by Lisa Jackson
“Mrs. Anderson was in today,” Erin stated, and took the glass of wine from the bar. “She was very disappointed that you weren’t able to meet with her yourself. Somehow she didn’t really think that I was a suitable replacement for the head of the legal department, and I can’t say that I blame her. I certainly wasn’t very knowledgeable about her grandfather’s will or the estate…”
“That’s her problem,” Mitch stated blandly and again focused his attention on the bottom of his glass.
“It’s not Mrs. Anderson’s problem,” Erin corrected.
“Well, it certainly isn’t mine!”
“But the bank…”
“To hell with the bank,” Mitch spat out and slammed his glass on the polished counter. Several of the patrons close by turned interested eyes on Erin and Mitch. Erin felt herself shrink. The last thing she wanted to do was cause a scene.
“I don’t understand what’s gotten into you lately,” Erin began in a low whisper. “And I don’t know what Kane Webster has to do with you coming down here to drown your sorrows, but if there’s anything I can do—or if there’s something you want to talk about…”
“I don’t want to talk about anything! You’re the one who came looking for me,” he reminded her crossly. “I didn’t invite you!”
“I was worried about you.”
“Well, don’t worry over me. I can take care of myself!” Mitch’s voice was bitter.
“Mitch, what in the world is going on?” she asked. Erin was stung by his acrid words, but compassion held back the sharp retort that had entered her mind as she watched Mitch order another drink. It was apparent that something was eating him, and because of the kindness he had shown her in the past, she held her tongue. She reached for his sleeve and in a quieter voice asked, “Won’t you please tell me what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” The word ricocheted back at her followed by Mitch’s mirthless laugh. “What could possibly be wrong?” His blue eyes glittered like ice. “Unless, of course, you think that being fired from a bank that you’ve given twenty years of your life to is a problem.”
The meaning of his words struck her like an arctic blast. “Fired? Webster fired you? But why?”
“Like I said, ask him—if you’ve still got a job. Who knows, you could be next!”
“But he hasn’t even come up from California yet.”
“Oh, he’s here all right, and mark my words, all of the employees at First Puget—oh, excuse me—Consolidated First Bank better be ready!” he pointed out sarcastically.
Erin sat for a moment in numbed silence. The thought of Mitch being fired was absurd, ludicrous. Mitch had been prominent in building the legal department of First Puget to one of the most prestigious in the city. It was true that for the first time in over a decade the legal department had lost money, but certainly the new president wouldn’t hold Mitch solely responsible, would he? Nothing made any sense to her anymore. Mitch caught the look of confusion and pity in her eyes. His attitude softened momentarily.
“Look, Erin. Don’t waste your sympathy on me. And it’s really not a good idea for you to be seen with me. Believe me, it would be in your best interests to just leave me alone.”
“You look like you could use a friend,” Erin suggested.
“What I need now is a good attorney, not a friend.”
“But you are an attorney,” Erin replied, still completely perplexed.
Mitch looked her squarely in the eyes. “I’m a lawyer, yes, but I specialize in civil law. What I need now is a criminal lawyer.”
“I don’t understand….”
“You don’t have to,” Mitch answered abruptly and stood up. “I told you before, I don’t need your sympathy or any of your self-righteous friendship!” He turned his back on Erin, fumbled in his pocket for a moment and threw a wad of crumpled bills onto the bar. “See ya around,” he called over his shoulder, but Erin didn’t think he directed his words at her.
“Mitch…wait,” she began, but his long uneven strides carried him out of the door and into the night. As she watched him leave she was still recovering from the shock of his dismissal. Why would he have been fired? It was hard to believe that she wouldn’t see him on Monday morning, sitting behind his large oak desk, puffing on a slim cigar and perusing the Wall Street Journal.
“Looks like you’ve been stranded,” a smooth male voice suggested intimately. “How about a drink with me?”
Erin turned in the direction of the voice and murmured a firm “No, thanks” to the young man with the clipped mustache. He shrugged his shoulders at her denial, as if it was her loss, and manipulated his attention to a lanky blonde sitting near the dance floor.
Erin made her way back to the car. The drizzle had turned into a downpour and the late afternoon sky had blackened. The drive home was automatic, and as the windshield wipers slapped the rain off the glass, Erin thought about Mitch and what it would be like without his presence in the bank.
She had suspected for several months that Mitch was in the throes of some personal problem. At least it had appeared that way. He had seemed tired and worried—no, more than that—tense, tightly coiled. The closer the final date for the imminent bank sale had drawn, the more tightly wound Mitch had become. Erin had told herself at the time that it was only her imagination, that all of the employees of First Puget were bound to be a little anxious about the new management. But now, as she drove through the dark, slick side streets, she chided herself for not seeing and acknowledging what had been so transparent: Mitchell Cameron was in deep trouble. Its exact nature she couldn’t guess, but it was serious enough to have cost him his job.
Without thinking, she killed the motor of the car as she pulled up in front of the Victorian apartment house. Closing her eyes and rotating her head, Erin tried to relieve the tension in her neck and shoulders. She wondered about Kane Webster. What kind of a man was he? What did she really know about the man, other than the few neatly typed memos with the bold signature that had crossed her desk?
