by Andrea Stein
“Did my grandfather really steal the money? What did he do with it?” Caitlyn asked. The estate Lucas had left behind had been nothing extravagant. Just the house, and a small trust fund clearly in her own name. It had paid for college and graduate school. But of embezzled riches, there had been no sign. No expensive paintings, boats, houses or the like had been found.
“People didn’t want to believe it, but they took the suicide as a confirmation that he had. And Maxwell didn’t exactly say he hadn’t. Who wouldn’t believe it?”
“There’s more to it,” Caitlyn said and waited, thinking about the hints Peter Flynn had dropped.
“No,” Adriana disagreed. “There isn’t. Sometimes it just is what it is. Don’t drive yourself crazy looking for answers that aren’t there. Your grandfather expected you to get on with your life. And you should. Look to the future; think about what you want for yourself. Don’t worry about what’s right, or what other people think. Do what you want.”
Chapter 33
Caitlyn came home restless, her mind spinning. She’d already had wine at Adriana’s, but she walked through the quiet house to the kitchen where she pulled a beer from the fridge. Straight from the bottle, she took several long sips before she decided she didn’t want anymore and poured it down the sink. Slipping out of her shoes, she padded back to the study barefoot.
She switched on the light in the drawing room, fumbling for the switch. The lamp cast a soft glow across the room. Her mother had changed this room the least, and it was meant to be a darker, cozy space. There was no sense in lighting a fire tonight. She only meant to look over a few things Sully had given her, and then it was time for bed.
Sully had insisted that she take her account statements, both the ones from the bank and the ones from the Randall Group. The woman admitted that she didn’t check everything all that carefully, only once a year, or when she thought she might need extra money. The luxury of the comfortably rich, Caitlyn thought. Mrs. Smith-Sullivan had gotten her money, but she thought that it was odd that the money hadn’t been transferred from the Randall Group the way it should. She was Tommy’s client, and technically Caitlyn shouldn’t be doing this. However, since the incident with Tony Biddle, she didn’t mind nosing around into Tommy’s business.
Caitlyn went to the answering machine. There was no new message light blinking, but she was expecting a call from Noah, so she checked anyway and was surprised when she heard a new message from him, telling her he needed to stay in California for a while. Odd, she thought, and wondered if she needed a new machine. Then she looked into the hallway, to the small table where she dropped her mail and her keys.
There was something wrong. There had been no mail in the mailbox today. But, she thought as she walked into the hall and looked down, there was unopened mail in the basket. Caitlyn looked up and around, catching herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, her eyes dark. Something in her tensed, and the blood thudded in her ears.
She went back into the study, looking at the desk. There were some papers on the blotter, correspondence from a lawyer concerning the house. They were out of order. Caitlyn swallowed and looked around. She felt foolish, but did it anyway, picking up an iron poker from the set of fire tools.
She walked up the stairs, moving quietly, avoiding the creaky last one, until she was on the landing. Looking in the bathroom first, she crept in, pulling aside the shower curtain in a quick jerk. Nobody was there, but the faucet was leaking a little. The drip-drip followed her as she went towards the master bedroom. That appeared empty as well, staring back at her in its solitude. She shut the door firmly and checked the room that had been her mother’s, also denuded, an air of emptiness in it.
It was in her own room that she was almost consumed by panic. The changes were so minute she thought, looking over her possessions, that you could barely tell things had been touched.
It was just that her drawers were not as neat as they had been; perhaps someone had looked in her old desk, hoping to find who knew what – perhaps old report cards? Everything was only just slightly mussed, nothing she could say for certain.
She went slowly down the hall towards the closed door. Now she turned the knob and entered her grandfather’s bedroom. A brilliant memory came back, sudden and sharp. Unfortunately, it was always the first one that came to mind. Her grandfather in the bed with Adriana, another man’s wife. She had opened the door, not knowing what those sounds meant, and seen more than she bargained for.
Caitlyn collected herself and stepped in. The room was cold, heated by a steam radiator that was kept off. Her breath hung in the air in front of her, and she left the door to the hallway open to allow the warmth and the light to pour in.
In truth, she had been a little worried about ghosts when she came back. Not real ones, but the ghosts of memory that would trail around her waking hours. Her mother’s transformation of the house had erased that fear, but here, where her mother’s hand had not touched, she felt most strongly the presence of her grandfather.
The large four-poster bed was as he had left it, the dark burled wood dressers, and the wide-planked floor covered by the small, rich area rugs. On his dressing table, the matched set of leather boxes that kept his watches and cuff links was starting to crack and peel. The bathroom off to the side was big and cold, old-fashioned with a claw-foot tub and small white floor tiles.
To everyone’s surprise, her grandfather had used his own gun to kill himself. The surprise was that Lucas Montgomery had even owned a pistol. It turned out he had several. That’s what they found afterwards. He had simply used one of the more modern ones. Caitlyn had overheard her mother talking. She knew there had been more than one; she just didn’t know what her mother had done with them.
