Daughter of Deceit

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Thanks. He seems nice enough, though.”

  Hollis shrugged. “You can’t tell about people from how they seem. Good night.”

  Katharine grabbed her by the shoulder. “What aren’t you saying?”

  Hollis pulled away. “Nothing. I don’t like him, that’s all. We can’t all like everybody.” She also ran down the stairs to her car, but in Hollis’s case, it looked like a bolt.

  As Katharine carefully checked to be sure all her doors were locked, she admitted that the evening had disturbed her. What was it about Kenny that Hollis disliked so much? And how had he known who she was, to point her out to his grandfather?

  She also disliked the fact that strangers had been discussing her staying home alone. She double-checked to be sure the security system was on, and even then she had a hard time settling down to doing anything constructive. Finally she pulled out the bills and spent an hour writing checks, but she had trouble concentrating and had to tear up one check after she wrote the amount on the date line. What had Kenny been referring to when he’d asked about Hollis? Girls at college seldom told their parents everything. What did Kenny know that she—and maybe Posey—didn’t?

  She felt so jumpy that when the phone rang at ten, she looked at it apprehensively. Nobody she knew except Tom called after nine, and he was at a late meeting that evening.

  To her utter delight, it was Jon. “I got an e-mail from Kenny. He said he fixed your computer and stayed for dinner.”

  Katharine was pleased that Kenny would report on his evening to Jon. That raised him in her estimation again. “He did, but he wouldn’t let me pay him.”

  Jon laughed. “He’s making an indecent amount of money, and a home-cooked meal probably did him good.”

  When they hung up, Katharine missed her family so much she felt a physical ache. The house seemed enormous, full of dark corners. She carried the small cat up with her to bed, but at the top of the stairs, as she was about to switch off the downstairs-hall light, she changed her mind. For the first time since her children were small she left hall lights on, upstairs and down.

  Chapter 14

  About the time Katharine was going up to bed, Murdoch Payne was sitting beside her telephone dithering. Dithering was something Murdoch did well. Making a decision could be so difficult. She was far better at impulsive acts, committed on the spur of the moment without thinking things through. When she acted on impulse, she felt as if she were swimming with the current in a fast-moving stream. When she stopped to think, it was as if somebody had put huge boulders in the water of life.

  Take her upcoming trip, for instance. She had dithered for weeks about whether to attend the reunion of her old college roommates in New England. Should she spend the money? Would she have any fun? They were all more accomplished than she, and married. She had almost decided not to go, when she found a promising link that might connect Dolley Payne Madison to their branch of the Payne family tree. The next morning she had seen an ad in the paper for a cheap flight to Boston, called that very hour to make a plane reservation, got a good seat, and even got a good deal on a hotel. It was a bit far from campus, but surely her friends wouldn’t mind transporting her. Why couldn’t all of life be that simple?

  Simple for Murdoch meant anything that gave Murdoch what she wanted.

  What she wanted at the moment was not simple, however. People didn’t gossip about Bara in her presence, but she’d heard enough to know Foley was trying to squeeze every penny he could out of their divorce, and in spite of what Bara had said the previous afternoon, it would be like her to give Foley the Dolley Payne Madison silver tea set in exchange for something she wanted more. That worried Murdoch to death.

  Before she went out of town, she wanted Bara to solemnly promise she would not let that set go out of the family. She reached for the phone, then drew back. She had never persuaded Bara of anything before. Why should she think she could this time?

  She was desperate enough to try.

  Across Buckhead, Foley Weidenauer stood in the door and considered his wife in the light streaming from the hall. She lay in the library on a black leather couch with her eyes closed. Asleep? Or drunk? It was past eleven. How long had she lain there? He hadn’t heard any sounds since he’d arrived home at eight.

  Foley had been listening for sounds that she was going to bed. He wanted to prowl the house that evening to make sure she hadn’t removed any of the things on their inventory. He also wanted to look for items he could replace with copies of lesser value. He had already commissioned a talented young artist to reproduce the Monet in the front hall. It ought to be finished in a week. Bara was attached to that painting, so she would be sure to want it, but having had it appraised recently, she’d be unlikely to look at it too closely anytime soon.

  He looked around the familiar room—the room that used to be his library—and his eyes encountered those of Winston Arthur Holcomb staring at him from above the fireplace. Bara had taken the oil portrait from her father’s closet the day they let her into the condo after he died, and asked a couple of gardeners to take down a perfectly good hunting scene and hang it up. Foley had thought about protesting, but had decided to wait until she’d recovered a little from her daddy’s death. He hadn’t expected that to take so long.

  Once he had definitely decided on divorce, he had a better idea. He had brought in an art dealer he knew to evaluate the painting one afternoon while Bara was out. The man had recently been taken to the cleaners in a vicious divorce, so he was quite amenable to inflating the value. Bara had been happy to believe a portrait of her old man was worth that much, and Foley had included it in her share of the settlement.

  “She’s welcome to you,” he told Winnie silently. He glided across the thick rug and stood looking down at her. She wore black silk pajamas with a matching robe and black velvet slippers. Her hair fell across the black arm of the couch in swirls of silver. She was still attractive when she let her face relax. Sleep—or alcoholic stupor—erased the lines of bitterness around her mouth and hid the anger in her eyes.

