by Madyson Grey
Then she smiled as a wicked though crept into her mind.
“I know, Mother,” she said. “Maybe he has a love child somewhere and those payments were child support—or blackmail money for the mother to keep quiet.”
“Don’t even go there, Victoria,” Marian said. “David wouldn’t have dared have an affair with another woman. I made it very clear to him when we were married that if I ever found out that he had cheated on me, I would take him to the cleaners, and then throw him out like yesterday’s garbage. No, whatever other faults he may have had, your father was faithful to me and loved me. Of that I am certain.”
“I certainly wouldn’t have expected it of Daddy,” Victoria admitted. “He was always so big on honesty. But it was just a thought.”
“No, it has to have something to do with Rafael Rivera,” Marian asserted. “He was pinching David for some reason. And it’s your job to find out what that reason was. So whatever it takes, my darling daughter, find out what Rafael did to drain David of all that money and what he did to drive David to suicide.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mother, but don’t hold out too much hope. I’m no detective, you know. And I will stay the two months, but not one day longer. And if I learn anything useful before then, I will leave. I love my home and job in Seattle, as hard as that is for you to comprehend. It is who I am. You wouldn’t be happy if I tried to make you move to Seattle and live my life. Neither am I happy in LA trying to live your life. Face it, Mother, we’re two very different people.”
Marian heaved a deep sigh and said, “I know that, Vicky. I just wanted you to have the things that are important to me. But if you have what’s important to you, I guess I’ll just have to accept that.”
“Thank you, Mother. I appreciate that. Now maybe we can at least be friends?” Victoria looked hopefully at Marian.
“We can try, dear,” Marian said with a weak smile. “Now where were we with Rafael? Oh, yes. When will you see him again?”
“I’m not sure. He said he’d call. I assume he meant it. He seemed to enjoy our date as much as I did.”
“You really did enjoy being out with him, didn’t you?” Marian questioned.
“Yes, I did,” Victoria admitted.
“Well, just don’t enjoy him too much. Let him think you are, but don’t get emotionally involved with him. Get everything you can from him, no matter what it takes. Give him everything he wants, except your heart. Your heart belongs to your daddy and avenging his death. Hang on to that thought no matter what.”
Chapter Eleven
Victoria read all the implications that her mother meant for her to. That meant sleeping with Rafael, or whatever, until she got what she wanted from him. Then dropping him like a hot potato. Well, she’d just have to see what happened. One step at a time. As far as she had allowed him to go the night before, Victoria really had grown into a rather conservative woman. She had had a couple of sexual experiences when she was a teenager, but after moving to Seattle and becoming immersed in her college work, and then her job, she had discovered within herself the desire to become a more chaste woman, who would give herself only to the man who one day she hoped to find to marry.
As Rafael certainly wouldn’t be that man, she didn’t quite know how to handle not only her assignment, but also her own strong magnetic attraction to this stranger. It was going to be a tough assignment in more ways than one. She blamed the wine on her last night’s indiscretion, so marked that off her list as well. No more alcohol to cloud her thinking from here on out. She would remain clear-headed and in complete control of her body and mind, while trying to help Rafael lose control of his to the point of divulging his secrets. Little did she know that when he did reveal the secrets he held, they would change her life forever.
“I’ll do the best I can,” Victoria told her mother. “That’s all I can do.”
“And that’s all I’ll expect from you,” Marian said. “Try your best. I’m sure you’ll succeed.”
Marian looked at her watch and saw that it was now nearing noon.
“I’ve got to run, Victoria,” she said. “I have a luncheon at the country club at one. I’ll see you later this afternoon. I’d ask you to come with me, but I think you would be terribly bored.”
“Thanks, Mom, but no thanks. I’ve got a couple of things I want to do this afternoon anyway. You go and enjoy yourself.”
After Marian was gone, Victoria went in search of Lena. She found her in the main floor bathroom just finishing up cleaning.
“I’m just through in here,” Lena said. “I’ll go fix us some lunch right now. Or are you hungry yet? You just ate a couple hours or so ago.”
“I’m not hungry yet, Lena. But what I’d like is for you to take me to town, if you don’t mind. I’ll pay for your gas. I have a couple of things I want to do, but since I don’t have a car, I thought maybe you’d take me. We can have lunch in town if you’d like.”
“Oh, honey, of course I’d love to take you to town. I guess I can leave things for a while. Since I don’t have to fix lunch for anyone that frees me up for at least an hour or two. Where do you want to go?”
“I want to go to Daddy’s bank and talk to the manager there. I have some questions for him. Then I want to go to the nearest police precinct and ask for the police report on Daddy’s death. Before we go, I need to make a copy of Daddy’s death certificate, if I can find where Marian put it.”
“I saw her put it in the drawer of her nightstand,” Lena said. “I was in there changing the sheets on the bed when she put it away.”
“Good, I’ll go get that and you get ready to go.”
