He smiled once more. “I’ve got my faults, but being a liar isn’t one of them. As I said last night, you seem to have grown on me.”
She took a deep breath, almost afraid to press, then plunged ahead before she lost her nerve. “Sully, you seem to have grown on me, too. So if you like me and I like you…well, then obviously we like each other. And in my books that’s a pretty good thing to have in common.”
“Lauren,” he said quietly, “I’m an ex-con and you’re a wealthy woman.”
“I know that,” she said just as quietly.
There it was, then, she thought as she waited for Sully’s response. The foremost issue, from his perspective, was that he was an ex-con and she was wealthy. And his laying those cards on the table had her mind racing.
Not that she hadn’t been aware of both facts from the beginning. Her trust fund provided her with a far larger monthly income than she spent, and the first time she’d looked at the file on Eagles Roost she’d learned Sully had a record. So if she’d been thinking along the same lines as he’d been…
But she hadn’t. She hadn’t attached particular significance to either fact until he’d put them into juxtaposition like that.
Now that he had, though, she couldn’t help seeing that maybe he was right. Maybe the idea of ever getting together again really was dumb. After all, precisely where had she expected this…whatever it was between them…to lead?
Nowhere, she silently answered herself. And since she’d never tried to imagine any long-term future for them, why on earth had she thought prolonging the whatever would be a good idea?
It was suddenly clear to her that there was no maybe about this. Sully was right. So she’d better tell him that she agreed with him.
She glanced at him again, ready to do just that. But the look in his eyes stopped her in her tracks. His gaze was warm and gentle, and something in it seemed to reach inside her and touch her so deeply she didn’t say a word. She merely waited, her chest gradually tightening until she could scarcely breathe.
There was an indefinable quality about this man that made her want to simply remove common sense and logic from the equation. Because, although she barely knew him, she felt as if she knew him incredibly well. And that she was somehow connected to him.
She doubted that made much sense, but it was how she felt. And even if her feelings were downright crazy, she needed time to sort them out.
“You’re close to your family,” Sully said at last.
“Well…yes,” she admitted, not liking what she suspected he was thinking. She knew she cared too much about her parents’ approval. Her father’s in particular. Maybe, though, she should be trying harder to change that. Because something Grace said last night had lodged in her mind.
You have to make your own decisions, she’d pointed out, without worrying too much what other people will think. Because it’s you who has to live with the results of those decisions.
“Let’s just say,” Sully went on, “we started seeing each other now and then. How would they feel about it? Your lawyer brother and your artist sister? And your mother who’d worry if you took a taxi home, rather than a limo? And your father who…I don’t even know what your father does.”
“He’s the president of Van Slyke Enterprises. And the company does a variety of things.”
Sully nodded slowly. “Does it do them out of that big building on Madison Avenue? The one your office is in? The one with the Van Slyke name over the main entrance?”
“Sully, I don’t understand why you’re so concerned that my family has money.”
He shrugged. “How would they react if you told them you were seeing me?”
“I don’t know,” she lied. She knew exactly how each of them would take an announcement like that.
Marisa was liberal enough to be okay with it—or at least to hold off judgment until after she got to know Sully. Elliot would disapprove, but he’d keep his opinion to himself. Her mother would want to lock her in a rubber room until she came to her senses. And her father would probably go into cardiac arrest on the spot.
“Well, I know how they’d react,” Sully said. “They’d think you’d lost your mind.”
She tried to smile, but it was tough when he’d hit her mother’s reaction bang on.
“They’d point out,” he continued, “that we come from different worlds. One of them would probably even suggest I’m a fortune hunter.”
Those words stung. Just because she had money it didn’t mean a man couldn’t be interested in her for herself. And it didn’t mean she was too stupid to recognize a fortune hunter, either. She’d been spotting them at forty paces since she’d been sixteen years old—when one had almost broken her sister’s heart.
Sully, though, obviously figured her family had an awfully low opinion of her. And his assuming that hurt far more than she’d have thought it would.
“Sully,” she finally whispered, her throat tight. “I’d like to think the people who love me believe I’ve got a little more going for me than my money.”
“I’m sure they do,” he said softly. “I’m sure they know you’ve got an awful lot more going for you. I’m just trying to be realistic.”
She glared at him. He was being so negative that she wished she’d never opened her mouth. She could certainly live without his giving her a David Letterman-type list of the top ten reasons he didn’t intend to see her again.
“Lauren, don’t look at me like that. As I said, I’m just trying to be realistic.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “And I’m just going back to the lodge. And let’s forget this conversation ever took place, okay? Because I’ve changed my mind. I wouldn’t want to see you again if my life depended on it.”
She wheeled and started back the way they’d come, tears stinging her eyes. Tears of anger, she told herself, because anger was the only emotion she was feeling. After all, how could she possibly feel the slightest bit hurt or upset when she didn’t really care about Jack Sullivan one way or the other?
SULLY STOOD WATCHING Lauren march away. Then, telling himself he just might be making the biggest mistake of his life, he started after her.
