“Including you, Mac,” Jeremy said softly, his voice hoarse with tension.
“That’s a risk I have to take.”
“Why not call in the law?”
He laughed bitterly. “What laws can I prove have been broken? I have no proof, Jeremy. And do you think any of my old colleagues would pay attention to me? No, I have to do this my way—and alone. Ashley, Jeremy, get yourselves out of this. Just do it. Now that he has the jewels, Bartholomew Wakefield is going to make his move. I wouldn’t want either of you to get caught in the cross fire.”
He rose and looked down at Ashley, and his face was gentle and filled with regret. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be so devoted to your uncle if he hadn’t been a kind and decent man to you. But he had to be, you understand, to pull this off. I wish I had more answers for you. I don’t know what the jewels mean, I don’t know who your parents are or why—or how—he got hold of you, or where the trust came from. I’m guessing. But the rest—what I told you here tonight, that I know to be true. I lived it, Ashley. I was there.”
Then he turned around and walked out of the cold apartment, and he shut the door softly behind him. The self-lock clicked.
* * *
The silence was strained after Mac had left. Ashley refused to look at Jeremy. She couldn’t stand to have people feel sorry for her, but especially a man, a lover. “My best guess is he’s KGB.” No. How could a man who gave her piggyback rides and helped sheep give birth to tiny lambs and let her win at Monopoly possibly be a spy—an enemy?
She sprang to her feet. “This cloak-and-dagger nonsense has to stop.”
“Ashley—” Jeremy rose awkwardly to his feet. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“Poor little Ashley, raised by a Russian spy. Sybil Morgenstern would love it. ‘Wakefield twins brought up by KGB.’”
He took her seriously. “Ashley, you’re jumping to conclusions.”
“Of course I’m jumping to conclusions. Do you really think I believe Barky’s KGB? I was just trying to get you to see how crazy this all sounds. But you don’t see it, do you? You don’t think your friend Mac is nuts. You’d rather think my uncle is a Russian spy.”
“There’s more evidence against Barky than against Mac,” he said, sounding like a lawyer. “And I’ve known Mac all my life.”
“And I’ve known Barky all my life.”
She was choking with anger, unable to breathe, to think clearly. Unpleasant images kept flashing. Barky killing a bat with a broom. Shooting a woodchuck. Carving the head of a butchered pig for sausage. They were the grittier side of farm life, but now, in light of what Mac Stevens had accused her uncle of being, the images seemed filled with needless brutality.
All of a sudden it was dawn. The early morning sun brought out the rose accents in the Persian carpet and cast the room in a soft glow.
“I have to shower and pack,” Ashley said abruptly.
Jeremy sighed. “You’re going to Maine.”
It was a statement—a fact—but Ashley nodded. “I have to make my own decisions. I can’t let Mac Stevens make them for me—or you.”
“I would never presume,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll pack my things while you’re in the shower.”
She was truly shocked. “Why?”
“You don’t think I have any intention of letting you go up there alone, do you?”
“Crockett didn’t invite you.”
“I don’t give a damn who Crockett invited. I’ll charter my own plane if I have to, Ashley. I’m going with you.”
She snorted. “You heard Mac—you even believe him.”
“And I make my own decisions, too, dammit.”
“Are you possessive?”
“Just stubborn.”
“You sure you trust my flying?”
“Not in the least.” His smile broadened into a grin now that he was seeing he’d won. “But I’m a risk taker.”
She gave a toss of the head. “I could shove you out the door at four thousand feet.”
He walked over to her and stood toe to toe. “Do you have a parachute aboard?”
“Two.”
“Then I won’t worry. I may not know how to fly a plane, smart ass, but I do know how to jump out of one.”
24
Badger Rock Island was approximately forty acres of brush, pine and oak in Blue Hill Bay, southwest of Mt. Desert Island, the largest of the state’s thirty-five hundred islands and a popular national park. There were granite cliffs, crashing surf, a guest cottage, tennis courts, a pool, boats moored at a gleaming dock, a boathouse—and no people. The sprawling main house, of sun-bleached cedar shingles, stood in a wide clearing overlooking the bay.
