FALSE PRETENSES

by Catherine Coulter

  “Thank you, Rod.”

  He started. Those were the first words she’d spoken to him since they’d left the courthouse.

  “It’s nearly over now, Elizabeth. You’ll be acquitted. Moretti can have the week postponement—he can have a month—it won’t make any difference. He won’t break Christian Hunter. This time next week, we’ll be celebrating.”

  Elizabeth flexed her fingers unconsciously in an exercise she’d done away from the piano since she was five years old.

  “Will we?” she said.

  The elevator slugged to a halt. Rod pulled the wrought-iron gate open, stood back, and waited for her to exit directly into the foyer.

  “I’m tired,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think I’ll sleep for a week once Moretti has thrown in the towel.”

  How odd mundane things were, she thought. She’d been selfish and inconsiderate. “Please, Rod, come in for a drink. You know you’re fond of Kogi’s martinis.”

  “Yes, I think I will. This time next week, Elizabeth, it will be champagne.”

  She said nothing. A Japanese man, who came only to Elizabeth’s chin, burst into the living room, smiling widely. He was wearing his white coat and black slacks and his prized mustache was brushed and gleaming.

  “Welcome, Mrs. Elizabeth, Mr. Samuels. I am pleased.”

  “Thank you, Kogi. I believe Mr. Samuels would like one of your famous martinis.”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Elizabeth.”

  He deftly took her coat, gloves, and purse, then provided the same service for Rod. Kogi had been with Timothy for fifteen years, and he’d stayed on. Stayed on with his master’s accused murderer. He’d never said a word to Elizabeth and she had been too much of a coward to ask him what he thought.

  “Please to sit down,” said Kogi.

  Rod sat on the pale gold sofa. Elizabeth wandered about the living room, a marvel of modern sculptures, most of them naked women and men in bronze and marble. One large woman was posed in front of the bow windows. Several Rodins were among the collection. So much chrome and glass and silk, not to mention the twenty-foot Tabriz in pale peach and blue that covered the thick white carpet. Very expensive, all of it, and very elegant, and about as subtle and restrained as the celebration for the Statue of Liberty. Elizabeth didn’t actively dislike it, she simply ignored it for the most part. Her eyes went to the seven-foot Steinway grand piano set in the far corner by another set of long windows. Timothy had bought it for her as a wedding present, three years before. On the wall beside the piano were three Picassos, from his Pink Period. Two of them were nudes, pathetic figures against their rose and terra-cotta backgrounds.

  Elizabeth walked toward the piano, forgetting Rod, forgetting the awful nightmare that had begun seven months before.

  She sat down, flexed her fingers, and began Bach’s Italian Concerto. She loved the key of F. It was so elegant, much more so than the furnishing of this elaborate mansion. And Bach was so clean and predictable, every chord she played calling for the next and the next, in an even pattern, an even flow.

  She didn’t open her eyes until she reached the second movement. She couldn’t play it. It was slow, haunting, sorrowful. She ached and hurt.

  “Would you like something to drink, Elizabeth?”

  She blinked up at Rod, who was standing beside the piano, merely looking at her. What did he think? she wondered. He always looked so cool, so in control, so impenetrable, with those dark eyes of his.

  “Perhaps a glass of Chablis.” She saw Kogi from the corner of her eye already holding her glass of wine, and smiled.

  “I forget how beautifully you play,” Rod said, sipping on his perfect martini. Of course Timothy always demanded the best. In his drinks, in his servants, in his lawyers. In his lawyers who defended his wife against a murder rap. “Won’t you continue, Elizabeth?”

  “The second movement makes me sad,” she said, rose, and smoothed down her dark blue wool skirt.

  He watched her accept the crystal goblet of white wine from Kogi. She had beautiful hands, her fingers long and slender. Strong hands, strong enough to stick a silver skewer . . . He watched her delicately sip the wine. If only Moretti knew that Elizabeth never drank anything other than wine, that she would never touch a daiquiri.

  He wondered what she was thinking. He’d wondered that so many times, not just during the past months, but since he’d met her before she married Timothy. She always eluded him, always escaped to her music or to her blank silences. But she said now, very quietly, “Rod, who is Christian Hunter?”

