As Reid settled in his seat at the table, he gave Eldridge a nod of thanks, both for moving and for his words of support. If the old man had given him even a shred of that kind of backing and faith in previous years, maybe they’d have had a chance at a functional father/son relationship.
Eldridge wiggled a finger at him. “This police thing with the seat facing the entrance...you think you’re gonna see trouble coming? Is that it?”
He shrugged. “Better than if my back’s to the door.”
Eldridge harrumphed. “And what if there are two doors? What if trouble comes in through the kitchen?”
Reid pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, striving for patience. “What if you tell me now why you disappeared? You’ve had us all in a panic for months!”
“A panic, eh? Is that why it took you more than five months to find me?”
“You staged a scene at the ranch that made us think you’d been kidnapped, possibly killed. The cops have been looking for—”
“And you? What have you been doing? My son, the former detective... I thought a missing-person case would help get your mojo back.”
Reid scowled. “Are you saying this was all a test for me?”
Eldridge flicked a hand. “Hell no. This was a test for everyone.”
Reid shook his head as if he’d not heard his father correctly. “Come again?”
The waitress—Celia, her name tag read—brought their coffee at that moment and they both fell silent.
“Anything to eat, Burt, darlin’? The lunch special is beef stew, corn bread and coleslaw. Or I can have Mac make up one of those bacon cheeseburgers you like.”
“Bacon cheeseburger?” Reid repeated. “Your cardiologist know you’re eating that kind of crap?”
Eldridge sneered at him. “I’ll eat whatever I damn well please. At my age, I should be able to enjoy my food without judgment from you or doctors or anyone else.”
“You tell ’em, Burt!” Celia said, nodding. “So a cheeseburger all the way?”
Reid frowned at his father while Eldridge considered his choice for moment. “Actually the stew sounds good. Reid?”
He held up two fingers, indicating she should make it two of the lunch specials.
As Celia walked away, Eldridge mumbled, “I’m dying anyway. Might as well speed up the process with a bacon cheeseburger or two.”
Reid propped his arms on the table and leaned toward his father, pitching his voice low. “Something you want to tell me about your health, old man? Is that what this whole fiasco has been about?”
Eldridge looked away, his fingers drumming restlessly on the Formica tabletop. “Tell me something, Reid. What’s been happening at the house since I disappeared? How did my loving family—” his tone belied the words “—respond to my absence? My presumed death?”
* * *
Fowler watched the gray December clouds scuttle across the sky, a reflection of his mood. He should be happy. Tiffany was having his baby, and she had agreed to marry him. He could settle down with her and raise their baby together and live happily ever after. Whatever the hell that meant. Tiffany seemed to think their future was going to be all roses and candlelight. And she did make him happy. The sex was certainly good, especially now that they were engaged. Tiff was more adventurous in bed now. And being pregnant had upped her libido. Good news all around. But...
But.
Fowler ground his back teeth together and squeezed the armrest of his leather desk chair as he stared out his office window at the horizon. There was always a but, wasn’t there? He should be completely happy, but he wasn’t. Too many things were still unresolved. Too many people still needed their comeuppance before he’d be satisfied. Too many questions needed answers. Fowler hated unfinished business, especially if he came out on the short end.
Eldridge was still missing. Hugh Barrington still hadn’t been arrested. And the control and running of Colton Inc. was still going to fall into the wrong hands if Eldridge’s will was enforced.
He couldn’t do anything about his missing father, and his personal lawyers were looking into challenging his father’s will. But Hugh Barrington was a pebble in his Stefano Bemer wingtips. He was tired of pussyfooting around with the man. The family had trusted him to coax information from Hugh, but Fowler was out of patience.
Resolved to force Hugh into a corner, Fowler slapped his hands on the arms of his chair as he lunged out of the seat and strode to his office door. He snagged his suit coat from the coat tree as he marched out, barking at his secretary, “I’m going out.”
“How long will you be gone?” she called after him.
“As long as it takes to nail Barrington’s ass to the wall!”
Chapter 17
After his meltdown over the cell phone, Penelope had put Nicholas down for a nap and set about trying to salvage the burner cell phone. Once she’d done all she could with the mobile phone, she tried to kill time reading. But her thoughts kept straying to Reid, his mission to find his father, and her future. Would Reid be part of her life in the months and years to come?
Hearing Nicholas’s plaintive-sounding cry, Penelope hurried in to check on her napping son. The minute she saw him sitting up on the bed, his eyes bleary and his cheeks flushed, she knew something was desperately wrong.
“I’m here, sweetie. What is it?” she cooed as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Rather than reach for her, as he usually did when she retrieved him from his naps, Nicholas tugged at his ear and stared blankly ahead as he sobbed pitifully. A light touch to his forehead confirmed her fear. Her baby was burning up with fever.
Worry swept through her, knocking her breath from her like a giant wave in the ocean. Crisis moments like this were the times she missed Andrew the most, when she felt the most overwhelmed by the job of single-parenting. Andrew had always been so good in an emergency. His first-responder training and laid-back personality had helped calm her when her first instinct was to panic.
