Stephen Frey

by Trust Fund

  “Go,” Teddy ordered.

  Tom glanced out the window again. He could see only a few feet inside the tree line. Past that the woods obscured everything. They’d been together too long. “All right, I’ll be back in a minute. You’ll get the file from the trunk while I’m gone, right? I know you said I didn’t need to see it, but I’d like to review the information anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Tom pushed open the Porsche’s door and stepped onto the side of the highway. He paused for a moment to allow a pickup truck that seemed to be moving very slowly to pass, then he hurried up a gently sloping, grassy embankment. He moved a few yards into the woods, stepped behind a broad tree, and unzipped his pants.

  As the pressure in his bladder eased, he took a deep breath. It was decision time. Return to the Porsche or run? He would look awfully foolish if all of this was simply in his mind and he took off blindly into the woods. But these were the Hancocks, and last week he’d overheard Teddy and Paul plotting. They’d had no idea that he was outside the door. If they could do it to someone else, he reasoned, they could do it to him.

  When he’d zipped up again, he took several steps deeper into the woods. It might be a strenuous hike, but this was New Jersey, for Christ’s sake. It could be only so far before he’d run into some kind of civilization.

  This was stupid, Tom thought to himself, peering into the gloom. He hadn’t overheard them plotting against him specifically, and why would they? Teddy would never hurt him.

  He turned to head back to the highway and found himself staring at a pistol and, behind the pistol, a face he didn’t recognize. He stumbled backward, instinctively bringing his hands to his face. “Please don’t,” he gasped.

  “On your knees,” the man ordered mercilessly.

  Tom sank to the ground obediently. “Don’t hurt me. I beg you.”

  The man moved behind Tom, replaced the pistol in his shoulder holster, removed a short piece of rope from his belt, then wrapped it around Tom’s neck and twisted. Death from a bullet might leave a clue for the authorities even though the body would be burned far beyond recognition. Rope marks would disappear in the intense fire.

  Tom Bristow fought violently, but he was no match for the power of the killing machine choking his life away. Moments later he collapsed face first into the leaves, dead.

  Teddy sat in the Porsche waiting for the assassin to appear at the edge of the woods to signal him that Tom Bristow was dead. The murder had been Teddy’s first official act as leader of the family. People thought he was soft and unable to be ruthless, but they had no idea what he was capable of.

  Teddy tapped the car horn when he saw the assassin appear momentarily from the underbrush, then melt back into the forest. The exhilaration was intense. He hadn’t wanted to do this to Tom, he had needed to do it. People would be digging more fiercely than ever into his affairs, and he could not afford baggage. He would miss Tom, but Tom could have caused massive problems. He had to rid himself of anyone or anything that could make him vulnerable. And Tom could be replaced. It was that simple.

  Teddy glanced into the rearview mirror as he restarted the engine and felt his mouth go dry. “Dammit!” A New Jersey state police cruiser was easing to a stop behind him. Two uniformed troopers emerged from the vehicle and moved up cautiously on both sides of the Porsche.

  Teddy’s first impulse was to run, but that would be stupid. He would probably be caught, and even if he managed to escape, they had his license number by now and would track him down through DMV records. Besides, all he had to do was remain calm, he told himself. Tom’s body would be well back in the woods. The officers had no reason to go back there. As long as he stayed cool, everything would be fine.

  He lowered his window as the policeman on his side of the car reached the door. “Hello, officer. Is there a problem?”

  The officer gazed sternly at Teddy for several seconds, checked the highway once more to make certain there were no cars approaching, then quickly drew his weapon and slammed Teddy on the forehead viciously with the butt of the gun.

  Frank Ramsey checked the corridor in both directions, then tapped lightly on the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ramsey.” Instantly he heard a drawer open, then quickly shut.

  “Come in.”

  Ramsey entered the sparsely furnished office and closed the door behind him.

  “What is it?” Scully snapped, annoyed at the interruption.

