Serendipity

by Fern Michaels

  “No, Justine, he doesn’t.”

  “Jasper wouldn’t understand it either. Well, I’m ready,” she said briskly.

  “Me too,” Jory said, buttoning her jacket.

  “Then let’s . . . hit the road.”

  Justine walked through the Landers Building one last time, her eyes raking the far corners of every room. She was going to miss coming here every day. But most of all she was going to miss the anticipation of each new issue hitting the streets and the public’s reaction to the stories she printed. Would she miss her name being mentioned on the evening news? In the beginning she’d kept track until the broadcasters started referring to her as the estranged wife of Jasper Landers. She stopped watching the news entirely when the broadcaster began asking other publishers for their opinions of her brand of journalism.

  She no longer laughed on her way to the bank. Grim-faced and tight-lipped, she’d pumped money into one bank after the other, banks owned by Jasper’s blue-blooded friends, only to wire it out the day the checks cleared. She couldn’t remember which one of the blue bloods said, on the evening news, “She slits our throats and then drains our blood.” She’d been overjoyed the night she’d heard that comment. Let them bleed to death.

  Her desk was bare with the exception of one white envelope containing the rent check to Marjory Ryan. In the middle drawer of her desk was a list of instructions, two thick journals she’d kept from the time she walked into the offices of TIF when it was a staid, dull, boring, noninformative magazine until this last issue of the new TIF.

  Marjory Ryan was the only one who knew she was jumping ship. Her skeleton crew had been told she was taking a brief hiatus in South America because she wanted to get a new perspective on turning the magazine into a serious publication. Handsome bonuses had been handed out, new contracts signed that promised nothing if the fine print was read. One last check would be issued to the staff by her attorneys in New York after she was gone, along with a letter saying Marjory Ryan would be starting up a monthly magazine and to seek her out for employment. She’d been pleased when Marjory told her she would give it a try. Maybe she would succeed and maybe she wouldn’t, but if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. The girl had guts, spunk, and ethics.

  “Mrs. Landers, is there anything else you want me to do?” Clarence the maintenance man asked from the doorway.

  “I don’t think so,” Justine said vaguely as she looked around her office. “Be sure to keep watering the plants. You did hang all those pictures, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, just the way you said. I cleaned them up and polished the frames. They’re hanging all in a row in the conference room.”

  “Did you have a nice holiday, Clarence?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did. The extra bonuses you gave me throughout the year helped me pay my taxes. We had a large increase this year. The Christmas bonus was a godsend. I wanted to thank you personally before you left.”

  “Clarence, that’s our little secret. You aren’t to talk about it to anyone.”

  “No, ma’am. You aren’t coming back, are you?”

  Justine felt the temptation to lie, but this kindly man would see right through her. “No, Clarence, I’m not. You’ve been a good friend to me.”

  “And you’ve been a good friend to me, Mrs. Landers. I won’t forget your kindnesses to me.”

  “It’s alright for you not to forget, just don’t mention them to anyone. I’d just as soon keep my rotten image,” Justine said briskly. “By the way, how are the gentlemen on the first floor?”

  “Nodding or asleep. I’ll keep my eye on them.”

  “Keep your eye on Miss Ryan too. She’s going to need a good, loyal friend when she starts up her magazine. I guess it’s time to say good-bye, Clarence.” Justine extended her hand.

  “I’m going to miss you, Mrs. Landers.”

  Justine’s eyes burned. She pretended to look away. “No one ever said that to me before, Clarence. No one.” She cleared her throat. “Good-bye, Clarence.”

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Landers. Have a safe trip wherever you’re going.” He knew she didn’t hear him, she was running too fast and crying too hard.

  Clarence inched Justine’s chair away from the desk to wipe a speck of dust from the sofa leather. He sat down to relieve the ache in his legs. His varicose veins were bothering him lately. He massaged them carefully. He was wearing special shoes and special hosiery made just for him, thanks to Mrs. Landers. She’d even sent him to her own doctor and paid for the visit.

