The Perfect Storm_A Thrilling Romantic Suspense

by Madyson Grey

  “OK,” Victoria said, getting up from her seat. “Thank you so much for seeing me and helping me figure all this stuff out. It’s complicated to me.”

  “No problem. I’m glad to be of service,” he said, walking her to his office door.

  “Oh, just one more question,” Victoria said, stopping in her tracks. “Lena, our housekeeper, told me a while back that Daddy was planning to move out and had rented an apartment somewhere, but she doesn’t know where. Do you know where it is? Lena said that he had taken some things over there, and I would like to retrieve them and then let the apartment go. That is, if the landlord hasn’t already thrown out his stuff for non-payment of the rent. It’s been three months or more now. I just keep forgetting about it. So much keeps happening that some days I feel like my brain is in pieces.”

  “Yes, he told me that he was taking another place,” Mr. Hall said. “I had forgotten about it, too. Seems like he did give me the address. Just a minute while I look.”

  Dennis Hall rooted around on and in his desk for a bit, then looked in his file cabinet under T for Thornton. Finally he found what he was looking for and pulled out a piece of paper.

  “Here it is,” he said. “I’ll just give you this. I don’t think I need it anymore.”

  He handed her a half sheet of paper with an address on it. It was just a few blocks over from the Thornton Building. That would have to be her next priority.

  As soon as Victoria was gone, Lena hurried upstairs to the master suite. She began going through all the drawers in Marian’s writing desk. Not finding what she was looking for there, she turned to a small filing cabinet next to the desk. She went through each file folder carefully, looking for one document only. At last, in the bottom drawer and the last folder clear at the back was what she was looking for.

  Taking the folder and its contents, she made sure the drawers were left just as she had found them, then hurried downstairs and up to her own apartment. She put the folder into her own file cabinet, way in the back behind her other important papers. Breathing easier now, she went back to her tasks in the house.

  With David and Marian gone, it didn’t seem as if there was as much work to do. Even though two people had gone, two more were there to take their places. But Victoria did more for herself than Marian ever had. She took care of her own room, except for the vacuuming. Lena still did that. The guest room was unused, so once she had changed the sheets and cleaned after Rafael was no longer using it, it didn’t need much. Rafael still used the closet and dresser in there, but just going in and out once or twice a day didn’t dirty the room.

  The living room wasn’t being used, David’s office, the dining room or the master suite, so all she had to keep up was the kitchen, family room, entryway, the bathrooms and the stairs and hallway. Once every couple of weeks she would dust the unused rooms, but with the air filtration system, she didn’t really need to do even that. It was mostly something to do.

  She was enjoying more free time than she ever had since living with and working for the Thorntons. Victoria had told her to use the swimming pool anytime she wanted to, so she was doing that. It took several promptings by Victoria for Lena to feel comfortable in her newfound leisure, but she was beginning to take advantage of the pool more often. Especially when no one else was home. She didn’t abuse her privileges, though, and her work was always above reproach.

  Checking the time, Lena noted that it was nearing lunchtime. She wondered if Victoria would be home for lunch. That was the only problem she had now. Victoria was young and didn’t always think to let her know when she would be home for meals, or if she would eat out. Lena decided to text her and ask.

  Are you coming home for lunch?

  It took a couple of minutes to get a reply.

  No. Going to find Daddy’s apartment and see if I can get his things.

  Lena texted back: Come home first and get the key. I know where it is.

  OK, Victoria replied. Good idea

  Since Victoria would be coming home, Lena went ahead and made sandwiches for two and got out the pasta salad she’d made earlier. If it was all ready, Victoria might take time to eat before rushing off again. She was right. Victoria was home within ten minutes, just as Lena was setting the plates on the kitchen counter.

  “You know where the key is to Daddy’s apartment?” she asked, coming into the kitchen where Lena was pouring two glasses of milk.

  “Yes. Right after he died, I took it and put it in my apartment. I didn’t want Marian to find it and ask questions. I’ll get it for you after we eat,” Lena told her.

  “OK. Thanks for making me lunch anyway,” Victoria said with a smile.

  “If I make it, she will come,” Lena quipped.

  Victoria made short work of her lunch and impatiently munched on a cookie while waiting for Lena to finish. She didn’t want to make Lena feel rushed, but she was antsy to get going. She was mentally kicking herself for forgetting about this apartment for so long, and hoped that her dad’s things would still be in there.

  When Lena brought the key down to Victoria, she asked if Victoria needed her to go along and help carry things out to the car.

  “Sure, that would be very helpful,” Victoria said. “Maybe we should take a few boxes in case we need them. Do you know how much stuff he took over there?”

  “Not really,” Lena said. “I know that some of his awards and trophies disappeared from his office. And I saw him put a box of things from the garage into his car one day.”

  “Well, we’ll take a couple of boxes anyway, just in case we need them.”

  Victoria mapped the route from her place to David’s apartment. It wasn’t but two or three miles away, and closer to the Thornton building. Upon arrival, she found a parking place and told Lena that they should check out the apartment before carrying up boxes. The apartment was on the second floor, above retail space on the ground floor. The two women encountered no one from the time they left the elevator until Victoria used the key to enter her father’s apartment.