  Only a few people in the world intimidated Ramsey. Joseph Scully was one of them. “Bo Hancock was in my office this morning,” Ramsey explained nervously. Scully’s office was in the building directly across Park Avenue from Warfield Capital.

  “And?”

  Perhaps it was Scully’s physical appearance that caused Ramsey such discomfort. The closely set dark eyes beneath thick black brows, the closely cropped hair, the multiple scars slicing his face. Or maybe it was the throat-slitter demeanor, which Ramsey suspected wasn’t an act. “He’s coming back to Warfield.”

  Scully looked up slowly from the memo he’d been reading.

  “He claims he’s going to return to his position as executive vice president and chief operating officer.” Ramsey always felt the need to keep talking when Scully stared at him that way. “I’ll be demoted to Teddy’s assistant.” Scully was still staring. “I tried to call Teddy and Paul but I couldn’t reach either one of them.”

  “All right.”

  “Somehow he found out about equity money coming into Warfield from Europe too.”

  “What! Did you tell him?”

  “Of course not,” Ramsey lied. “I don’t know how he found out, but I thought you ought to be informed about all of this as soon as possible.”

  Scully ran his hands over his crew cut, then looked up at the ceiling. “Bo sees his father’s death as a chance to get out of Montana and take control of Warfield. He’s been waiting a year for an opportunity.”

  “We can’t have him take control of Warfield. We can’t have him poking around in the portfolio. For obvious reasons,” Ramsey added. “I mean, I’m not—”

  “When does he intend to start?” Scully asked, running the memo he had been reading through the shredder beneath his desk.

  “First thing tomorrow. But Teddy won’t let Bo come back,” Ramsey said, more to reassure himself than anything. “He and Paul will have Bo physically removed from the office if he tries to come in.”

  “I sincerely doubt Teddy will be able to do that.”

  Ramsey could tell Scully was holding something back. “What do you mean?”

  Scully pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one. “Theodore Hancock is dead.”

  “Dead?” Ramsey felt a heat wave rip through his body.

  “Yes.” Scully inhaled deeply. “Teddy and Tom Bristow died in a one-car accident in northern New Jersey early this afternoon. The official story is that Teddy lost control of his Porsche on wet pavement, veered off the road, and plunged down a three-hundred-foot ravine to the bottom of a rock quarry. The car exploded on impact, and the fireball was so intense they were literally burnt to a crisp.” Scully leaned back in his chair and exhaled. He loved the little buzz cigarettes gave him. “I believe they found a finger bone.”

  “But how can they be sure that—”

  “Tom’s wedding band. It was inscribed.”

  “My God.”

  Scully nodded. “Yes, it would appear that someone wanted to make certain there was nothing left of them to analyze.”

  “You don’t think it was an accident?” Ramsey asked.

  Scully smiled thinly. “I’m a suspicious person by nature, but it’s awfully strange timing, what with Jimmy Lee’s death this morning.”

  “Are the authorities—”

  “They’ve ruled it an accident,” Scully interrupted. “At least initially. But I don’t buy that.”

  “But who would have killed them?” Ramsey glanced anxiously at the closed offic
e door. He knew Scully had the ability to lock it with a switch beneath his desk and it crossed his mind that Scully was probably more capable than most of causing a vehicle to plunge three hundred feet off a cliff.

  “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Scully agreed. “I’ve always found that the best place to start with something like this is to try to understand the agendas of the parties involved. Who has the most to gain from Teddy’s death, or the most to lose if he remains alive?”

  The answer stuck in Ramsey’s throat for a moment. “Bo?”

  “Absolutely,” Scully agreed.

  “I can’t believe that. Other than the drinking, he’s the straightest arrow around. Everyone knows that.”

  “This is his chance to take control of the family,” Scully countered. “People will go to extremes when they’ve been pushed to the breaking point, even good people. Remember, Bo didn’t want to go to Montana.” Scully took a drag off the cigarette. “I’ve been studying him. He’s smart enough to pull something like this off, tough enough too. Deep down, he hates Teddy and Paul, has for a long time.”

