by SUE FINEMAN
A grin split Nick’s face. “It worked, didn’t it?”
She leaned close and whispered, “Is it true about Italians? Do you have—”
He chuckled softly. “You wanta check it out?”
Cara felt her face burn and pushed him toward the door. “Get out of here, Nick.” She glanced around the room. “Gerry, Mr. Pettibone, I’d like to speak with Sally alone.”
Gerry’s eyebrows knit. “Are you sure, Cara?”
She nodded and closed the door behind them. Cara took a deep breath and turned to face Sally.
“I’d like to speak with my aunt and uncle.”
“They’re gone,” said Cara. “I fired them this afternoon. I should have done it years ago.” Cara sat in the chair beside Sally and poured two glasses of iced tea. “I was only thirteen when my mother left. From the day your aunt and uncle arrived, they let me know how much they resented me. I never understood why.”
Sally took her glass and sipped. “I think it’s your money.”
“That’s no excuse for treating a kid with contempt.”
They sat in companionable silence for several seconds, sipping their iced tea, before Cara spoke again. “I need your help, Sally. I want to end my marriage without rewarding my husband for his treachery. Will you help me?”
“He’ll kill us both.”
“I’ll do my best to protect you, but you have to promise not to contact him or speak with him. If you want, I can send you to the sanitarium on St. Rupert’s until I end my marriage. He’d never think to look for you there.” Cara didn’t expect Sally to stay there. One look should open her eyes and make her realize that Michael Lance had lied to her, too.
She couldn’t punish Sally for believing in the man she loved. At one time, Cara had believed in him, too, and Lance would have done the evil deed with or without Sally. He smelled easy money, and like a pit bull holding another dog by the throat, he wasn’t about to let go.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” said Sally.
Sally talked for an hour, and Cara got it all on tape.
Chapter Eight
“Slow down, Jane.” She was talking so fast, Lance couldn’t understand a word she said. Then Ian came on the phone and told him they’d been ejected from Cara’s house.
“She’s there?” asked Lance. What was Cara doing at the estate?
“Damn right she’s there,” said Ian, “and she’s not getting away with this. You’re her husband. Do something. She’s gone stark raving mad.”
Lance leaned back and propped his feet on the desk. “Yes, I know, Ian. Her erratic behavior shows definite signs of mental illness.” She was playing right into his hands, confirming what he’d been telling people. His wife was unstable, mentally ill. She needed to be confined to a hospital where she couldn’t harm anyone. Or herself.
Jane whined in the background as Ian talked. “I don’t know what we’re going to live on. Ron said we’d get retirement, but she cut us off without anything.”
Lance changed the subject. He didn’t want to hear about Ian’s money problems. He had enough of those himself. “I’ll call Sally. I have to take care of Cara before she hurts someone. Or herself.”
“Lance, she accused you and Sally of... and Cassie—”
Dropping his feet to the floor, Lance said, “Cassie?”
“She’s back. I didn’t see her myself, but I heard the other servants talking about it.”
“What about Sally?”
In the background, Jane yelled, “If she harms my niece, I’ll—”
“Shut up, Jane,” said Ian, and she did. “Lance, we’ve tried and tried to reach Sally at the house, but they won’t let us speak with her. Jane is beside herself.”
“I’ll call her,” said Lance. “They’ll have to put me through. I want to know what the hell is going on.”
“So do I,” said Ian. “Lance, Cara had two men with her. One was her attorney. I don’t know his name, but the other one was Nick something. He’s a mean looking brute with a scar through his eyebrow, crooked nose.”
Now they were getting somewhere. That must be the guy who helped her get her car. “Ian, what’s Nick’s last name?”
“Sounded Italian. Started with a D. I don’t know. She said it so fast and Jane was sputtering in my ear.”
“I’ll find him,” Lance said more to himself than to Ian. How many Italians could there be in Western Washington?
<>
For the first time, Cara understood why her mother, a gentle, meek woman, couldn’t handle the house. Or life. At that moment, Cara knew she’d never end up like her mother. She would never allow anyone to victimize her again. Maybe she’d inherited more than the estate from her grandfather. He could bluff his way through anything. “Never show your fear,” he used to say. “Stand tall and look confident.”
Gerry wasn’t happy that she’d talked with Sally alone. “It’s all on tape, Gerry,” said Cara. “And she promised not to contact Lance.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes, I believe her.” Gerry perched on the corner of the desk while Cara paced and talked. “We have the information we need now. Lance changed his name to hide his criminal history, so he could steal my money. What more do you need?”
“She had a part in Lance’s deception,” said Gerry. “The police may charge her as his accomplice.”
Nick came in munching on an apple. “So what? Cara will have her divorce or annulment or whatever, and Lance will be out of her life.”
Cara sighed. “Mr. Corinth will call Lance the minute they get to a phone. They’ll tell him I know about his affair, but not about Sally’s talk with me. They don’t know about that.” She stopped pacing and looked at Gerry. “Sally wants to go to the sanitarium.”
Gerry shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
“She’s going,” Cara said firmly.
