Canyon Road

by Thomas, Thea

  Sage's ire rose. "Mr. Rattnor, let's make some things clear. First of all, your are not to discuss my personal life. Secondly, I concern myself with issues that are, indeed, my business, whether you approve or not. And thirdly, I can't spend time or money going places, doing things, when I daily receive information about how all the businesses in my aunt's estate are hemorrhaging money. Money that I cannot trace. It's your job to fully apprise me, the executor of her will, of any operation I choose to investigate."

  She lowered to voice to clarify her resolve. "If you cannot do what you are paid to do, you will be replaced."

  Bill Rattnor stood, braced his knuckles on the edge of the desk and leaned toward Sage. There was something like a smile pasted across his mouth, but his eyes were cold, flat steel. "Little girl, I have no time to teach you, simply because you have whims, how to understand your aunt's business. I've plenty enough to do trying to salvage what I can from her frivolous and selfish life style...."

  With that, Sage rose as well, and, in her heels, dominated him. She stood straight, arms at her sides, her anger a deadly calm. "Mr. Rattnor, you are never, under any circumstance, to refer to my Aunt in any remotely negative terms within my hearing. Victoria's life-style was her business. Additionally, I am not, by any stretch of the definition, a little girl.

  "You will not patronize me. You will treat me with respect. You will perform your services as I see fit." She folded her arms, half a gnat's breath from firing him. "You have one of two courses of action. You can sit, and we'll continue this appointment, or you can find your own way to the door for the last and final time."

  Bill Rattnor picked up his briefcase and left. Sage listened to the angry click of his heels across the foyer marble, winced when the heavy door slammed.

  She stood, unmoving for a few moments, still believing he'd return. But he didn't and she slowly sank into the chair. What had just happened? She felt she'd won some kind of psychic battle, but feared she'd begun a war.

  Why would there be a war? What was Rattnor's problem? Could it be that spending time with her clarifying the books really angered him? Although Aunt Vicky's accounts and business were extensive, he was on exclusive contract with her, which made him now exclusively Sage's attorney. She was his boss. He was her employee. Why did he appear to not understand that?

  She returned to the files, vexed and confused. What to do now? The overwhelming muddle of Aunt Vicky's filing just about did her in.

  Half-an-hour later the phone rang. It was Bill's secretary. "One moment please, Miss Elgin, Mr. Rattnor wishes to speak with you."

  Bill came on the line. "Sage! Glad you're still there," his said in his saccharin, metallic voice. "Are you calmed down now?"

  "Me?!" Sage asked, amazed.

  "Now don't get excited again. I just wanted to call and smooth things out. You want to look at the Petrol-Fill files. I have them. I'll come over Friday to go over it with you."

  "How about right now?" Sage answered.

  "Sage, you forfeited your appointment time with me today by suggesting I leave. You have a life of leisure. I have a life of work. I'm booked until Friday."

  "Mr. Rattnor, I don't need you present in order to look at my files. I'll be over directly to look at them myself."

  "The files are in a safe, Sage. The whole world isn't set up just for your whimsy."

  "Make copies, have them delivered. I'll expect them no later than tomorrow afternoon."

  Sage hung up. Bill Rattnor really hated her, deeply. And in some sense that she couldn't understand, he hated her beyond herself. She didn't know what the hate was or why it was, but it left her quivering even after she walked out of Aunt Vicky's office in an effort to get away from his horrible steel-cold presence.

  ....................................................................* * *

  However, Sage was surprised when a package containing copies of the Petrol-Fill files was delivered the next morning. She took the package into the kitchen, made herself tea and began to spread out the files' contents on the kitchen counter. They were in terrible chronological disarray and Sage's tea grew cold as she tried to put it in order. Receipts and notes from different times had been photo-copied together on the same sheets of paper, some documents had been reduced so much they were nearly impossible to read. She got out scissors and cut apart the unrelated documents, continuing to put them in chronological order.