Flying had improved Ashley’s spirits. Of course Barky wasn’t KGB. It was ridiculous! If not crazy, MacGregor Stevens was at least very badly mistaken. As far as she was concerned, if Barky was the one source of danger for her, then she wasn’t in any danger. There were just answers to be gotten to a series of sticky questions. Who set up the Liechtenstein trust? Why? When? Who were her parents? Who was Bartholomew Wakefield, really? Why had he lied to her and David? What did he plan to do with the tiara and the choker? How had they gone from the neck of Judith Land in Vienna, in 1956, to a vault at Piccard Cie in Geneva, in 1982?
And she continued, despite everything, to believe in her uncle. She could hardly imagine the fortitude it had taken to break David’s leg and smash her on the head. He had nursed them, lectured them and loved them all their lives. He desperately wanted them to live—so he had tried to put them out of action, to incapacitate them in order to save them. That was the only conceivable explanation.
“Trust me.”
Of course. There could be no question of that.
At her side, Jeremy peered down at the picturesque island. “I wonder if the old man shoots trespassers.”
“I’m not that lucky,” she said with a wry smile.
She noticed him holding his breath as she circled for a landing. The airstrip wasn’t much, but she was confident. Jeremy had been singularly unhelpful during her preflight visual inspection of the plane. He’d said it was unnerving to put his life in the hands of someone in a bright yellow jumpsuit, scrunchy pink socks and running shoes. Plucking an indefinable stoppage—a squirrel’s nest, perhaps—from behind the propeller, Ashley had told him to go ahead and throw caution to the wind. “As long,” he said, “as my teeth and eyeballs don’t go with it.”
Her landing on the rough concrete runway was, all considered, fairly smooth, and she taxied to a stop, ordering Jeremy to remain quiet until she’d tried to explain his presence to the powers that be on the island.
“Just as long as you don’t offer me up as eel bait,” he said, climbing out.
They were met by a lanky, balding man in a perfectly pressed gray corduroy suit. He looked to be in his early thirties—and upset. Ashley gave him a dazzling smile, put out her hand and introduced herself. He shook briefly, not looking dazzled, and said fussily, “Roger Shellingworth. Miss Wakefield, we understood you were coming alone.”
“Didn’t you receive my secretary’s call?” she lied. “Jeremy Carruthers is legal counsel for the New England Oceanographic Institute, Mr. Shellingworth. I’m afraid these days I can hardly breathe without him.”
“It’s true,” Jeremy said. “It was either bring me along or not come at all.” He smiled. “Institute policy, I’m afraid.”
Shellingworth sighed, perturbed but resigned. “Very well, I suppose we’ll have to make do. Don’t worry about your things. I’ll send someone for them. This way, please.”
Ashley dropped back and walked with Jeremy. “Act like a lawyer,” she said.
“I am a lawyer.”
“Oh. Well, act like a proper lawyer.”
“My God, you sound like my father. I’ve been an attorney for ten years, Ashley. I know how to act.”
They walked along a wide, sunlit gravel path that eventually narrowed into a neat brick path flanked by frostbitte
n flowers. Breezes came in great gusts and smelled of the ocean, and everywhere were the merry sounds of birds.
Shellingworth explained that J. Land Crockett wished his guests to settle in and make themselves at home. “You are to have full access. If there’s anything you require, please don’t hesitate to ask me or one of the servants. Mr. Crockett will see you at dinner.”
“Not sooner?” Ashley asked, surprised.
“That would be unlikely.”
They were installed in adjoining rooms on the second floor, with panoramic views of the island, the bay and, in the distance, the peaks of Mt. Desert Island.
The Crockett house was large and open, the furnishings and lines spare, the colors those of the sea: grays, blues, muted greens, whites. The effect was at once inviting and lonely. Ashley opened her window and listened to the ocean and the gusting wind and smelled the salty, chilly air. Quiet and colorful and gorgeous, Maine was stunning in autumn.
She changed into sweat clothes, braided her hair tightly and knocked on Jeremy’s door.