Victoria ran upstairs to her parents’ bedroom and opened the nightstand drawer. Sure enough, there was the death certificate. There was also her father’s will. She took both of them into her dad’s office and made a copy of each of them on the copy machine in there. She also made copies of several of the bank statements from random months and years. Then she carefully replaced the originals so that Marian wouldn’t know they had been disturbed. She went into her bedroom, ran a comb through her hair again, and grabbed her purse.
Another thought hit her, so she went back into the office and opened each drawer of the file cabinet, looking at the folders. When she found one tucked away in the back of the bottom drawer that looked interesting she pulled it out and opened it. Even though the tab said, “PGE 1999,” it contained the legal papers that had been drawn up regarding the sale of Thornton Enterprise. Everything looked on the up and up, except that the sale price was twenty million dollars, probably a tenth of what it should have been worth. Victoria found it curious that her dad had filed these important documents in an old utilities folder. Was it to try to hide them from her mother’s prying eyes?
Skimming through the paperwork, she found a page that outlined the outstanding debts that the company owed that were to be paid off by the buyer as part of the deal. They only amounted to three or four million dollars, though. This didn’t jive with the “deeply in debt” scenario she’d been given. For a company the size of Thornton Enterprise to have outstanding debts of that size was nothing unusual. No, there was something else going on beneath the surface. Something that her mother either didn’t know, or wasn’t telling. Nothing about the circumstances surrounding David Thornton’s suicide made any sense at all to her.
Quickly, she photocopied the sale documents and then replaced the file folder just as she’d found it. She took the copies and put them between the mattress and box springs of her bed to hide them. She feared to even put them in her suitcase, should her mother decide to search it for who knows what reason.
She went to find Lena to see if she was ready to go. Lena had a nice little apartment over the three car attached garage. Victoria had spent many happy hours there playing when she was a little girl and her mother was off to one social event or another and her dad was working. In those days, her parents had two housekeepers who each worked five days a week, but with staggered days of
f, so that one of them was always on hand during the day. They had a groundskeeper and a part time pool man. And they had Lena. Lena had been with them since the second week of their marriage, when it became clear to David that Marian couldn’t cook.
Lena had been hired to be the cook. After Victoria came along, nanny was added to her job description. Lena had loved Victoria from Day One and took care of her as though the baby were her own. In many ways, Victoria thought of Lena as “mama” and Marian as the more formal “mother.” Lena was the kind of woman a mother ought to be—nurturing, caring, loving, patient, yet disciplining and training. Marian was none of those things.
“Are you ready, Lena,” Victoria asked when Lena answered her knock.
“Just now, honey,” Lena said, pulling the door shut behind her.
Lena had been allowed to park her car in the third stall over from the door that led into the house. David’s car was still there in the garage, but Victoria didn’t know where the keys were and hadn’t thought to ask Marian before she left.
They drove first to the bank. There some kind of a store next door to the bank that Lena said she’d amuse herself in while Victoria was in the bank. Victoria entered the bank and asked to see the bank manager or president. She wasn’t sure if this branch would have the president or not. Either one would do. She was asked to have a seat for a few moments until she could be seen.
Within less than five minutes a pleasant-looking woman whom Victoria judged to be in her mid-forties, came out and called her name. Assuming this woman was the manager’s secretary, Victoria was surprised when she introduced herself as Jan Matson, bank manager. When they were both seated in Mrs. Matson’s office, she asked what she could do for Victoria.
“My father recently died and I have some questions about his accounts here at this bank,” she told the woman.
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Matson said. “But I’m obligated to ask if you have any proof of identification and your relationship to our account holder.”
“I understand, and am glad you asked,” Victoria said. “Here’s my driver’s license, my birth certificate, my dad’s death certificate, and copies of a few of his bank statements.”
Jan Matson perused the documents carefully, then smiled and handed them back to Victoria.
“Everything is in order, now how can I help?”
Victoria gave her a brief rundown of the chain of events that appeared to have led up to her father’s suicide, and the story she had been told. She showed the woman the paperwork documenting the sale of Thornton Enterprise.
“Thornton Enterprise was one of our top account holders,” Mrs. Matson told her. “We helped facilitate the sale right here. We were sorry that Mr. Thornton was turning over the business to someone else. We knew him, and knew that he was a solid client. However, Mr. Rivera has also been a very good client for about ten years, so we felt comfortable with the sale, and feel that the company has been delivered into capable hands.”
“Really? You handled the sale right here?”
This may prove to be a more fruitful visit than she’d expected.
“I handled it myself, personally,” Mrs. Matson declared.
“Now, can you tell me about these cash withdrawals?”
Victoria pushed the bank statements across the desk so that the manager could see them.
“See these two large withdrawals every month? I only brought a few random statements, because the withdrawals are essentially the same each month. Except for the one at the first of the month. It increases slowly over a period of several months. You can pull this account up on your computer and see the rest of the statements if you need to.”
“No, I don’t need to,” Mrs. Matson said. “I know all about them. However, I am bound by the privacy act to not divulge any information, even though Mr. Thornton is deceased, and you are his daughter, the other parties involved are alive. It would be a breach of trust for me to disclose that information.”
