Maybe it was the wine, but when Kady’s eyes misted over, she brushed the tears away with the sleeve of her bathrobe. After rereading Jane’s letter a couple of times, she slipped it into her pocket and dug into her food. What had been a rotten day was turning into something extraordinarily good.
It was only after she had finished eating and drunk another glass of wine that she remembered that she still hadn’t opened the thin envelope. Wiping her hands first, she then rummaged under the lovely letters from the even more lovely people offering her jobs and pulled out the envelope. It was white, excellent quality paper, and had a return address of a law firm in New York. Madison Avenue in the sixties, no less.
“My goodness,” she said aloud as she used a table knife to slit the top open. “I am indeed honored.”
When Kady saw that the letter was addressed to Mrs. Cole Jordan, she nearly choked on her wine.
The letter itself was very short. Mr. W. Hartford Fowler IV requested that Mrs. Jordan call him as soon as possible on urgent business. There followed a long list of telephone numbers with descriptive phrases like, the country house, the lodge, the mobile, ship-to-shore, as well as four office numbers. “I cannot begin to tell you how urgent this is, Mrs. Jordan,” he wrote. “You must contact me right away if you are to make the date set by Ruth Jordan. Call me at any time. Call collect. Wherever, whenever. Just do it quickly.”
Kady read the letter three times before she noticed that it was dated a month earlier. Which meant that Gregory had received it before she walked out. And it also meant that someone had snooped inside his filing cabinets to find this. What was more, she saw that the envelope had been sent to her apartment, not the restaurant, which meant that Gregory had been monitoring her private mail. “Wonder what he paid my landlord to get his hands on my mail first?” she said, her mouth a tight line. For a moment she wondered how many other offers of employment she had received while she was at Onions but Gregory had intercepted. All in the name of Norman House Restaurants, of course.
No use wasting time on that, she thought, then picked up the telephone and began to dial some of the numbers on the letter from the lawyer. After she reached a machine at the office numbers and left a message, she turned the TV volume back on and tried to watch, but then she read the lawyer’s letter again, turned the TV off, and called more numbers.
She got him on his mobile, and as soon as she introduced herself, she heard the screech of wheels as he skidded his car to a halt.
“Kady Jordan?” he asked in disbelief. “You’re sure?”
She laughed as she had an idea this man didn’t usually lose his composure as he was doing now.
“What is today?” he said almost frantically. “It’s ten P.M., isn’t it? If I send a helicopter, can you get to New York from Virginia in two hours? Can we still do it?”
“I’m already in New York. Could you tell me what this is about? What do you know about Ruth Jordan?”
“Less than you do, I’m sure,” he said hastily. “Look, Mrs. Jordan—”
“I would appreciate it if you’d stop calling me that. I am Kady Long. Kady, please.”
The man didn’t seem to hear her. “Okay, you’re in New York, I’m in Connecticut, and he’s in . . . Where the hell is he?”
Kady was getting frustrated. “Where is who?” she said fiercely.
“Jordan. C. T. Jordan. You must see him before midnight tonight. If you don’t, the will will be invalid.”
“I don’t know what will you’re talking about, but I have seen Mr. Jordan today. I had to sneak into his office, but I—”
She stopped because the man was laughing. No, he was whooping. Actually, he was, as far as she could tell, jumping up and down and singing and yelling at the top of his lungs, the mobile telephone waving about in his hands.
“Mr. Fowler,” she was shouting into the phone, but he didn’t hear her.
With the hotel phone on her shoulder, Kady reached for her glass of wine and waited for this insane man to calm down and tell her what was going on.
She had a good long wait, and when the man did speak again, she thought maybe he was crying. Crying in that way men do when they win the Indianapolis 500.
“Kady,” he said, trying to control his erratic breath, “did anyone see you at Jordan’s office today? Anyone at all?”
“Several people. The receptionist, a man applying for a job, the guard downstairs, at least half a dozen other employees, and—So help me, Mr. Fowler, if you start whooping again, I’m going to hang up.”
At that the man laughed and made an attempt at getting himself under control. “Could I see you tomorrow?” he asked politely. “We have some, ah, business to transact.”
“Would it be too much to ask what business?”
The man took a moment before he answered. “Kady, do you have any dreams in life?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped, glancing at the phone. Was this man crazy?
“What is the very wildest of your dreams?”
Not that it was any of his business, but she looked at the letters on the bed and smiled. “I’d like to own my own restaurant.”
For some reason this seemed to spark the man off again into drunken hilarity, and again Kady had to wait. “You’ll get your restaurant. You’ll get anything you want, but you must come to see me tomorrow.”
“What time?”
Again he started laughing. “You come any time you’re ready, Kady. When you arrive, I’ll be waiting for you. And a car will be waiting for you at your—May heaven help me, but I don’t even know where you’re staying.”
Kady hesitated as she thought twice about telling this man anything about herself. “I don’t need a car, and I’ll come to your office tomorrow at ten A.M. Is that too early?”