She hadn’t heard much about his personal life. Apparently he preferred his privacy. Occasionally Erin had seen his name in print—in the financial pages. If she had read anything about him in the social pages, it usually had to do with his ex-wife, a gorgeous model who had made an unsuccessful attempt at becoming an actress. But that was several years ago, before an accident that had killed Jana and left the daughter crippled, or so it was rumored.
Erin frowned to herself as she thought about her new employer. One thing was certain: Kane Webster had made his fortune on his own, spending the last decade purchasing failing financial institutions and transforming them from operating in the red to operating in the black. He had gained a reputation in financial circles for being something of a rogue because of his unorthodox methods of operation. But if results were the measure of success, Kane Webster was prosperous. It was as if King Midas had reached out and touched the ailing banks himself.
Wearily Erin got out of the car and locked the door. She started up the short shrub-lined walk to her home and smiled at the elegant old house. It was a lovely Victorian manor, perched on a hill overlooking the city. The front porch was comfortable and trimmed in ornate gingerbread. The turn-of-the-century home had been fashioned into apartments twenty years before, and the contractor had taken care to accentuate the nineteenth-century charm of the house. Erin had fallen in love with it the first time she had laid eyes on it. Ignoring opposing arguments from just about everyone she knew, she had used her small inheritance as a down payment and purchased the building two years ago. Or to be more precise, she and First Puget Bank had purchased it; there was still a sizeable mortgage against it.
Even in the drizzle of early twilight the old manor looked warm and inviting. The white three-story building with its gently sloping roof and deep gables had a picturesque aura that was distinctly “Old Seattle.” Upon close inspection it was obvious that the house was in sad need of many repairs, but tonight Erin overlooked the chipped paint
and the rusty drainpipes. She had applied for an employee loan with the bank to make the needed improvements, but she knew as well as anyone that her loan would be a very low priority to Kane Webster. With a bank that was already losing money, how could he possibly make any low-interest employee loans?
Erin’s own apartment, located on the uppermost floor of the stately house, was an attic converted into a cozy loft with a bird’s-eye view of the city. She climbed the stairs slowly, sifting through the various pieces of junk mail and complaints from her tenants. Her mind was only half on the stack of mail in her hands, when she heard the telephone ringing. Racing up the final steps, she hurriedly unlocked the door, threw the mail on the table and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?” she inquired, breathless from her dash up the stairs.
“Erin, honey, it’s good to hear your voice. Where have you been? I’ve been calling for hours,” a friendly male voice said.
“Lee?” Erin asked hesitantly.
A good-natured laugh bellowed from the other end. “Hi! How’ve you been?”
“Fine, Lee,” she managed, wondering why he persisted in calling her. After the last call two weeks ago, she thought he understood that she didn’t want to see him again.
“What do you say we get together? You know, have a couple of drinks and a few laughs. I’ll come by and pick you up in a half hour,” he suggested.
Erin was tempted. There had always been something seductive about Lee, not in the sexual sense, but in the fact that he was such an outgoing, likable kind of guy. The same qualities that made him great fun at a party made him an immature husband. Erin could almost picture Lee’s college-boy good looks—thick blond hair with just the right amount of wave and laughing blue eyes.
“I don’t think so,” she replied, trying to take a firm stand with him and failing.
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’ve got other plans?”
“No…” Erin responded, and wondered why she hadn’t lied and just gotten rid of him. After all these years and all of the heartache, why couldn’t she just slam the receiver down and end the conversation?
“Then, let’s have a night on the town…”
“I can’t, Lee. I’m sorry. I’ve got a pile of work to catch up on before Monday.”
“But it’s the weekend,” he coaxed in a honeyed voice. “You know what they say, ‘All work and no play makes Erin a dull girl.’”
Lee chuckled, but something in his words brought Erin crashing back to reality. Suddenly she remembered just how little she had in common with a boy who refused to grow up. She recalled the shame and humiliation she had suffered while playing the role of dutiful wife.
“No, Lee. That’s not what they say at all. That’s what you said eight years ago.”
“Hey, baby, that’s all water under the bridge. Come on, what would a drink hurt?”
Erin sighed audibly. “Look, Lee, I’m not in the mood. Not tonight—not ever. I thought I made that clear to you a couple of weeks ago.”
There was a pause in the conversation and Erin could almost hear the wheels turning in Lee’s mind.
“Just what is it that you want from me?” she asked.
“I told you—we could have a few laughs.”
“Why not just turn on the television and catch reruns of Gilligan’s Island,” she suggested and immediately regretted the sarcasm in her words. Nervously she began tapping her fingernails on the tabletop.
“I have to see you,” he pleaded.
“Why? It didn’t matter eight years ago. Why the sudden interest?” Erin’s voice had begun to shake. Memories began to wash over her.
“You really want to do this the hard way, don’t you?” Lee accused.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Erin sputtered, but an uneasy feeling was growing in the pit of her stomach. This wasn’t just a friendly call. He wanted money from her—again. Suddenly Erin felt a deep pang of pity for the man who was once her husband.
