear reason, he’d let me go.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Meggie. There’s too much at stake for me. Now give me your bag.”
“What?”
“Wanda just told me all about it. How you thought she’d killed Don. How you yanked out a pen from your purse and brandished it at her. She and I shared a laugh about that one. But it won’t do to have even that trite a clue left lying about.”
I remembered the baggie with the pen, not to mention the survey page in my purse. He would trash those, and no one would ever think to reconstruct the crime. No one would care. And suddenly I didn’t care either. I just knew I had to get him o
ut of here, out of the house before Tommy arrived. “Okay. I’ll give it to you. But let’s get out of here.”
“Why?”
“Well, aren’t you worried about Wanda arriving back here?”
“No. I set up a dinner between her and Mrs. Lukens. And I said I’d meet her afterwards at that bed and breakfast south of Lincoln. She’s not coming home. Now give me the bag, Meggie.”
He said my name in that same old way, fond and gentle, and something twisted in me. “Brad, it’s Tommy. He’s going to be dropped off here after the movie. I don’t want him walking in on—” on a bloodbath, my mind finished. “On this,” my voice concluded.
Brad rose. “I see. Just as well. If you’ll come with me willingly, I can take you out into the country, back into the woods, and I won’t have to deal with the mess.”
The mess. Yes, Brad didn’t like messes. A hysterical laugh bubbled up in me, and I bit it off brutally. “Where do you want to go? Just tell me, as long as it’s outside and away from the front.”
“I parked my car in the next driveway. Wanda said the owners are in Michigan this week, so we won’t be disturbed.”
“Okay. So we go out the back,” I told him, walking back out into the hall, still clutching my bag to my chest. I expected to feel a bullet in my back at any moment—but this was Brad. He didn’t like a mess. He wouldn’t kill me here on Wanda’s polished parquet floor, but somewhere the blood wouldn’t show. I saw with relief he was following me. “And we walk through the yard over to the next house. No one will see us from the road. Tommy won’t see us.”
“Don’t run, Meggie. I’m warning you. If you care about Tommy, you’ll do what I say.”
“I will. I promise,” I said in that stupidly soothing voice, as if he were a petulant toddler in need of a nap. “I’m not going anywhere but out the back door.”
I was fumbling with the latch on the rain-spotted French doors when the front doorbell rang—a tinny shriek in the midst of the storm noise. “Hurry,” I said, and pushed the French door open. The rain and wind blew in, and I started to step out—and heard Tommy’s voice in the foyer behind me.
Until Death Page 33