  They were the same age; she’d told him that once. In confidence. Everything she said to him, as far as he was concerned, was said in confidence. He’d cut out his tongue before he said one bad word about Justine Landers. In his opinion, he was the keeper of the secrets. Just because he was a janitor didn’t mean he was stupid. He could read, and he and his wife both read each issue of TIF from cover to cover and then discussed it between themselves at great length. It was his wife, though, who figured out what it was Mrs. Landers was doing with her paper. “She’s getting even, Clarence,” she’d said. “Those high and mighty muckety-mucks did something to her at some time in her life and now she’s paying them back.” Tillie, his wife, read all the papers, especially the social pages, and there was never a mention of Mrs. Landers. That, Tillie said, was significant Mrs. Landers wasn’t one of them. When Tillie said that, he’d started to keep his eyes and ears open. He’d made it his business to be dusting the hall or sweeping it when the parade started with bankers, politicians, lawyers, and even doctors. He heard the raised voices, seen the fear, and heard Mrs. Landers’s soft, bitter laughter.

  Once he’d had respect for Jasper Landers and Ross, but that fell by the wayside when Tillie said no self-respecting man or son would allow their wife and mother to be treated the way Justine Landers was treated, and so what if she was sharp and bitter and nasty from time to time, who wouldn’t be with what she must have gone through?

  He knew about the lawsuits, the threats too. He’d worked late one night and he’d found Mrs. Landers crying in her office. She’d told him what was going on. He’d tried to console her, but he was out of his depth. He talked it all over with Tillie, and Tillie was the one who came up with the idea. What it came down to was, she should take the money and run. He’d expected her to do it months ago. Why she waited so long, he had no idea. Maybe Christmas had something to do with it. People didn’t like change or trouble over the holidays. The first of the year seemed to be the time to do things, make new beginnings. Clarence felt pleased with his assessment of the situation.

  Now, Clarence got up stiffly. He pushed the chair back against the desk. He looked at the picture of Justine Landers on the opposite wall. Mrs. Landers told him to take it down and put it somewhere. She hadn’t meant hang it someplace else. What she meant was throw it out or store it in the basement, but he wasn’t going to do it. He was going to let it hang where it was, and when Miss Ryan came to work, he was going to lie and say Mrs. Landers said the picture was to stay right where it was. Besides, he thought, rubbing at his eyes, he wanted to be able to see it from time to time so he wouldn’t forget all she’d done for him and his family.

  No sir, that picture was staying right where it was.

  Clarence closed the door to Justine’s office. He would dust it every day until the new occupant arrived to sit behind the polished desk.

  Justine Landers loved New York. She would have done well here in this busy city, but Philadelphia was nice too. Here, people seemed simply too busy to be snobs. Maybe she was wrong about that, she thought fretfully.

  “This is it, lady, 122 East Forty-second Street,” the cab driver said. Justine paid the fare along with a generous tip and stepped from the cab. Ten minutes later she was seated in John Fried’s office.

  “Mrs. Landers, I’m John Fried. What can I do for you?”

  He looked nice. A family man, Justine decided when she noticed the picture of a smiling woman and two little girls on the lo
w cabinet across from his desk. She wondered how he liked his profession. She asked him.

  “Some days I do and some days I don’t. What do you do, Mrs. Landers?”

  Justine smiled. “Not much of anything these days. I’m leaving town later this afternoon and . . . well, here’s everything you’ll need to take care of matters for me in my absence.” The lizard-skin briefcase snapped open. She withdrew three thick envelopes. She spoke in a low, even monotone. Attached to the first envelope was a bank check made out to cash from the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company in the amount of $300,000. “This money is from the estate of Ethel Pullet,” she said. “On the first of every month I want a check sent to each of the ten people whose names and addresses are inside the envelope. Send a letter the first time explaining the situation. I would expect the account to draw interest. Three thousand to each of them. I’ll know when the money runs out and wire more to your offices. Is there any problem with what I’ve said so far?”

  Fried shook his head when Justine handed him what she thought was a suitable retainer. He smiled.

