His Trophy Wife

by Leigh Michaels

  Morganna eyed the shopping bag which she’d set on the seat beside her handbag. The block of clay it held represented a new twist for her, that was true—but it was a direction that wasn’t actually so very much different from her other pastimes. This would be just one more project that would allow her to keep to herself instead of being with other people.

  Maybe, she thought, as soon as she’d finished her coffee, she should return it to the store and get her money back, and do something very different instead.

  The circumstances of her life weren’t going to alter anytime soon. But Morganna could approach those circumstances from a whole new angle…if she chose.

  She looked around, and the waitress, clearing a nearby table of dishes and the scattered sections of a newspaper, said promptly, “Is there something else you’d like, ma’am?”

  “No,” Morganna said. “Unless—is that today’s Chronicle? If someone left it behind—”

  “You’re welcome to it. I was just going to throw it away.” The waitress handed it over.

  Emily sat up straight. “You mean you haven’t already read the paper today?”

  Something in the tone of her voice warned Morganna. “No. Why?” Without waiting for an answer, she shook out the newspaper and instead of turning to the classifieds to check the job listings as she’d intended to do, she looked at the front page.

  A headline stretching all the way across the page announced, Investigation Continues In Sticks & Stones Fire. Under it was a photograph of the burned factory building and a complete reprise of the fire and the investigation. She read the story slowly and folded the paper with shaking hands. “This reads as if the reporter set out to make Sloan look like a liar.”

  Emily didn’t look at her. “It doesn’t say anything which—strictly speaking—isn’t true.”

  “Surely you don’t believe all these implications, Emily!” She picked up the paper again and read, “‘Sticks & Stones owner Sloan Montgomery told investigators that company controller Joel Evans summoned him to the factory, saying that he’d seen someone running from the building. Investigators have been unable to confirm the presence of any such individual—’ The reporter might as well have come straight out and said he thinks Sloan made it all up!”

  “Because they haven’t found the guy yet doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” Emily agreed. “And no, I don’t believe everything I read in the newspaper. But it isn’t just the story that looks so bad, Morganna, it’s the circumstances.”

  Morganna said warily, “What are you talking about?”

  Emily bit her lip, and when she finally spoke she sounded reluctant. “The fire investigator came to talk to Jack and me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we were with you that night for dinner. He asked if we could confirm what Joel told Sloan, or what Sloan said to Joel. Or even whether it was really Joel who made the call. But we couldn’t swear to any of it, because we didn’t hear the conversation. Remember the way Sloan stepped away from the table as soon as his phone rang?”

  Morganna nodded. “But he always does that. It’s simply good manners.”

  “I understand that, but the fire investigator didn’t seem to know anything about cell phone etiquette. And he just kept hammering questions at us—about the business, about Sloan…Jack thinks the investigator is convinced that the men Sloan terminated did not set the fire.”

  “But that’s impossible! Who else would have hated Sloan enough to set him up that way?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said drearily. “But Morganna—I’m awfully afraid the investigator thinks it might have been you.”

  It took Morganna more than an hour to track down the fire investigator, but she finally found him in Sloan’s new office. You might as well face them both at once, she told herself. She bypassed Sloan’s secretary without a word—she’d make an apology to the woman later, assuming she was still walking around free—and went in.

  Sloan was standing beside a folding table; the investigator had turned a couple of cartons of paper into a makeshift chair and was leaning back, apparently at ease.

  Sloan frowned when she came in unannounced. “Morganna? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve just discovered from my friend Emily Hamilton that the investigator here may have some mistaken ideas about me.” Her voice was shaking despite her efforts to steady it. “And I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding just as soon as possible.”

  “That’s just fine with me,” the investigator said. “What sort of misunderstanding are we talking about?”

  Morganna paused, confused. Was it possible that Emily had misinterpreted the man’s questions and jumped to a conclusion that was completely unwarranted? Or was the investigator playing dumb, believing her guilty and finagling to see what Morganna would admit to and if she’d trip herself up?

  “From the tone of your questions to her,” Morganna said, “she believes that you might suspect me of being the cause of the fire.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sloan said. His tone was curt.

  Relief flooded over Morganna. She hadn’t anticipated that he would leap to her defense without an instant’s hesitation; she’d expected him to be as stunned and speechless as she’d been.

  “Is it?” The investigator stood up and paced across the room. “Of course, I’m on the outside here, and I don’t pretend to understand things like society marriages. But one thing I do understand is money. And I know that when a woman is more interested in her husband’s money than she is in her husband, and the husband loses out on a big deal that threatens to bring down his business—”

  Morganna turned to Sloan, wide-eyed.

  “The trip to San Francisco didn’t go very well,” he conceded. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be worried about it.”

  Of course, he never said much about his work. And, Morganna realized belatedly, she hadn’t bothered to ask about this trip when he’d come home. So why would he volunteer bad news? If she hadn’t even expressed polite interest in how things had gone, he would hardly have expected her to be understanding or sympathetic….

  She was seeing a side of herself that she didn’t much like. Was she really so self-centered and egotistical?

