Need to Know

by Fern Michaels

  “Then what happened?” Myra asked.

  “From there, he tried to arrange a tour to recoup the monies he lost on the movie deal. I said no. Then he went for the book contract. I said no again. That was the end. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just . . .”

  “It’s okay. We know now, and it certainly answers a lot of our questions. We’re not blaming you. We just need to know everything, Garland,” Myra said soothingly.

  “We certainly know now what and whom we’re dealing with. As Myra said, you just cleared that up for us. I’m sorry if we upset you. That wasn’t our intention.”

  “Oh, I know that. It’s me. It’s just that I hate to remember and realize how stupid I was back then. Thinking about it now is like reliving it all over again. So what is the decision you want me to be part of?”

  Annie peered at Garland, glad to see the color returning to her face. She appeared calm now, her hands weren’t shaking, and her eyes were clearly focused. At that moment, Annie knew that she was capable of strangling Arthur Forrester for what he’d done to this kind, wonderful lady sitting across from her.

  Myra took a deep breath. “Here it is in a nutshell, Garland. We told you what went down at the meeting at the firm yesterday. Mr. Forrester said in no uncertain terms that he was not going to settle or drop the case. That means that unless you get a summary judgment, there will be a full-blown trial, probably six or eight months down the road. Possibly, a trial date could even be set for early next year, maybe sooner. We just don’t know at this point. It depends on how crowded the court calendars are.

  “Here are your choices, and you do not have to make a decision right this minute. Take as much time as you need. Talk to your family about the trial only, nothing where we’re concerned before you make a decision. Do you understand what I just said?”

  “I understand completely. What is my second choice?”

  Annie laughed out loud. “I think you will like the second choice.”

  Garland smiled. She adored these two women sitting at her kitchen table. Her eyes sparkled. “Lay it on me, ladies,” she quipped.

  “We do a snatch. We’ll make all his decisions going forward, and it will be over for you, once and for all,” Annie said.

  “That’s a no-brainer. Count me in for the snatch. Are you sure you can actually do that? Arthur is a wily little bugger, just so you know.”

  “Does the pope pray? Of course we can do it, and we’re going to love every minute of the time we spend doing it,” Myra said.

  “Do you need me to do anything? I’m up for . . . whatever.”

  “I think we have it covered. We’ll update you in a few days. We’re still working on things. In the meantime, all you have to do is enjoy all those wonderful gardens you have out there. You should let them feature your grounds in some garden magazines.”

  Garland shook her head. “No. If I did that, it wouldn’t be mine alone anymore. This is my sanctuary, one I share with only family and one or two good friends. I hope you understand that.”

  “We do,” Annie said agreeably. “We should be getting back. You said you had a box to give us.”

  “Yes. I’ll go and get it.”

  When the kitchen door closed behind Garland, Annie looked at Myra, and said, “I’m okay with how this all went down. I believe everything she said, and I understand her completely. You?”

  “Absolutely. Oh, Annie, I cannot wait till we have Mr. SOP in our clutches.”

  “We aren’t making any money on this mission, you know that, right?” Annie said wryly.

  “Annie, some things are just more important than others. I think we can make do. Our coffers are full. Pro bono is a wonderful thing sometimes. Shhh, I hear Garland on the stairs.”

  “Here you go, ladies,” Garland said as she reentered the room, carrying a large box. “I have to be honest with you—I am so glad to turn this over to you, so glad to get it out of my house. I don’t know why I never burned it. I wish I had, but if I had done that, I wouldn’t be able to turn it over to you. When you’re finished with it, you have my permission to burn the whole darn thing. That’s when I’ll know it’s finally over, and I can have peace in my life again. Come along, I’ll walk you out to your car.”

  The good-byes were warm and sweet, with hugs and promises to stay in touch. They were five miles away when Myra said, “I forgot to take pictures.”

  “In the scheme of things, I don’t really think it matters much, Myra. Just concentrate on your driving. It would be more than okay with me if you sped up a little. This is a sixty-five-mile-per-hour stretch of road, and you’re only doing forty.”

  “Suck it up, Annie. At least I’ll get us home in one piece. Those hair-raising rides you force on me leave me traumatized for weeks on end.”

