Crash And Burn

by Fern Michaels

  “Maxwell, you need to head to the lavatory and glue that damn rug back in place on your head. You look like some freaky cartoon character,” Eli Rook bellowed.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me in that tone, Eli. You should talk. You look like you’ve been embalmed, but don’t have the good sense to admit you’re dead.”

  “Just chill out and calm down, everybody. This snapping and snarling is not going to get any of us anywhere. That witch wins if she drives a wedge through us. Use your damn heads, and, Maxwell, this is not one of your damn chess games. You need to deal with the here and now. We’re in trouble. I’m contacting our investigators and calling them off. That Fox woman meant exactly what she said about Buzz and the divorce. And let me be the first to say I’m all for cutting Buzz loose this very minute. He’s the reason we moved from safe territory to dangerous territory,” Leo Bishop said, his tone of voice a tad lower than a full bellow.

  “Now, who is the stupid one, Leo?”

  “I need a drink. Fix me one, will you, Eli? Buzz isn’t who you should be worrying about. You need to get Josh back here ASAP.”

  “What? You think I’m your slave? Fix it yourself. This is your office. For years, you’ve been holding it over our heads that you’re the man in charge, the managing partner, even though all four of us are full partners. Partners in everything. Since you’re the managing partner, then you damn well need to take charge and manage the situation. Don’t you think it’s a little early to start drinking?”

  Maxwell Queen waved his arms about. “See all this! Your offices are just the same as this one. Look at me! We are a hair away from losing it all. Buzz will fall into line. Josh will not. Do I need to remind you that Josh did not participate in that event twenty-seven years ago? He split, wanted no part of it. That doesn’t mean he isn’t culpable, because he kept quiet. Now someone call him and get him back here. Do whatever you have to do.”

  Eli and Leo stared at their partner as he poured himself a half tumbler of scotch, but neither one made a move to do anything. The moment they saw him swallow the scotch in two gulps, both partners knew for certain that it was time to get upset.

  Just to have something to do, Leo called Josh King, while Eli paced across the spacious office and back. Maxwell Queen poured himself another drink and took it neat. Then he marched over to his antique desk and sat down, his eyes watering. He reached up to see if his hairpiece was in place. Satisfied that it was, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “The call went straight to voice mail. You heard the message I left. Knowing Josh as well as I do, I think it’s safe to say he removed the batteries and tossed the phone.”

  “You said that when we bought that property, we were safe,” Eli said, slapping his hands down on Maxwell’s polished desk. The sound was so loud, Maxwell Queen’s eyes snapped open. “That’s what you said, Maxwell. You convinced us to dismantle all five campgrounds and that hippie community. You said let nature take over.”

  “And that’s exactly what happened. Everything is gone. Nature took over. All five educational campsites are gone. The hippie community is gone, and the people have moved on. It’s been almost twenty-three years. Close your eyes and imagine what twenty-three years of forest growth would look like today. It looks like a damn jungle is what it looks like,” Maxwell said, his words slurred. No one bothered to comment.

  Eli started to pace again as Leo tried calling Josh at his home. No one picked up. He scowled at his two partners just as Buzz Lambert burst into the office, his face a mask of hate and frustration. He hated the degree of control that these men had over his life.

  “Now what? I knew I should have gotten a different law firm to handle this divorce. You screwed it up, didn’t you? Admit it!”

  “Sit down, Buzz. We didn’t screw up anything,” Leo said wearily. “Look, you need to calm down and listen to what we’re going to tell you. Lizzie Fox was here, all charm and smiles. She made no bones about your divorce going through with no hitches. We called off the investigators because . . . because she informed us she knew we had a secret and was going to expose us. Now, was that a scare tactic? I don’t think so. She meant every word she said. That means that somehow, someway, she is going to find out what happened twenty-seven years ago. You were a party to that, Buzz, just the way we were.

