“I understand.”
“And what you’ve just told me makes it worse. She must have been there, this morning, when the police—”
“Stay calm, Mrs. Fortune. Explain to me why the police would want to talk to your husband.”
“Oh, God…”
“Take it slow. It’s okay.”
“I know, I know. They…they want to talk to him about his whereabouts last night.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody killed Monica Malone last night. And the authorities believe…” She couldn’t quite bring herself to finish.
“I understand.” He wished he didn’t. But he’d heard enough about the situation to see how Jake Fortune might be a suspect, if someone had eliminated Monica Malone.
“My husband is not a murderer. But where is he? Where can he be?”
“Mrs. Fortune—”
“Oh, I shouldn’t have burdened you with all of this.”
“It’s all right.”
“Forgive me.”
“Of course.”
“I will call Natalie now, over at the estate. I’ll feel better, after I talk to her.”
He thought of Natalie, all alone on the other side of the lake, dealing with the police, probably going nuts worrying about her father. Even after the ugly way it had ended between them last night, he couldn’t help wondering who was going to make her feel better.
Erica was still talking. “In the meantime, if she should show up there, would you have her call me, right away?”
“Certainly.”
“Goodbye, then.” The line went dead.
Rick turned to put the phone in its cradle and found that his son was still watching him.
Toby said another word. “Nat’lie?”
Rick swiftly reassured him. “She’s all right. She’s fine. That was about…something else.”
Toby didn’t have to say, What else? It was written all over his worried little face.
How in the hell did a man ease a child’s mind without actually telling him anything? Rick did his best. “It’s just some…family problems, that’s all. It’s nothing for us to worry about.”
Toby’s frown didn’t deepen so much as become more set.
“Really, Toby. There’s nothing we can do.”
Toby didn’t look convinced. He just sat very still, looking at his father and continuing to frown. And then the damn dog, who’d been snoozing on the rug a few feet away, suddenly lifted his giant head and let out a whine. A worried-sounding whine. The dog looked at Rick. It was a reproachful look.
“Cut it out,” Rick said. But the dog’s soft brown gaze didn’t waver.
Rick looked away—and there was Toby, frowning. Rick looked back at the dog, who now seemed to be frowning, too. He tried to remember that he was the boss here. And that his judgment was much more developed than that of a five-year-old or a Saint Bernard—as if a dog could have the vaguest idea of what was going on here, anyway.
“She won’t want us to interfere.”
The boy and the dog went on looking at him.
“She’s not in any danger, I promise you.”
They remained unconvinced.
Rick threw up his hands. “All right, damn it. We’ll go.”
They took the ski boat; it was fast, and going across the lake was much quicker than driving the rambling shore road would have been. Rick had planned to leave the dog behind, but the animal jumped in the boat before he could be told to stay. And then, when he was in there, he looked as if he wouldn’t be easy to remove.
“I suppose you ride in this thing all the time.”
The dog only gazed at him.
“You’d better sit still.”
The dog panted. To Rick, he looked smug.
“All right, fine. You can go.”
Rick helped Toby into a life jacket, then admonished him to sit still, just as he had the dog. Then, after a couple of false tries, he got the thing started and out of the boathouse. They took off across the lake.
The Fortune mansion wasn’t that hard to find. Natalie had pointed it out to Rick the day they arrived at the farmhouse. And Rick and Toby had spotted it more than once during the many days they spent on the lake. Also, it was almost a direct shot across from the farmhouse.
Thus, they were pulling up to the Fortune dock within ten minutes of leaving the boathouse. Rick tied the line to a piling and helped Toby out. Bernie had already leapt out and was waiting for them on the shore.
A sweeping lawn led up to the back of the house, where it met a wide stone terrace rimmed by a low wall. Looking out onto the terrace were a set of graceful French doors. Rick stared up at the jewellike glass of the doors and wondered how likely it was that there would be anyone in the room beyond to answer if he knocked.
No, it would be wiser to go around front and ring the bell.
“This way,” he said to his son and the dog, who fell right in step with him.
It was a big house, and it took several minutes to get around to the other side of it, but they managed. Soon enough, they were standing in the cavelike recessed porch beneath the front portico. Rick rang the bell.
They didn’t have to wait long before a serious-looking gray-haired woman answered. She was frowning. “Yes?”
“I’m Rick Dalton, Natalie Fortune’s tenant at the farmhouse across the lake. I believe she came here last night, and I’d like to speak with her, please.”
The woman looked from the dog to the child and then back at Rick. “Pardon me, but how did you get through the gate?”
“We came across the lake.”
“Ah.” The woman’s frown disappeared, but she didn’t go so far as to crack a smile. “Wait right here. I’ll check with Ms. Fortune.”
“Thanks.”
She was careful to close the door on them before she turned away.
His son and the dog were looking at him. He gave them what he hoped was a reassuring, everything’s-under-control kind of smile.