  She put everything into the best order she could, made some fresh tea and began to study the documents in earnest. The more she looked, the more holes she saw. There was every indication that Petrol-Fill functioned in the green, but the bottom-line numbers were frighteningly in the red. A chill ran through her as an unavoidable conclusion rose.

  She must be wrong!

  She moved away from the strewn papers to clear her head, reminding herself that she had no background in business. She didn't understand what she was looking at. On the other hand, she was not stupid. It was clear that something was profoundly amiss with the Petrol-fill files. In addition to hating her, Sage realized that Bill Rattnor must think she was a blithering idiot.

  She topped up her tea and meandered out to the flower garden, pacing over the neglected black crushed-rock paths, deep in thought. Leaves and debris overtook the walks, the flowers had grown wild and unchecked or were dead stalks or were choked with ivy. The hedges had fallen into complete disarray, like school boys without hair cuts.

  Poor neglected garden, Sage thought, sitting on an ornate Victorian black wrought iron bench. It had been such a show place, she thought, and now it's a... hide place. She sipped her tea and looked around at the bleak unhappy garden, thought about the Petrol-Fill files, thought about the garden.

  She stood up and strode into the house. Twenty minutes later, dressed in jeans, an old shirt, work boots and gloves, she carried hoses and garden tools into the flower garden. She would capture two birds with one chore – work on the garden and think about the Petrol-Fill files – and improve both.

  She pruned and clipped and watered and raked and cleared until mid-afternoon. Then she gathered the garden tools, drug the six trash bags she'd filled to the trash and put the tools away, feeling invigorated. A garden was a good thing to tend!

  She took a long hot bath, pulled on her favorite peach-colored silk outfit and began again to look at the papers strewn over the kitchen counters. It had come to her, as she worked in the flower garden, that the largest incongruities were near Aunt Vicky's death. And her study confirmed it.

  What was she to do now? Hire another attorney? Who? Who could she trust? Who could walk into this mess and make sense of it? Peeved, then angry, she circled the kitchen. A niggling thought that perhaps she ought to be a bit frightened rose up. Bill Rattnor – with his peculiar dark personality – how far would he go to protect what appeared to even Sage's untrained eye to be a brazen embezzlement?

  "What are friends for?" she finally said, resigned. Picking up the phone, she called Anthony and was relieved when he, himself answered.

  "I really hate to bother you, Anthony, but...."

  "Good grief, Sage, you're never a bother. I couldn't be happier than to hear your voice."

  "Thank you, Anthony. But... this is actually a business call. I need your opinion on a file Bill Rattnor sent over this morning at my insistence. I'd bring it to you, but I've got it strewn all over my kitchen counters in discrete piles and...."

  "No problem, Sage."

  Sage heard a burst of giggles in the background. "Oh! you have company...."

  "Michael and Millie have been out riding. They just came in and are acting very fresh-air goofy." Sage could hear the affection in Anthony's voice.

  She chuckled, happy to hear a nuance of joy in Anthony's voice that she'd never heard. "Okay, you 'kids' all enjoy yourselves. This boring paperwork can wait."

  "Nonsense. Those kids can take care of themselves. I'll be over in about an hour, if that suits you."

  "If you're sure... wait, I have an idea.
Bring Michael and Millie with you. They can play in the garden while you and I look at the papers for a bit... you'll probably look a this muddle for five minutes and have it – and me – all straightened out. I'll make my famous spaghetti dinner."

  "Oh! I didn't know your spaghetti dinners were famous."

  "I misled you – it's the person on the jars of spaghetti sauce in my pantry who is famous. But I can and will make a gigantic salad from scratch."

  Anthony laughed. "It sounds wonderful. A casual dinner with my favorite people. I'll bring bread and wine."

  Sage hung up the phone and looked around the paper-strewn kitchen. What was she thinking? She never even cooked for herself, and now, with the kitchen in complete mayhem, she'd invited three people over. One of whom – one of whom made her pulse race. The image of his profile the night he drove her to her door in the darkened limo came back to her, etched on her synapses. The very look of him – not just that he was so attractive – but something else, a sensation that she'd been with him before, a discomforting feeling that she needed to be near him.

