Rivals

by Janet Dailey

  She was stunned by the amount of time, effort, and money that had already gone into the project. Which seemed to prove how confident Chance had been that he would get Morgan’s Walk—one way or another. Nothing in Ben Canon’s remarks had given her the impression that Chance’s plans for the development had progressed this far. She wondered if the attorney knew.

  Sobered by the discovery, Flame went through all the drawings, blueprints, and reports again, searching for duplicates, gathering them in a stack to take with her, and returning the rest to their original places. She doubted that Chance would ever notice there were copies missing. Fortunately, there were duplicates of everything with the exception of the colored renderings, an initial engineering report, and an overall topography map. But there were black-and-white copies of the renderings, a subsequent engineering report that appeared to contain much of the same information as the first, and a contour map showing natural water drainage.

  Suddenly, from the outer office, came the muffled ding that signaled the arrival of the elevator. She froze. The private elevator—the one that came from the underground parking garage—the one that required a key to operate—the one Chance used! She went cold, her heart leaping into her throat and lodging there.

  With discovery imminent, she looked frantically around the room for a place to hide. But there was no obvious place—no closet, no darkened alcove, no shadowy corner hidden from view. The office was too open, too exposed. She couldn’t crawl under his desk; he was bound to go there. Hiding behind the sofa was out, too; he’d see her crouching behind it when he walked by.

  There were footsteps in Molly’s office. She had to act fast. With speed more important than silence, she scooped up the stack of information she’d gathered and dumped it in the corner, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed, then grabbed the fur coat and the evening bag off the chair and dragged them with her as she scrambled under the round conference table and frantically pulled the chairs in closer, hoping the forest of legs would obscure her.

  As the door to Chance’s office opened, Flame tried to make herself as small as possible and pressed close to the center pedestal. She didn’t dare move—or even breathe—for fear the satin of Hattie’s gown would rustle and betray her presence.

  But it wasn’t Chance who entered. It was a woman. Flame could see her reflection in the office’s smoked-glass windows. She almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was the cleaning woman. With her, she could talk her way out of this situation. Then she recognized Molly Malone and knew she didn’t have a prayer of convincing Chance’s secretary that she was under the table looking for her supposedly lost diamond earring.

  “Honestly, these cleaning people,” Molly grumbled aloud. “Heaven knows how long these lights have been on. If they had to pay the electricity bill here for a month, they wouldn’t be so free with them.”

  There was a click, then darkness—except for the light shining through the doorway to Molly’s office. In the reflecting windows, Flame saw Molly’s silhouette briefly outlined in the doorway before she walked through and pulled the door shut behind her, throwing Chance’s office into near-total darkness.

  Flame breathed out shakily and relaxed a little. For the moment she was out of danger—but she was also trapped. She couldn’t leave until Molly did. What was she doing here on a Saturday night? How long before she left? What if the security guard came up to see if she’d found the earring? What had made her think she could get away with this in the first place? Why had she taken so much time looking through everything? Why hadn’t she simply grabbed what she could find and left? If she had, she would have been out of here and safely on her way back to Morgan’s Walk.

  She listened to the sounds of Molly moving about in the outer office, file drawers sliding open and clanging shut. A short span of silence was followed by the rapid tappity-tap of the typewriter. Helpless, Flame sat on the floor under the table, surrounded by an increasingly weighty darkness.

  But the sound of the typewriter didn’t last long. Then a desk drawer shut and a chair squeaked noisily. Again there were footsteps and more indistinct movement.

  How long had Molly been here? Five minutes? Ten? Twenty? In the darkness, Flame had no conception of time, but it seemed an eternity went by before she finally heard the bell-like signal of the elevator doors. Then, all was quiet—except for the loud thudding of her own heart. After making certain no crack of light was visible beneath the door, Flame groped her way out from under the table.