  “You might as well know right now—Josh bailed on us. He said he wasn’t coming back. He can run, but he can’t hide. He is as culpable as the rest of us. I’ve been trying to call him, but there is no response. As you can see, our self-appointed leader and managing partner is three sheets to the wind, which should tell us all something. We’re in trouble. If you want to say something, now would be a good time, Mr. Speaker.”

  Buzz’s arms flapped in the air as though he were about to take flight. “I must be stupid, because I’m not getting any of this. Okay, okay, I get the part about the divorce going through with no hitches. Livinia gets what she wants, and I walk off into the sunset. I can live with that, since I have no other choice, and the way I see it, I still have a chance to succeed in a bid for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as long as I don’t make waves. Explain the rest of this crap to me. Would you, please?”

  “That question alone makes you too stupid to take up residence in the White House,” Maxwell Queen said in a singsong voice from his position behind his antique desk.

  Eli and Leo rolled their eyes for Buzz’s benefit. “Your wife’s attorney of record, Elizabeth Fox, as well as the Quinn Law Firm, are all investigating the Chessmen and you, too. That means, as she so quaintly put it, they will start at ‘the moment we all dropped out of our mothers’ wombs.’ Are you getting it now, Mr. Speaker?”

  “So what? Who cares if she finds out I gave Billy Jensen a black eye when I was ten years old? Who cares if I showed some guys my penis when I was twelve years old? We were comparing sizes. All kids do that. So I was a bed wetter for a long time. That makes me human. I went to high school, had tons of girlfriends, kissed them all, but never had sex, did some heavy petting. So what, again?

  “I worked after school at a grocery store. Yeah, sometimes I stole cookies or a soft drink. But when I did that, I always stayed a half hour longer to clean up to make up for it. I worked my way through college, waiting tables, tutoring other students, and I worked during summers as a camp counselor to help pay for college. That was where I met you guys. I thought I would have to work some more to put myself through law school, but then I met Livinia. She fell head over heels in love with me, and that was the end of having to work odd jobs and summers. She put me through law school, and she and her family helped me start out in politics. Who cares about stuff like that? As for you guys, who were born with silver spoons in your mouths, I doubt there is anything of interest there.”

  Maxwell Queen stirred himself and leaned over his desk. “Back that up to our last summer as camp counselors and the last-night party and bonfire before we all left to go home. The three of us were headed for Harvard Law the following week. You were returning for your senior year in college, even though you are a year older than we are. With all the work you had to do to get through college, it took you six years to finish. Did you forget about that, Buzz?”

  Buzz flapped his arms again as he started to pace frantically.

  “Stop! You two are going to ruin my carpet!” Maxwell shouted. “Well, did you forget, Buzz?”

  “Of course not. That . . . What . . . You don’t forget something like that. I tried because you said we needed to forget it. Just so you know, I never did. I don’t care how much the three of you lie to yourselves, you didn’t forget it, either. So don’t lie to me and to each other now. Is that why Josh left? If he said he’s not coming back, then he sure as hell is not coming back. If this gets out, I’ll be ruined. I couldn’t run for dog catcher in this town or anywhere else.”

  Buzz whirled around. “You said, Maxwell, that something like this could never happen. Where’s the proof that it did happen? Where? If you’re right, and there is no
proof, then there is nothing for Lizzie Fox to find, is there? Or is there something you know that the rest of us don’t know?”

  “You really are stupid, Buzz. I’m getting sick and tired of pointing that out to all of you. Of course there is something. The girl! A woman by now. Where is she? How do we know Lizzie Fox won’t find her? We don’t know the answer to that. We sure as hell never tried to find her. For obvious reasons. She’s out there just waiting to be found,” Maxwell said.

  “Twenty-seven years later! All of a sudden, she’s going to come out and nail our asses to the wall, is that what you’re saying?” Eli snorted in derision.

  “If she hasn’t come forward up to now, why would she suddenly do so? Even if she did, who would believe her? She doesn’t know who we are. It wasn’t like we told her our names. The statute of limitations is long past, so we cannot be prosecuted for what we did. And, anyway, it would be her word against ours.