  He's not available, she reminded herself. Sighing deeply, she turned her back to the muddle of paperwork, leaned against the counter and rubbed her forehead, willing all the jangling thoughts to be still.

  At that moment, the front door chimes rung out. Sage glanced up at the clock. Surely it wasn't Anthony already? She wandered to the front door, hoping it wasn't Anthony just yet, also hoping it wasn't some annoying salesperson, when she saw Bill Rattnor though the beveled glass of the door, pacing back and forth. Tempted to step back and avoid him altogether, it was too late. He saw her and stood facing her at the door.

  She opened the door a crack. "I'm sorry, Mr. Rattnor, I don't have time to talk with you right now."

  "Oh yes you do," he said, pushing his way into the foyer.

  Shocked, Sage backed away from him. "Please leave. I'm requesting politely, but I'm serious."

  "I am so fed up with you," he said through gritted teeth. "I am so fed up with you! You've been a pain from the first day you entered this house until this very moment. I'm going to try and talk some sense into you, but I'm warning you, I'm at the end of my tether."

  Sage took another step back, fear running ice water through her. "Mr. Rattnor, for the last time, leave my home. Furthermore, you are no longer in my employ. I nearly fired you yesterday. Now add breaking and entering and threatening me and we have reached the termination of your involvement with my aunt's estate and with me." She moved cautiously around him and opened the door wide. "And we will see what falls out regarding your probable embezzlement." As soon as she said this, Sage regretted it. Poke a stick at the tiger, will you, she said to herself.

  And she was right. She could hardly believe the transformation that appeared before her. Rattnor's eyes became slivers, his teeth crunched together roping his jaw, his face flushed a fire-anger red, and his entire body became ramrod, every muscle clinched.

  "Shut up," he hissed. "shut up, shut up, shut up. I have had it with you Elgin bitches. First one then the other. Flaunting your bodies around, teasing. Flaunting your money. You don't deserve one single cent. You ought to be living in a tent. Who are you? Nobody, nothing. You've never done anything worthwhile in your life. Never lifted a finger.

  "I've slaved around the clock, day in and day out. And for what? Only to have you think you can tell me I'm fired? Well, that's not going to happen, little girl. What's going to happen is another accident. Perfect too. Just like your Aunt. Perfect justice. You miss her so much? We'll just have you join her."

  He reached out to grab her, she stepped back behind the door. "What are you saying? What are you saying about Victoria?"

  A rictus grin crossed his features. "Nothing. Just that, it looked like her horse threw her. Her horse, that she loved more than anything or anyone. That she'd raised from birth. And excellent rider that she was, too."

  Now trapped behind the door, Rattnor grabbed her, with lightning strength, he spun her around and pinned her arms behind her back. "And you're going to have an accident too." In a steel grip that stunned her, that she could not escape, he drug her backwards across the foyer. "I can just see the headlines now, "beautiful heiress tumbles down her own winding stairway. So sad, too bad. Cut short in the midst of her frivolities."

  They reached the bottom of the stairs. "Let. Me. Go!" Sage screamed in his ear, struggling with every bit of her strength.

  "Shut up!" He slapped her across the face so hard she became disoriented.

  He drug her up three steps. "Have to get high enough to accomplish the goal."

  "Think about what you're doing," she tried to reason.

  "I have thought about this long and hard, for many hours, you can count on it. Shut up." He drug her up another couple of steps.

  "Anthony is on his way over," she whispered, knowing that, if Rattnor was successful, Anthony would be too late.

  Rattnor stopped and looked down at her incredulously. "Oh, that's pathetic! You must think I've very stupid. I know you can't stand him. I know you would never have him here. Honestly, Victoria, I am so sick of the way you patronize me. I'm so sick of your thinking you're superior to me."

  "Sage," Sage said.

  "What?"

  "You said Victoria. Victoria is dead. Apparently you killed her. I'm Sage."

  He looked confused for a brief moment then shook his head. "Who cares? There's no difference between the two of you. One of you, two of you, ten of you, it's all the same. You're this endless monster in my life. Soon to be over. What I've worked on so long and hard will finally be mine. Finally!" He drug her up another step.

