“I wonder how Aaron would have dealt with all this.”
“You mean, if he’d been the last Hawk?”
He didn’t bother to quibble this time over the appellation. “Yes.”
“I think he would have fought it as hard as you have.”
“Even though he believed in the legend?”
“He wanted to believe in it. And at the end, I think he had to believe it, had to believe the book would do what he hadn’t been able to. That it would bring you home. He couldn’t bear to doubt it, because it would mean his blindness had not only cost him his son, but had brought about the end of centuries of unbroken history.”
“And I can just bet which one bothered him the most.” It slipped out before he could stop it, but Kendall seemed to understand.
“I know it must seem that way. Aaron was nothing if not hard-nosed about Hawk history.”
“From what I’ve heard, he was hard-nosed about just about everything.”
Kendall sighed. “He could be, yes.”
“Especially in his business?”
“Yes. It’s why he was so successful.”
This was the opening he’d been waiting for, and he wondered why he had to force himself to take it. Finally the words came. “I’ll bet he hated having to go public with any of his companies.”
He heard the smile in her voice. “He hated it,” she confirmed. “That’s why he rarely did. He kept everything privately held, as much as he could.”
“And when he couldn’t?”
“When he couldn’t keep it personally, he made a private offering, to people he checked out himself.”
He wasn’t even having to push her for it, he thought numbly. She was handing it to him on that silver platter, just like they’d talked about. Naked. He fought back a memory of that first moment when he’d driven himself into her body, when the unexpected tightness and heat of her had nearly made him come instantly. He’d known then he was the first man for her in a long time. And he didn’t like the way that made him feel, proud, and possessive.
“A . . . private offering?” He barely managed to get the words out.
“That’s when an investment is offered privately to a small group of investors. Aaron would help them form a private limited partnership, and then in turn they invested in his companies.”
He made a show of tugging the covers out from under them, then up over them while he turned words over in his mind. Finally, still unable to understand his own reluctance, he went on, trying to sound appropriately uninformed.
“Isn’t that . . . controlled? By some federal commission or something?”
“Yes, the SEC. Securities and Exchange Commission,” she added in explanation; he didn’t tell her that he knew perfectly well what it was. “That’s why the private limited partnership. It allows them to take advantage of exemptions to registration allowed by the SEC.”
“Loopholes?”
“Sort of,” Kendall admitted, “but legal ones. Let’s just say Aaron knew their Regulation D by heart, and pushed it to the limit.”
He knew that regulation, too, the one that set the conditions necessary for the SEC to okay a private offering. Knew it, he thought with an inward smile of grim satisfaction, probably as well as the old man had.
“So, he trusted those investors, at least,” he said.
“To a point, yes.”
“A point?”
“No one partnership owns a controlling interesting in any of the Hawk Industries. Aaron made sure of that.”
“Is there more than one partnership with holdings in any one of the companies?”
“Yes, but that’s not a problem. They’re all different investors. Some of them have owned the stock for years. And they always turned their proxies over to Aaron to vote. He was careful, and it never backfired on him. And, of course, they’ve made a lot of money on that stock, over the years.”
He took a deep breath, not understanding why the closer they got to what he needed, the twitchier he was getting. “What if they don’t . . . want to turn those proxies over to Aaron’s widow? What if they all decided to . . . combine and rebel, now that he’s dead?”
He heard her chuckle, a small sound touched with her lingering grief for Aaron. But her words were light enough, as if she quite enjoyed the prospect. “Then Alice would have her hands full.”
“What about Alice? Won’t she be as much in control as Aaron was?”
He felt her shrug. “She’ll inherit most of his stock. But Aaron wasn’t a fool. He left some of it to people who had been loyal to him over the years.”
This was something he hadn’t thought of. “Including you?”
“Some,” she admitted. “I’m sure Alice would fight it, if it was enough to cause her any trouble. But it’s not.”
But it might be enough to give him an extra margin of safety, Jason thought, just a little more maneuvering room, in case somebody was unhappy with the debt being called in after all these years.
“There’s enough stock spread around elsewhere to keep her from assuming complete control without the cooperation of the other stockholders, but she’ll probably get that. And I’m sure she’s already been thinking of ways around it. She’s probably been working on this from the moment Aaron was diagnosed,” Kendall said, for the first time sounding bitter.
And I’ve been working on it for twenty years, Jason thought to himself grimly. But he knew Kendall was right; he’d learned that in his phone calls this afternoon. Alice was on the move, all right.
