A sudden thought struck her. She tucked it away to ponder later.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said firmly. Meg was worrying about her again, trying to be the adult. “It’s my job to support us. Are you going to be okay there with Emma?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s fine with me.” Emma was fond of her niece, no matter what she thought of Meg’s mother. Laura hoped that she could trust Emma to keep her jealousy in check around Meg. “Should I tell her I heard her last night and it’s okay and you aren’t going to marry Mark?”
“No. Absolutely not. Do not tell her you heard her. She’d be horrified.”
“Okay,” said Meg, more subdued. “So should I say anything about the piano?”
Laura had started to relax, but now she straightened. “The piano? What piano?”
“Your piano, Mom.”
“The piano in the music room?”
“Yeah,” said Meg. “I forgot to tell you. We had breakfast this morning before Mark left and Emma took me to school, and she told him she wants to donate the piano to her church. He said it’s okay with him since he’s going to buy you a new one anyway and to get a receipt for the estate.”
“What!” It was Laura’s turn to go ballistic. “That is my piano! Your father gave it to me!”
“Oh.” Meg’s voice grew tiny. “So I guess it’s a good thing I remembered to tell you, right?”
~•~
“May I remind you, Laura,” said Emma icily ten minutes later, “that this is no longer your house. The furniture does not belong to you.”
Laura returned ice for ice. “And may I remind you, Emma, that Cam specifically left personal items to me. That piano is a personal item. It was a gift from my husband.”
“It is not a personal item. It is a very inconvenient piece of furniture.”
“It is not a piece of furniture. It is a delicate stringed musical instrument.”
“It’s huge!” Emma’s voice rose. “And it’s taking up room right now in my house, and I want it out of here.”
“Don’t touch that piano, Emma.”
“Laura,” and Emma’s voice was suddenly steel wrapped in cashmere, “I understand from my brother that congratulations are in order. I don’t know what you have that my brothers seem to lose their common sense about you, but you have my heartiest good wishes.” For a swift trip to perdition, her tone implied. “In the meantime, I want that piano out of here. I’ve called my church to come get it Friday. They are in dire need of a concert grand, and this is a very fine one, isn’t it? I recall that it was the first luxury my brother bought after the IPO, but I am certain that he bought it for the house, not for you—”
“He gave it to me for my college graduation,” Laura said through clenched teeth. “Two months after the IPO. There’s a presentation plaque on the piano with my name and the date.”
“Your education being another gift from Cam, as I recall,” continued Emma in that same soft deadly voice. “Along with the demo tape that launched you on your way. You did quite well out of that marriage, didn’t you? Why my brothers fall for all that sweetness and light – it just proves that men think with the wrong head when it comes to a pretty girl with a good act.” Her voice sharpened. “Well, lacking the handicap of a penis, I see you for what you are. A grasping, conniving, deceitful, infertile little bitch who as good as killed my brother—”
“I did not!”
“We all know why he didn’t take that elevator!” Emma screamed at her. “He wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t run over to London for your birthday! Mark told me all about it, how that meeting was supposed to be on Monday afternoon and Cam rescheduled it to stay there with you because you took it into your head to run out on your contract! Cam died because of you, you and your family! And now you’ve managed to get your hooks into Mark—”
Laura took a deep breath and swallowed. “I want my piano.”
“You want the piano,” said Emma, “come get it. One way or the other, it’s out of here by Friday.”
And she slammed the phone down.
~•~
No matter how hard Laura breathed, her lungs didn’t seem to draw any air. She felt sick to her stomach. Emma’s words sliced through her like a rapier. Cam died because of you. She sat in the car and covered her face with her hands, the tower falling again and again, an autumnal apocalypse in her mind.
Emma had to hate her to say something that vicious, that brutal. She must, as Meg would say, hate her bad.