“Lauren?” he said, catching up as she reached the clearing.
When he put his hand on her arm, she shrugged it off and kept right on walking.
“Come on, Lauren,” he muttered, falling into step, “will you listen?”
She didn’t even glance at him, so he said, “I apologize for hurting your feelings. But you know I’m the one who’s thinking straight here.”
“And you know what you can do with your apology!”
He glared at her—even though she wasn’t aware of it because she was refusing to look at him. He hated having to apologize. He hated it even more when he apologized and his apology wasn’t accepted.
The pulse in his temple had begun to throb, warning him his self-control was on shaky ground, but he did his best to remain reasonable.
“Lauren, all I was trying to point out was that any relationship we got into would have the life expectancy of a mayfly—for a hundred different reasons.”
“So what? I hear all your relationships have the life expectancy of a mayfly!”
“What do you know about my relation ships?”
“I know Grace told me they never last. And I can see why. I’ll bet there isn’t a woman in the entire country who could put up with you for long.”
“Oh, yeah? Well bet again. There are all kinds of women who could put up with me just fine. But maybe I’ve never met one I figured would happily put up with half a dozen stray kids as well. And maybe I’ve never met a woman I wanted a long relationship with.”
“Well you don’t have to worry about not wanting one with me,” Lauren snapped. “Because I don’t want one with you. I wouldn’t even want one that was as short as they come.”
“Good,” he snapped back, that shaky ground crumbling completely away. “I’m glad we’ve finally found something we agree on.”
/>
They stomped along in silence until Lauren muttered, “I’ve never been rejected because of my money before. At least that makes you unique.”
“I wasn’t rejecting you. I just—”
“Just what?” she demanded, stopping dead as they reached the porch steps and eyeing him intently.
He stood gazing down at her. Her eyes were flashing, her face was flushed, and she looked as if she’d like to kill him. She also looked so beautiful he knew that chasing after her hadn’t been the biggest mistake of his life after all. He was about to make the biggest one right now, by opening his mouth and saying something totally crazy.
“Next Saturday,” he said.
“What about next Saturday?”
“The boys all play on the local twelve-and-under baseball team. And next Saturday the coaches are taking the team camping. They’ll leave in the morning and won’t be back until Sunday evening, so I could come into the city and stay with a friend of mine. You and I could…have a date.”
“Oh,” she murmured, both her flush and her murderous expression fading.
She didn’t say one thing more, though. When he couldn’t stand the suspense a second longer, he asked, “Is that a yes, oh, or a no, oh?” He suddenly wanted her to say yes more than he could remember ever wanting anything.
“Ahh…it’s a yes,” she finally murmured. “It’s a definite yes.”
“Good.”
His blood pounding, he was just about to lean forward and kiss her when she said, “There’s only one minor thing.”
He froze. Something in her voice told him it was actually a major thing. And that he wasn’t going to like it at all.
“The gallery that handles my sister’s paintings is mounting an exhibit of her recent ones, and the opening is next Saturday evening. There’s a champagne reception and we’ll have to at least put in an appearance.”
Clearing his throat uneasily, he said, “I assume your parents will be there? And your brother?”
Lauren gave him an anxious smile. “I expect there’ll be a few uncles, aunts and cousins, as well.”
While Sully was still searching for the right words to explain why his going to Marisa Van Slyke’s exhibit opening was out of the question, a police cruiser arrived—even though it was only about eleven-thirty. So he and Lauren went into the lounge with the officer and spent the next half hour answering questions about the car theft.
Not much of Sully’s attention, though, was really on the subject of Lauren’s Mercedes. He was far more concerned with thinking his way through the predicament he’d gotten into.
He’d made the decision to ask her out against his better judgment. But the minute she said yes, he’d felt such an incredible rush that he knew he absolutely had to see her again. He strongly suspected, though, that if he refused to go to the opening their relationship would be toast.
Despite that, there was no conceivable way he intended to meet her family, particularly not en masse, as soon as next Saturday. Which meant he had to come up with an idea for wangling his way out of going to that opening without wangling his way entirely out of Lauren’s life.
He still hadn’t thought of a plan by the time they walked the officer back to his cruiser. As the car pulled away and he and Lauren turned toward the lodge, Billy the Kid hollered, “Hey, Sully?”
He glanced over and saw that all five boys were sitting on the grass outside the garage.
“We’re just takin’ a lunch break,” Billy yelled, waving an apple at him. “So don’t think we’ve stopped workin’.”
“Okay,” he called. “But if you get tired, I want you to quit and finish up tomorrow.”
BILLY WATCHED SULLY and Lauren walking back to the lodge. He was still shaking inside, but not so bad now. Not now he knew that cop must have just been the one who was coming to talk to Lauren.
When he’d first seen a cruiser drive in, though, he’d been so scared he’d almost started crying like a baby. He’d been sure the cop had come to take him away, even though he didn’t think copying a file could be exactly the same as stealing it—’cuz the real file was still right there in Mr. Ludendorf’s office.