“Look, honey,” Lee cajoled with only a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “You know I lost the job in Spokane, and well, since I’ve been back here, my luck hasn’t been all that great. I thought that…you could loan me a few bucks, just until I get back on my feet.”
Erin swallowed hard before answering. “You haven’t paid me back from the last time that I helped you ‘get back on your feet.’” Erin’s voice was flat. She hoped she sounded unshakable.
“Things just didn’t turn out in Spokane. You know how it is, what with the lousy economy and all. It’s just hard to get started.”
“Oh, Lee,” Erin sighed, and felt herself wavering.
He sensed the change in her voice. “I just need a few hundred to get started…”
“Spare me the sad story, Lee,” Erin interrupted. “I can’t loan you any money right now. I just don’t have it.”
“Don’t have it—or won’t lend it?” Lee asked desperately.
“I’m sorry, Lee.”
“I doubt it!”
“I don’t think that you and I have anything more to discuss. You were the one who made that decision several years ago. Good night.”
Erin hung up and noticed that her hands were trembling. Why did he always affect her this way? It was as if she was reliving those last few months before the divorce had become final all over again. Why didn’t Lee just disappear from her life completely? Was it her fault? Did he notice her hesitation and somehow construe it as an invitation? While they were married, he had wanted his freedom so desperately. And yet, since the divorce had become final, he kept showing up, trying to rekindle the dead flames. When he finally moved to Spokane, Erin had breathed a sigh of relief. She thought that finally he would make a life away from her.
That was why she had made the mistake of loaning him fifteen hundred dollars, hoping that he would establish himself in Spokane. But his plans had backfired, and he was back in Seattle. It hadn’t lasted six months.
Erin shook off her raincoat and started taking the pins from her hair. She couldn’t worry about Lee right now. She had too many other pressing problems, the first of which was to get up early in the morning and straighten out the mess that Mitch had made of the Anderson will. That meant that she would have to go back to the bank on a Saturday, but she saw no other solution. With the new boss in town, it wouldn’t do to have him walk in on Monday morning and face an angry beneficiary.
Erin shook her hair down to her shoulders and made her way to the bathroom for a long hot bath. It had been a tiring and disturbing day.
Chapter 2
In the silent city, the stark marble building knifed upward through the early morning fog. Workmen were already removing the old lettering to announce formally that First Puget Bank had become one more cog in the banking machine known as Consolidated Finances. Erin felt a surge of sadness as the final gold letter was lifted off its marble support. It was disheartening to realize that an institution with eighty-year-old roots on the banks of Puget Sound could be so easily transformed into a new, slick piece of financial machinery. Erin couldn’t help but feel that some of the personality of the bank would be lost in the transition. Quietly she let herself into the building with her own key and waved to the security guard near the door.
The large foyer of the bank was conspicuously quiet without the usual din of customers, tellers and ringing telephones. It was an eerie, tomblike feeling, and usually gave Erin a feeling of peaceful tranquillity, but today she felt somber.
The elevator was waiting for her, and with a vibrating groan, it whirred into motion and lifted her to the twenty-third floor and the maze of offices that comprised the legal department. She walked in the glow of the security lights, not bothering to turn on the bright iridescence of the outer office fixtures. As she passed Mitch’s office she lingered for a moment, experiencing a stab of regret and bitterness. Why couldn’t things have worked out better for him? Why did Webster let him go? She wondered about the circumstances surrounding his departure. Was Kane Webster reall
y on a witch hunt of sorts, or was there more to the story? She touched the brass doorknob but released it quickly. What good would it do to go snooping in Mitch’s office—it would only stir up unwelcome feelings. The best idea would be to do her work and leave the building before depression really did settle on her shoulders.
Erin’s office was dark, but she clicked on the brass desk lamp rather than the overhead fluorescent fixture. The lamp bathed the desk area in a gentle warm glow and gave the room a more intimate and less businesslike atmosphere. She adjusted her reading glasses and pulled out Mitch’s dog-eared copy of the Anderson will. As she began to read the verbose and tangled document, Erin became totally consumed by her work. She pulled out several large volumes and unconsciously began humming to the airy notes of the piped-in music. Within minutes she settled herself comfortably on the carpeted floor of her office and became oblivious to anything other than the interesting terms of the document.
* * *
Kane stepped out of the cab and handed the driver a healthy tip. He stood for a moment on the curb and squinted up at the tall building he had purchased. With stern satisfaction he watched while the new sign for Consolidated Finances was put into place. He couldn’t help but wonder if, as Jim had suggested, he had made a mistake in purchasing this particular bank. It had lost money for nearly two years through terrible mismanagement and was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. It would take a great deal of finesse on his part to avoid the collapse of the entire organization. Perhaps he had been rash in his decision to acquire the bank. In his eagerness to get away from a glittery lifestyle in California, and in hopes of favorably relocating his daughter, it was possible that he had been too hasty in his decision.
It was too late to start second-guessing himself at this point. With a determined grimace he let himself into the newest in a series of West Coast branches of Consolidated Finances.