  He’d expected her to ask him that much sooner. But Elizabeth was different. He’d always despised her, not only for her differentness—for God’s sake, a musician—but also for her serenity, her calmness, her ruthlessness.

  She had been ruthless. Timothy was a goner from the first time he’d met her, from the first time he’d heard her play that haunting Chopin prelude at Carnegie Hall.

  He wasn’t so certain now.

  He wanted to hate her. He wanted to believe her guilty. He wanted . . . He ran his free hand through his gray hair. It wasn’t that she was a sex goddess, for heaven’s sake, or a woman who lured men with blatant offers. She was different, cool, reserved, kept too much to herself. He wondered if she’d ever wanted to have sex. It couldn’t have been that way with Timothy, sixty-four-year-old Timothy Carleton, who exuded raw power and arrogant presence. Here Rod was, only fifty-one, a young man compared to Timothy, yet she’d never even hinted that he was anything to her but a friend, a slightly distant friend.

  Old, old Timothy.

  And she’d married him.

  He realized that she was waiting for him to reply, and for a moment he couldn’t remember her question. Oh, yes, who was Christian Hunter? “Don’t you know who he is?” he asked, watching her closely.

  Elizabeth turned to look down at the street from the bow windows. For many moments she was silent. Even her body was completely still. How could such a serene woman be capable of cold-blooded murder? But he’d believed her guilty.

  “I never saw him before today in that courtroom,” Elizabeth said, not turning. “But surely you know that, Rod. Where did you find him?”

  “Is that true, Elizabeth?”

  He didn’t want to hear the truth, he realized suddenly. He wanted to keep protecting her, as he’d done the past six months. He wanted . . .

  “You must know that I’ve never seen Christian Hunter in my life.” She turned on those words, pinning him with those intense green eyes. Gifted-artist eyes, Timothy had told him, flushed, in love with this enigmatic woman.

  Rod shrugged. “He sought me out, told me his story. I put him through the blender and I knew he would be believed by the jury. He is the most credible witness I’ve ever seen.”

  She stood stiff, ramrod stiff.

  “Why? He saved you, Elizabeth. I don’t know . . . Yes, I do know. Without him the jury would find you guilty. Were it not for Christian Hunter, you would go to prison for life.”

  She knew that well enough. The jurors had regarded her throughout with distrust and the natural wariness and envy of the very rich. “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I know. He told Moretti that he was rich. Odd how they would believe him and not me. What does he want, Rod?”

  “I don’t know. Your estate is vast, Elizabeth.” He paused, but just for a moment. “There’s more, of course. The family, as you well know, is going to fight the will. I’ve held them off with the trial. But now—as soon as the jury brings in the not-guilty verdict—it will start in earnest. Don’t think they will change toward you because you’ve been exonerated.”

  Her hand released the delicate silk curtain. “I don’t care, you know that, Rod. I’ve never cared. You should realize that by now.”

  He was silent.

  She stared at him. “No, I guess you don’t know, do you?” she said slowly, thoughtfully. “There is no one for me, is there?”

  “Elizabeth . . .” he said, his hand clutch
ing at his martini glass.

  “No, don’t.” She wasn’t stupid or blind. She saw his uncertainty, understood it. She drew a deep breath. “No, you don’t know, do you, Rod? Now we’ve another battle, have we?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “We do. Are you going to be up to it, Elizabeth?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. She was thinking: Timothy, what am I to do? Fight your family? Your brothers? Your own sons and daughter? Your mother, for God’s sake?

  “Where did you find Christian Hunter?”

  He felt himself stiffen at her cold tone. “I told you, he came to me.”

  “You should have consulted me, Rod.”

  Yes, I could have, but you didn’t make a whimper, did you? You let him tell his story and didn’t make a sound. “I suppose I could have,” he said aloud. He drank down the rest of the martini. “Moretti won’t break him.”

  “No, perhaps not. But, Rod, what price will Hunter ask? What is it that he wants?”