“You wouldn’t like to see her in charge, would you?” he asked softly.
“No. No, I wouldn’t. But there’s nothing I can do about that.” Maybe, Jason thought. Or maybe not. “But that’s something that will take her some time,” Kendall added. “Right now I’m sure she’s more worried about you.”
Which was exactly what he wanted her to worry about, Jason thought, all his determination flooding back. This was his chance, to get what he hadn’t been able to find out. Aaron’s holdings were almost all public record; Alice’s were not. But Kendall knew what they were. With an effort he managed a tone of merely mild curiosity.
“Will she have the same amount of control in every company?”
There was the briefest of pauses before she asked, “Why so curious?”
Jason knew he was walking on thin ice now. Kendall was smart, too smart, and if she got suspicious, it could all fall apart. While she obviously had no love for Alice, she had loved Aaron, and her unwavering loyalty could be dangerous. Especially if she decided her loyalty to Aaron meant loyalty to Hawk Industries.
He schooled himself to an unruffled tone, and gave a half shrug he knew she would feel.
“If we’re going to fight her over the will, I’d like to know everything I can about her. You never know what might be useful.”
“Oh.” The mention of the will seemed to decide her, as he’d hoped it would. Then she was answering him. “Her control varies. The only company she’ll have a clear majority in is the original Hawk Manufacturing. But it’s a small part of Hawk Industries now, so it doesn’t mean that much.”
“Where’s her weakest position?”
She hesitated, and Jason held his breath, not knowing if she was merely considering or still suspicious of the kind of questions he was asking. He hated not being able to see her face, but he didn’t dare flip on the light. It was hard enough to stay focused when he could feel every luscious curve of her naked body; being able to see her would destroy his concentration altogether.
“Hawk Propulsion, I suppose,” she said after a moment. “When they made the switch, they were dealing a lot with public agencies. That took a lot of changes to meet different standards, and permit fees, a lot of expenditure. Aaron wasn’t able to hang on to quite as much of it as
he wanted to.”
It was enough. He knew Alice’s stronghold and her weak spot now; it would be enough. It had to be. If he pushed for any more, he ran the risk of Kendall backing away. Anyway, she’d already given him more than he’d expected so early on. All he had to do now was keep her from discovering what he was really up to. And he could do that easily enough, keep her distracted. The fact that she was here with him, like this, proved that.
What it proved about him, he wasn’t sure.
Chapter Twenty
“DAMN. I KNEW something was wrong.”
“I’m fine, George,” Kendall said into the phone receiver. While Jason had gone down to use the hotel’s copy machine, she’d called the investigator, after calling the motel to see if anyone had been trying to reach her and being told Alton had tried three times.
“I got worried when I couldn’t reach you. I called Martin at the desk to make sure you were still registered, and he mentioned that a cop had brought you back Saturday.”
“Yes. He was very sweet.”
“I called a buddy of mine at the department. He talked to the investigator that handled the accident, who said you were lucky to be alive, that you came within inches of going over the drop. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” Except for the renewed soreness of her body. And a new, vaguely erotic soreness in some places she hadn’t been aware of for a long time. “Except . . .”
She hesitated, sinking down to sit on the foot of the bed. The spread was thicker, almost a quilt, the carpet richer, the entire room considerably more plush than the modest Sunridge Motel had been.
“Except what?” Alton prompted.
“It wasn’t an accident, George.”
There was a moment of silence, then, “I see. It would seem the ante’s been upped.”
No questions, no “Are you sure?”—just immediate acceptance. Kendall breathed a sigh of relief; she was very tired of spending all her time and energy convincing people. She briefly told him what had happened, including her trip to the bank and her suspicions about Alice’s involvement.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Alton said. “That was a smart move with the money.”
“Thank you, but that may have been what brought Alice down on us. She had us followed last night.”
“Followed?”
She told him that story, too, eliciting a low whistle. “Sounds like the boy can handle himself.”
The boy. Kendall nearly smiled at the term, remembering how Aaron had always called Jason that. But it hadn’t been a boy who had made love to her on this bed last night. It hadn’t been a boy who had driven her to heights she’d never known possible. And it hadn’t been a boy who had turned to her again this morning, arousing her while she was still half asleep, awakening her in more ways than one, so that by the time she was fully aware of what was happening, by the time he rolled over and pulled her on top of him, she was so hot, so hungry for him, that she could do nothing less than take him inside her and ride him as he asked, until they’d both erupted into quaking spasms of pleasure.
