Kendall’s stomach churned. Was there no one who could believe the kind of relationship they had really had? That it had been one based on mutual respect? That if anything personal had ever entered into it, it had been as much father to daughter as anything? She wanted to sink down onto the chair beside her, but fought the urge; she could not give Alice any sign of weakness.
“If you’re after more—”
Kendall cut her off. “The only thing I’m after is seeing that Aaron’s final wishes are carried out.”
“I’d advise you not to waste your time contesting,” Whitewood put in. “This will is unbreakable.”
She gave the snake-smooth attorney a withering look. “I don’t have to break it. The codicil Aaron added supersedes it.”
“What codicil?” Alice interjected, her voice sounding as her face looked, triumphantly gloating. Kendall turned back to her, reading what was coming in the woman’s eyes before she said it. “I think you’ll discover that no such thing exists, Miss Chase.”
Kendall watched the woman silently, her mind racing. Aaron had anticipated something like this, had told her to make copies of the codicil, to hide them—
Alice’s laugh cut off her thoughts; it was a pernicious sound that made her skin creep again.
“If you’re thinking of Aaron’s little hiding places, be assured, I know them all. The compartment in his desk, the wall safe, all of them. I’ve known for years, but I’m not the fool he thought me. I waited until it was worthwhile to use what I knew.”
Kendall schooled her face to impassivity. There was one thing the woman couldn’t know, had no way of knowing, and no way of getting to even if she did. But if Alice were to even suspect there was still another copy—
“And even if you were able to produce a copy of this supposed addendum,” Whitewood put in smugly, “I promise you, you would never be able to prove its validity.”
“I witnessed it myself,” Kendall said, “as did Mr. Carver.”
“Carver,” Alice said, with a thoughtfulness too studied to be genuine. “Oh, I remember. He used to be our driver.”
Kendall went very still. “Used to be?”
“Yes. Wonderful that he came into all that money, wasn’t it? Now he’ll be able to open his own mechanic’s garage, as he’s always wanted.”
Kendall stared at Alice, unable to believe what the woman had admitted so easily. She had to be very, very sure she was going to win. Perhaps, Kendall thought grimly, with reason.
“You paid Carver? To deny that he witnessed Aaron’s will?”
“Not at all. Although I’m sure he’s grateful for the money, and wouldn’t want to see any harm come to his benefactor.”
Kendall took a deep breath. She knew they would have an answer for what she was about to say, but she had no choice. “You’re forgetting one little detail,” she pointed out. “I witnessed that document, too.”
“Well, now,” Whitewood said, again adjusting his cuffs, “I don’t think that will be a problem. It is, after all, a forgery.”
Kendall whirled on the man. “What?”
He gestured at the pasteboard envelope Alice held. “I can produce several expert witnesses to testify that that isn’t Aaron Hawk’s signature, but a forgery. A good one, but a forgery.”
Kendall suppressed a shiver; Aaron had underestimated his wife’s viciousness. She wanted to run, to race out the big front doors and into the fresh air, away from the miasma that permeated this room. But she couldn’t. She had to stay, she repeated silently, and see this through.
She drew in a breath. She put her hands on the back of one of the heavy mahogany chairs, trying not to grip it so hard that it would betray her anxiety as she met Whitewood’s smug gaze.
“But I know it’s not,” she repeated firmly.
“The court,” Alice interjected, “is not likely to believe someone who’s already been paid to produce this forged document.”
Kendall froze, then relinquished her grip on the chair as she slowly turned to face the woman who had made her uneasy from the day she had moved into the guest wing of this house at Aaron’s behest. Alice Hawk was laughing, that chilling, malignant sound again. The woman leaned back in her chair, confident, smiling.
“What,” Kendall said carefully, “are you talking about?”
“Why, I’m talking about the hundred thousand dollars that was deposited in your bank account this morning, dear.”
She didn’t bother to question it; she knew that if she checked her account, the money would be there. Alice was, again, far too gloatingly triumphant to be bluffing.
“Deposited . . . by whom?”
“The one person who stands to gain from this forgery, of course.”
Kendall let out a long exhalation. She should have known. “Of course. Aaron’s son.”
“His bastard,” Alice corrected coldly.
Exactly.
Jason West’s quiet, unperturbed reply to Alice’s declaration of that same fact at the funeral echoed in her mind. She felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the man who would no doubt scorn the emotion just as his father had.
“That hardly matters,” Kendall said. “Legitimate or not, he would still have a legal claim. Anyone looking at him would know he was Aaron’s son, but there are tests that will prove—”
“He’ll forfeit any legal claim,” Whitewood interjected smoothly, “when it’s revealed he attempted to perpetrate a forgery for financial gain.”
Kendall backed up a step, looking from the attorney to Alice Hawk. “Do you really think anyone will believe this? There’s been no contact between them for over thirty years.”
“I made certain of that.” Alice’s words seemed to hiss out. “And I will make certain that that tramp’s son never sees a dime of my money.”
Kendall’s eyes widened. She’d made certain there was no contact? Had she known where Jason was? And somehow kept Aaron from finding out? This was something they had never considered. It was a moment before she could go on.
