by Madyson Grey
Then, when she’d finally escaped LA and her mother’s stifling lifestyle, she had found herself unable to become interested in the smooth, glitzy-looking men that tried to pick her up now and then. They reminded her too much of LA. When boring Harry had asked her out, he seemed safe enough for her to accept. He didn’t seem to want much except companionship and someone to go to dinner with. That was fine with her. Trouble is, they had nothing in common. He was obsessed with the financial world, and frankly, she could care less about it. When she tried to change the subject to art or history, or something she was interested in, his eyes glazed over.
Why she kept answering his calls and agreeing to out with him was beginning to make her wonder. This sudden trip back to LA was the perfect time to break it off with him completely. Especially since the last time she’d been out with him, he had broached the subject of taking their relationship to the next level. Which meant sex. She did not want to have sex with Harry. He was a nice enough person, but she was definitely not attracted to him as a man. When she got back home to Seattle, she would refuse to continue to see him. That is, if he even called her. In two months’ time, even Harry could have moved on.
Then her mind drifted back to Rafael. He was so … so incredibly sexy. His touch was electrifying. The way he looked at her made her melt inside. She had never, ever, been attracted to a man in this manner. Just being in his presence turned her legs to jelly and set loose a thousand butterflies in her stomach. Just how was she going to sabotage him and learn anything that could be used against him to win back her daddy’s company, she had no clue. And she only had two months in which to accomplish this impossible task.
She didn’t even know what she was supposed to be looking for. Her mother told her he was an evil mercenary who ruthlessly grabbed whatever he could from whomever he could. But what did that mean? And how do you steal a company out from under someone? It’s not like stealing a candy bar from the store, or even a car out of someone’s driveway. It’s a business, for crying out loud. You don’t just walk into the owner’s office and say, hand me the keys and get out. There had to be some sort of agreement struck. Some legal exchange of ownership. Some money must have exchanged hands.
Victoria rolled over and sighed. I don’t even know where to start, she thought hopelessly. Then a new thought struck her. What if Marian is wrong? What if she is just being so selfishly greedy that she is willing to use me to ruin someone else just to regain control of a company that now belongs to someone else? Frustrated, Victoria sat up in bed and switched on the TV in her room. Maybe she could distract herself with a boring old movie and be able to fall back to sleep.
The ploy must have worked, because the next thing Victoria knew, the sun was shining through her bedroom window and the bedside clock read 9:15. Nine-fifteen! She hadn’t slept that late in years. By nature, Victoria was a morning person, always up and about around five or five-thirty in the morning, whether or not she had to go to work. She loved the early morning hours, the quiet, the birds twittering in the trees, the sun making its grand entrance into another day, and the feeling of empowerment that today anything can happen.
But yesterday had been anything but an ordinary day, and her night had been extremely out of the ordinary. She rarely had trouble sleeping, but last night she’d lain awake for at least an hour if not longer, her troubled thoughts keeping sleep at bay. She got up and went into the bathroom. She had to pee first, then she brushed her teeth to get rid of that icky morning feeling in her mouth. A shower was next. Then she dressed, did her makeup and hair, and then made her bed and tidied her room.
The clothes she’d shed last night were still on the floor where she had dropped them, so she picked them up and put them in the hamper. Just picking up her dress reminded her of her date with Rafael and how she’d made that embarrassing comment on him having to cut her out of her dress if she were to eat one more bite. The expression on his face told her that he would enjoy every moment of that task. She colored just thinking about what had transpired in his car right down there in the driveway. Good thing it had been dark out.
What was she thinking—being so highly attracted to the man her mother deemed the enemy? The one she blamed for David Thornton’s death. But was he really responsible? The concept kept niggling at the edges of her mind. But when she went down for a late breakfast, Marian set about to banish all pleasant thoughts of Rafael from her mind.
“I see you finally decided to come down,” Marian said with a condescending smile when Victoria entered the kitchen.
“I overslept,” Victoria said simply. “I had trouble sleeping last night, and when I finally did go back to sleep, then I overslept.”
Lena patted her lovingly on the shoulder as she handed her a small plate of buttered toast with orange marmalade.
“It’s OK, honey,” she said. “You’re grieving your dear daddy. It’s all right to oversleep.”
“Thanks, Lena,” Victoria murmured. “Marmalade. You remembered.”
“Of course, honey. It’s your favorite. I remember.”
Lena smiled affectionately at the girl whom she had helped to raise ever since she was born. The girl who really looked more like herself than she did Marian. Where Marian had dark hair, light brown skin, and ice-blue eyes, Victoria was light-skinned like Lena. Her strawberry blond hair was more like Lena’s light blond hair. Her green eyes were her father’s, though, no doubt about that. And her straight nose and high cheekbones that bespoke of his Native American ancestry a few generations back.