Keeping them in Lucas’s bedroom made the most sense. Caitlyn looked around and decided to start with the closet. She opened the door, switched on the pull light and looked. Her mother had never cleaned out most of his clothes. There were still his dress shirts, piled on a hook, waiting to be taken to the cleaners. Everything, right down to his shoes, was still there.
Looking up, she saw that the top shelf was filled with boxes. Shoe boxes, plain brown cardboard boxes and a metal box, rusted a little at the edges. She reached for the small handle and found she could not reach it. Turning, she looked for help and found it in the form of a straight-backed chair in one corner. She pulled it over and stepped on the edges of the seat, so as not to fall through its cane seat. Caitlyn pulled the box down, knowing from its lightness that she would not find anything.
After carefully stepping off the chair, she took the box to the bed and opened it. It was not locked, as it should have been. There was no doubt that there should have been a gun in the box. The inside was fitted with a felt-covered mold, designed to hold the shape of some sort of gun. Caitlyn closed the box and sat on the bed to think. She didn’t know what this meant. It could mean nothing, that the box had been empty for a long time, or not. Someone had been in the house, that much she knew. Had the person been in here?
She looked around her grandfather’s room, trying to sense, to feel if anything had been disturbed. A cold draft seeped in from the window and chilled her nose and her fingers. She looked at the empty box and the closet. It would take a pretty knowledgeable thief to come to this house to search for a gun that might or might not be there, leaving everything else of value untouched. She went back to the closet and started her search, more methodical this time, going through all of the boxes, even the most unlikely shoes boxes.
It was pointless. The shoeboxes had contained an odd variety of things. Photos, letters, even a string collection. She found bullets, but no guns. She put the bullets aside on the bed, next to the empty gun case, and then turned her attention to the desk and the drawers. It was the same. She understood her grandfather better at the end of it, sorting through what he had left behind. Several watches, none presently working, a class ring, col
lar studs. But there was no sign of a collection of guns.
Caitlyn sat on the edge of the bed, looking at what she had collected. Bullets and not much else. She supposed that bullets without a gun, and vice versa, were not much danger to anyone. But she took them out of her grandfather’s room and closed, but did not lock, the door. She would leave it untouched as her mother wished, at least until she had spoken to her about it, but it was silly to keep only one part of the house closed up and shut against the passage of time where everywhere else her mother had so strenuously tried to erase the bad memories.
She hadn’t locked the door when she left his morning. She still couldn’t quite remember to do that.
Caitlyn went downstairs, turning on lights so that the whole house was ablaze on the bluff over the harbor. Nothing of value was missing, not the silver flatware, the TV, or any of the paintings or antiques that might possibly fetch something at auction.
No, there was nothing missing, Caitlyn thought, but her peace of mind. She locked all of the doors and sat on the couch in the study, poker close at hand, lights on, listening to the TV, waiting, until she fell asleep.
Chapter 34
“You’ve been spending a lot of time in New York.” Rick Santine looked at Noah from across the table. They were at a diner in Palo Alto, the place where he and Rick and another buddy had mapped out their first business plan, picking a name for the software, detailing its features, every idea captured on those little square napkins.
“Hey, earth to Noah.”
Noah looked up quickly. Rick was one of his oldest friends, and he was staring at him, a look of curiosity on his face.
“Sorry, I’ve just been thinking about things.”
Rick nodded in sympathy. “I know. I’m sorry again about your dad. I know the two of you didn’t get along that well, but it’s tough.”
Noah smiled. He hadn’t been thinking about his dad. He’d been thinking about Caitlyn. In fact, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d been gone from her for less than twenty-four hours, and he’d been up all night, twisting and turning, thinking about her.
“But…” Rick Santine smiled. “You’re thinking about something else.” He glanced around the bustle of the busy diner, and then lowered his voice, “A new piece of software, a good investment? C’mon, you’re on to something big. I want in.”
Noah shook his head and then just said it, “Caitlyn’s there.”
Rick’s fork dropped to the plate, sending a piece of hash brown flying. “You don’t say. The one that got away. What is she – married, four kids, driving a minivan?”
Noah shook his head. “Gorgeous. Unattached.”
“So, what’s the problem?” Rick was grinning, shaking his dark hair. “Man, she had you wrapped around her little finger. And then she dumped you. You were shattered, dude. You moped around for months.”
Rick took a swig of his coffee. “I bet she’s begging for you now, though. Man, you showed her right, didn’t you? Now you’re hot shot CEO, a big success. That’s what you wanted. Tell me, is she all over you?” Rick leered at him.
“Shut up,” Noah said, good naturedly. Rick was always on the make, taking advantage of his newfound wealth to go to night clubs, openings, premieres, yet he always complained how the women there didn’t seem that interested in him – just being seen with him.