“What, exactly, do you expect me to do?”
“Why, Miss Chase,” Whitewood said cheerfully, “we expect you to enjoy yourself. A hundred thousand dollars in accessible cash should keep you nicely until you’re able to find work. As a bonus, we won’t contest the trust fund Mr. Hawk set up for you.”
“So I’m fired?”
“Yes,” Alice said with great emphasis.
“Now, now, let’s not look at it that way,” Whitewood cautioned; Kendall wasn’t sure if the caution was meant for her or Alice. “You were Mr. Hawk’s assistant, and now that he’s gone, you are, naturally, no longer needed.”
“I see. And if I refuse your . . . generous offer?”
“Then we’ll see you in court,” Whitewood said, with the first hint of ultimatum she’d heard from him. “With evidence that you were paid that hundred thousand to both produce this forgery and perjure yourself as to its validity.”
She didn’t doubt for a minute that they’d do it.
“And are you going to try and pay Jason West off as well?”
“He’ll get nothing from me,” Alice spat out. “Ever. We’ll prove he paid you that money, that he committed a felony for personal gain. It will be his word, a bastard who doesn’t even carry his father’s name and is obviously out to get rich quick, against mine. And believe me, there’s not a court in this county that will believe him. He’ll go to jail, and you along with him.”
Kendall didn’t doubt that was true, either. Alice Hawk was a power in the county, and despite the supposed fairness of the American judicial system, she’d seen it go wrong too many times not to believe that the woman’s influence couldn’t do exactly as she said it would.
“You don’t even know this man, but you’d send him to jail?” Kendall asked, sh
aking her head incredulously.
“He should never have been born!”
It had been a foolish question anyway, Kendall realized. If Alice had no qualms about falsely accusing her, after ten years of utter and complete loyalty to Hawk Industries, of aiding in a fraud, she would hardly hesitate to do the same to Jason West, a man Alice felt she had every right to hate.
She turned, ready at last to make her escape, knowing there was nothing further she could do. She took three steps toward the door, then stopped as an image of Jason from the funeral this morning, his eyes as fierce as his father’s, his jaw as stubborn, his expression as forbidding, came to her. Perhaps Aaron had underestimated his wife. But Kendall couldn’t help thinking that, just perhaps, Alice was also underestimating Aaron’s son.
She looked back at Whitewood. “Just how do you plan to prove that Aaron’s son could even put his hands on that kind of cash?”
Whitewood shrugged, and Kendall wondered how much that nonchalance in the face of extortion was costing Alice per hour.
“I have contacts,” Whitewood said smugly. “Including someone who will testify he loaned him the money with the expectation of a large return out of what he would gain from this . . . crime.”
Kendall shook her head in wonder. “You’ve covered it all, haven’t you? You knew you couldn’t deny he’s Aaron’s son. Even if there wasn’t the resemblance, it’s easy to prove with blood and DNA tests. So you set up this frame. Very slick.”
“Thank you.” Whitewood’s tone was just short of smug.
“And if we have to,” Alice said coldly, “we’ll prove Aaron was of diminished capacity. With all that spouting off he used to do, telling those crazy stories about wizards and magic, it wouldn’t be hard to do. To hear him tell it you’d think the Hawks had descended straight from Merlin.”
Kendall turned her gaze on Alice, suppressing a shiver. All those lovely, wonderful stories Aaron had told her in those last months, Kendall thought. Those magical tales that made her long for the family she’d never had. Tales that had made her feel like she had as a child, when she’d read a particularly moving story that she wished with all her heart would be true. And this woman would use them to destroy Aaron’s dream.
“You were right. Aaron did underestimate you.”
“He always underestimated me.” The woman gave her a baleful look. “Don’t you make the same mistake.”
Kendall stood quietly for a moment. She felt oddly detached, as if the shock of this afternoon’s revelations had numbed her somehow. It enabled her to ask, with the appearance of only mild curiosity, “Do you really believe I was sleeping with Aaron? A man old enough to be my grandfather?”
“I knew my husband,” Alice said icily. “He was a man of . . . carnal appetites. He could no more resist a pretty young face at sixty than he could at twenty-five.”
“And of course it was impossible that a woman could ever resist him,” Kendall retorted with some acidity.
For an instant, the barest fraction of time, surprise flashed in Alice Hawk’s eyes. Surprise Kendall knew instinctively was at the mere suggestion that a woman, any woman, could have resisted Aaron Hawk. And Kendall realized, with some shock, that Alice had loved Aaron. As much as she was capable of loving anyone other than herself, the woman had loved Aaron.
And he had despised her.
Unbidden and unwelcome, a pang of sympathy stirred in her. Sympathy for Alice Hawk, who had been married to a man she loved for forty-two years, and he’d never loved her back. And within a year of their marriage, he’d begun an affair that had lasted seven years. An affair, he had told Kendall, with the only woman he’d ever really loved.
And suddenly Alice Hawk’s venom was pitiable.