Victoria dutifully ate her toast, although her stomach wasn’t sure it was ready to accept food yet. Maybe a glass of chocolate milk would induce her stomach to be friendlier this morning. She poured herself a tall glass of cold milk, and then found the cocoa powder in the pantry cupboard. She stirred a generous amount into the milk, and then added some hazelnut-flavored creamer.
“Do you know what you’re doing there, girl?” Marian asked as she watched Victoria mix up her drink.
“Yes, Mother,” Victoria replied. “It’s good this way. You should try it sometime.”
“Chocolate is bad for your complexion,” she said, repeating an age-old myth.
“Does it look like I have a bad complexion?” Victoria challenged. “I eat and drink chocolate quite regularly and it hasn’t hurt me one bit.”
“Well, I don’t know …” Marian’s voice trailed off when she could find no argument to present.
“You’re just as beautiful as ever, honey,” Lena said. “Even more so, if that’s possible.”
“Thank you, Lena,” Victoria said, giving the woman a one-armed hug. “You’re too sweet.”
“Let’s just keep you that way so Rafael remains attracted to you long enough for you to destroy him,” Marian said callously. “Don’t be putting on any weight, either. Lena, see to it that Victoria doesn’t get too many calories at each meal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lena said.
When she had her back to Marian, she winked at Victoria, who dared not giggle. Instead, she took a long drink of chocolate milk, which did indeed soothe her ruffled stomach. It worked every time.
“After you’ve eaten your breakfast, I want you to come into your father’s office. We have things to discuss and plans to lay,” Marian said briskly.
“Yes, Mother,” Victoria said obediently.
Marian left the kitchen then, much to Victoria’s relief. Lena was at the stove stirring a small pan of cooking oats. When they were done, she spooned them into a dish and set it on the eating bar in front of Victoria. Victoria added a dab of butter, some raisins, and a small handful of chopped almonds to her oatmeal, stirred it all up, and then poured on the milk. She sighed with joy at the first bite. Somehow, when she cooked oats, they never quite tasted the same as Lena’s. When she asked Lena was her secret was, she just smiled.
“I just stir in lots of love, honey,” she said. “That’s all.”
“I have missed you, Lena,” Victoria said. “I miss Daddy
so much, and I’ve missed you.”
She looked around to make sure that Marian hadn’t slipped back into the room.
“I can’t say that I miss Mother, though,” she admitted.
Lena didn’t say anything, but she nodded her head with a very understanding look in her eyes. She knew that there was no love lost between Marian and Victoria. She also knew why. She wondered if there would ever come a time when Victoria would understand why Marian was so cold and standoffish with her. But it wasn’t her place to tell, so she would keep the secret to herself.
Chapter Ten
After Victoria finished her oatmeal, she dutifully went to her father’s office to find her mother. She hated going in there. She tried not to picture her beloved daddy, slumped over his desk, blood pooling beneath his head. But she’d watched enough TV to know what a scene such as that would look like. She was just grateful that she hadn’t actually seen him. It was bad enough to see his discolored face in the coffin. The undertakers had done their best to cover up the bullet wound with his hair.
David had persisted in wearing his thick brown hair in the same longish style that he’d adopted in his teens—long sideburns and all. If women were inclined to compliment David, it was in reference to his hair. It irritated Marian, and that was one reason he kept it. He allowed her to do as she pleased, and he tried to please her in most every way that he could, but he drew the line with his hair. He wore it as he pleased. When many men his age were balding and graying, he still had a thick head of brown hair, and it pleased him to wear it just like he had for so many years. That hair served him well one last time in concealing the gaping hole in his head made by the .22-caliber bullet that had ended his life.
“Must we be in here?” Victoria asked her mother when she entered the room.
The office where she had loved to be close to her daddy was now both repulsive to her and a treasury of memories. But to sit in there for any length of time with her mother would border on sacrilege, much less spending the time plotting revenge on a man she was so physically attracted to.
“I just thought it would help us to focus on what we need to do if we are sitting in the very room where David took his own life. It will give us the motivation, and stir up the anger you need to carry out your mission with Rafael. I know that the man is attractive; I get that. So you will have to keep your focus on your father’s death and why it is that you are dating the man. Don’t allow yourself to be seduced by this villain. Keep your wits about you. Use him. Don’t allow him to use you.”
“Just what is it that I’m supposed to be looking for or learning from him? I don’t get it, Mother,” Victoria said. “Daddy was in debt, Rafael bought him out. What’s wrong with that? Which also makes me wonder that after he sold the business and got the money, why did he then kill himself. None of this makes any sense to me.”
Victoria paced the room shaking her head. Marian came over to her and took her by the shoulders.
“Listen to me, Vicky,” she said gently. “There are large withdrawals from the business account every month for a number of years that I can’t account for. I saw the bank statements and confronted David with them. He made up some cockamamie story about making payments on some other corporation he supposedly purchased, but I could see right through that story. I called him on it, but he wouldn’t tell me where the money was really going.