Easing Nicholas into her arms, she stroked her son’s fiery head and fought down the swell of emotion crowding her thoughts. She needed to think clearly. The first thing Andrew always told her was not to panic. Drawing a deep breath, she focused her thoughts.
Nicholas needed a doctor. Possibly an antibiotic if his ears had an infection, which based on his history was quite likely. Calling for an ambulance seemed an extreme measure, especially when she didn’t know exactly where she was to give them an address.
She checked her watch. The pediatric clinic she typically used only worked half days on Fridays and would be open only another thirty minutes. Could she get there in time?
Nicholas had had badly infected ears in the past, and her doctor had warned her that failure to get him help quickly could mean his eardrum could burst. She had already been talking with her pediatrician about surgery to implant tubes in her baby’s ears when the holidays were over. Now she wished she’d done the procedure earlier.
Acid anxiety swirled in her gut. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to take a calming breath. Pull it together, Penelope. Think. Do. Nicholas needs you now.
Exhaling through her mouth, she gathered her thoughts as she paced the floor with Nicholas limp on her shoulder, whining pitifully. She went to yoga class with one of the nurses who worked at the pediatric clinic. Maybe Linda would convince the doctor to stay late if she told them she was on her way?
Shifting Nicholas onto her hip, she hurried into the kitchen. She’d seen Reid stash the keys to her Explorer in the drawer by the refrigerator. The same drawer where he’d put her cell phone when they’d arrived. Taking both from the drawer, she fumbled to put the phone back together. Like most mothers, she’d become adept at performing tasks while also holding a squirming child, but her nerves made her hands clumsy and it took several tries to get the bat
tery to snap in place and the back cover securely snapped on. She hesitated the briefest moment before turning on the cell phone. Reid had purposely removed the batteries to prevent anyone tracking the phones through GPS. But she had to reach the doctor. And she needed to call Reid to tell him what was going on.
Her first call was to the doctor’s office, a number she kept stored in her phone. She explained to the receptionist who she was and that she had an emergency. “I’m sure I can be there in forty minutes or so if you could please wait on me.”
After extracting a promise from the office to see Nicholas after hours, she hurried to the Explorer. She’d call Reid from the road. She wasn’t at all sure she could reach the clinic as quickly as she’d promised. Her recollection of the time it took Reid to drive them into downtown a few days earlier was foggy since she’d slept in the car. The lake house was probably more like fifty minutes or an hour from town. And while she knew she could take Nicholas to the emergency room, she foresaw an interminable wait at the ER. Overworked doctors and nurses who weren’t familiar with Nicholas’s medical history.
As she buckled her son into his car seat, his cries grew to a frenzied pitch. She knew the tenor and volume well from past illnesses. He was in real pain.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Hang in there.” She quickly rifled through his diaper bag until she found a bottle of children’s acetaminophen drops. Hands shaking, she administered a dose, recapped the bottle and bolted to the driver’s seat.
Before cranking the engine, she plugged the address for the pediatric clinic into her map application and searched for driving directions. Next, she dug the scrap of paper out of her pocket that had the phone number for Reid’s burner cell. She put the phone on speaker; while it rang from her lap, she backed out of the garage and headed down the bumpy lane toward the country road.
“Turn left in a quarter mile,” her phone app said, while Reid’s burner cell rang without an answer.
“Mommy...” Nicholas cried pitifully.
“Hang on, darling. We’re going to get you help.” She turned onto the rural road, left a terse voice mail for Reid, then tapped the disconnect icon. Where was he? Why wasn’t he answering?
She gripped the steering wheel as she accelerated down the highway, then glanced in her rearview mirror in time to see Nicholas throw up the medicine she’d just given him. Her heart kicked hard seeing the droopy look of his eyes and the flush of his cheeks.
Speed limits be damned. Her baby needed help...quickly.
* * *
Reid flattened his hand on the diner’s table. “The family reacted to your disappearance about the way you’d expect. Backbiting, accusations, finger-pointing.”
Eldridge’s shoulders slumped, and he met Reid’s gaze. “Even Whitney?”
Reid scratched his head, trying to remember everything he’d heard Whitney say or do. “She’s done her share of finger-pointing, largely to shift the spotlight off herself. She was one of the first people suspected. She stood to inherit a lot of power and wealth, depending on the terms of your will. But after the will was read, it was obvious to everyone she really loves you. She didn’t care about what you did—or rather didn’t—leave her. She just wanted her, quote, ‘Dridgey-pooh back.’ From the looks of it, she truly mourned for you during the short time we believed the burned body was you.”
Eldridge heaved a relieved sigh and smiled. “Ah, Whitney...” Then he frowned darkly. “What burned body?”
Reid explained how, the month before, Hugh Barrington had claimed to have seen Eldridge shoved in a car at gunpoint and how the same car was seen later, crashed and burned with a charred body inside. “We all thought it was you for a few days, until a second medical examiner looked at the case and called us. When we tried to find the first ME and question him, the guy had disappeared.”
Reid’s burner cell buzzed at his hip, and he flipped it up to check the number. At a glance, he knew it wasn’t the secure cell he’d left for Pen, although the number on the caller ID did look familiar. But Penelope was the only person for whom he’d interrupt his discussion with Eldridge. He re-clipped the phone at his waist and regarded his father.