  “Once a complainer, always a complainer. That really was a superior lunch, wasn’t it? Watch that truck!”

  “Shut up, Annie!”

  Annie clamped her lips shut and looked out the window. She later told Fergus that if she’d wanted to, she could have reached out and plucked the leaves from the bushes because that’s how slow Myra was driving.

  Fergus knew better than to comment on his beloved’s daredevil driving feats. All he said was “Uh-huh.”

  Chapter 8

  The exact moment Arthur Forrester heard the ping of the front door opening, thanks to his intricate alarm system, he moved like he’d been shot out of a cannon. He was in his wife’s face a second later, demanding to know where she had been and why she had not responded to all the calls and texts he’d sent her way. His face was blustery with rage.

  Neither the spittle flying out of her husband’s mouth nor the rage she saw on his face affected Nala Forrester at all. She didn’t back up, but stood her ground. “Get out of my way, Arthur” was all she said, and she tried to shove him in response. When her husband didn’t move, Nala walked around him and headed for her bedroom. It had been years since they had shared the same bed. Actually, she remembered the precise day and time she’d relocated all her things into the spare room.

  It had all happened on the very day he had filed suit against Garland Lee. The papers had been filed at 4:45 P.M. on a Monday. And he spent the next ten minutes explaining to her in minute detail what he’d just done. At five minutes past five, she’d marched into the bedroom and started to empty out her closet and dresser drawers. Her husband hadn’t tried to stop her. He’d just made angry animal sounds as he stormed his way to his office, which was off the family room. The room where he spent twenty hours out of every twenty-four hours a day. Except for the days he played golf. Most nights, he slept on the couch. Not that she cared one way or the other.

  Inside the small bedroom, Nala pulled out two dull-looking, soft-sided suitcases and proceeded to fill them. Her motions were precise, quick, and fluid as she gathered up her belongings. How sad that all she was taking with her were clothes and one picture of her along with their four children, taken when they were younger, more than thirty years ago. She no longer kept count of how many years she had been married to her low-life husband, because she no longer cared. And all she had to show for it were her two suitcases filled with clothes that had seen better days. She made a mental note to get a new wardrobe soon.

  Nala knew that her husband was standing in the doorway, his face beet red, but she refused to look in his direction. She refused to give him the satisfaction. She continued to move with quiet efficiency. It was her way, and the main reason she’d been such a good nurse practitioner, or at least that’s what the doctors she worked with had told her.

  “Where do you think you’re going? What’s gotten into you? You embarrassed me at the firm. That is totally unacceptable, Nala. You need to show me respect—I’m your husband,” Forrester snarled. Nala ignored him as she wrapped her rubber-soled white shoes in paper towels from the small bathroom, which was neat as a pin.

  “Where have you been? What the hell is wrong with you?” He advanced a step into the room. Nala whirled ar
ound, her arms thrust forward, ramrod straight, palms facing her husband. “Take one more step, and I will gouge out your eyes. Step back, Arthur.”

  Forrester surprised himself by stepping back to his position in the doorway. “We need to talk.”

  “No. We. Do. Not.”

  The sound of the zipper’s closing the suitcase was louder than any thunder crack. The second zipper’s closing even louder.

  Nala yanked the cases off the bed, jerked open the handle that released the wheels, and headed for the doorway. “Get out of my way, Arthur.”

  Once again, Arthur Forrester surprised himself by stepping outside the room to let his wife pass him. He followed her to the foyer, where she set the bags against the wall. She looked around, trying to figure out if she was missing anything, before she headed back to her bedroom to get the backpack that she used in lieu of a purse. Ah, yes, the things in the bathroom. She gathered everything up, put it all in a ziplock bag from one of the drawers, and stuffed it into her backpack, which was already jammed full almost to overflowing.

  Forrester tried one more time. “Why are you doing this, Nala?”