  They closed the door behind them and looked around. There were half a dozen or so small to medium sized boxes sitting in a corner of the living room. Victoria searched the bedroom while Lena opened kitchen cupboard doors and drawers. There was no sign that anyone had ever lived there, except for the as yet unpacked boxes in the living room.

  “I wonder who the landlord is and how we’d get ahold of him,” Victoria asked. “Oh, I know. I’ll call Rafael and ask him to look it up on the Internet.

  When she gave Rafael the address and he checked on it, his answer surprised Victoria.

  Chapter Eight

  “That’s one of our buildings, Vic,” Rafael said. “We are the landlords. However, there is a building superintendent that is in charge of the rental units. I’ll text over his number and you can give him a call.”

  “Thanks, babe,” Victoria said.

  “So that’s why his things haven’t been tossed out,” she told Lena. “This is one of our buildings!”

  “Cool,” Lena said. “All that fretting for nothing.”

  “Yep. Well, let’s take this stuff home, anyway. Oh, I’d better call the superintendent and let him know.”

  While Victoria was on the phone, Lena poked around some more in the apartment, making certain that nothing else was in there. She was curious as to the contents of the boxes, but minded her place and didn’t open any of them. That was Victoria’s place, not hers.

  The building superintendent offered the use of a hand truck for the women to use to move the boxes down to the car. Victoria gratefully accepted. Not that there were that many boxes, but it would still mean several trips up and down the elevator. The hand truck would cut the number of trips to fewer than half.

  He was there with the dolly in just a few minutes. Victoria introduced herself and Lena to him. His name was Bud Hollister. He had heard of David’s death, but not Marian’s. He expressed his condolences to Victoria for her losses. Victoria told him that she an
d Rafael were now married and that they were the owners of Thornton Enterprise and would be coming around to meet people and check out the buildings, so if he had any problems, or knew of anything that needed to be fixed to start a list for them. He was glad to hear that.

  Bud helped the women with the boxes. With what they could load onto the hand truck, that only left one box apiece for Victoria and Lena to carry. They put the heaviest boxes on the dolly and carried the lightest. Making it in one trip was nice, and they both thanked Bud for his help. Victoria gave him the key, and they left.

  Back at home, they had to carry in the boxes one at a time, but it didn’t take long. Victoria wanted them all put into the master suite where she had boxed up her parents’ clothing. She just added these boxes to the pile and would go through them one at a time. Victoria was curious to see just what her dad had treasured the most that he would take out of the house first.

  She put one box on the edge of the bed and opened it up. It contained several awards and trophies that her father had been given over the years. Most were for his contributions to city governance, some golfing trophies, and a couple Man of the Year awards from an organization he had belonged to.

  The next box contained photo albums that were full of photos from his childhood and youth. Several albums were even older, and likely had been David’s parents’ albums. Victoria was happy to find these. She remembered being allowed to look at some of them when she was a child. She spent a few minutes turning pages, watching her dad grow up in pictures.

  The third box contained important personal documents, such as his birth certificate, passport, car title, and deed to the house. There were also some other papers, such as his parents’ marriage license and their death certificates. Something else to keep and treasure.

  The fourth box had several framed photographs in it layered in bubble wrap to protect the glass. Photos of her grandparents, her dad’s high school graduation photo, and her graduation photo. None of Marian at all.

  The fifth box that she opened was the largest one. In it she discovered mementoes from his childhood. A few treasured toys, a teddy bear, an autographed baseball from a Dodgers game, and such. More treasures to keep and possibly hand down to her children—if and when. The remaining two boxes had family heirlooms in them from her grandparents, which naturally she would keep also.

  Since she was in her parents’ bedroom already, she pondered what to do with the boxes of their clothes. She finally decided to call a homeless shelter and see if they would bring a truck out to pick up the boxes. Then she went into the bathroom to see what was in there.

  The stuff was just ordinary, useful stuff that she and Rafael could use. So she started carrying everything into her bathroom. Some of the extras she put in the hallway bathroom. Stuff like toilet tissue, paper towels, small paper cups, soap, hair care products, OTC medicines, Band-aides, towels, and washcloths. Soon the bathroom was emptied out. She would ask Lena to come up and clean it out good. Not that it was dirty, but it just needed a good going over.

  She had already emptied out her mother’s dresser. And Mateo had stolen the jewelry from the large jewelry chest that stood near the dresser. The chest itself was a valuable antique that had belonged to Marian’s grandmother, so she was glad that at least he had left it. Probably too big to fuss with.

  She picked up the perfume bottles one at a time and opened each to smell it. There were only two scents that her mother used, and they were very similar. Victoria didn’t think she could ever wear her mother’s perfumes. Those scents belonged only to her mother. So she added them to one of the boxes of clothing to give away.

  There were some glass and porcelain figurines on the top of the dresser that she decided to keep. Several had been gifts from her dad to her mother. She had always especially liked the three tiny Siamese kittens that seemed to romp with one another.