  "How so?"

  "Don't you remember willing everything to me in that giant stack of papers I had you sign in our executor meeting. You don't? Never mind, it's all taken care of. Not to worry."

  Sage kicked off her heels and got some traction on the carpet. "If I'm going down, you crazy creep, you're going with me." She gambled on the six or seven steps being a less dangerous fall that the entire stairway. Throwing everything into her thrust, she lurched on top of him, and they rolled to the bottom of the stairs.

  As Sage felt herself slip into unconsciousness, she heard car doors slamming and, at some distance it seemed, yelling.

  But it just didn't seem to matter, any more, to pay any attention to it. She saw Aunt Vicky far away in a glorious light-filled meadow of sunflowers. That seemed like the perfect place to be.

  Chapter 9

  Sage regained consciousness slowly, drowsy and confused. She opened her eyes. She wondered where she was... she didn't recognize the room at first and then her eyes found the little oval antique picture of the Cupid she was fond of. She finally realized she was in her own room, with the breeze blowing through the pale green ruffled glass curtains at the window.

  Very strange how unfamiliar it appeared at first. She tried to understand why she felt so foggy.

  "Oh, wonderful! You've come to," a woman said behind her.

  Sage turned to see who was talking to her. A blinding flash of pain shot through her shoulder. "Ohhh!" She winced as she made out Millie.

  Millie scooted the little boudoir chair near Sage. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. What hurts?"

  "My shoulder. In fact, both of my shoulders. Ohh!" It came back to her... Rattnor dragging her backwards by her pinned arms across the floor and up the stairs. "Oh!" She started to shiver involuntarily.

  "There, there, now, everything is going to be all right." Millie leapt up from the chair. "Let me get Anthony. He's talking to the police. They... they took that crazy scumbag away."

  "No, stay, Millie. If Anthony's... let him finish that business. You, please, stay with me."

  "Okay," Millie came back to the little chair, then reached out and patted Sage's hand. "Poor Sage. What a monster he is. I shudder to think... that is... I'm so glad we came early. Anthony wanted to come right away after you called. He was really... it's almost as if he knew. He practically shoved us
into the car. I wanted to change but he said, 'no, bring your stuff and change at Sage's.'

  "And he was right, wasn't he?"

  "He was," Sage agreed, starting to nod, then thinking better of it. She signed deeply, "Oh, that hurts too."

  "The doctor said you were pretty bruised, but no bones broken."

  "Oh! My doctor was here? How long have I been out?"

  "I believe it's Anthony's private physician. He came right away. He was here before the police even. Then the police came and Michael carried you up here while Anthony talked to them. The doctor had me stay here to watch you."

  "Thank you," Sage said simply. "You're very sweet."

  "Oh, well, no, I'm not. Anyway, it's enough to know that that horrible person will be put away." There were tears in Millie's eyes. "He'll be put away where he can't hurt anyone anymore!"

  There was a knock at the door.

  "Come in," Sage called.

  Anthony opened the door. He Michael stood at the door step.

  "Well, come on in you two." She started to wave them in, and stopped, wincing at the pain. "I can't seem to get it through my head that my shoulders hurt." Despite it all, however, Sage smiled, a feeling of gratitude welling up inside her that was larger than she could express in words.

  These three people had saved her life. She felt tears escape.

  "Are you all right?" Anthony came to the other side of the bed.

  Sage patted the bed for him to sit. "I'm fine, Anthony... it's just, I'm so grateful. I'm so fortunate."

  "Fortunate? Dear heart, you've just been beaten and have fallen down a flight of stairs within an inch of your life."

  "But you all saved my life. I am so grateful. Thank you." She looked at each of them in turn, and even Michael, who still stood in the doorway, had tears in his eyes. "Come in Michael. Don't stand out there in the cold," Sage continued, "come in to the warmth of the family." She gestured to the love seat by the window.

  Michael nodded and crossed the room. Everyone was silent, watching him. He looked around at them all. "For my next act...."