  “I don’t know, Elizabeth. I truly don’t know.”

  2

  Elizabeth stared at the black letters of the Post headline: ELIZABETH X SAVED BY SURPRISE WITNESS.

  Rod Samuels had been right, about everything. Moretti hadn’t broken Christian Hunter. Dr. Hunter had broken him, never tiring, never mixing up his story, even after four brutal hours of pounding from the district attorney.

  She looked up at Rod, saw the triumph in his dark eyes. Triumph at winning, at beating Moretti, whom he considered an uneducated fascist. Rod was rubbing his hands together. They’d escaped the media. Gallagher had very efficiently locked the lobby doors in their faces.

  “The man was a marvel, wasn’t he?” Rod said, accepting a flute of Veuve Clicquot from the beaming Kogi.

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth. “I thought Moretti would kill him, he was so furious.”

  Rod regarded her closely. It seemed to him that he was always looking at her for the slightest hint of what she was thinking or feeling, for her voice never gave her away. “The jury took only an hour.”

  “Yes,” she said again.

  “Moretti couldn’t dig up a scrap of dirt on Hunter. Even his ridiculous IRS ploy backfired on him.”

  When will Hunter want to see me? Elizabeth wondered. She said aloud, “You knew he would do that, of course. You were brilliant, Rod, telling the court how you also had been audited for the past fifteen years and asking the jurors how many of them had been too. What a chance you took.”

  “It wasn’t a guess, Elizabeth. I knew three of them had.”

  She marveled silently at his mind. “Have you ever lost, Rod?”

  He grinned at that. “Yes, my ex-wife took me to the cleaners.”

  “Were there no surprises?”

  “Not a one. I’d covered everything with Hunter, I even badgered him like Moretti would. Even the bartender at that place in the Village knew Dr. Hunter, said he was a regular, that it was very likely you could have been with him that night.”

  “What does he want, Rod?”

  “I’ve told you, Elizabeth, I don’t know. He’s said nothing about wanting anything. He’s never told me that his testimony wasn’t the absolute truth. On the contrary. Could it be that he was right? Could you have blocked out everything that night, including him?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps you felt guilty that you were with him while Timothy was being murdered? It all was a terrible shock.”

  “No,” she said again, wearily. “I didn’t block out a thing. I wish I could have.”

  She realized that Rod was nearly desperate to believe that she had suffered some sort of mental or emotional trauma. Was it so important to him to believe her innocent of her husband’s murder?

  “It’s over, Elizabeth,” he said. “I told you what would happen.”

  “Yes, you did.” But was it over? She closed her eyes a moment, remembering clearly the horror she’d felt when she’d come home alone and found Timothy lying on his study floor, the leather-handled silver ice pick in his chest. A clever, useless toy—how Timothy had enjoyed interesting toys—never used except for show in its holder on the silver ice bucket, except to murder Timothy. And she’d touched it, of course, tried to pull it out of him. But it hadn’t come out and she’d realized then that he was dead. But his face, his hands, were still warm. . . .

  “All of it was circumstantial evidence in any case,” Rod said. Moretti had hammered and hammered away in his final summation. Motive, opportunity, her fingerprints on the silver ice pick, the endless hostile testimony from all of Timothy’s relatives.

  “You can never be tried for Timothy’s murder again, Elizabeth.”

  She wished she could laugh. Even cry. But there was only a vast emptiness inside her. She moved automatically to her piano. She played the Chopin prelude Timothy had loved. It was very short, only one page, and in C minor. Barry Manilow had used it as the basis for one of his popular songs. Whenever she played it now, she thought of the song’s words in her mind.

  She finished, laid her fingers lightly over the keys, but didn’t look up. “I want to return to the concert circuit.”

  Rod was silent for many moments. “I don’t think it would be a good idea just yet, Elizabeth. There are too many people who would be . . .”

  “Unkind? Vicious? You believe all Timothy’s family would come and throw things at the stage?”

  “Possibly. Likely. Almost certainly.”

  “Timothy wasn’t going to divorce me, Rod.”