All he’d put on Sully’s desk was the copies, stuck inside the big envelope he’d grabbed. But he was still real, real glad to see that cop leave.
“Billy?” Freckles said. “Whadda you think? Are we gonna get away with it?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding firmly.
“But Sully’s gonna be real suspicious when he sees all that stuff. So why’d you copy the whole file? You said you was just gonna find out that guy’s name. And tell Sully that Mr. Ludendorf phoned to tell him.”
Billy nodded again, casually tossing away the rest of his apple. The way his stomach felt, if he ate another bite he’d hurl for sure.
“Right,” he said. “That’s what I was gonna do. But lots of times private eyes have to change their plans, and that’s what happened to me. When I started lookin’ at that file, I could tell there was stuff there…. I’m not exactly sure what, but I know there’s somethin’ real funny about it. And maybe Sully can figure it out.”
Terry sniffed hard and swiped at his eyes. Tony gave him a threatening look that said crying would get him smacked.
“But what’s gonna happen,” Hoops said, “when Sully asks us who dropped that file off?”
“We just gotta all stick to the story,” Billy told him. “We just gotta all say we never saw the guy before.”
WHEN THE SCREEN DOOR closed behind Sully and Lauren, the warm smile she gave him made him decide to forget about her sister’s exhibit until later. After all, he had an entire week to come up with an avoidance strategy, but no more than three hours before that limo would arrive to take her home.
He was just going to suggest making lunch when his office phone began to ring.
“Whoever it is,” he said, “will call back.”
“It might be Ben Ludendorf,” she pointed out. “Maybe he’s talked to his client again.”
Reaching for her hand, Sully started for the phone. She was right. It might be Ben, so he’d better answer. But she wouldn’t be here much longer, and he didn’t like the idea of not having her right with him every second she was.
They made it to his office by the fifth ring, and Sully grabbed the receiver. It wasn’t Ben, though. It was Joe Perkins, one of the boys’ baseball coaches, with instructions about what they should bring along for the campout the following weekend.
Sully grabbed a pad, made a couple of notes, then got off the line as quickly as he could. When he put down the receiver, his gaze came to rest on a large brown envelope sitting in the center of his desk—a note in childish handwriting clipped to it. He picked up the envelope and read:
Sully,
Some man none of us new brot you this. You weren’t in the lodge, so he brot it to the garage and I brot it to your office.
Billy
“Somebody must have come by while we were at the lake,” he said, passing Lauren the note. Then he opened the envelope. Inside were a dozen or so photocopied pages.
“What is this?” he muttered, pulling them out and gazing at the top one.
“What?” Lauren asked, moving closer.
“It’s a copy of my title to Eagles Roost.”
“Did you ask someone for it?”
He shook his head. “And I don’t have the slightest idea who’d have brought it. Or why.” He turned his attention to another sheet in the little pile.
It was a copy of the first page of a bank book, showing the account number and telling him it was with a bank in Newcomb. He shifted the papers so Lauren could see what he was looking at.
“Newcomb,” he told her, “is about thirty miles from North Head.”
The next sheet was the bank book’s second page, which revealed the account had been opened back in February, with a deposit of ten thousand dollars. That was the only transaction posted.
He moved those sheets to the bottom of the pile and looked at
the next one. It, he could tell from the faint outline of torn edges, was a copy of a scrap of paper roughly five inches square. There was a single name written on it—Leroy.
“Do you know who Leroy is?” Lauren asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said, staring at it and thinking he only knew one Leroy. Then he turned to the next page—a copy of some rough handwritten notes—and decided they’d been written by the same person who’d scribbled the name Leroy.
“Do you recognize the writing?” Lauren said.
“No. And I don’t recognize the name Dirk Blackstone, either.” Whoever Blackstone was, though, his name was scrawled across the top of the page and underlined several times.
“But look,” he added, his gaze drifting downward and his finger moving to where “Eagles Roost” was written. An arrow pointed from that to where his own name and phone number appeared amid a jumble of single words. None of the words meant anything to him except one— cash. Ben Ludendorf had said his client was prepared to pay cash.
“Sully? What’s this all about?”
“I’m not sure,” he muttered again. Then he turned to the final page and was.
CHAPTER TEN
Solving part of the mystery
THE FINAL PAGE had been photocopied from a sheet of Ben Ludendorf’s letterhead. It was a handwritten memo—in the same writing as the rough notes.
“Well, I’ll be…” Sully muttered, skimming what it said.
Memo to File, September 14
Talked to Dirk Blackstone about Jack Sullivan’s negative answer on Eagles Roost. Told Blackstone I’d watch for other property and keep in touch.
He handed the memo to Lauren. “Ben’s a oneman show. He doesn’t even have an assistant, so all this handwriting has to be his—unless somebody’s been stealing his letterhead, which can’t be too likely.”
Lauren gazed at the page for a moment, then said, “Memo to file. Okay, then if the original of this is in one of his files, does that mean the rest of what we’ve got here was copied from the same place?”
Dawn Stewardson Page 12