  Nala Forrester decided it was time to talk. “I’m doing this because I cannot stand the person you’ve become. You’ve been a miserable father to our children, a less-than-satisfying husband to me. You aren’t even a good lawyer, in my opinion. Since you took over from an agent who was as ethical as the day is long, and totally committed to doing what was best for his client, you preyed on Garland Lee. You robbed that woman blind. And now it’s time to pay the piper, as they say. I’m sick and tired of your get-rich-quick schemes, which have eaten up all our money. I’m sick and tired of your trying to pretend you are as rich as your brothers. I’m sick and tired of your pretending to be someone you are not. It’s taken me a while, but I finally came to the only conclusion possible. You are stupid, Arthur. Beyond stupid, actually.

  “To answer your other questions, I am moving into the city with a friend. I’m going to go back to work at her street clinic. It’s a clinic I’m going to invest in. And, before you can ask what I’m going to make on the deal, here’s my answer. Maybe two or three thousand dollars a year. I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it to help people who can’t help themselves. My reward will be to see them smile, knowing I helped make their lives at least a little better. My life will be better, too—blessed, if you will—because I won’t be standing by someone who is stealing, lying, or cheating other people like you have. I’ll be able to sleep at night and look at myself in the mirror when I get up in the morning.

  “I’m going to get a new phone, so forget my old number and do not call me and do not try to find me. If you do, I will swear out a complaint against you. We’re done. Since you are so stupid, let me spell that out for you. You and I are done as in done. You spell it, d-o-n-e!”

  Arthur Forrester brought up his clenched fist. Nala once again held her ground. “You might land one punch, but I will gouge out your eyes!”

  The sound of the door’s closing behind his wife was quiet, like she was.

  Three blocks away, Avery Snowden listened, his jaw dropping at the intense happenings in the Forrester household. The girls were going to love this when he reported in.

  Arthur Forrester stomped his way through the condo to his office. He wanted to put his fist through something, anything, preferably Garland Lee’s beautiful face. When he finished with her, then his wife’s face. Rage flowed through him as he scratched and picked at his rosy cheeks. When he saw blood on his fingers, he cursed. He made his way to the small bathroom off his office, where he soaked cotton balls in peroxide. He yelped in pain at the burn. He quickly lathered on a prescription cream, which was supposed to alleviate the itch, but was, in his opinion, worthless. He risked a glance in the mirror and cringed. He looked like he’d been in a catfight and had come out the loser. Worse, he looked like his wife had scratched the bejesus out of him. What all that meant was he was now housebound until his face healed up. Unless he wanted to wear the theatrical makeup his dermatologist had given him. No way was he going out so people could see all the long scabs on both his cheeks. “Son of a bitch!” he seethed to his reflection in the mirror.

  Back in his lair, his nest, he settled into his chair and stared off into space. How in the hell had it come to this? He knew how, but he just refused to admit it.

  Like he was going to cave in now? Be made a laughingstock. That simply was not in his DNA. He had no other choice but to go through with the trial, assuming he survived the motion for a summary judgment.

  Yeah, sure, it was going to cost him a bundle. If he lost, and he didn’t think he would, but if he did, he could always appeal, and that process would take years. And money. He still had enough in the bank to pay for that. But then he had to think about the firm. He believed them implicitly when they said they would file every suit they could under the sun to tie him up in the courts for the rest of his life. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. He knew things about all the partners, things no one else knew. Things they wouldn’t want getting out. He was glad now he hadn’t played those cards. Always keep something in reserve when it looked like a situation might reach the point of no return. The word blackmail simply was not a word in his vocabulary. A good decision on his part. Just like all his other decisions were good, so why give up the ghost now?

  Maybe what he should do now was concentrate on finding a buyer for the craft brewery he was so heavily invested in. If not an outright buyer, then possibly some investors. Maybe what he should do was go out to the kitchen, make himself an early lunch, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and actually sit down in the breakfast nook and eat while he watched all the political bullshit going on with the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees who couldn’t get their crap together. Not one of the candidates was worth a good spit. In the end, he thought, why should he waste his vote on such losers. He simply wouldn’t vote this year.