  “That’s hard for me to accept.” Ramsey shook his head, more convinced that the man sitting in front of him could have engineered Teddy Hancock’s death. “I do know that this situation puts us in a difficult position. What the hell are we going to do about Bo coming back to Warfield?”

  Scully thought for a moment. “I want you to welcome Bo back to Warfield with open arms,” he answered. “Tell him, what with everything that has happened, it’s a good thing that he has returned.”

  “We can’t have that. He’ll—”

  Scully held up his hand and Ramsey fell silent. “Just do it. Leave the rest to me.”

  Bo moved along the platform, bucking the flow of people into the main terminal of Penn Station. He strained to catch a glimpse of her getting off the train before she saw him. “Meg!” he shouted, spotting her in the crowd.

  “Hi,” she called, waving excitedly. They hadn’t seen each other in a week and, as always, the sight of him pleased her.

  Bo swallowed what remained of the third breath mint he’d consumed since leaving the bar, then jogged toward her praying the smell of alcohol had been camouflaged. As they came together, he grabbed Meg’s thin waist and hoisted her high into the air.

  “Oh, God,” she shrieked, holding on tightly to his wide shoulders and laughing. “Put me down, you brute.”

  “No.” He gazed up at her. He had missed her terribly.

  “People are watching.” She giggled, throwing her head back.

  “Let ’em.”

  Meg was his age, forty-three, but she looked no different to him than she had the day they were married, fifteen years ago. She was tall, blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and slim, with a country-girl innocence in her countenance and an effervescence in her relaxed manner that easily brightened even this drab dungeon of New York City. Though not catwalk gorgeous, men were naturally drawn to Meg’s sweetness, charm, and seeming fragility. Bo could leave her for only a brief moment at a party and return to find that she had attracted a crowd of admirers, despite the diamond wedding band he had slipped on her finger so many years before.

  In their early married days her ability to attract men so easily had bothered him. Not because he doubted her fidelity—he’d never seen her look with desire at another man—but because he feared that the wolves of his sex might take advantage of her innocence. But he had come to learn that Meg was far from naïve. She was independent and intelligent and so comfortable with herself that she didn’t need to convince others of her value. Though she didn’t seek attention, she wasn’t uncomfortable with it either, and this made her an ideal companion. He could focus on Warfield while she handled a busy social calendar.

  She hadn’t fallen in love with the immense Hancock wealth either. It amused him to watch her scour the Sunday New York Times for sales as she sat sipping her morning coffee on the sun porch of their huge mansion. She hadn’t gravitated to Fifth Avenue’s designer clothes the way Paul’s wife had, or insisted on redecorating their home every couple of years. The only endeavors to which she had committed a substantial piece of the Hancock fortune, and much of her own time, were several children’s charities she had established in New York City. Unable to conceive children of her own, Meg seemed to channel all her maternal instincts into these worthy institutions.

  Bo had known about her infertility prior to their marriage, but it hadn’t lessened his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. They had discussed adoption several times, but had not yet followed through on their plans. Bo had never given her a direct answer as to why he hadn’t embraced her desire to take children in because he was ashamed of his answer. He had doubted that his family would accept children who were not blood relatives.

  Bo looked up at Meg’s smiling face. She would make a wonderful mother, and he cursed whatever greater power might exist for not giving her the chance to bear children. Though she rarely complained about her infertility, he knew it was the greatest disappointment of her life.

  “Let me down,” she begged, squeezing his shoulders. “People are staring.”

  “Something as beautiful as you should be stared at.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  He let her down gently and their lips came together. “I missed you.”

  She nuzzled his neck. “I missed you too. So much, Bo.”

  He felt her tears on his face and shut his eyes tightly, embarrassed that he had even made conversation with the woman in the bar. He had never cheated on Meg and never would.