  Her eyes were what had first attracted Foley. One of many CPAs in a large firm that handled the accounts of Holcomb & Associates, he had been invited to an office party Winnie Holcomb had thrown. Bored and about to leave, he had heard a laugh, looked across the room, and seen a woman with a cloud of black curls and dark, smoldering eyes—the kind of eyes you could jump into and drown. They flashed in his direction as somebody in her circle finished a joke, and she threw back her head and laughed again.

  Foley, who measured his pleasure with the same precision he devoted to accounting, had been enchanted by the abandon of that laugh. He had noted that the drink in her glass was clear, so he crossed to the bar and asked the bartender if he knew what the woman in the emerald dress was drinking. The bartender looked where he was pointing. “Miss Bara? She only drinks water. It’s water, all right. Never touches anything stronger.”

  “Then give me two waters on the rocks.”

  Carrying the drinks before him, Foley had worked his way through the crowd to her side. “I see your drink is almost gone. Care for another?”

  She had started to refuse, but he leaned over and whispered, “It’s water. Looks like gin or vodka, but it’s not as likely to make us disgrace ourselves in front of the boss.”

  She had registered surprise, then delight, and said in a husky voice, “My beverage of choice.”

  He had stood beside her for nearly half an hour, charmed and charming. He knew he could be charming. Women had been telling him so for years. Foley, however, had been waiting for the woman who could help him up the ladder he was determined to climb.

  He’d had no idea when he met her that Bara Branwell could be that woman. He figured she had to be somebody important in Winnie Holcomb’s world, since that was the sort of party it was, but not having grown up in Atlanta, he had no idea she was Winnie’s daughter. Still, she had intrigued him. She seemed young for her years, yet sophisticated as Foley coul
d never be. Because Foley possessed at least the rudiments of a conscience, he would remind himself in years to come that he had liked her before he knew who she was; he had not married her for her money or her name.

  Not entirely.

  The night they met, after what he had considered enough chitchat, he asked her to dinner after the party. She had agreed, with one stipulation. “I’ll come, but I’ll drive my own car. It’s a rule I observe.”

  Not until after they had met twice more for dinner and enjoyed a lot of good laughs together did somebody clap him on the shoulder in the Atlanta Athletic Club locker room one afternoon and say, “I hear you are squiring Bara Holcomb. Some folks have all the luck.”

  “Holcomb?” Foley had asked, bewildered. “I thought her name was Branwell.”

  “Bara Holcomb Branwell.” The other man punched him lightly. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That she’s Winnie Holcomb’s only living child, with enough in the bank to keep half of Atlanta for the rest of our natural lives. But you’d better be careful. Winnie is real protective where she’s concerned.”

  Foley had done a lot of thinking while he walked the treadmill and rode the exercise bike that afternoon. He had considered their difference in age and what it would mean in years to come. He had balanced that against the probability of a position at Holcomb & Associates, a house in Buckhead, and entrée into Atlanta’s highest circles. By the time he headed to the shower, he had made a decision. He would have that woman if it was the last thing he ever did.

  It had taken him five months to persuade her to elope to Greece. After they got back, she had taken him to her daddy’s office, flung out one arm, and said, “Here’s my new husband, Winnie. He’s been keeping accounts for you for years. Think you could find him a job in the firm?”

  Winnie had been far from pleased about Foley, but he was glad to see Bara happy. Throughout the following year, Foley had worked to keep her happy—and to convince Winnie that he would be an asset to the firm. He had been, dammit! Look at how well he’d handled Winnie once he had the job. For months the big man had eyed him like a new rooster intruding on his coop, but Foley had set himself to charm Winnie as he had charmed Bara. He not only did excellent work for the firm, but he had also learned the great man’s likes and dislikes—and challenged his opinion often enough to keep Winnie from seeing his son-in-law as a toady. Winnie never trusted men he could not respect.

  Gradually Winnie had begun to rely on him, even if he never really liked him. When Foley saw that Winnie’s liking was lacking, he had set out to charm the board. Winnie had objected to Foley’s rise to chief financial officer, but by then Foley had had the votes. Some folks said Winnie had jumped off his balcony because of his grandson’s death. Foley knew differently. It had happened the day Bara warned Winnie that the board intended to make Foley CEO when Winnie retired. Foley had made the mistake of boasting to her, not thinking she’d tell Winnie so soon. Winnie had called Foley and blistered his ears with his anger. He’d called a couple of board members as well. Before he could call more, he had died. Within two days the board had called an emergency meeting, and Foley had been elected.

  He again met the eyes of the man in the portrait over the fireplace. “Not bad for a boy with a whore for a mother and a john for a dad, eh? But you should never have said what you did to me that last afternoon.”

  Winnie’s gaze held his. Foley flushed and looked away.

  Bara stirred, drawing his attention. He had Winnie’s company and he had Winnie’s daughter. The question now was, what was he going to do with her?