“Yes?”
“I’m going for a run,” she said. “I’ll let you know if I bump into any spooks.”
“Ashley.”
But she was off down the hall, her stab at black humor quickly vanishing as she headed outside. She followed the path to the airstrip, working up a sweat. The exercise helped to revive her after the two-hour flight and the lack of sleep, but she couldn’t chase away the strange, silent sadness that seemed to permeate the island. Was it her? she wondered. Or was it the loneliness of the old man who made his home here, isolated, rude, undoubtedly embittered?
She jogged down to the guesthouse, painted white with blue shutters, but it was empty, unfurnished and unused. J. Land Crockett didn’t throw large parties; he never had more guests than the main house could handle.
She sprinted back to the house and did some cool-down stretches in a patch of sunlight on the back lawn. The air and exercise felt good, and she was confident she could handle the chairman of Crockett Industries.
As she mounted the back steps, heading inside, a movement drew her eye to the screened sun porch. An old man stood in the window. He was bundled up in a heavy sweater, his hair iron gray and wispy, his face toughened with age and a bitterness that was almost tangible.
His eyes met hers.
Then, without so much as a smile or a nod, he turned from the screened window and walked away.
* * *
Roger Shellingworth met Lillian Parker at the airport in Bar Harbor and, in a lavish cabin cruiser, ferried her over to Badger Rock Island. The boat had its own captain, a taciturn islander himself, who asked nothing from the billionaire but a fair wage for an honest day’s work; for his circumspectness, he was paid more than a fair wage.
Roger joined Lillian in the lounge and furnished her with a drink. Lillian found him obsequious and tired of him easily, but she had nothing particular against him. At least Crockett liked him. That was something, since Crockett liked so few people.
“Has Ashley Wakefield arrived yet?” she asked, feigning cheerfulness.
“Yes—rather early, in fact.”
Lillian wrapped her hair in a scarf and smiled into the wind. “Have she and Crockett met yet?”
Roger shook his head. “She brought a friend.”
“Uninvited? How cheeky.”
“Yes,” Roger replied distastefully.
“Who is he—I presume it’s a he?”
“She introduced him as an attorney with the New England Oceanographic Institute. Mr. Crockett had me verify his credentials.”
Lillian was burning with curiosity, but the little twerp was going to make her drag out every word. “And?”
“The institute has no attorney by the name of Jeremy Carruthers.”
“Do tell.”
Roger reddened. “At Mr. Crockett’s request, I, er, investigated Mr. Carruthers’s luggage.”
Lillian stretched out on the padded bench. “Why, Roger, you snoop. And who is our Mr. Carruthers?”
“He’s an attorney with Carruthers and Stevens, a law firm in San Diego.”
Lillian spilled her drink down her front. “Oh, dammit. Roger, I’m sorry—what a mess. I haven’t been on a boat in ages,” she explained nervously. “Just give me a towel or something.”
“Are you sure—”
“Roger, please, I’m fine.”
She had hoped Bartholomew Wakefield, as he now called himself, would be wrong and she wouldn’t have to face MacGregor Stevens, but if his associate were already here... God, how Mac hated her. She laughed sadly, wondering how many times self-righteous, proper, dutiful and upstanding MacGregor Stevens had shut her loathed face off his television set. She used to think of that, just before she went on air. Sometimes she’d smile, thinking, “This one’s for you, Mac.”
She’d wanted to hate him, too. But she couldn’t. Not then, and not now.
“I’ll see you in hell, Lillian Parker,” he’d told her the last time they’d met.
Well, she thought, here we are.
25
J. Land Crockett sipped his hot tea with purplish lips. He had summoned Lillian to the sun porch minutes after her arrival. The wind blew sharply through the screens, but Crockett sat under layers of blankets and wore a thick sweater, buttoned all the way up, with a turtleneck underneath, the collar unrolled on his scrawny neck. He fastened his piercing black-blue eyes on her. “Our Ashley Wakefield looks to be ready to get us by the short hairs and start pulling, Lil.” He sounded almost amused. “She wants answers, probably as bad as I do. Only I don’t give a damn if she gets them. I do give a damn if I get mine. And I intend to.”