  “This second envelope has a list of instructions. It’s pretty cut and dried, in my opinion. I’m lending money to Marjory Ryan at the lowest rate of interest possible. She can take the money all at one time or in payments. Whichever way she decides is fine with me. Two million dollars. If she needs more, she’s to ask and you will give it to her. There’s an additional two hundred thousand I want you to put into an interest-bearing account. She’s to make her payments directly to the bank, and I want you to monitor the account.” She handed over another retainer check. Fried smiled again. “Do you see any problem with what I just outlined?”

  “No. It’s a relatively simple matter. Has Miss Ryan been advised of all of this?”

  “Not really. We discussed it, but not in detail. Write her a letter and explain it in detail. I assume the bank will charge a fee for handling the account.” She handed over another check. Fried eyed the last bulging envelope. And then he looked at his new client. Her eyes were steely cold, her face stiff and unsmiling.

  “Whatever we say,” she said, “is client privileged, or however you say it. Which means you cannot divulge anything we discuss here today. Is that right?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Justine handed over the third packet. “I’m choosing not to respond to any of these lawsuits. Other attorneys are handling them. What I’m doing is . . . flying the coop and taking my money with me. As far as I’m concerned, the first two matters have nothing to do with the contents of this envelope. There are diaries in this envelope, journals, if you don’t like the word ‘diary.’ The lawsuits, all of them, are documented in the journals, and the sources of my information are the sworn affidavits in the back. I have no stomach for what’s going to happen in the coming months. I printed the truth. That’s all I’m concerned with. I’m choosing not to pay out thousands of dollars in legal fees, since I did nothing wrong. I have no desire to have a jury of my peers get up on the wrong side of the bed and find me guilty of destroying all those fine blue-blooded bastards. That’s all you need to know, Mr. Fried. Will this be a problem for you?” She passed an additional check across the desk. “Nuisance money.”

  “How can I reach you if I need to get in touch with you?” he asked.

  “You can’t. I’ll check with your office periodically. My personal advice, and I certainly don’t want to tell you how to conduct your business, would be to lock away this third envelope. I think of it as ‘for your eyes only,’ that kind of thing.”

  Justine stood up. “Look after Miss Ryan for me.”

  Fried stood and offered his hand. “You wouldn’t by any chance have a death certificate for Ethel Pullet with you, would you?”

  “No, Mr. Fried, I don’t,” Justine said coolly. “Happy New Year.”

  “The same to you, Mrs. Landers,” Fried said.

  The attorney rang for his secretary. “Mrs. Peters, take these checks to the bank. Deposit them in our escrow account and ask Mr. Bellamy to call me so I can set up some new accounts.”

  John Fried sat back in his comfortable chair to read all the documents on his desk. When he locked everything away at seven o’clock, he felt sorry for the woman who’d stared at him so coolly across the wide desk. But who was he to judge her, legally or morally? he asked himself. As instructed, he locked everything in his office safe. He never looked at the contents of the third envelope again.

  On the second day of the new year, as John Fried boarded the train for Scarsdale, Justine was presenting her passport to the ticket agent at La Guardia Airport. “Have a good trip, Miss Pullet,” the agent said, handing back her passport and first-class ticket.

  Justine smiled. “Thank you, I will.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Woo could hardly believe it was January second. He’d counted days and then hours and finally minutes while he was in Lancaster. He’d slept a lot while he was at his parents’, dreaming about returning to the carriage house, leaping from the van to run to Jory and the dogs. In every single dream, and there were many of them, she smothered him with kisses, hugged him, smiled with her eyes and shared every minute of her time since he’d left. The dogs climbed his legs, begging to be picked up and cuddled. They were wonderful dreams, and he always woke up with a smile on his face.

  He’d meant to stop at Jory’s yesterday, to knock on the door and say “I’m back,” but the house was dark, the draperies drawn. He’d waited the way he had once before. He’d meant to check the garage to see if her car was safe inside, but once he was in the carriage house, he didn’t have the stamina to trek all the way back to the garage. Instead he tortured himself with her whereabouts. The dark house convinced him she was somewhere else. It had been New Year’s Day, after all. He’d spent the night on the couch, his ear tuned to the window and the sound of a car’s engine, which never materialized.