  “People would listen, though. It will be fodder for the media. They love anything salacious, and this would be as salacious as it gets. Twenty-seven years is a long time,” Eli said.

  “Maybe we should try to find her ourselves. There has to be a record somewhere of the people who lived in that hippie community. They had to pay taxes on the property. They must have held jobs. Surely, someone in the nearest town would know something,” Buzz said.

  “That will be like poking a hornet’s nest,” Maxwell said. “Those people are probably scattered to the four corners of the globe by now. If you think they’ve been sitting around all this time waiting to nail us, then you’re crazy,” Maxwell said.

  “Then what is your suggestion?” Eli asked.

  “I don’t have a suggestion. Personally, I think that Lizzie Fox was blowing smoke. Why would she go to all that trouble, effort, and cost if we don’t fight the divorce? If we toe the line the way she wants, and the divorce goes through, then everyone gets what he or she wants. She did say that if we played our cards right, we still had a chance to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Buzz’s coattails. That statement makes me think that she just wanted to rattle us. Let’s face it, I don’t think there have been people born yet who don’t have a secret or two they don’t want bandied about,” Maxwell said, his voice and tone gathering more confidence as he went along.

  “If you actually believe that, Maxwell, I have a bridge I can sell you cheap. That lady, Lizzie Fox, never says anything she doesn’t mean. If she said she’s taking us on, she’s taking us on,” Buzz insisted. “Tell me again why you sold all that property. You said that as long as you owned it, nothing could come back to haunt us. Now you’re singing a different tune, and you’re making me nervous.”

  “It was a good business deal at the time. Eli, Leo, and I paid twenty-two million for it four years . . . after . . . after the last summer we worked there, the year after we graduated from law school. You didn’t have any money, Buzz, and Josh said he wanted no part of that deal. A year after we bought it, we tore everything down and let nature take over. Then, five years ago, some hedge-fund billionaire, Bradford Holiday, approached us to sell him the property.

  “You might or might not know this, but this firm handled Holiday’s divorce. We saved him ten times what he would have had to pay out to his wife as a settlement. We made all that go away for him, and he kept his money. Thanks to us. As you know, Buzz, in this business, one hand washes the other.

  “Holiday came to us when he found out we owned the property and said a group of investors was going to build some kind of resort for the rich and famous, as he put it. They paid us fifty million dollars. More than double what we paid for it. What kind of fool would turn that down? Since Eli, Leo, and I are far from being fools, we took the deal. But like I said, that was a drop in the bucket to what we saved him in his divorce. He was appreciative.

  “But to this day, that acreage has not been developed. I don’t know why. Investors, as a rule, are a temperamental lot. That land might never be developed, and they can all take a nice tax write-off, which I suspect was their intention all along. Can I prove that? No, I can’t, but unless one of you comes up with a better answer, I’m going to stick with what I think.”

  “What are we going to do about Josh?” Eli asked.

  “What can we do, Eli? The answer is nothing. We can’t force him to come back to the firm if he’s serious about leaving. He certainly is not dependent on his share of revenue from here. He has as much, if not more, money than the rest of us. The man is a frugal bastard. He won’t turn on us, but he won’t help us, either. He’s going to take his wife and go to ground somewhere. That’s his way, we all know that.”

  “All right, now, let me get this straight. We’re doing nothing, is that right? We’re just going to sit here and contemplate our belly buttons while Lizzie Fox drives us into the ground, and we spend the rest of our lives in prison. That’s fine for the three of you—Josh, too, if you want to count him in. You all have money to burn. I do not. Livinia was the one with the money, not me,” Buzz sputtered, his face mottled, his hands shaking.

  “The statute of limitations has passed, Buzz, a long time ago. We cannot—let me repeat, cannot—be prosecuted for what happened that night. Not now, not tomorrow, not next year, not ever. You want to poke that hornet’s nest, be my guest. The three of us are sitting tight, right, boys?”

  Eli and Leo nodded reluctantly.