Eldridge’s hands twitched and fidgeted on the tabletop, and his dour expression echoed his agitation. “So who do you think Hugh saw getting kidnapped? Do they know who the burned body did belong to?”
Reid glanced out the large picture window beside their booth to the slow-moving traffic on the street. “We have reason to believe Hugh arranged for a body to be stolen from a funeral home or morgue. Probably thanks to more greased palms.”
“Hugh?” The surprise in Eldridge’s tone drew Reid’s attention back to his father. “Why do you suspect Hugh?”
“Well, the terms of your will certainly gave him reason to want people to think you were dead.” At Eldridge’s befuddled look, Reid added, “Controlling interest in Colton Inc.?” He barked a humorless laugh. “Let me tell you, Fowler was not pleased by that surprise.”
His father’s eyes were as large and round as their coffee mugs, his complexion as white as their napkins. “Controlling interest—” he sputtered. Now his cheeks grew florid, his jaw tightening. “I did not leave any part of my company to Hugh Barrington. What kind of stunt are you trying to pull?”
“Me?” He flopped back on the booth seat and blinked at his father, stunned. The heat of anger rushed through him. “I’m not pulling anything! You’re the one who—” He cut himself off and, teeth clenched, he drew a slow, calming breath. “You didn’t leave controlling interest of the company to Hugh?”
“Hell no!” Eldridge shouted, slamming his fist on the table so hard their coffee sloshed.
Reid folded his arms over his chest and stared at his father while his mind took off in new directions, factoring this in with everything else he’d learned about Hugh Barrington.
“Did Barrington...did that bastard lawyer tell you he got majority stake in my company?”
Reid arched an eyebrow. “You know, having more than one copy of your will would have allowed us to verify his claim. You should know better business practice than—”
“One copy? That’s insane! Of course I have more than one copy.” Eldridge looked apoplectic. He blinked rapidly, the veins in his neck pulsing, and his voice was so tight he could barely speak. “Did Barrington say...? But Aaron knew... After all the years I’ve trusted that smarmy ambulance chaser!”
Reid wanted to agree on that point. His father should have known his lawyer better, shouldn’t have trusted him so implicitly. But then Eldridge wasn’t the only one Hugh had deceived. And pointing out Eldridge’s lack of discernment wasn’t going to help the current conversation, so he bit his tongue.
“So...” His father seemed to be having trouble breathing. “All these months, my Whittie-pooh has thought I didn’t leave her anything?”
Reid groaned. “Can we not use the nauseating pet names for the rest of this conversation?”
Celia returned with their plates, and Reid surveyed what she put in front of him. If his food tasted half as good as it smelled, he might have to make this dive a regular lunch spot.
He picked up his fork and regarded Eldridge warily. “Like I said, the will was only read last month when we thought the burned body was you. All the months prior, no one knew what it said.”
Eldridge was stroking his chest and breathing heavily, his face dark with fury. He ignored his food, and after a moment, Reid grew worried. When his father appeared to be having trouble breathing, his face turning beet red, Reid slid toward the end of the booth bench and lunged toward his father, shouting to their waitress, “Call an ambulance!”
* * *
Before he stepped off the elevator, Fowler opened the voice-recorder app on his phone and slid the cell into the inside breast pocket of his suit coat. As the doors slid open, he tugged on the cuffs of his shi
rt and strode into the reception area of Barrington’s office.
Hugh’s secretary looked up from her computer, and Fowler barked, “Is he in?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Tell him I’m here.” Fowler shoved down the twinge of impatience jumping inside him as he waited for Barrington’s secretary to announce him. He was tempted to barge into the old coot’s office unannounced but doing so would get Barrington’s back up, start the meeting with a note of discord, and Fowler wanted Hugh lulled into a false sense that everything was copacetic.
When he was allowed in to see the lawyer, Fowler feigned one of his charming, ain’t-business-great smiles that had helped him wrangle more than one deal for Colton Inc. and coaxed a few pretty blondes into his bed, too.
After the usual tooth-grinding pleasantries, Fowler took a seat across from Hugh and launched his attack. “I’d like to discuss my father’s will.”
He saw the none-too-subtle tensing of Barrington’s shoulders. Not for the first time, Fowler looked at Barrington and thought of Fred Flintstone, the short but muscular cartoon character with the thick swath of dark hair. “What about it?”
“I’m just wondering your thoughts on the drafting of his will. As Eldridge’s lawyer, didn’t it concern you that there was only one copy? That he went to someone else to have it written?”
Barrington leaned back in his swivel chair, steepling his fingers in a relaxed manner incongruous with the nervous tic of his right eye behind his silver framed glasses. “I knew I could keep it safe, so I didn’t question his wish to have only one—”
“And you didn’t question why he used another lawyer?”
Hugh blinked. Swallowed hard. “I...trusted Eldridge had good reason—”
“So why didn’t that lawyer keep a copy?”
Hugh’s jaw tightened. “You’d have to ask the lawyer.”
“I’d like to. So who would this other lawyer be?”
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