  “Not telling your wife what happened doesn’t mean she didn’t know,” the investigator mused. “I’m sure she has other sources of information. In fact, you lost a very big account.”

  “We didn’t lose an account,” Sloan countered. “We missed out on getting a new one. There’s an enormous difference between not making a new sale—however large or profitable it would be—and losing a longstanding customer that we counted on as a steady source of income.”

  The two men were face-to-face. Both of them seemed to have forgotten that Morganna was even in the room.

  The investigator pointed out, “Just a minute ago you said this deal was important enough that she’d have worried about it. Now you say it wasn’t. Which is it?”

  Sloan looked irritated. “She would naturally have been concerned. I was disappointed myself. But that doesn’t mean the incident would have destroyed my business.”

  “It might have made it a little harder to come by money for the lady’s toys.”

  “So you’re saying she torched the place? That would have been a bit shortsighted. Without a product to sell or any immediate hope of being able to produce one, I’m in a whole lot worse cash position than I was before the fire.”

  “Only because the insurance company hasn’t paid off. If they had, she could have quicklike filed for divorce and claimed half of it.”

  Morganna gasped.

  The investigator’s gaze rested on her. “It would be much easier than getting money out of the company. It takes a lot more time to convert machines and inventory to cash than it does to reduce them to ashes.”

  “You’re getting way out of line here,” Sloan said coldly.

  “Speculation is my job. I think about things like motive—and money’s always a good one
. And opportunity—for instance, when that lightbulb was put into the desk lamp. Seems to me it could have been just about anytime. When was your wife last in your office?”

  “A couple of weeks before the fire, at least. And I used the desk lamp that afternoon. Besides, the natural gas couldn’t have been turned on until the last workers were out of the building, or they’d have smelled it. By that time Morganna and I were at home, getting ready to go out for dinner.”

  “Did you get dressed in the same room?” the investigator asked. “Was she in your sight all the time?”

  “Of course not. But you can’t possibly believe that she sneaked out of the house, drove across town to the warehouse district, disarmed the sprinkler system, set up the booby trap in the desk lamp, turned on the natural gas and got all the way back to Pemberton Place without anyone missing her.”

  “It does seem improbable, when you put it that way,” the investigator conceded. “But she could have had a little help, I suppose. There’s also the nature of the trap…You know, this is a very interesting kind of arson, because it doesn’t seem to have been aimed only at the building. It’s much more personal than that. Do you carry insurance on your life, Mr. Montgomery?”

  The insinuation hit Morganna with the weight of a boulder. Her head swam with the impact, and she had to catch herself against the wall.

  “Yes, I do,” Sloan said evenly. “And probably—in your opinion at least—it’s a large enough sum to make it worthwhile to try to eliminate me. But then you don’t know my wife. I do. And I am telling you, Morganna had nothing to do with this.”

  “What about the man you said you saw hanging around between your house and the one next door the other day?”

  “That was a guest of our neighbors.”

  “Did you see him actually go inside the house?”

  “No, I don’t think I did. But he mingled with a group of people on the steps, so he couldn’t have simply walked off afterward without being noticed. If you’re implying he was an accomplice, let me assure you he was certainly not hanging around waiting to see my wife about a payoff. Now can we eliminate the nonsense and figure out who really burned my building?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” the investigator said.

  After he left, the office was deadly quiet.

  “I appreciate you defending me,” Morganna said softly.

  “My pleasure.” Sloan’s voice was cool.

  But even as her heart stopped racing with apprehension, Morganna began to wonder about his reaction. When she’d confronted the investigator, Sloan had leaped to her defense very quickly. In fact, she’d been startled by how fast he’d responded.

  As if he hadn’t been surprised by the accusation. As if he had wondered about it himself, before she had brought the possibility out into the open. Had his analysis of why she couldn’t have been the one who planted the booby trap had been just a little too glib, as if he’d thought it all through before?

  He couldn’t actually believe she’d schemed against him, or surely he wouldn’t have stood up for her. But had he doubted at first and had to convince himself she was innocent?

  Morganna could understand, if he had. The man would have had to be more than human not to wonder if the resentment she hadn’t bothered to hide had grown into hatred.

  It was really too bad, she thought wearily, that the etiquette books didn’t cover situations like this. Thanking him for persuading himself that she hadn’t attempted to commit murder didn’t seem the tactful thing to do.

  Morganna went from Sloan’s new office straight to the Tyler-Royale department store, which anchored the downtown shopping area, waiting beside the only set of elevators which went all the way to the top floor. When one finally arrived, Jack Hamilton got off, settling the collar of a dark trench coat into place. Morganna hadn’t seen him since the night of the fire, and it was apparent within moments that he was watching her carefully, obviously concerned about how she was holding up under the strain. “I’d like a minute, Jack,” she said. “But I know you’re ready to go home.”

  “No hurry. Come up to my office.” On the top floor, he led the way down a narrow hall, past the credit department and the human resources center and a long row of employee lockers.