  “I’m sorry about your father.”

  Bo nodded. “I know you two were never close, but it means a lot for me to hear you say that.” Jimmy Lee hadn’t objected to their wedding, but he had never gone out of his way to develop a relationship with Meg. Teddy, Paul, and Catherine hadn’t either. Bo hadn’t been able to figure out his family’s indifference to her until Michael Mendoza explained, just before the wedding, that Jimmy Lee had expected him to marry a woman of equal wealth. His father’s attitude had only strengthened Bo’s love for Meg.

  They embraced a few moments longer, then Bo took her by the hand and led her toward the main terminal.

  “Where did you go after the hospital this morning?” she asked.

  “The Yale Club. I called you from there to tell you about Jimmy Lee.”

  “I meant after that.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked innocently.

  “I called back a few minutes later, but the man who answered the phone at the club said you were gone. That was more than five hours ago.”

  “I met with our personal banker at J. P. Morgan.” He hated misleading Meg, but the news that he was going back to Warfield would upset her terribly. He wanted time to ease her into that idea.

  She had heard all of the rumors about his late-night exploits from insensitive family members, mainly Teddy, and from acquaintances who detested her unwavering faith in Bo. Only once had Meg ever confronted him about the rumors, after an anonymous caller claimed to have seen Bo going into a room at the Waldorf with another woman. In fact, Bo had been working late at Warfield that night with Dale Stephenson, who’d made a point of calling Meg to confirm the fact. The next morning Bo and Meg had talked for hours, and he had finally come to realize that what Meg really hated was Warfield. As she had said, a woman would be a temporary dalliance, but Warfield was an obsession, and she strongly believed that the pressure of running such a massive fund was what had made him turn so constantly to alcohol.

  “You know how you hate to have to deal with all of that money stuff,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t press the issue.

  “Who did you really meet with?” Meg persisted as they moved through the main terminal. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. “Bo, talk to me,” she pleaded.

  Bo said nothing.

  As they stepped out onto Thirty-fourth Street, Meg stopped and pulled on Bo’s arm. “Tell
me who you were seeing,” she demanded.

  He looked away into the afternoon mist. The street was crowded with the early shift of homeward-bound commuters.

  “Oh, God.” Meg brought her hands to her mouth, suddenly understanding his silence. “You’re going back to Warfield.”

  He had wanted to have her alone when he broke the news so he could deal with her reaction privately, not here in the street with hundreds of people rushing past. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”

  She shook her head. “I know this is such a difficult day, with your father’s death, and I’m sorry to be this way, but you know how I feel.”

  “I’m needed at Warfield now that Dad is gone.”

  “Your father didn’t want you to go back. He knew what it could do to you.”

  “He changed his mind, Meg. He told me just before he died that I had to go back to Warfield.” Bo hesitated. “He said some very nice things about you too.”

  “What?” she asked, surprised.

  “He told me to never let you go, but then I already knew that.”

  Meg put a hand over her heart. “That’s nice,” she said softly.

  “I’ve got to go back to Warfield, Meg. I have to.”

  She looked away. She knew how much he had missed the wheeling and dealing over the last year. She knew how it had killed him to sit in Montana, so far from the action. “I worry about you, Bo. As much as Montana was the middle of nowhere, I had you mostly to myself.”

  “It’s going to be different this time,” he vowed, taking her in his arms. “I promise.”

  “You can’t promise. There’s so much pressure, billions of dollars, people screaming at you to make decisions every second. It will drive you to an early grave.”

  “You have to understand that things have changed at Warfield,” he said quietly. “It’s imperative that I return to the firm.”

  “For whose sake?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Imperative for Warfield, or for you? You’ve missed Warfield this past year more than you’ve ever missed me.” She pressed against him, instantly ruing the remark. “I’m sorry. That was an awful thing to say and I didn’t mean it. I know that isn’t really true. I’m just scared.” She caressed his cheek. “I love you so much.”