But her words were insane, the raving of a desperately angry woman. Mark’s call had kept Cam off that elevator, and no one had ever blamed him. How could he have known that those few minutes meant death? How could he have known of the silver dagger thrusting through the morning sky, aimed at the heart of the tower? He hadn’t known. No one had known.
And it had been Cam’s choice to stay over that extra day, attempting – she felt sick – to talk her out of her decision. I’m going home.
And Emma knew about Meg. Somehow – how? Had Mark told her, or Cam? – Emma knew.
What would she do with that knowledge? Tell Meg?
How could everything that she and Cam had so carefully constructed be falling apart? They’d agreed, from the very first, that the circumstances of Meg’s birth and near abandonment would remain known only to them. Cam had endured his father’s lecture on responsibility; she’d endured the glossing over of their wedding date and the finger-counting by the St. Brides’ friends. But for some reason, at some point, Cam had broken their covenant – more important to her than even their marriage vows. Infidelity she could forgive, but not his blabbing this precious secret to all and sundry. Why, why had he done it? Why had he told Mark? Why had he told anyone?
She had to talk to Mark. She had to know right now what he had said to Emma.
She lifted her cell phone, but the battery was low. The charger in her car was iffy at best, and she had groceries steadily defrosting in the trunk. Best to get back to Edwards Lake, calm down, think rationally, come up with some sort of plan.
Put that dreadful accusation out of her mind.
Twenty minutes later, Laura sat down at her computer and logged onto the St. Bride servers. Cam had equipped the corporate jet with satellite service so that he could spend his travel time connected to the home servers, using instant messaging so that everyone could virtually chat with him as if he were sitting in his office. Mark probably did the same thing. She tried all the messaging services on her account, and Mark didn’t show up on any of them.
Well, she certainly had plenty to say in an email, but that could wait. Laura picked up the satellite phone, the battery under recharge, and tried to remember what Cam had shown her about texting. He’d been a past master at it – she still had the brief text message from the north tower in her saved messages – but she had never bothered to learn. She finally found the right key combination and typed out: U there need 2 talk, then sent it to Mark’s satellite number.
It took a few minutes before Mark sent back: OK can it wait? Over Pacific.
No. U alone?
No.
Just as she’d thought. He probably had the corporate counsel with him, off to master the universe. Too bad he couldn’t master his own sister. E know about M?
?
Laura gritted her teeth. He couldn’t be that dense. E know M adopted?
NO.
Sure? U tell her?
NO. E say sumthng?
YES.
?
This was going to be difficult to condense into a few characters. Laura typed out: Argued E said infertile where she get that?
No one reading these inanities would ever know that she’d written poetry since she was a child, that critics had praised her lyrics as intelligent and educated, graceful and lovely. They’d never know that she had won the spelling bee in sixth grade. Cavemen had hammered out more literate messages on rocks.
E guess know nothing. She was trying to think of an answer when he added, E
in dark re Cam’s prob. Then, lips sealed.
Poss saw adopt papers in safe?
NO. E not know comb.
Laura relaxed. Maybe Emma had taken a shot in the dark. She’d struggled with infertility herself during her marriages, and she’d certainly known and sympathized about the miscarriages. Maybe she’d thought, as everyone else had, that Laura suffered from secondary infertility.
Or maybe she had wanted to tear Laura down for having the temerity to be Cam’s wife.
OK thnx.
No prob. Busy conf call. Call U later Tokyo.
OK bye.
One problem down. Mark’s announcement about their putative engagement and the checks he’d issued to Dominic could wait.
Meg was safe, at least for the time being. But Emma had taken the decision to bring Meg to Virginia right out of her hands. She couldn’t leave Meg down there any longer than necessary, not beyond the end of summer school. Another two weeks.
She’d deal with that later.
Right now, she had to deal with Cam’s gift to her. Ironic that she had to turn so quickly to the same group of people she’d spent the morning trying to escape, but only the SBFA employees knew how to access the files where Cam had kept every single receipt and check he had ever written. She didn’t know how he’d paid for the piano, but it was a sure bet that someone at SBFA would know.