  The Arabs wouldn’t wait forever. They’d find another company more amenable to their wooing. If Bara didn’t soon agree to a divorce and a fair division of their joint assets—from the day they married, Foley had considered everything she owned their “joint assets”—another solution would have to be found.

  He had never imagined she’d be so set against divorce. She was no longer madly in love with him, but the idea that he would leave her for a younger woman made her livid. Had she really thought he’d stick around while she withered? These past couple of years, they had rattled around in their big house like strangers.

  Strangers. Foley ran that word by what passed for his conscience and found it calmed the puny thing considerably. Strangers weren’t the same as family. If Bara didn’t sign those contracts soon, Foley might consider a contract of a very different kind.

  The phone startled him. He started backing out of the room, but Bara opened her eyes before he could disappear. “Hi,” she said drowsily, apparently forgetting the hostilities between them for an instant. Then she swung her legs off the couch and demanded, in the voice he had grown accustomed to, “How did you get in here? What do you want?”

  Foley had no intention of telling her about the back-door key he’d had duplicated before his lawyer turned over his keys to Scotty—especially since Carlene had used it so disastrously the day before. But Foley had known he would need a key, had known the bitch would be nasty enough to demand his keys and put a deadbolt on the inside door to the basement.

  Instead of answering, he looked around to see where she’d left the cordless phone. Bara could never be bothered to replace phones on their chargers. He found it on a small table across the room. The table was covered with dust. She never cleaned between visits from the service.

  “Hello?”

  “I–I–I wanted Bara.” Good old Murdoch. Never could talk to a man without stammering.

  Foley held out the phone. “It’s your charming cousin.” Let Murdoch make of that what she would.

  Bara took the receiver. “Hello?” She was still only half awake—or drunk. Foley considered her, wondering which.

  He had been astonished when she’d started drinking a few months before, and even more astonished at how unsurprised other people were. However, if she wanted to drink herself to death rather than divorce him, Foley was willing to help. Once he had determined her drink of choice, he made sure to keep some hidden in his basement bathroom. He also kept a record of how much she took. That could come in handy in court.

  The other thing that surprised him was a rumor he’d heard that week: that her first husband had beaten her and that Bara—feisty, independent Bara—had been terrified of him. Foley had tucked that piece of information away in case he needed it. The woman was not invincible.

  He eased across the large foyer and into the dining room, where he propped himself against the table to eavesdrop. Her voice carried. Who knew what she might say to Murdoch that could be of use to him?

  She didn’t say a word for a while. Instead, she took a deep breath and waited like she did when she wasn’t going to answer and wanted somebody to stew in his or her own juices. Winnie used to do that, too. It was one of the first things that had infuriated Foley about them both.

  Murdoch sounded upset about something. Foley could hear the tinny sound of her voice all the way out in the hall. Bara let her run down, then spoke wearily. “I don’t need your advice on how to take care of my things.” She stopped.

  “I don’t see that what I do is any business of yours,” she said a moment later.

  What was she talking about? Even Murdoch wouldn’t be foolish enough to advise Bara on what do to with her father’s company.

  The house? It had belonged to Murdoch’s grandparents, too. Did she think that gave her a claim on it? She could think again. Bara’s grandfather had deeded her the house when she married her first husband. Foley had made sure of that before he married her. And before their second month of marriage he had persuaded her to put his name on the deed as well as on her bank accounts. “That way, if anything were to happen to you, I’d have the right and means to take care of you and our children.” Not that he had ever really considered that the brats had anything to do with him.

  Bara had hesitated, but in those days he had known how to get her to do almost anything he wanted. When had he lo
st that touch?

  Murdoch’s excited chatter reached him where he stood.

  Bara huffed. “That’s nonsense and you know it. Nana gave it to me. By name.”

  Not the house, then. Her grandfather gave that to her. Foley took a mental inventory of its contents. He’d never been clear on what else Bara had inherited from whom. Living in the place was like living in a family museum. What on earth could Murdoch be that desperate about?

  He chewed his lip, thinking. He ought to take every portable valuable they had to a vault, some day when Bara went out, to be sure they were still around to be counted in the settlement. Bara was so sneaky, she might think of doing the same thing if he didn’t beat her to it.

  Foley had spent several happy evenings going down his appraiser’s list. He looked appreciatively around the dining room. Just the silver he could see was worth a considerable fortune.

  An unfamiliar gleam caught his eye and held it. A gun, on the table. He started to pick it up, caught himself in time.

  So his dear wife had a gun?

  Foley smiled, but he stepped toward the foyer so he wouldn’t be near the gun when she got off the phone. No need to remind her she’d left it there.

  Bara spotted the motion. “Look,” she said quickly, “I can’t talk right now. I‘ve got a rat in the house. Call me when you get back.” She laid the phone down on the foyer table beside a crystal heron that was a commissioned, one-of-a-kind piece by Hans Godo Fräbel. It was both valuable and lovely, and Foley was determined to have it. So what if some group had given it to Bara in appreciation of something she had done for them? As he kept reminding her, sentiment has no place in divorce.

  “What did you want?” she demanded.

  “What did Murdoch want?” he countered, striving to make his voice jovial.