  This time she didn’t dally, but moved as quickly as the darkness would allow, gathering up the papers and plans and clutching them in her arms along with the fur coat and bag. Feeling her way along the wall, she found the door. It opened at the turn of her hand. She stepped quickly into Molly’s equally darkened outer office.

  Somehow she managed to make it to the hall without bumping into anything. From there she could see a faint light shining at the far end and knew it came from the dimly lit elevator lobby. She caught up the coffee brown skirt of Hattie’s long gown and ran all the way. It wasn’t that far, yet when she reached the elevators she felt winded and weak, her heart rocketing against her ribs. Panic, that’s what it was.

  She forced herself to drink in deep gulps of air and breathe out slowly, taking the few necessary, precious seconds to calm herself. Then she laid the fox coat on the floor and placed the jumble of reports, plans, and drawings inside it. She wrapped the coat around them, paused long enough to push the button to summon the elevator, then picked the coat up, papers and all, and held it in front of her, doubling the coat nearly in half, draping it over her arm and hopefully hiding the bundle it contained.

  When the elevator doors opened, she stepped quickly inside and pushed the button for the lobby floor, then caught a glimpse of her reflection in the wall’s mirror and turned to survey her appearance. My Lord, but her face looked strained and pale. Hurriedly she pinched her cheeks to put color into them, then noticed the bareness of her earlobes. The earrings: they were still in the evening bag. Awkwardly she clutched at the unwieldy fur-wrapped bundle with one arm and unfastened the purse’s clasp to rummage inside for both diamond earrings. She clipped the second one on her ear just as the elevator doors opened on the lobby floor.

  Cautiously, Flame looked out, making certain the security guard was alone at the desk. Then with a bright smile she breezed over to him.

  “I found it. Can you believe it?” She turned her head from side to side, letting the diamond earrings flash their fire at him.

  “That’s wonderful, Mrs. Stuart.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” she declared, hugging the fur tightly to her and turning flirtatiously pleading. “Would you mind not saying anything to Mr. Stuart about this? I’d rather he didn’t know I’d misplaced it even for a moment.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Stuart.” The man grinned and winked conspiratorially at her. “It will be our little secret. My lips are sealed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dunlap. You’re an absolute dear,” she said, already moving away from the desk toward the front doors.

  She had to wait for him to unlock them again, then practically ran to the Lincoln parked at the curb. She opened the door, tossed the precious fur bundle onto the passenger seat, and hurriedly slipped behind the wheel. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely insert the key into the ignition lock. When she turned the key in the switch, the motor growled to life. The guard stood at the glass doors, watching her. She waved to him as she pulled away from the curb onto the empty street. He waved back.

  She felt weak, a mass of jangled nerves, exhilarated and relieved all at the same time. When she glanced at the digital clock on the car’s lighted dash, she realized that only twenty-three minutes had passed. She’d been certain she’d been in the building at least an hour. She’d done it, though. She’d swiped the plans right from under Chance’s nose. She started to laugh and couldn’t stop.

  29

  Early Sunday afternoon, Flame emerged from the jetwa
y at the San Francisco International Airport and walked straight to the waiting Ellery, receiving his welcoming kiss on the cheek. As usual, he asked no questions. He didn’t need to. By the time they reached her Russian Hill flat, she’d told him the whole galling mess.

  Her suitcases stood in the hallway to her rear bedroom, exactly where Ellery had set them down when they walked in. But the long box she’d brought back with her had been sliced open and its contents spread over the glass coffee table.

  Flame poured more champagne into her fluted glass. The sparkling wine, a gift from Ellery, had been intended to toast her state of newly wedded bliss, but it had become, instead, a means to cool the seething anger that continued to churn inside her. She turned to Ellery, so casually elegant in his lavender cashmere sweater as he lounged against the white sofa.

  “More champagne?” she asked.