Lillian put down her china cup so he wouldn’t see how badly her hands were shaking. She never used to be afraid of Crockett. What was happening? “Who are you willing to destroy to get your answers, Crockett?”
He gazed at her with his notorious intransigence. “Anyone who stands in my way.”
“Including me?” She hated how small her voice sounded.
“I need to know the truth.” His voice was an odd mix of bitterness, pain, loneliness and love. “I’ll even risk everything I believed and loved about my own daughter.”
Lillian reached for a warm scone. Crockett even had clotted cream; God only knew where it had come from. “Maybe the truth isn’t as bad as you think.”
“Maybe. I’ll find out, won’t I?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She bit into the scone, knowing it was a diversionary tactic; that way, her eyes didn’t have to be on him. “I don’t know anything.”
“Don’t you?” Crockett set down his teacup and folded his gnarled hands in his lap. “What about Jeremy Carruthers?”
Lillian tried to look huffy as she swallowed a piece of scone. “I’ve never even met the man. Crockett, I didn’t come here to be grilled by you.”
He ignored her protest. “Roger told you Carruthers is out of San Diego.”
“And I’m sure he wouldn’t have if you hadn’t instructed him to tell me.”
“That’s right, Lil. His firm was founded in 1958 by Allan Carruthers—our Jeremy’s father—and a man by the name of MacGregor Stevens.”
Oh, hell, she thought miserably, shutting her eyes, not caring that she was giving herself away. She should have known Crockett, recluse that he was, could still get any information, any fact, he wanted.
“He’s from Philadelphia high society, Lil—same as you. Know him?”
“Crockett...”
The old man leaned forward in his chair. “You want to tell me what he has to do with all this, Lil?”
“I don’t know!”
“Doesn’t matter.” He rested back. “I’ll find out. You know—” He paused, sighing contentedly, and again folded his hands. “You know, when Judith died, there was some money missing out of her estate. About five, six million—no way of tracking it down, finding out where it went. I checked it out, Lil. With the right investments, continually reinvest
ing the principal, it could have grown to a nice little pot by 1982, when the Wakefield twins suddenly came into their anonymous Liechtenstein trust. That’s an interesting little coincidence, don’t you think?”
“So what are you going to do? Try to prove it’s Judith’s money so you can take it away? They don’t care about the money, you know.” She threw up her hands in desperation. “Damn you, Crockett. What’s the point in dragging those two through hell?”
“Answers.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have to know what happened to Judith.”
“She died, Crockett. She was trampled to death by a horse at age twenty-three. It was a horrible, tragic accident, and it happened thirty years ago.”
He wasn’t looking at Lillian; he was barely in the room with her. “Why was she there, Lil? Why was Judith on the ranch that day?”
“I don’t know.” Lillian rubbed her forehead, trying wildly to restore some measure of self-control. She couldn’t let Crockett get to her. But didn't he have a right to know? No! She'd promised Judith; she'd promised everyone. “I don’t know why Judith was on the ranch, Crockett. I hadn’t seen her in months. We were moving in separate directions. I was on my way to becoming a journalist, she was an actress.”
“She was your best friend.”
“We were drifting apart.”
“I don’t believe that, Lil. Talk to me.” His voice had become low, weak, tired, the voice of an old man who had known more pain than happiness, more loneliness than love. “Tell me about my daughter, Lil. Tell me who she was. I thought I knew her; I thought she loved me, trusted me. But she didn’t come to me when she was in trouble. She went to you. Didn’t she, Lil? When she was in trouble and there was nowhere to turn, she turned to you. Tell me, Lil. Tell me what my daughter was.”
“She was everything you raised her to be, Crockett.”
With tremendous effort, her heart thudding painfully, Lillian walked off the sun porch and into the relative warmth of the house. J. Land Crockett would put all his monumental resources into play to find out what had happened to his daughter thirty years ago. Stood up against his billions, his sheer intensity of will, Lillian didn’t have a chance.
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