Oh, boy! I’ll never get anywhere like this, Victoria thought.
“I can tell you this much: both cash withdrawals were immediately redeposited into other accounts here in this bank, but they were not your father’s accounts.”
“OK, I understand. Can you tell me this much: did he appear to be under duress when making the withdrawals?”
“Do you mean was someone blackmailing him for the money?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Victoria said.
“The first of the month one seemed to upset him to a point. It was as if he begrudged giving up the money. Not so with the mid-month one. He seemed happy to do it. Someone was always with him and it was as if they shared a wonderful secret.”
“Man or woman?” Victoria queried.
Mrs. Matson looked at her for a long moment, trying to decide whether to say or not.
“It was a man,” she said at last.
“Description?”
Victoria knew she was pushing her luck, but she had to try anyway.
“No, I can’t do that,” Mrs. Matson said. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s OK, I just had to ask.”
The two women chatted for just a few more minutes before Victoria excused herself to take her leave.
“Just a moment,” Mrs. Matson said. “There’s something else that you should know, if you don’t already.”
Victoria had already stood, but paused, wondering what was coming next.
“You are aware, are you not, that you were a beneficiary on Thornton Enterprise accounts when it was in your father’s hands?”
“Uh, I guess I never thought about it,” Victoria said slowly. “It doesn’t matter now, though, does it?”
“Oh, but it does,” Mrs. Matson said. “You are still a beneficiary on the accounts of Thornton Enterprise, which is now called …”
“Rivera Holdings, Inc.” Victoria finished. “It’s on the sale documents.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right.”
“”What do you mean, I’m still a beneficiary? Why would Rafael Rivera list me as a beneficiary?” Victoria wanted to know.
“I’m afraid I can’t say, Miss Thornton,” Mrs. Matson replied.
“Hmmm.” Victoria was puzzled more now than ever. “Well, thank you for your time. I’ll be going now.”
The two women shook hands, and Jan Matson expressed her sympathy once again for Victoria’s loss. Then Victoria left the bank. She found Lena in the store next door and they returned to the car.
“Are you hungry, Lena?” Victoria asked.
“Well, I could use a bite to eat,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to slow you down on your mission. I can wait.”
“Well, the police station isn’t too far from here. It shouldn’t take me long in there, and then we’ll go get something to eat. OK?”
“That’s fine.”
Lena signaled and pulled out of her parking space into traffic. She drove the few blocks to the police station and parked again.
“I’ll be quick, I hope,” Victoria said as she got out of the car.
Inside the police station, she showed her identification and asked for a copy of the police report for her father’s suicide. The desk clerk was very helpful and quickly made her a copy of the report. Without stopping to read it, she went back out to the car and got in. Then she read through the report. There was really nothing there to suggest that anything had happened other than the way the story had been told to her.
According to her mother’s statement, she had been gone to one of her meetings during the range of time the coroner had set for the time of David’s death. Lena had gone to the grocery store. David was home alone. None of the neighbors had heard the shot, nor had anyone else been seen coming or going from the home. The suicide note was clipped to the report. It was handwritten on a yellow legal pad, and then apparently torn from said pad. It was the first time Victoria had seen it. It read:
I can’t do this anymore. I want out. I’ve thought about it for months, and I’m just going to do
it. It’s the only way out I can see. It’s best for everyone this way.
Her eyes blurred with tears as she read the words written in her daddy’s familiar handwriting. It was definitely written by him, no doubt about it. Lena reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said softly. “I know it’s hard, terribly hard. It is for me, too.”
Victoria swiped her eyes and looked at Lena.
“Of course it is, Lena,” she said. “You’ve known him even longer than I have. But he was my daddy.”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Oh, yes, I know.
“Let’s go find someplace to eat,” Victoria said, getting ahold of herself.
“OK, where do you want to go?” Lena asked.
“I don’t care. You choose. Any place you want to go is fine with me.”
Lena drove several blocks, turning here and there, until she finally pulled into the parking lot of a homey-looking diner.
“This is my favorite spot,” she declared. “You know, my parents came from Sweden when I was a tiny baby. It took my dad several years to work and become established as an American citizen. I remember the day we all became citizens. I was only four years old, nearly five, but I remember it clearly. After the swearing-in ceremony, my parents came to this café to celebrate.
“Ever after that, although we didn’t eat out a lot, when we did, we usually came here. After I went to work for your parents, once in a while I would meet Mama and Dad here for a meal when I had time off and so did they. We still do meet here occasionally. So I thought I would bring you here and hope that you will make a good memory here with me as I have with my folks.”
“Thank you, Lena. You’re such a special lady. I don’t know what I’d have done without you in my life growing up. You’ve been more of a mom to me than Marian has been. Your parents are special people, too, to have raised you to be so wonderful. I haven’t seen them in years. Can you call them and have them meet us here for lunch? Do they live far away?”
“Would you really want them to come?” Lena asked, her blue eyes lighting up.