  He waved his partially full glass in absent refusal. “Do you know this is the first time I’ve drunk champagne at a marital wake? It’s a rather novel experience.” But his sardonic smile faded, his glance turning thoughtful and sympathetic as he directed it at her. “You sounded so blissfully happy when you called last Sunday, I must admit I never dreamed—”

  “Neither did I.” She cut him off before he could actually say the maddening words.

  He leaned forward to study the black-and-white renderings on the coffee table in front of him, resting his elbows on the knees of his precisely creased trousers. “This is some development he wants to build.” Then he lifted his head, suddenly curious. “How did you manage to get all these plans and reports?”

  “I have them. What does it matter how?” Flame shrugged.

  He responded with a wry smile. “Why did I bother to ask? It’s obvious that under the circumstances, he wouldn’t have given them to you. Which means you must have purloined them—to put it delicately.”

  “They’re copies. He’ll never miss them.”

  Ellery made no comment to that, and let his attention return to the array of paperwork and plans before him. “The thing that puzzles me is—why Tulsa? Why Oklahoma? This project has to run into the multimillions. Why would he invest that kind of money in this area?”

  “You haven’t looked at the feasibility and market study.” Flame walked over and pulled it from the stack. She flipped it open to a map of the United States with the project site marked and a circle radiating out from it. “If you’ll notice, the development is within a four-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius—approximately a day’s drive—of every major metropolitan area in the Midwest: Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, St. Louis, Denver, Memphis, New Orleans—and Chicago falls a fraction of an inch outside that magic line. Nearly one-third of the nation’s population lives within that circle. He could easily turn this into the vacation mecca of the Midwest.”

  “I believe you’re right,” he said, faintly startled by the discovery. “My God, what a shrewd bastard.”

  “But he needs Morgan’s Walk to do it.” She riffled through more of the drawings until she found the site plan. “Because the dam that makes his lake is right here—on what is now my land. If Chance has his way, nearly every acre of it will be under water.”

  “Exactly what do you intend to do with all these plans and blueprints? Obviously you could pin them to a wall and throw darts at them—or fashion them into an effigy of Stuart and burn it. But other than that…”

  “I’m going to a reputable engineering company and have them review them for me.”

  “Why?” Ellery frowned, an eyebrow arching. “You know what they are.”

  “But that’s all I know. I’m not an engineer. I can’t read a set of plans. Maybe there’s something here that I’m not seeing…some way that Chance can get my land.”

  “You keep talking as if you believe he’ll try to go through with this project. Surely that’s impossible now that you’ve inherited the land. If you won’t sell it to him—and I assume you won’t—then he’ll have to give it up and count his losses.”

  “Will he?” she countered. “You don’t know how ruthless he can be. It’s bred in his bones. Don’t forget he married me thinking it would give him control of the land. He wants Morgan’s Walk, Ellery.” Her fingers tightened around the fluted champagne glass, her voice vibrating with her tautly controlled anger. “His reasons go beyond the time and money he has invested. No, with Chance, it’s strictly personal. He hates Morgan’s Walk. That’s why he searched for and found a way to destroy it. The fact that he’ll make millions in the process is merely a bonus. He’ll try, and he’ll keep trying, Ellery. That’s why I have to find a way to stop him.”

  “This whole thing reeks of a vendetta,” he observed, again with that wry movement of his mouth. Flame stiffened, catching the hint of mockery in his voice. “Revenge is sweet and all that.”

  “No, Ellery, you’re wrong,” she declared in an icy calm. “Revenge is everything.”

  30

  Molly Malone eyed the man standing before her desk suspiciously, which she covered with one of her patented, pleasant smiles. “I’m sorry. Mr. Stuart isn’t in yet. He plays squash on Thursday mornings, which means he’ll be late getting to the office.” She pretended to check the day’s appointment calendar, which by now she had memorized. “Unfortunately, when he arrives, he has to go straight into a meeting. I’m afraid he’ll be tied up all day. What did you need to see him about? Perhaps I can help you.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s personal.” His tan raincoat was stained and worn, a button missing from the front, and the polyester suit under it didn’t look any newer, yet the man carried himself with a quiet authority.