  “So you’re hanging me out to dry, is that it? Every man for himself is what I’m seeing here,” Buzz Lambert said, with his face a pasty white.

  “No one is hanging anyone out to dry, Mr. Speaker. It’s business as usual, all the way. You go poking that hornet’s nest, you’re going to get stung. I think we all need to agree that we’re going to do nothing. At least for now,” Maxwell said.

  “Business as usual, my ass. Josh saw the handwriting on the wall. He’s gone. Maybe it’s time for me to go, too. I can see if I can mend some fences where my son is concerned. Who knows? He might even offer me a job. Which even I know I do not deserve. I’m going to go home now and pretend I had a relapse and try to figure something out. You three do what you want. Just remember that word preemptive you threw around at that press conference you insisted on.”

  Wilson Lambert’s shaky legs managed to get him to the door. He turned around for a last look at his “friends.” He didn’t say a word, just quietly closed the door behind him.

  The three Chessmen looked at one another. “He’s going to be a problem,” Maxwell Queen said. “What do we do, gentlemen, when we encounter a problem?”

  “We make it go away,” Eli and Leo said at the same time.

  “Exactly. Now, I know it’s still a bit early, but let’s head out to a nice lunch on the firm so we can discuss the best way to make this particular problem go away. But first we need to send out a letter to Fox and the Quinn Law Firm saying we are contesting nothing, and it’s smooth sailing for Livinia Lambert. A nice touch, and a good way to end this rotten morning.”

  Chapter 18

  Jack cracked an eyelid to look at the red numerals on the bedside clock. They were blurry, but it looked like it was 4:45. He groaned. Then he felt a warm breath on his neck and ear. “Aaaah.” He liked the tickle and suddenly felt warm all over. He knew he needed to get with it, because Nikki was rarely, if ever, this frisky so early in the morning. He moved his leg and instead of feeling his wife’s warm body heat, he felt the cold-sheet side of the bed. His eyes snapped open. Staring at him were two huge brown eyes and two pointed ears.

  “Damn it, Cyrus, how many times do I have to tell you not to lick my ear! What’s up with you? It’s not even five o’clock yet!” The big shepherd let loose with a soft woof; then Jack heard the shower. He groaned. So much for early-morning gymnastics.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. You want to go out. Go! You know how to open the door and turn on the light. And on your way, turn up the heat! I taught you how to do that. C’mon, don’t make me get up and freeze my buns off. You’ve got all that hair to keep yo
u warm. Give me a break here.” Jack dived back under the covers Cyrus was intent on pulling off the bed. “And you’d better make your bed before Nikki gets out of the shower.”

  Cyrus backed up a step, then another, to take in the situation. It looked to him like he was on his own. Three orders all at one time. He pondered the situation, then straightened the covers on his bed at the foot of the master bed. He barked to show he could obey orders. He barked again when he got to the door. In the hallway, he let loose with a second volley of sound; heat turned up. A minute later, Jack heard the chime that meant the alarm was turned off, then another robotic voice announcing that the kitchen door was now open.

  “That’s the smartest damn dog in the whole universe,” Jack mumbled to himself just as his wife stood poised in the doorway of the bathroom with nothing on but a huge yellow towel.

  Jack groaned again. “What’s going on? It’s not even five o’clock, Nikki.”

  “I needed to get an early start. I want to stop by my new associate’s place to drop off her handbag. I thought I could do it yesterday, but I ran out of time because I didn’t get to the police station to pick up our bags till late. There was no way to get in touch with Amy, so I decided to do it early this morning.

  “I’m surprised, though, that she didn’t call me after she picked up a new phone. I think I’m worried, Jack. I do not have a good feeling about any of this, and on top of everything else, I think she suspects the mugging was a put-up job.”

  Nikki sat down on the edge of the bed. Jack looked at his wife and thought she was more beautiful than any movie star. He had no thoughts now of getting frisky. All he wanted to do right now was help her because he could tell she was in distress. Never mind that the towel was slipping or that Cyrus bounded into the room like a tornado and leapt on the bed. Playtime! Not.