The door opened again. “She says she’ll see you.” The maid sighed. “Including the dog. This way.” The maid led them through the huge entryway. Bernie’s paws tapped time on the gleaming floors as they walked down a hall that finally brought them to a high-ceilinged living room with a bank of French doors along one wall. Rick recognized those doors. They led out to that flagstone terrace he’d seen a while ago from outside.
The richly furnished room was spacious enough to contain several conversation groups of silk-upholstered furniture. Natalie sat alone on a sofa in one of those groups, looking lost and numb. Toby and Bernie made a beeline to her side.
The maid asked, “Will there be anything else, miss?”
“No. Thank you. That’s all.”
The maid left, and Natalie turned her full attention on Toby and the dog. “Oh.” She sounded sad and grateful and very near to tears. “Oh, hi…”
Rick watched, his heart doing something traitorous inside his chest, as she opened her arms and Toby went into them. The minute she’d hugged Toby, she reached for the dog, giving him the same enthusiastic embrace the boy had received.
When she released the dog, she sat back and looked at Rick. “You shouldn’t have come.” Her tone was careful, subdued.
“We were worried.”
Her slim shoulders lifted in a shrug of pure weariness. “My mother called a little while ago. She said she’d told you…the problem.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him rather vacantly for a moment. Then she shook herself. “Oh, Rick…I’m not sure what to do next….”
The boy and the dog, sensing her distress but not understanding it, sought to give comfort. Toby patted her arm. The dog swiped at her hand with his big wet tongue.
Rick struggled over how much he could afford to say with impressionable ears listening in. “Your mother said that your father has disappeared.”
“Yes. He’s gone. Somewhere… I don’t know where, really. I’ve been trying to reach Sterling. You rememb
er Sterling?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I called his house, and he was out. So the best I could do was to leave him a message.”
“Your mother said she already spoke with him.”
“Yes. But there are some…some things I must discuss with him. Some things my mother isn’t aware of.”
“What things?”
She glanced at Toby. Rick understood. They would have to find another opportunity to carry this conversation further.
“Look,” Rick said. “I think you should come with us. Back home.”
She blinked. “Home.” All that had happened between them last night was there in her eyes. “But I—”
He didn’t wait for her excuses. “Did you bring a suitcase?”
“Yes, a small one. It’s up in my room. But, really, Rick—”
“Get it.” He spared a glance for her bare feet. “And put on some shoes. We’re leaving.”
“But I have to talk to Sterling—”
“You can call him from the farmhouse.”
“Do you really think my going back there is wise?”
He looked at her levelly. “You’ll be happier at home. You know it. This place is too big and too empty for you to stay here alone right now.”
“But we…” She cast a glance at Toby, and plainly didn’t know how to finish.
Rick did it for her, vaguely enough that he hoped his son wouldn’t really know what he was talking about. “Natalie, last night we came to an agreement about where we stand with each other. As far as I’m concerned, nothing on that level has changed. But right now, you’re in trouble, and you could use a helping hand. I’m offering mine. Maybe you just ought to take it and stop reading a thousand different meanings into everything I do.”
She searched his face. And then she nodded. “I’ll get my things.”
Natalie drove her car back around the lake. Rick, Toby and Bernie returned the way they’d come, in the ski boat.
Natalie knew Rick had been right when she pulled into the gravel drive and looked up at the comfortable wooden house. She belonged here, not in the empty mansion across the lake.
Inside, Rick, Toby and Bernie were already waiting for her. Natalie called Sterling’s house again, but was told he was out. She left a second message, asking that he call her immediately at the farmhouse.
When she hung up, all she wanted to do was pace the floor. But Rick set some toast in front of her.
“Eat.” He poured her a cup of coffee.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat.”
So she doggedly picked up a wedge of toast and stuck the corner in her mouth.
At last, around nine-fifteen, Sterling called back. He promised he’d be right over. Thirty-one minutes later, the lawyer was knocking on the front door.
Rick had a video of The Lion King. He settled Toby in the great room with Bernie, to watch it. The adults retreated to the front parlor.
Natalie sat on the sofa, and Sterling took one of the wing chairs. Rick stayed on his feet, near Natalie. He didn’t miss the measuring glances that Sterling sent his way, and he fully expected the old gentleman to find some tactful way to ask him to leave the room.
But all Sterling said was “It appears that Natalie trusts you.” Then the white-haired lawyer looked at Natalie, who gave him a quick nod. “All right, then. Let’s proceed.”
In a low, tight voice, Natalie told of the condition she’d found her father in the night before.
“You say his shirt was torn, and blood-spotted at the shoulder?”
She nodded. “Somehow, he must have cut himself.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“No.” She glanced away, and then back. “He didn’t tell me anything, really. He was…incoherent. I told him he’d had enough to drink and coaxed him up to his room.”
“And that’s all?”
“I looked at his shoulder. The wound was minor. I cleaned it and put a bandage on it.”
“And then?”
“I left him alone.” Natalie sighed and rubbed at her temples. Rick, still standing close, couldn’t stop himself wishing he could make this all easier for her. Involuntarily his hand went out, but he caught himself just in time and dropped it to his side.
Sterling instructed, “Now tell me about what happened when you talked to the police.”