  After finishing those tasks, she sat down at her mother’s writing desk to go through the drawers and cubbies in it. She found just the usual things, stationery, blank thank-you notecards, pens and pencils, stamps, and such. One drawer contained some file folders that had Marian’s important documents in them, such as her birth certificate.

  Some things that Victoria would keep as heirloom documents along with her dad’s, some things that were unimportant to her that she would toss. Much to her surprise, she found a bundle of letters held by a rubber band that was so old, when she tried to take it off, it just broke.

  The letters were from Marian’s brother, Mac. The same one with whom she had just corresponded that morning. These should be interesting, Victoria thought. Maybe there would be some clues as to why Marian had closed him out of her life. She looked at the postmarks and saw that they were dated between 1984 and 1989. She was just about to open the oldest letter first, when Lena came and tapped gently on the open bedroom door. Victoria looked up and waved her in.

  “Looky here what I found,” she said, waving the bundle of letters in the air.

  “Whatcha got there?” Lena asked.

  “Letters from Mother’s brother, Mac. The one I just messaged with this morning,” Victoria said.

  “Those should be interesting,” Lena said. “Maybe they will tell you what went on between those two.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Victoria said. “I was just about to open one.”

  “I came up to ask you what you’d like for dinner tonight?” Lena said.

  Victoria looked at her watch. It was past four o’clock.

  “I had no idea it was so late,” she said. “I’ve been doing stuff in here and forgot about the time. I emptied out this bathroom and put all the stuff either in the hallway bathroom or mine. I’d like for you to clean it tomorrow, now that it’s completely empty. All the drawers, inside the medicine cabinet and the shelves. You know. It’s not really dirty, but just wipe out everything.”

  “Sure, honey, I’ll take care of it,” Lena said. “Now about dinner.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I dunno. How about some fried chicken and mashed potatoes? And whatever vegetable we have. Corn, peas, whatever. You choose. And plenty of gravy. Rafael loves gravy, I discovered while we were on our trip.”

  “OK, I can do that,” Lena said. “That handsome man of yours should be home in about forty-five minutes or so. Dinner will be close to ready by then.”

  “Thanks, Lena. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I was so engrossed in going through stuff up here that I’d forgotten the time and about dinner. Poor Rafael would probably starve to death if it weren’t for you. I’d forget to feed him!”

  “Yeah, probably not,” Lena laughed. “If it were your responsibility, you’d do it.”

  “Maybe. Just the same, I’m thankful for you,” Victoria said.

  She gave Lena a quick one-armed squeeze and told her to holler when supper was ready.

  Then she opened the first letter, dated October 12, 1984.

  Dear Dad, Mom, and Marian, it began.

  I just wanted to let you know that we got all settled in our house up here in Portland. Diane has it all fixed up real homey like already. My job is going good. Bob, Diane’s dad, is a good man to work for. I get my first paycheck tomorrow. I really like this kind of work and seem to have a knack for it. At least that’s what Bob says.

  The letter went on for another half page about their new surroundings, the children’s latest antics, and the weather. Interesting, but nothing pertinent.

  She opened and read the second one. It was more of the same: job, wife, kids, weather. And the third, the fourth, and so on. Then came one that Victoria finally decided had been written after her grandfather Smith had died. Apparently Mac and Diane had come down for the funeral, but found Marian less than hospitable to them.

  I’m sorry you feel the way you do, Marian. But I have a family to provide for, and this is where I can best do that. …

  I took Dad’s watch and rings because he gave them to me. The very last time I talked to him, he told me that I was to have th
em. He said you were standing right there listening to him tell me, so that there would be no misunderstanding. And he gave me his war medals several years ago. You got everything else of his, so don’t begrudge me these things that he wanted me to have. You got to have him the last few years of his life, which is more than I could have.

  Diane and I were both hurt at the way you treated us when we were down for Dad’s funeral. I’ve been the best son and brother I know how to be, but if it’s not good enough for you, I’m sorry. Mom and Dad understood.

  Now it was getting juicier. Quibbling over the deceased person’s things. Victoria was glad that she was an only child, so that there were no other siblings with whom to quarrel over this house and its contents.

  Another letter revealed even more animosity between brother and sister, which continued to grow until the final letter written after their mother’s death.

  What right did you have to put everything in your name, taking advantage of Mom’s dementia to get her to sign over everything to you? I have just as much right to the inheritance as do you. You were getting paid to care for them. Paid! Paid to care for your own parents who cared for you for free. Half of their estate should be mine. But, it’s only money and things. You’re the one who will have to live with your greedy dishonesty. Have a happy life, Little Sister. I won’t bother you anymore.

  Mac

  Whew! Marian took every penny of her parents’ estate. No wonder she had so much. She cheated her own brother out of his share, and then she killed her own husband because she thought she was losing his money. What a low-down, greedy woman! No wonder that when she thought it was all gone that she ended her life. Without millions of dollars at her fingertips, she had nothing to live for. What a sad commentary on a life. Victoria put the last letter back into its envelope, stacked the letters together, and found a new rubber band to put around them. She tossed them into a “save” pile.