Indeed, Cam’s admin knew exactly where to find the check and receipt and emailed digital copies within a few minutes. The check had a bonus; he had written Laura – grad gift in the memo section. Laura wrote the woman a quick thank-you and picked up her phone once more.
“Lucy,” she said when her sister greeted her, “I need a lawyer. Can you help me?”
~•~
“All right,” said Lucy. “This is fairly straightforward. It’s called conversion – that’s where one party takes another’s property and converts it for personal use. Emma is trying to convert your piano to her own use.”
“But she says it isn’t my property,” Laura said, and passed Tom the brownie from her deli box. “She says it’s a piece of household furniture and it belongs to the house.”
“Uh-uh.” Tom took a bite from the brownie. “Gift.”
“I think that’s right,” Lucy said. “This check – and you said there’s a presentation plaque actually attached to the piano, right? – clearly indicates it was a gift. I’m thinking this doesn’t even fall under the will. Texas law governs, so we’ll have to look that up, but usually gifts between spouses are separate property. This might not even fall into the community to go into the estate.”
For the first time since Meg had called, Laura felt herself relaxing. Lucy had greeted her with a hug and Tom had given her a friendly hello; maybe the disagreement over her crush on Richard – an eon ago – had blown over. She felt more secure, sitting here in the Maitlands’ conference room, trading sandwiches and desserts with her sister and brother-in-law. They were family. They were on her side.
They weren’t going to accuse her of killing her husband.
“What can I do?” Laura said. “Mark is the executor of the estate, and he is on a plane right now to Tokyo, and he’s the only one who can tell her no. Apparently he wants to buy me a piano himself, so I don’t think it’s enough just to tell him to make Emma stop this.”
Lucy paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Why does he want to buy you a piano? Your husband got you a fabulous piano. I wish I had a piano like this.”
“What a price tag,” said Tom, looking at the receipt again in some awe. “Do concert grands really cost that much? What’s it made out of? Gold?”
“East African rosewood,” Laura told him. “I think Mark wants to get rid of it and buy me a new one because he wants to replace anything Cam gave me.” She hesitated. “Mark wants to marry me. That’s what provoked this whole thing. He told Emma he and I were getting engaged on my birthday and she was going to have to move out of the house.”
Silence. Two pairs of fascinated eyes stared at her. Lucy finally said, “You didn’t tell me he wants to marry you.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t tell you because it isn’t happening.”
Tom was paging through Cam’s will. “He’s your trustee, isn’t he?” He must have sped-read through the fifty-page will to see such fine detail in the few minutes he’d been looking at it. “That have anything to do with your impending nuptials?”
“They’re not impending,” said Laura flatly. “This is all in Mark’s head. And yes, it’s the trust. Meg and I inherited most of the estate. He and Emma each got one-ninth. That’s definitely a factor in his sudden devotion to me.”
“This will is not out of the ordinary. Actually, it’s generous for siblings.” Tom was still looking through it. “Most men leave their entire estates to their wives and children. I have sisters and brothers too, but I’m sure not leaving them anything. It all goes to Lucy.”
Lucy beamed at him. “And I will bask in the sun and drink piña coladas in your memory. So Mark wants your trust?”
“If I marry him, my trust breaks, plus he’ll still control Meg’s trust. Oh, yes, if we got married, he’d also control all of Cat Courtney, not just half. That’s valuable just by itself. I think Mark may be fond of me, but – he’s fonder of the dollar signs.”