Or would be, she thought, if it weren’t for the fact that it could very well ruin two innocent lives: her own, and that of Aaron’s son. Again that image flashed in her mind, of a face younger than Aaron Hawk’s, yet with eyes no less fierce with intelligence, no less hard with implacability.
“And what if Aaron’s son decides on his own to sue for a piece of Aaron’s estate?”
Whitewood looked uncomfortable. Kendall watched as his gaze flicked to Alice, then away. He shifted in his chair and shot his cuffs yet again. Then it came to her. She looked at Alice.
“You didn’t expect him, did you?” she said. “You were as surprised as anyone else when he showed up at the funeral.”
“Who would have thought he would have the gall to show his face back in Sunridge?” Alice snapped.
Kendall glanced at Whitewood with a new kind of twisted respect. “You pulled all this together in one afternoon? Perhaps you’re smarter than Aaron thought.”
He called her a name under his breath, a crudity she decided to ignore.
“So you haven’t had time to work that out yet?” she asked. “What you’ll do if Jason decides to take you on himself?”
“Jason?” Alice sneered. “You’re on a first-name basis already? Perhaps you’ve already decided to throw your lot in with him. If you have, I warn you, you’ve made a serious mistake.”
Kendall’s lips curved slightly, into what Aaron had always called her “decision” smile, because, he’d told her, it usually meant she’d made up her mind and the devil take the hindmost.
And Aaron’s words were in her mind when she said softly, “In this case, I think it’s better the devil I don’t know than the ones I’ve just met here.”
She turned her back on them and started toward the door.
“I won’t have it,” Alice called out after her angrily. “He will never see a penny of Hawk money. I’m warning you. If you value your miserable life, stay out of this.”
Kendall stopped then. She turned slowly back, giving Alice a level look. “Are you threatening my life, my health, or merely my freedom, Mrs. Hawk?”
“Just be warned. I’m not as gullible as my husband was. I know what you want. You got more than you should have, and if you’re smart, you’ll settle for that and get out.”
“Mrs. Hawk,” Kendall said softly, “you don’t know the first thing about what I want.”
And it wasn’t until she was out of the room that she realized she had virtually echoed Jason West.
Chapter Four
ALICE HAWK SAT in silence for several minutes after Kendall walked out. She took a few deep breaths, knowing she must control her anger. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt the heat of rage flushing her face. Her doctor’s warnings rang in her mind, and she made an effort to slow her racing pulse.
“She could be a problem,” Darren Whitewood said.
She glanced at the attorney. He was a preening, conceited fop, she thought, with his silk suit and ostentatious gold jewelry, and could be trusted only to look out for himself, but he had one great advantage over Charles Wellford. He could be bought.
“She always has been,” Alice said.
An understatement, she thought as she gathered up the papers from the table. Her feelings about Kendall Chase had always been somewhat confused. When she’d first come to work for Hawk Industries, Alice had recognized a keen intelligence, akin to her own. Kendall’s seeming innocence and apparent naiveté had made Alice consider the possibility of using her herself, as a conduit to Aaron, who had, infuriatingly, closed himself off to her more and more over the years. But the girl’s loyalty to the man who had hired her for a position far above her qualifications was unswerving, and Alice’s early attempts at subverting her had only turned the annoyingly honest young woman against her.
So Alice had been relegated to watching Aaron lavish time and attention on the girl, teaching her, training her, treating her as if she were nothing less than his heir apparent. As if she were the child Alice had never been able to give him.
An old, familiar pain jabbed at her. It was, she supposed,
the true source of her ambivalence about Kendall Chase. She had seen the gradual softening in Aaron, seen the gentleness with which he had treated the girl, a tender regard she herself had never known from her husband. It had enraged her, and no matter how many times she told herself she was a fool to be jealous of a mere child, she knew she was.
She had never really believed Kendall and Aaron had been involved sexually, but it was easier to believe in a replay of that kind of betrayal than in the idea that Aaron was capable of simply loving the girl for herself. That was an emotion she didn’t want to believe him capable of, because it made the knowledge that he had never loved her even harder to accept. And made the relationship between Aaron and Elizabeth West too painful to even contemplate.
She knew Aaron had married her for money. Forty-three years ago Hawk Manufacturing, the foundation company that had grown into the conglomerate known now as Hawk Industries, had been in severe financial trouble. It was her father who, with the unerring eye that had rarely failed him, had picked twenty-five-year-old Aaron Hawk as a minnow that would one day become a shark.
But it was then that Alice Caruthers had done the one unforgivably stupid thing she had ever done in her life; at age thirty she had, with all the intensity of an infatuated teenager, fallen in love with the dynamic, darkly handsome, young Aaron Hawk. She had picked him as the only man she wanted, and had set her powerful father to the task of doing whatever it took to get him for her.
Once he’d gotten over his surprise that she was interested at all in a man, Harold Caruthers had energetically set about doing as she wanted, pleased in a manner that was hardly flattering that his plain, sometimes unpleasant daughter might be taken off his hands long after he’d given up hope of her ever marrying. Alice knew this; she’d heard him say it often enough, but she was so blindly enamored of Aaron Hawk that she hadn’t cared. Nor had she cared what it took to get him.
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