Natalie launched into a story of how two detectives from the Minneapolis police had rung the bell at the front gate at six-thirty that morning.
“Did they have a warrant?”
“I don’t think so. They never mentioned one. And I never asked them for one. I thought it would be foolish to refuse to cooperate with them.”
“Wise move. So you let them in….”
“Yes. I opened the gate from the kitchen control panel, and then I ran up to Dad’s rooms to tell him they were there.” Natalie drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “He wasn’t in his rooms. The television in the sitting room was still on, and his bed looked untouched. I went down and checked in the library, where I’d found him the night before. He wasn’t there, either.”
“What happened next?”
“The detectives were at the door by then. There’s a new housekeeper at the estate. She let them in. They asked if they could look around, and I said they could. Then they asked me about what had happened last night. I told them what I’ve just told you. After they finally went away, I realized that Dad must have left in the black sports car—it had been in front of the house last night when I first arrived, around eleven.”
“How much did you tell the detectives about what Jake said to you in the library?”
Natalie blinked, then looked toward the front windows. “Nothing.” She met Sterling’s eyes again. “Just what I told you. That he’d been drinking and that he was incoherent. I said I had helped him up to the master suite and left him watching television. They asked me if I’d seen anything odd in his behavior, if he’d said anything unusual, if he’d happened to mention Monica Malone. And I, um…”
The distress in her voice had Rick clenching his fists at his sides.
Sterling leaned forward in his chair. “Natalie. It’s all right. Tell me exactly what you said.”
“I…” Her voice was very small. “Sterling, he did mention something. About Monica Malone blackmailing him. About going to see her earlier in the evening. About having an argument with her. But it really was garbled.”
“Did you tell that to the police?”
She looked at Sterling for a moment, then wrapped her arms around herself and shivered a little, though it wasn’t cold at all in the parlor.
“Natalie…” Sterling prodded.
And then she lifted her chin. “No. I didn’t tell that to the police. I said that he’d been incoherent. That I couldn’t make sense of anything he said.”
“I see.”
“I know it was wrong, that in a way I lied to them, by omission. But I’d probably do it all over again. I’ve been…confused about a lot of things lately. But last night, when I saw Dad the way he was, it came very clear to me that I’m a Fortune, first and foremost. I’m a Fortune. And when you’re a Fortune, you stick by your own.”
Sterling studied her face. Then he nodded. “I understand. And, unhappily for Jake, from what I’m piecing together here, they’re going to have a mountain of evidence against him. Whatever he said to you last night probably isn’t going to matter much, anyway—as long as what you’ve told me is all of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Sterling’s gaze was ice-blue now. “I mean, if he said more, if he, perhaps, actually confessed to you that he did more than just argue with the Malone woman, you should tell me right now.”
Natalie leapt to her father’s defense. “No, Sterling. He never said anything like that. He said they argued. And he muttered something about her falling. But then, when I tried to get him to explain, he said that she was all right. That they’d argued and he’d left and that was all
there was to it.”
“Did he say what Monica Malone was blackmailing him with?”
“No. I asked several times. But he never would tell me.”
“Have you heard the news or read the papers this morning?”
Natalie gave a shrill little laugh. “I’ve been pretty busy this morning, Sterling.”
That did it for Rick. He had to reach out. He laid a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened and looked up at him.
“Easy,” he said, and smiled at her. She didn’t smile back, but he felt her relax a little. Then he looked at Sterling. “What are you getting at?”
“It’s all over the morning papers. Monica was stabbed several times in the chest with a letter opener.”
Natalie let out a small cry of distress. “Oh, no…”
Sterling stood. “Natalie, you said Jake’s shoulder was injured.”
“But he wouldn’t tell me how it got that way. He just looked at it and shrugged and said he didn’t remember. Sterling, he was really drunk. It was so hard to make sense of what he said.”
“All right. But are you sure that’s all? Are you sure there’s nothing else you think I should know?”
She looked up at the lawyer, her big eyes full of worry and sorrow. “No. That’s all. That’s everything.”
“Then I have to be going. There’s much to do. If any more detectives should come around asking questions, insist that your lawyer be present before you say anything. And then give me a call.”
“Yes, I’ll do that. I promise.”
The older man smiled at Rick. “Take good care of her.”
Rick answered without hesitation. “I will.”
Natalie looked from Sterling to Rick and then back to Sterling. “No,” she said. “You don’t understand….”
“What?” Sterling asked, lifting one thick silver brow.
And then Natalie was blushing. “Nothing. Never mind. I’ll walk you to the door.”
Rick stayed where he was as Natalie saw Sterling out.
At the door, Natalie took Sterling’s arm. “If you hear anything, will you let me know?”
He patted her hand. “Of course I will.”
Sterling called Kate to give her an update as soon as he reached his house. Earlier that morning, when he received Erica’s call, he had rushed to Kate’s penthouse, so they’d already shared an hour-long conference about the situation. She had sent him back to his place with instructions to stay put, in case Jake called him.
Wife Wanted Page 17