  “I see,” Molly murmured and took another look at him, trying to guess his age. Somewhere in his early fifties, she thought. And despite the string tie around his neck and the cowboy boots on his feet, she was certain he was neither a rancher nor a farmer. His face didn’t have the dark ruddy tan of a man who’d spent his life outdoors, and his eyes didn’t crinkle at the corners from squinting at the sun all day. “In that case, why don’t you let me make an appointment for you?” she suggested.

  “That won’t be necessary.” The saclike pouches under his eyes and the turned-down corners of his mouth gave him the look of a weary yet extremely patient man. “I’ll wait until he comes.”

  “But he has a—”

  “That’s all right.” He swept aside her objection with an indifferent flick of his hand. “I won’t take more than a couple minutes of his time, and I’m sure he can spare me that much before his meeting.”

  Molly clamped her mouth shut, recognizing that short of having the man thrown out, he wouldn’t be persuaded to leave. She turned in a faint huff and busied herself with some papers next to her typewriter, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he wandered over to study a painting on the wall.

  “Molly?” Sam called to her from Chance’s office, a perplexed note in his voice.

  As she rose from her chair, she shot the man another suspicious look, then went into Chance’s office. Sam was over by the conference table, a bundle of blueprints under his arm. He turned when she entered the room.

  “Some of these plans are in the wrong slots.” He frowned. “The architect’s drawings are where the blueprints for the dam should be, and the dam blueprints are—It doesn’t matter where they are. But somebody’s been in them and mixed them all up. I know Chance wouldn’t do it. And I certainly didn’t. Who else could have gotten into them?”

  “They’re all there, aren’t they?”

  Sam nodded affirmatively. “That was the first thing I checked.”

  “It was probably the cleaning people, then. They pick the oddest places to be thorough in their dusting, then leave cobwebs in the corners for everyone to see.” She shrugged it off as unimportant and glanced over her shoulder toward the partially closed door to her office. Lowering her voice, she said, “There’s a man out there who insists on seeing Chance when he comes in. He won’t give his name or state his business, but I’d
swear he’s a process server. I can smell them.”

  Sam’s frown deepened. “You think someone’s suing the company?”

  “What else?” She lifted her hands in an empty gesture, then added, “I think you should go down and warn Chance before he gets on the elevator. He should be here any minute.”

  “I will.” He shoved the rolled blueprints at her. “Take these and put them in my office.”

  Two of them threatened to unroll when he handed them to her. Molly juggled them for an instant, then they both heard the bell-like ding of the elevator. They looked at each other, realizing it was too late.

  “Chance Stuart?” came the man’s inquiring voice.

  “Yes?”

  “This is for you.” The announcement was followed by the sound of footsteps leaving the outer office to enter the hall.

  Molly turned to face the door as Chance walked into his office, scanning the legal-looking document in his hands, his forehead creased in a troubled frown. “A process server,” she said to Sam. “Didn’t I tell you I could smell them?”

  But Sam wasn’t interested in the accuracy of her guess as he tried to read from Chance’s expression the seriousness of this new occurrence. “We’re being sued, I take it. By whom?”

  Chance flashed him a quick look, a killing coldness in his eyes, the muscles standing out sharply along his jaw. But he didn’t immediately answer the question, striding instead to his desk and tossing the papers on it, then moving to the window behind it and staring out, his head thrown slightly back and his hands thrust into his pockets.

  “We’re not being sued, Sam,” he said curtly. “Flame has petitioned the courts to have our marriage annulled.”

  “Damn,” Sam swore softly.

  “Oh, Chance,” Molly murmured sympathetically as she took a few uncertain steps toward him. “I’m sorry.”

  He pivoted sharply, his glare running to both of them. “I never said I was accepting this as her final answer.”