“No,” he said, amused. “Whatever time is convenient for you. We’ll all be waiting for you.”
“I’ll see you then,” she said and hung up. What a very odd man, she thought, looking at the phone in wonder, then, dismissing him, she looked back at the job offers. Which one shall I take? she thought. Living in Seattle might be nice.
Thirty minutes later she fell asleep amid the letters and didn’t wake until fifteen minutes till ten, which is why she was late for her appointment with Mr. Fowler. But, as he’d said, it didn’t matter, for they were all waiting for her.
Chapter 22
THE OLD-WORLD ELEGANCE OF THE OFFICES OF FOWLER AND Tate made Kady more aware than usual of her old, worn clothing. This place is made for Chanel, she thought as she walked across the marble lobby. Not that she had ever seen Chanel outside a magazine ad, but she had an imagination.
“I am Kady Lon—” she said to the receptionist, but the woman didn’t so much as allow her to finish her sentence before she started gushing.
“Yes, please come this way, Mr. Fowler is expecting you. Could I get you some coffee? Tea perhaps? Would you like anything ordered in?”
Kady hardly had time to say no to all the offers before big double doors with ornate brass fittings opened and out stepped a tall, handsome, gray-haired man wearing a drop-dead-gorgeous three-piece suit.
“Kady,” he said, breathing out the word as though it were what he’d been waiting all his life to say.
“You’re Mr. Fowler?” she asked in disbelief, since she couldn’t reconcile this elegant man with the whooper on the telephone last night. This man looked like he should star in one of those sophisticated 1930s movies that usually featured Cary Grant.
“Bill,” he said, his hand on the small of her back as he steered her into his office, a room that made Kady give an involuntary gasp. It was like a library in an English country house, all dark green and burgundy, with walls of carved wooden paneling. There was a picture on the wall that looked very much like an original Van Gogh.
“Can I get you anything? Anything at all?” he asked.
Kady felt so out of place that she tried to make a joke. “New shoes?” she said, smiling as she took a seat on a pretty l
ittle dark green sofa, and he smiled back at her warmly.
When she was seated, Kady looked up at the man. There was no way she was ever going to be able to call this man Bill. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
For a moment he remained standing, towering over her; then he sat on a chair facing her and nodded toward a neat stack of papers on the antique coffee table. “I must admit that never has a client engendered as much curiosity in me as you have. I know nothing about your connection to a woman who has been dead nearly a hundred years. I only know that you were married to her grandson, but if that were actually true, you’d have to be nearly a hundred years old.” At this he chuckled and gave her what she was sure was his best you-can-confide-in-me look.
Kady gave him a little smile in return, but she wasn’t tempted in the slightest to tell him what she had been through.
“Yes, well, I won’t pry.” Again he chuckled. “No, I probably will pry a great deal, but I have a feeling it may get me nowhere. If you are half as secretive as the rest of the Jordans, I will find out nothing.”
Kady started to tell him again that she wasn’t a Jordan, but then refrained. The less she said, the sooner she’d get out of here and the sooner she could go back to her hotel room and start calling about those job offers. Some of them were three months old, meaning Gregory had received them some time ago, and she wondered if they were still open.
“I guess we should start with this,” he said and handed her an envelope, yellowed with age, tied with ribbon, and sealed with red wax.
Before Kady touched it, she knew it was from Ruth, and she had to blink away quick tears. It was painful to think that the woman she had met just weeks ago had now been dead for so very long. Sometimes it seemed to Kady that she’d open a door and Ruth would be standing there. Sometimes she thought, I must tell Ruth about that, then she’d have the hurt of realizing that the woman she’d come to care about was no longer alive.
Kady put the envelope on her lap and looked up at the man across from her. “Don’t you need some identification to make sure I’m who I say I am?”
Smiling at her, he pulled a sheaf of papers from a fat leather case on the floor beside the table and handed the papers to her. Kady saw that the yellowed sheets were covered with pen-and-ink sketches of her and Ruth, all scenes from the afternoon and night they had spent together. They were shown walking together, talking, laughing, sitting in the shade at the picnic, in chairs on the porch.
“The other woman is Ruth Jordan?” the lawyer asked softly, seeing the way Kady so tenderly touched the papers with her fingertips.
“Yes,” Kady whispered as she saw the name Joseph written at the bottom, the name of Ruth’s uncomplaining servant who had served them and waited while they talked. How much had he heard that night?
“She certainly looks different from the image in ‘A Town Destroyed by Hatred,’ doesn’t she?”
“She was lovely, truly lovely,” was all Kady could manage to say, and when Mr. Fowler leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied look on his face, she knew she had said too much. It was easy to see that he had wanted to know if Kady had somehow actually met Ruth Jordan and now he did know.
“Excuse me,” he said, rising. “I think you should read the letter from Ruth in private. When you have finished, just push that button on the table beside you and I’ll return. I will be waiting for you.” With that he left Kady alone in the room.