  His secretary said, “I tried to catch you, Mr. Hamilton. The package from the Omaha warehouse that you’ve been waiting for finally arrived. I put it on your desk.”

  “Thanks, Mary.” He waved Morganna past the secretary’s desk and on into a room that looked like a converted broom closet. Draping his trench coat over the back of a chair, he reached for the fat envelope on his desk blotter. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said. “I just need to make sure this is what I was waiting for.”

  Morganna sat down.

  “If I can even find it amongst the misdirected mail,” he muttered, scattering the contents over his desk. “Now it’s not only stuff from Sticks & Stones that’s going astray but other things as well.” He tossed a glossy catalog toward the corner of the desk.

  It slid off and Morganna caught it automatically. “Furnishings Unlimited,” she mused. “I wonder if Sloan has seen this.”

  “Take it if you like.” Jack flipped through a more-subdued sheaf of papers and then dropped the packet into his briefcase. “What can I do for you, Morganna?”

  “Six months ago we talked about me working for you. Designing store displays and windows. I’d like to have that job now, Jack.”

  His voice was gruff. “Are things that bad?”

  “I don’t need a paycheck so we can eat this week, no.” The fact that she didn’t know exactly how badly the fire was pinching Sloan’s finances was none of Jack’s business. Neither was the fact that Sloan had never told her anything substantial about his overall finances.

  But she had to give Jack a reason for wanting a job. “I think it’s time for me to start filling my days with something more productive than what I’ve been doing for the past six months.”

  “What does Sloan think about this?”

  Morganna looked at him levelly. “He doesn’t know about it.”

  Jack shifted in his chair. “If I’d known you were still interested…I’m sorry, Morganna, but I can’t hire you. We just signed a contract with an outside firm to do all our design and display work. They’ll be using their own employees.”

  “I see.” She’d known, of course, that it was unlikely the job would still be open. But she’d told herself that even if Jack turned her down, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

  She’d been wrong. It had hurt.

  “I can give you a recommendation if you want to go talk to them, but—”

  “No, thanks. Not just now, anyway.” She gathered up her belongings. “I appreciate your time, Jack.”

  It was dusk when she got to Pemberton Place, and as she came in the side door of the Georgian mansion, Sloan came out of his library. “Where have you been?”

  He sounded angry, and Morganna was just tense enough herself that the tone of his voice pushed her over the edge. She set down her shopping bag with a thud and dug her fists into her hips. “This is a new twist—having to account to you for what I do with my time. I suppose next I won’t be allowed to go out at all if I haven’t gotten permission.” Too late, she glanced past him and saw her mother standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  So much for maintaining the fiction that we’re even trying to get along, she thought wearily. And here she’d been feeling guilty about not telling him that Abigail had figured out their secret…She might as well have been honest, since trying to keep up the pretense was obviously doing no good at all.

  “Dammit, Morganna, you can’t seriously think our arsonists are likely to stroll into Pemberton Place, ring the doorbell and tell Selby they have orders to replace every lightbulb in the house. They’d be much more likely to go after a woman alone in a car. I just want you to be careful.”

  Abigail crossed the hall. “You’re both under so much pressure,” she said gently, laying o
ne hand on Sloan’s chest and the other on Morganna’s shoulder. “I can feel the tension in both of you. I have an idea. Why don’t we all go somewhere for a few days? Relax, get some sun—”

  “Sorry, Abigail,” Sloan said curtly. “I still have a business to run. It’s not the same kind of business it was last week, but it’s even more important that I be here during the crisis.”

  “Of course,” Abigail said. She straightened his tie and smiled up at him.

  A pang shot through Morganna at the sight of how easily the two of them interacted.

  “And I know better than to ask again if Morganna will go without you.” Abigail drifted off, looking thoughtful.

  Morganna waited till her mother was out of earshot. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said stiffly.

  Sloan nodded. “So am I. It’s been a long day for both of us.” He turned back toward the library. “And I have a lot to do yet.”

  Morganna told herself that it was just as well that he’d walked away. What had she been about to do, anyway? Suggest they go for a stroll around the neighborhood? Invite him to join her for a drink and a tête-à-tête? Whatever she’d said, it would have come out all wrong.

  She picked up the shopping bag and went into the miniature room, where she sat for a couple of minutes and stared at the circus-theme room box. Then she dug the block of clay out of the bag and tore it open.

  Making miniatures might be a dangerously solitary pastime, she thought. Perhaps even a compulsive one. But at least the tiny inanimate objects didn’t talk, or demand anything from her. And right now, that kind of peace and quiet was exactly what she needed.

  The bridge game was almost over when Morganna realized what had been bothering her all afternoon about Emily. Not only had she been practically silent, but she kept stealing glances at the Carousel Ball portrait of Morganna that hung above the drawing-room mantel. What was that all about? she wondered.

  Sherrie gathered up the cards and began to shuffle. “I don’t suppose we have time to play another.”

  Morganna looked automatically at her wrist, forgetting for a moment that she’d given the platinum watch back to Sloan along with the rest of her jewelry. “I don’t even know what time it is.”