Nick raised his eyebrows and Gerry opened his mouth. Cara held up her hand to maintain silence. “Sally isn’t sure about her feelings for Lance right now. He told her the sanitarium was a nice place, that it would be ‘like a permanent vacation’ for me. She wants to see it and I think it’s a good idea. I want her to see the place, so she’ll know Lance lied. I don’t expect her to stay.”
“St. Rupert’s,” said Nick. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s tiny. There’s a private estate at one end of the island. At one time, it was owned by my grandfather’s friend, but he passed away several years ago. I don’t know who owns it now. There’s a small hotel in the town. The sanitarium has a high fence around the grounds and an armed guard at the gate. I remember riding a bicycle past there and hearing people screaming inside.”
“Do they have an airstrip?” asked Gerry.
“Not on St. Rupert’s. There’s one on a neighboring island. I don’t remember what it’s called. The only way to St. Rupert’s is by boat or seaplane. There are no cars, no roads, just bicycle paths. I’m having my pilot fly her to the islands and charter a boat to take her to St. Rupert’s. He won’t be back in time to fly us home, so we’ll have to charter another plane, maybe the same one we came down on.”
Nick finished his apple. “Don’t you ever fly commercial airlines?”
“I don’t want to leave a trail, Nick. Don’t you like small planes?”
He dropped the apple core in the trashcan. “I don’t especially like planes.”
Gerry retreated to his room to work while Cara and Nick walked to her suite. “Come in, Nick. Stay with me awhile.”
He pulled the door closed and stuffed his hands in his back pockets. She knew the look. He had something on his mind. “You don’t like my house?”
“It’s too big, too...” He waved his hand.
“And it’s too much for one person?”
“It’s too much for a dozen people, Cara.”
Cara’s wealth caused people to treat her differently. It drew them in or pushed them away. It set her apart. For people like Michael Lance, it made her a target, so
meone to steal from. It made Nick uncomfortable and she could see why. Others were either jealous and hateful or falling all over themselves to please her. “I didn’t ask for all this, Nick. It’s a burden sometimes. I wish I had ten brothers and sisters, so it could be divided up.”
“The burden?”
“Everything. I love this house and I hate it. I love that I can have anything I want, but it doesn’t mean anything, because I’ve always had everything I want. I hate that people are jealous, that you’re uncomfortable, that I have all these people who depend on me for their livelihood. I have responsibilities you can’t even imagine.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
She paced while they talked, too wound up to sit still. “I was an emotional mess when my brother died and my mother went away, and my guardians constantly berated me. They made me think I wasn’t capable of doing anything right. I prayed for my mother to get better and come home, so I’d be free to live my life however I wanted.”
Nick spoke softly. “You still can, Cara. You aren’t tied here.”
She stopped pacing. “I can’t sell it, Nick. My grandfather worked at least twelve hours a day, every day, and made every minute count. He earned this. I can’t sell what he worked so hard to build.”
“Do you want to live here?”
“Not especially.” She’d rather live with Nick, but she couldn’t tell him that. Not now.
“Seems a waste to leave it sitting empty. I guess you could keep it for your kids, if you want to saddle them with, what did you call it? The burden?”
Did she really call it that? Yes, she did.
Nick looked around. “Is there a glass in this place? I’m thirsty.”
“There’s a refrigerator in the bar. Cara pushed a button and the wall opened.
“Whoa. Is there one in my room?”
She smiled. “No, sorry. Help yourself.”
He poked around in the refrigerator and the shelves of snacks. “This is bigger than my whole kitchen.”
Part of the reason the house was so big was for protection. With wealth came notoriety and the crazy people it drew. Security had always been a top priority for her grandfather. He had the windows made of bullet-proof glass. There were call buttons all over the house, connected to the security building at the front gate. Armed guards patrolled the grounds around the clock. Cara couldn’t remember it ever being any different. Her mother’s life had been threatened, and so had hers. Her grandfather had lived in fear for their safety. Then her five-year-old brother slipped away from his nanny and climbed a tree. The fall killed him. All those precautions hadn’t saved Johnny’s life, and they’d smothered Cara. She couldn’t do that to her own children. Something had to change.
Cara looked up to find Nick sipping a soft drink, watching her. “Nick, if you had money you wanted to put to good use, what would you do with it?”
He shrugged. “Do something for kids, I guess.” His lips curled in a soft smile. “Clone Aunt Sophia.”
“I could have used someone like her myself. What about after-school programs? Is that what you mean?”
“Kids need homes, not schools or institutions. They need to go to people who’ll feed them if they’re hungry, listen to their problems, teach them things, help with homework, maybe give them a bath and clean clothes if they need it. Or a hug.”
“Like an after-school foster home?”
He opened a bag of chips. “Yeah, something like that. Some of the kids I grew up with had alcoholic parents, like my mother, or ones on drugs. Sometimes they had food at home, but not always. Other kids had parents who worked two, three jobs, trying to make ends meet. They loved their kids and did their best, but they weren’t there. There are day care programs for little kids, but older kids need something, too. And they shouldn’t be herded together in groups of a hundred or more. It should be more like a big family. Like Aunt Sophia’s house, where everybody gets love and attention.” He chuckled. “Or a smack on the behind.”