For a moment she hesitated before opening the yellowed envelope, for she knew that what was inside would once again involve her in the Jordan family and Legend, Colorado. Part of her wanted to throw the letter down and go back to her hotel room and start finding a new job. But the larger part of her was haunted by the eyes of C. T. Jordan.
Quickly, before she changed her mind, she used the silver letter opener Mr. Fowler had so thoughtfully provided and slit the envelope open.
My dearest Kady,
If you are reading this now, then I know you have tried and succeeded in finding my descendants. I gave you a time limit to persuade myself of your interest. If you had put off your search for longer than six weeks, then I would have known there was no hope that you’d have the love and passion that you were going to need to help us. I felt that six weeks was long enough for you to realize that you couldn’t be in love with your Gregory. If you were, you wouldn’t have been sent to us.
If you are reading this and you have contacted my family within the time limit, then you now have absolute control of all my family’s wealth.
At this Kady drew in her breath. But no, what she was reading couldn’t be correct. She looked back at the letter.
Perhaps I have left you nothing. For all I know, ninety-eight years from now my family is poor, but, if my descendants are anything like my son Cole Tarik, I somehow doubt it. It is my guess that at this moment you are a very rich young woman.
So why have I given you so much and trusted you so completely? Kady, you can solve this. You can right a horrible wrong, not only what happened to my family but to all the inhabitants of Legend. Because of what happened in that fateful week when my family was murdered, hundreds of people suffered for generations.
I don’t know how you can do what I’m asking of you or even if it can be done, but I beg of you to try. The people you met in Legend never had a chance to live. They never had a chance to grow up, to have children of their own, to grow old.
We made the mistakes, Kady, not you. You have been a pawn in all this, but your kindness and generosity were so great that you were able to raise the dead. For a while you gave us hope; you gave us life.
And now I am asking that you figure out a way to do it again. I have done what I could to help you. I have given you the power that money gives to people; I have disinherited my own kin in favor of you, a woman I spent mere hours with. But I trust you because you were chosen to come back to us. You can use the money for whatever purposes you want; it is yours without any strings attached. Build yourself a mansion, buy a dozen car riages dripping gold, I have given you that right.
But I cannot see you doing such a thing. Please, I beg of you, please, Kady, help us. We need you. All of us need you so very much.
Yours with love and hope,
Ruth Jordan
When Kady put down the letter, she felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her. “For a while you gave us hope; you gave us life,” she reread. “Your kindness and generosity.” Those were almost the very words that Jane had used.
How? she thought. How could she accomplish what Ruth asked of her? Her head was reeling so fast that she could think of nothing, could formulate no plan. She pushed the button on the table, and instantly, Mr. Fowler reappeared.
When he was seated, Kady held up Ruth’s letter. “Does C. T. Jordan know of this?” she asked.
“Know of what?” he asked, his eyes twinkling, but it was a lawyer’s non-answer in an attempt to find out exactly how much she knew.
“Does he know that since he saw me yesterday, now everything is mine?”
Mr. Fowler smiled at her. “Yes, he knows.”
No wonder he refused to see me, she thought. And that’s why he’d refused to allow her to be thrown out of the office. After all, from the moment she walked in the front door, she was the owner of the building.
Her mind was tumbling over itself with a thousand thoughts. What am I to do now? was the one on top.
Tarik must help me, she thought, and immediately it struck her odd that she would call him that, as everyone else referred to him as C. T.—or, actually, as Mr. Jordan. Maybe it was because she’d heard the name so often from Cole or maybe it was because she’d spent a lifetime of seeing C. T. Jordan in Arabian dress that the Arabian-sounding name suited him.
Whatever his name, she knew he must help her. That was the only thing she knew for absolute sure, because somewhere under his dark exterior, he was Cole. The pain and hardness in his eyes were from what happened to Cole and from what had been done
to Ruth’s youngest child. Cole had managed to avoid the hatred by pretending it didn’t happen. Or maybe he was just so happy to have been given a chance to live as an adult that he had filled his time on earth with love.
And revenge, she thought, remembering that during those ten days he’d been gone, he’d rid the world of the man who had caused his family to be killed. But she couldn’t believe that revenge was the full reason Cole had been given a second chance at life, even so brief a second chance.
And now Ruth had done what she could to enable Kady to give Cole and all the inhabitants of Legend a real chance at life.
Tarik must help, went through her mind again; then she thought of him in the ways she had seen him: in her dreams, and, yesterday, in his office, with his sneering remarks. He was not going to help her just for the asking.
“What do I own?” she asked Mr. Fowler.
“Basically, everything. All assets that Ruth Jordan owned at the time of her death, which were several million, and everything made from those assets in the ensuing years were put into trust for you, to be administered by the descendants of her youngest son. There was a further stipulation that the eldest son of each generation be named Cole Tarik Jordan.” Mr. Fowler’s eyes twinkled, and Kady thought he’d probably never done anything he liked as much as telling someone that she owned everything that had once belonged to C. T. Jordan. “Of course over the years the name has become unfashionable, and it is a closely guarded secret what the initials stand for.”
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