  Forrester looked down at the sandwich he’d made himself, rare roast beef, sliced turkey, Virginia ham, Swiss cheese, mayo, lettuce, on soft white bread with a pickle on the side. It had been years and years since he’d had a sandwich like this. He himself had bought all the food on his last trip to the store. If Nala had made the sandwich, it would have been on ten-grain bread and had tofu, avocado, and sprouts, with some kind of spread that tasted like motor oil. Her version was guaranteed to clear out one’s arteries, while his was guaranteed to clog them. Like he gave a good rat’s ass about his arteries right now.

  He bit into the six-inch-high sandwich and rolled his eyes in delight. As he chewed and watched the TV, he knew he needed to come up with a plan. A plan that would get him out from under and send the firm’s partners scurrying for cover.

  * * *

  Charles hit the SPEAKER button so Fergus could hear Avery Snowden’s incoming message. They looked at one another in shock and surprise at the news the operative was sharing. Snowden wound down and ended the call by saying that his people were still shadowing the wife and would continue the stakeout on the condo and keep their eyes peeled in case Forrester decided to go out for some fresh air. He went on to say the wife had driven her car into the city. “I’m finding it strange that Forrester hasn’t been in touch with his local lawyer, the one whose wife filed the original suit. For some reason, I thought that would be the first thing he would do when he got home after the meeting at the firm. Unless he’s thinking the guy is going to push him under the bus, too. Then he will have no other recourse except to find another lawyer dumb enough to take him on, or he’ll just represent himself.

  “If you go with the former, and the guy dumps him, he can stall for months and months until his new lawyer gets up to speed. This guy is just blowing my mind, and I don’t mind admitting it, either.”

  Charles and Fergus agreed with Snowden and ended the call.

  “The girls are going to love this. I think they’ll want to move up the time and the date to do the snatch. No sense giving Mr. Forrester
any more time to plan and scheme. Did you pick up on the fact that Mr. Forrester didn’t seem all that upset about the firm’s partners suing him for all he’s worth? That bothers me, Ferg.”

  “I did notice that, mate. Do ya think maybe he has something on them? Maybe some skeletons in their closets. That’s where my mind is taking me right now.”

  “If that’s true, he’s not talking about it. We only have sound to go by. If he’s texting or e-mailing, we aren’t privy to that. I say we notify the girls, check to see where Kathryn is, and call a meeting for tomorrow. For now, let’s finish up on these financials and see what we have. I’m going to go topside and whip us up some lunch. While I’m doing that, call Maggie and have her check to see what she can come up with on that craft brewery. I don’t think we have a name for it, do we?” Fergus shrugged.

  “What’s for lunch?” Fergus asked.

  “Well, your beloved, also known as Countess Anna de Silva, requested weenies with baked beans and coleslaw. I made some tapioca pudding earlier, and made it just the way you like it, Ferg, with raisins—yes, the yellow ones—and crushed pineapple. Lunch will be in one hour. Does that work for you?”

  “It does.”

  Both men laughed at the thought of one of the world’s richest people, the Countess Anna de Silva, scarfing down her favorite food on earth, hot dogs with the works.

  Chapter 9

  Maggie Spritzer stared out the Post’s window at the rain slapping against the building like a million jackhammers. She wondered if all the ducks in and around the Tidal Basin were safe. Such a wild thought. Then again, maybe not so wild. Still, it was better than to keep dwelling on Arthur Forrester and the meeting that was supposed to have taken place in forty-eight hours, but Charles had canceled because of flooding on the roads leading to Pinewood.

  The only topic of conversation on television was this latest freak spring storm that rivaled a tsunami. Stranded motorists sitting on the roofs of their cars, houses flooded to the second floors, and all the creek beds overflowing to create a monster lake were the only things to be seen on the local television channels. Residents were advised to stay in their homes and not take to the roads. Virginia was the state in the area being hit the hardest. D.C. and the metropolitan area were flooded, to be sure, but that was nothing compared to Virginia. She’d spent the night here at the Post. She’d checked in earlier with Jackson Sparrow, who was living next door to her house in Georgetown, in the house that Jack Emery used to own before he and Nikki moved out to the country. Months ago, they had traded house keys and agreed to watch out for one another. He’d checked on Hero, her cat, cleaned his litter box, and put down fresh food and water and said her basement was dry. So she was good to stay here another day, if need be.