  “As Moretti claimed? No, I know that, Elizabeth.” He paused a moment, and pulled a cigarette out of his gold case. He lit it, inhaled deeply, and said in a very deliberate, lawyer’s voice, “He was, however, seeing another woman. She is younger than you. Twenty-five, I believe. She’s also an artist, a painter.”

  He watched her closely, but she showed no emotion, merely asked, “Really, Rod? Are you certain? Why didn’t the district attorney bring that out?”

  “I am somewhat persuasive, Elizabeth.”

  “You paid her off?”

  “Yes, of course. He had no plans to divorce you. She had no bearing on anything.” He waited. Wouldn’t she even want to know the woman’s name? What happened to her? Instead, she said very calmly, “It was true, you know, Rod. What Moretti claimed. Timothy was going to change his will back.”

  “No, he wasn’t. You’re wrong, Elizabeth. His sons, as you well know, were a disappointment to him. Bradley is a ruthless snake, smooth as silk on the outside, but I wouldn’t trust him to park my car. As for Trent, he’s a self-righteous prig who should have been a monk. Timothy’s fault, of course, and Laurette’s. Never let the boys . . . well, steer their own course. Did you know that Trent’s one pitiful act of rebellion was joining a religious cult? Timothy put a stop to it quickly enough. All of them were fools to treat you so badly.”

  She smiled at that. “At least they’ve always been consistent, Rod.”

  “They won’t break the will. Timothy was very careful to leave them all adequate sums, not just a single dollar as an insult. You will have the bulk of the estate, and that includes a good number of diverse companies, both national and multinational, under the ACI umbrella. Conglomerates, if you will. The power and the responsibility are enormous, Elizabeth.”

  She repeated what she’d said to him several times before: “I’m a musician. I know nothing about business. It’s ridiculous. And I’m a woman. Even in my world, Rod, there is endless discrimination. In the business world I would be destroyed, probably very easily, knocked out with scarcely a whimper.”

  “Not if you’re backed up by a battalion of both men and women who know what they’re doing. I’ve already assembled them, Elizabeth. They will be loyal to you and protect you. Since Timothy’s death, Bradley and his uncle in particular have been undermining any power you could have. Laurette has controlled the reins. It has to be stopped, and very soon.”

  “I can’t imagine Michael Carleton having the time to stick his fingers in Timothy
’s many pies. He’s nearly as wealthy as Timothy.”

  “I can say a lot of things about Michael, but he’s brilliant and has endless energy, and he has the Carleton drive for . . . well, everything. Oddly enough, as you know, he’s also under his mother’s thumb. Laurette won’t let any of them go, not until she’s dead.”

  “Timothy always said there had to be a strong hand at the helm.” She splayed her hands in front of her. “Not these hands, nor several dozen strong hands.”

  “You will simply have to learn, won’t you? You can’t break up ACI.”

  She frowned at his steadiness, at his certainty. “Do you still believe me guilty, Rod?”

  Her question was unexpected, and his expression, for an instant unguarded, gave him away. “Elizabeth . . .”

  She shook her head sadly. “I didn’t kill him, Rod. It is true that I had the opportunity, but I didn’t have a motive—you see, I was going to leave Timothy. I didn’t tell you that before because . . . well, it had no bearing on anything, and Moretti simply never thought of that.”

  He continued to stare at her, his thick peppery brows drawing nearly together over his nose. “Why?” he asked finally.

  “I know you don’t believe I was, but it’s true. I . . . well, I couldn’t take it any longer. He was becoming quite odd, you know, abusive actually. But what woman would give up such wealth? What woman would just walk away from all this? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  He said, “Then who killed Timothy?” Abusive? What had he done to her?

  “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times. No, more like a thousand times.”

  He wanted to believe her. God, he wanted to believe her more than anything. “Did Timothy know you wanted to leave him?”

  “No, I don’t think so. All those hours I spent walking about that night—that’s what I was thinking, planning. No one knew.”

  “You should have told me, dammit!”

  She merely looked at him, aloof, remote from him, from everyone. “Why? You didn’t tell me about Hunter.” Her look also told him that she hadn’t told him because he wouldn’t have believed her.