“Then I began to notice that this Rafael Rivera was coming here to visit David after work hours and on weekends. I suspected that he had something on David and was blackmailing him, and that’s where those large withdrawals were going. I overheard them arguing several times. I could never make out the words, just could hear the tone of voice they were using.
“I again confronted David about the money, asking him if Rivera was blackmailing him, but he denied it. Then, the next thing I knew, David came home and told me he had sold the business and paid off his debts. He told me that we would have to sell this house because we couldn’t afford to maintain it anymore. He let the gardener and another housekeeper go. Poor Lena has had to do all the cooking and cleaning by herself for the past several weeks. It’s just a good thing we aren’t dirty people, or she’d never keep up.”
“Well, where do you think the money was going, if not to pay blackmail to Rafael?”
“Other than that, I have no clue,” Marian said.
“Can we go to the bank and get them to tell us where the money went?” Victoria wanted to know.
“No, because it was taken out in cash, so there is no paper trail. At least not at the bank,” Marian said. “I’ve already checked on that.”
“May I see the bank statements?” Victoria asked. “Where are they?”
“Right here. These are only the past years' worth. But the withdrawals go back several years, and in increasing amounts each year.”
Marian went over to David’s desk and picked up a sheaf of papers and handed them to Victoria. She studied them for several minutes. There were large deposits to the account each month that she supposed were from his various business enterprises. But the cash withdrawals did get increasingly larger, with the largest one being the month before David’s death. The month of David’s death there was only one withdrawal, and it was for a far smaller sum than the previous ones.
Then Victoria began to see a pattern emerge in the withdrawals. Around the first of each month there was a cash withdrawal in the amount of $10,000 that increased incrementally to $20,000 the month preceding David’s death.
Then, around the fifteenth of each month, after there had been some significant deposits, there was another cash withdrawal in the amount of $25,000. These withdrawals continued right up until the week before David’s death. She began to wonder if the money was going to the same person or entity, or to two different places.
“Where are the previous years’ statements?” Victoria asked. “I’d like to see them, too.”
Marian went to a filing cabinet, opened a drawer, and took out a manila folder.
“Here are the past two years’ worth,” she said, handing the folder to her daughter.
“Thanks.”
Victoria opened the folder and began to examine those statements. She saw the very same pattern in those previous years as she had in the current year’s statements. Only the oldest statements showed the first withdrawal each month as being only $5,000. It increased to $7,500 the next year. The second withdrawal of each month, however, remained constant at $25,000.
Victoria went over to the file cabinet herself and opened the same drawer she had seen her mother open. She rifled through the folders until she came to the one for 1999, the year she went away to college. She pulled it out and thumbed through those statements. Her tuition payments were clearly shown on each month’s statement. So was the first of the month cash withdrawal. Here, the amount was a mere $1,000 a month. She knew it wasn’t anything her dad had sent to her, because he never sent cash, always a check. You don’t mail that kind of cash.
She continued going through the statements year by year until she found where the mid-month withdrawals began. They began in 2001, just a couple of years after she left home. Interesting. She talked daily with her dad and he always seemed very happy, and told her that the business was doing well. With the great value he placed on honesty, she couldn’t believe that he had lied to her all those years. No, there had to be another explanation. A perfectly rational explanation. One she desperately wished that he was alive to give to her.
One thought that crossed her mind was that he was secreting the money into a private account that Marian didn’t know about. Maybe he was planning to leave her at some point. But she knew that her father adored her mother, although it mystified her what her dad ever saw in Marian. Yes, she was beautiful, but she was so self-centered and snobbish. So unlike her dad who was kind, happy, and down-to-earth. This last thought was squirreled away to be brought out and examined later, when she could perhaps slip away alone and go to the bank to have a chat with the b
ank manager herself.
“Well, can you see for yourself the problem?” Marian finally asked when Victoria replaced the folders in the drawer.
“Yes, I see the cash withdrawals,” she said. “Of course, there could be several rational explanations for them. Did Daddy give you cash for household expenses and your endless parties?”
“No, I have my own personal account for those things. You know that I inherited several million dollars from my own father when he passed away when I was in my early twenties. I have used that money for my pleasures, and on your ballet lessons, piano lessons, clothes, and everything I could think of that would prepare you for life in the social world. Which you have completely squandered, I might add, on Seattle and that little art museum which you seem to value over a decent lifestyle.”
She said the word Seattle as though it were some little hick town on the edge of nowhere, rather than the important and cultured city that it is. Victoria let it slide. She wasn’t in the mood to get into an argument with Marian.
“And your father paid all the bills and provided for the house, so no, those withdrawals had nothing to do with any of that.”
“OK, that’s one possibility down. Could he have been donating to some favorite charity?”
“Your father? Ha! I doubt that. I could barely get a grand out of him for charity drive at my country club. He wouldn’t have given that kind of money to any charity. I thought maybe he was sending it to you.”
“No, not me. He paid my tuition, which clearly shows on the statements. And he did set me up with a tidy little trust fund that I’ve barely touched. But he never sent me money in these amounts,” Victoria said.