“Where would you find enough people to fill the need?”
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t work anyway.”
But maybe it would. Cara watched Nick stuff several chips in his mouth. Where does he put it all?
Nick washed the chips down. “Are you sending someone with Sally?”
“A guard will accompany her and the pilot.”
Nick finished his snack and asked, “How about a tour of the house before dinner?”
“Dinner? Nick, you just ate.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Does that mean I don’t get dinner?”
A little giggle slipped out of her.
“What’s the hell’s so funny?”
Laughing harder, Cara said, “You.”
“Oh yeah?” He grabbed her and pulled her tightly against him. “Is that funny?”
When she felt his erection pushed against her, Cara stopped laughing. “Is that for me?” she whispered.
“No, Italians walk around like this all the time.”
She reluctantly took a step back. “Nick, if Lance finds out...”
“I’m sorry, baby.” Nick rushed to his room, ripped off his clothes, and stood under the cool shower, cursing at himself for letting things get out of hand. Cara had enough to worry about without him throwing sex into the mix. That was a stupid, impulsive move. She’d made it clear that she couldn’t move on until she ended her marriage, and he was too damn hot to wait.
He wrapped a towel around his waist and walked out of the bathroom, rubbing his hair with another towel.
Cara stood just inside his bedroom door. “If you’re thinking about using what happened back there to abandon me, think again. I need you tomorrow, Nick.”
“No, you don’t.”
Tears filled her eyes and she swallowed hard. “Fine. If you don’t want to be here, I won’t ask you to stay.”
She turned to go and he grabbed her arm. “Cara, wait.”
Turning back, she said, “Nick, I owe you my life and my sanity. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t want to lose you because of...” She stared at his hairy chest, then scanned the rest of his body. “My God, Nick, you’re gorgeous.”
He waved his hand. “Yeah, well, I am...”
“Italian,” they said together, easing the tension.
“Please stay, Nick. I’ll forget what happened if you want, but don’t leave because of a little—”
His eyes popped open wider. “Little? You’re calling me little?”
Her mouth curved in a slight smile. “I didn’t mean it that way. I need you tomorrow, Nick.”
“Yeah, I know.” He’d help her through this meeting tomorrow and find her another place to live in Gig Harbor. He couldn’t take her home with him or he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. And she was off-limits. Definitely off-limits. She wasn’t just married, she lived in a different world.
“Still friends?”
He nodded slowly. “Still friends.”
And so much more.
<>
Cara took Nick on a tour of the grounds. The mission style mansion had been built to her grandfather’s specifications, a gift for his second wife, a beautiful Mexican aristocrat. Cara’s grandmother had died in childbirth and his second wife died of ovarian cancer when Cara was a little girl. After her death, her grandfather devoted himself to his businesses and his family. He never married again.
The roses were blooming, filling the air with a sweet fragrance. She loved this time of year.
“Too bad we can’t barbecue,” said Nick. “It’s a nice day.”
Remembering her grandfather’s birthday barbecues, Cara decided it was a family tradition she wanted to continue. “We’ll barbecue tomorrow, on my birthday. My grandfather used to do it every year, and he always invited the staff and their families. My mother used to invite everyone for birthday cake, but Mr. and Mrs. Corinth wouldn’t even allow me to do that.” She turned to face him. “I hate to give you a big head, but you were right about the sta
ff. I don’t know all their names.”
Nick lifted his chin and grinned. The cocky attitude was back. “I’m always right.”
“Always?”
He shrugged. “Almost always.”
Gerry walked up behind them. “Except when it came to marrying my sister. That was a mistake. I’m sorry about what happened, Nick.” He pointed at Nick. “And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it.”
Cara was crazy about Nick, rough edges and all. When she was with him, she felt free to be herself. Maybe after she ended her marriage, they could take their friendship to another level.
She excused herself and went inside to tell Mr. Pettibone what she wanted for her birthday dinner.
“For how many, Miss Andrews?” asked Mr. Pettibone.
“For me and my guests, the entire staff and their families. We’ll do it every year on my birthday.”
Mr. Pettibone smiled. He’d done a lot of that today. “The staff will be delighted.”
“I hope so. Will Miss McCullough be gone by then?”
“They are preparing the plane as we speak. I’ve been informed that the authorities here have asked the authorities in Seattle to place your husband in custody. I understand a warrant has been issued on the matter of the painting. He has called for Miss McCullough three times this afternoon, but she has refused to take his calls.”
“Did he ask for Mr. and Mrs. Corinth?”
“No.”
She sighed. “They’ve already called him.”
“Yes, I assume so. Security has been alerted.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pettibone.” This whole place would unravel without him.
<>
Cara spent a restless night and woke tired and apprehensive. Facing her guardians and her husband’s lover hadn’t been easy, even though she’d been well prepared. Meeting with the trustees made her feel like an insecure child. She knew little about the business of the estate and would be at a big disadvantage. She’d never even met most of those people. She vaguely remembered Mr. Holcomb from her grandfather’s funeral. Mr. Morrison came to the house several times when Cara’s grandfather was still alive, but she’d never met the others.