  He couldn’t go on like this anymore. All he did was think about Jory and the future. One way or the other he had to know what she felt for him. Tonight, after his first day at work, he was going straight to her house the minute he got home. Damn, maybe he should make an appointment with her, leave a note in the mailbox telling her he’d stop by. That’s exactly what he would do. He scribbled off a note that said, I need to talk with you. Seven o’clock. He signed the yellow slip of paper, Pete.

  He was in love. The realization was so heady he wanted to dance, to shout the words aloud. More important, he needed to tell Ross, to clear the way, before he announced his feelings to Jory. All during the holidays he’d practiced speech after speech. None of them sounded right, none of them said how much he loved Jory. How in the goddamn hell did you tell a woman’s ex-husband how you felt about his ex-wife, when that ex-husband loved her too? How did you say “I love her, I’m going to ask her to marry me. We had sex. It was wonderful, for both of us. I don’t want to hurt you, Ross. Can we still work together?” Was it Ross’s business? That was the key question. When Woo showered and dressed, he still didn’t know if it was Ross’s business or not, he just knew he was going to tell him because to do otherwise would be . . . disloyal. If he didn’t tell, Ross would view it as a betrayal.

  Woo struggled into his overcoat, turned out the lights and lowered the thermostat. He would get breakfast in the café three doors down from the office and still arrive in time to look at the caseload of work Ross said was on his desk.

  Woo felt almost whole when Ross entered the office at ten minutes to eight, Jasper five minutes later. Both men clapped him on the back, pumped his left hand and grinned like kids catching their first trout. He pretended the same enthusiasm.

  “We’re celebrating tonight,” Jasper said. “Dinner on me. Ross and I have been planning this since before the holidays. Don’t even think about saying no.”

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about, buddy,” Ross said. “I’ve got some news, my father has some news, and we damn well want to share. That’s what this partnership is all about. So, what do you th
ink of your new office? Is the chair comfortable? Your first appointment is for ten o’clock. We ordered lunch sent in around one o’clock. There’s doughnuts and coffee in the kitchen. Jesus, Woo, you don’t know how glad I am you’re here and that you walked through the door. I said you’d do it, remember?” He almost knocked Woo off his feet with his exuberant bear hug. Self-consciously, he backed off. “When it comes to you, I always get carried away,” he said, embarrassed.

  So he would call Jory and explain the situation, Woo thought. He wouldn’t stay at the celebratory dinner one minute longer than necessary. Nine o’clock wasn’t too late to talk, at least for him. Midnight, two in the morning, wouldn’t be too late.

  “Sure,” Woo said lightly. “I got here early, couldn’t sleep. You know, my first day back and all that. The chair’s great. I really like the plants. Any advice on the files you left on my desk? By the way, what happened with Mrs. Landers? Did she leave or pay the rent? Of course, if you think it’s none of my business . . .”

  Jasper wore a disgusted look on his face. Ross grimaced. “As far as I know, she’s still there,” Ross said. “Jory backed down. I don’t know if Mother paid the rent or not; Jory won’t discuss it. However, get this, Woo, Jory invited her for Christmas. They spent the day together.”

  Woo’s eyebrows shot upward. “That sounds like Jory. For some reason, I thought you and Jasper would spend Christmas with Jory.” Woo’s heart fluttered in his chest.

  “Jory is a very kind, giving, caring person,” Jasper said quietly.

  “I’ll second that,” Ross said, grinning. “It must have been a hell of a day.”

  Woo turned to walk to his office. As long as it wasn’t with you, Ross, he thought jealously.

  Woo tried the number in Chestnut Hill seven times during the course of the day. Late in the afternoon he looked up the number of TIF’s offices and called to ask for Jory. It was just a hunch.

  “The office is closed, sir,” a male voice said.