They were both looking at her as if she had blossomed into some wild, exotic flower. Maybe, for the first time, the difference in their economic circumstances was becoming real to them. Up to now, they hadn’t had to confront the money behind Cat Courtney and the heiress to Cameron St. Bride’s fortune; they’d seen plain Laura Abbott, Lucy’s little sister, who did not dress like a multimillionaire and who bought her own groceries and did her own cooking. Even the Jaguar hadn’t really impinged on their consciousness; other people drove luxury cars without bank accounts beyond their wildest dreams. But now they heard words like trust and estate and saw Cam’s War and Peace of a will, and they saw a receipt for a $100,000 graduation gift, and they were beginning to understand.
You did quite well out of that marriage, didn’t you?
She wondered sickly if Richard had grasped the economic reality yet. Since you’re as rich as Croesus, I’ll raise my fee accordingly. Might this, like Diana, be an obstacle so great that conquering it would seem unimaginable?
Lucy looked across the table at Tom. “Ask.”
“No,” he returned. “She’s your sister. You ask.”
Oh, no, she knew what they were thinking. Lucy looked at her expectantly. “Oh, Lucy, you don’t really want to know, do you?”
“You bet,” said Tom, and winked at her. “We’ll ask you to adopt us. Or a yacht for Christmas would be a nice token of your affection.”
Laura couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t have a yacht. I’ve never even been on a yacht.”
“We’ll let you sail on ours.”
“And you don’t get the family discount like Richard does,” added Lucy. “Well, I’m not going to pretend that I am not wildly, vulgarly curious, so if you feel the need to unburden yourself—”
She was reluctant to say the words. She didn’t want to lose this warmth and camaraderie or want them to think, as they paid bills every month, of the difference between them. They might find it too easy, if things ever got tough, to resent her. Even knowing that she was there as a safety net might throw barriers up between them. She’d spent too much time resenting the need to be grateful to Cam to want it between her and her sister.
Tom rescued her. “Don’t mind our nonsense, Laura. I’ve a pretty good idea from the Journal article a few months ago. Just tell me this. Is the operative number a one or a two?”
She held up three fingers.
Tom whistled, and then she felt Lucy rubbing her shoulder. Tom said briskly, “You can throw in an island with that yacht. Don’t worry about it, Laura. We’re not going to hit you up for money, and we still expect you to help with the dishes. Now I’m going to ask you bluntly, given all that, is it worth it to you
to go after this piano? Not that I’m advising you to turn tail on this, but you can walk into any music store and buy another one and save yourself your sister-in-law’s nastiness.”
“Not just any music store,” said Lucy. “You don’t pick up a piano like this at the mall. But that’s not it, is it? You want it because Cam gave it to you.”
Laura looked at her gratefully. “Yes. It’s really special to me.”
“Then that’s all that matters,” said Tom. His decisive tone told her again that they were on her side. She wasn’t up against the St. Brides by herself. “Lucy, check the Texas law on LEXIS and then draft a letter to Mark St. Bride. Since he’s out of the country, send it by email as well as FedEx. Copy this charmer Emma on it. The first thing is to prevent the piano from being removed from the home.”
“That’s of paramount importance,” Laura said. “No one seems to understand – this is a musical instrument. I don’t want someone who doesn’t know how trying to move it.”
“Actually,” Tom said, “that brings up another point. From what you said, this woman left the door open for you to take the piano this week. If you don’t, she might – just might – argue that you’ve abandoned it so we need to act fast. Now it says here plainly that you get all the personal effects in the house. Is there anything else of a personal nature that you’ve left?”
Laura tried to remember. “Except for the stuff in Meg’s room, nothing else I really care about. I had most of it shipped to me in London last fall when I found out we couldn’t stay there.”
Lucy sounded like an indignant older sister. “This guy kicks you out and then turns around and wants to marry you for your money? What a jerk.”
“Lucy,” said Tom. “That’s not the issue. Laura, you need to get anything else you want out now. What about books, paintings, photographs, collectibles? Things you used as a family?”
Laura shook her head. “No. I’ve got all that. I left the big stuff in storage. I didn’t want to ship it all over to London because I wasn’t going to stay there permanently.”
All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) Page 4