“So,” Rick said more seriously, looking at him, “is that why it’s been awhile since you’ve been back?” Noah shrugged. He didn’t know what it meant. He and Caitlyn were spending time together. In their respective houses, but she refused to be seen in public with him. Unlike any other woman he had dated, Caitlyn Montgomery still did not seem impressed by him. It was frustrating, to say the least, and one of the reasons a trip to California had seemed like a good idea.
“I’m here now,” Noah finally said with a heartiness he didn’t quite feel. “Let’s talk about that manufacturing company for the solar project.”
Rick smiled, nodded and pulled over a square napkin and a pen.
Chapter 35
“Why the sudden concern about security?” Noah asked as she locked her door.
“No reason.” She shrugged.
She hadn’t said anything to anyone, not even the police, since in the broad daylight she’d been convince she imagined the whole thing. Her mother hadn’t returned her phone calls, so she didn’t even know if there had been any guns in the house.
Noah had returned from California after Thanksgiving, and they had picked up where they left off. They had both been invited to Adriana’s holiday party, but Caitlyn insisted that they take separate cars, the better to pretend that they were not a couple. He had agreed only after he told her that he intended to meet her and follow her from the house.
“Make sure you wait a moment or two before following me in,” she reminded him, as he opened the door for her in front of Adriana’s house.
“I don’t see why it matters,” he said, pulling him towards her, kissing her deeply, running his hands through her hair. “Who cares who knows about us? What’s the matter? I’m not good enough for you?” His voice was teasing, but there was an edge to it.
“No, Noah. Of course you’re good enough for me. I just want to keep things private for a while longer.” Caitlyn didn’t want a repeat of what had happened in London.
He looked at her, holding her close on the path. Caitlyn was aware other cars were pulling up, that they were in full view of the wide bay windows, lit up, festooned in ropes of evergreen.
“So, if you’re not embarrassed to be seen with me, why won’t you be?”
Caitlyn sighed, looking into his eyes. “I told you. I don’t want to be that girl.”
“What girl? My girl?”
“No, the type of girl people think got ahead by sleeping with the boss.”
“As I recall,” his head just inches from her lips, “we haven’t been doing much sleeping.”
Caitlyn stepped away. “My point exactly. Just for now, please, can we just keep it…?”
Noah took a step back, and she could see the flash of wounded pride. “Sure, I get it. We’ll keep it light. Whatever you want, Caitlyn, right? Your way, right?” he said, and his tone was bitter.
“Noah!” she said, but he was gone, already walking to the front door, ringing it and walking in, without a backward glance, leaving Caitlyn to wait a moment or two before following him up the path.
<<>>
Noah had watched her the whole evening, one half of his mind listening and making small talk, meeting people, discussing business, just as Adriana wanted him to, the other watching her. Caitlyn moved with the crowd here the same way she had at his father’s funeral, with graceful self-assurance, her black dress a little less discreet, with a neckline that plunged just enough to keep him looking and a back that was barely there, exposing the smooth ivory of her skin, the fall of her black hair a contrast in ebony.
She smiled, laughed, complimented the wives, made nice with the husbands, deftly turned down offers from the single men, all while discreetly collecting business cards and making friends.
He swallowed more champagne, telling himself that he couldn’t do what he wanted to, which was to walk over in the middle of the room and kiss her, possessively and passionately, until no one there was unclear that she was his.
But Caitlyn wasn’t, was she? He knew that she wasn’t seeing anyone else, but she refused to be seen with him, refused to take their relationship seriously.
“So, you think solar panels are the wave of the future, ehh?” Some old gent, in a tux jacket and plaid vest, with a mustache and large tufts of hair jutting from his ears, had cornered him, literally, allowing him to watch Caitlyn’s every movement.
With an effort, he turned his attention back to the man. Adriana had whispered that he was rich, always looking for new investments and loved new technology.
Noah found a way to make an answer, promising to call the man on Monday to discuss more. Caitlyn had disappeared from the room, towards the solarium, and he needed to catch her, to talk some sense into her. He needed her, wanted her, wanted her to want to be with him, and if she couldn’t commit, well then… Noah almost stopped, knowing that he couldn’t leave her. No, Caitlyn Montgomery was the woman, the only one for him.
“Noah, you okay? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sam Harris was there, a drink in one hand, looking festive with a red tie.
Brought up short, Noah stopped, shaking his head. Caitlyn had been right about one thing. They were being watched. And he was, technically, her boss. It didn’t matter to him. He knew that she was one of the smartest people in the room, deserving of everything she had earned, but he could see her point, now. Caitlyn had worked hard to make a name for herself based on her own merits. It was exactly what he had wanted to do, why he had left Queensbay, why he had worked so hard, through the failures of two companies before getting it right, vowing never to give up, not on his own dream and his desire to prove that he was man enough for Caitlyn Montgomery.
“Sorry, boss, slip of the tongue.” Sam laughed, and Noah realized that maybe he’d had a bit too much to drink.
“It’s okay, Sam. This house just brings back some memories, you know?”
“Well, I’m glad I caught you. Haven’t seen you around the office much, and I wanted to see if you had a chance to consider my offer…”