Yes, the boy could handle himself, all right. And her as well. And too well. She shook her head, battling the rising heat the sweet memories had begun in her. Had George asked her something?
“Uh . . . I’m sorry, what did you ask, George?”
“What are you going to do now? Do you want me to talk to the police, now? I can have somebody start digging, unofficially.”
Kendall wavered before answering. Aaron had always taught her to handle her own problems, but she doubted he’d ever expected anything quite like this. But still . . .
“No,” she said at last. “Let’s wait awhile longer. We’re going to talk to Aaron’s lawyer today. His office has a number to reach him at in Germany.”
“We’re going to talk?” Alton asked. “So the son’s going to fight, after all?”
Kendall felt an odd little pang at Alton’s words. The son. Once, that had been all Jason had been to her, the son Aaron had been trying so desperately to find. And now . . . now he was so much more. She very much feared too much more.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s going to fight.”
“What changed his mind?”
That was something she couldn’t explain even to him. So she settled on part of the truth. A part she guessed Alton would understand.
“He . . . met with Alice.”
Alton let out a low, amused chuckle. “Well, that’d change my mind.”
“Yes. It would change most anyone’s, I imagine.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re at the airport. The hotel across the street.” She explained Jason’s ruse of abandoning the rental car near the bus stop, and the two separate plane tickets to two different locations, checking themselves in, and then walking right back out again.
Alton chuckled again. “He’s good. You’d think he’s done this before.”
“In a way,” Kendall said, thinking of a young Jason on the run, “he has.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“All right. You have the addendum to the will with you?”
“Yes. I took it out of the safe deposit box when I moved the money, and I’ve kept it with me. It’s only a copy, not the original, which will make things more difficult, but it’s all we have.”
“I presume you’ve made more copies?”
“That’s what Jason’s doing right now.” And he must have had to wait for the machine, Kendall thought; he’d been gone a long time.
“Get one to me. Make that two. I’ll keep one, and give one to that buddy of mine on the department, just in case. I trust him. He won’t do a thing unless something happens.”
“All right. Oh,” she added, having almost forgotten, “what were you trying to reach me about?”
Alton cleared his throat audibly. “Just a couple of things I found out about Jason.”
For some reason she felt a twinge of apprehension. “What?”
“Not much, really. Yet. I confirmed what we already knew, that he flew to L.A. late Thursday night, on the red eye from Seattle. Caught the first shuttle flight at five A.M., got to the airport here at six, and had a rental car waiting. Checked in at the motel at six-thirty. Martin in the office said he left just before eleven, which jives with what you said about when he got to the service.”
Kendall’s brow furrowed. She didn’t see why any of that information was important; she’d already figured most of that out. But neither did she believe that Alton didn’t have a point.
“And?” she prompted.
“Martin remembered the name of the major airline from the folder he had in his pocket when he checked in. I called a friend of mine over there, who called somebody in Seattle, and found out a couple of interesting things.”
So this was what he’d been getting to, she thought. She glanced at her watch again, wondering what was keeping Jason, wondering what would happen if he were to walk in and hear her on the phone, talking about him.
“I’m sort of in a hurry, George,” she said.
“He flew first class,” the man said.
Kendall’s brows lifted. She thought of what Alton had said about the racy gray coupe. As Alton had said, not a bottom of the rental scale vehicle.
“And,” Alton added, “he paid for it with a credit card. A platinum corporate card.”
She straightened. “What?”
“I thought it was interesting, too,” Alton said. “Same kind of card Martin said he paid his motel bill with. I’m making some further inquiries up there, but I thought you should know that much.”
It had been a silver card she’d seen at the airport, too, she thought. She just hadn’t thought much about it. She caught her lower lip between her teeth for
a moment before she asked, “What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure. At first I thought the fancy car might be a front, you know, to prove something, coming back from Aaron’s funeral. But now . . .” Alton’s voice trailed away.
“Now it’s starting to look like perhaps he doesn’t have anything to prove?” Kendall suggested.
“Perhaps,” Alton agreed. “I’ll stay on it.”
She’d been ready to call him off, to tell him she knew all she needed to know about Jason, which was that he was going to help her in her fight to carry out Aaron’s last wishes. But Alton had hung up, and the words had never come.
She glanced at her watch again. Jason had been gone for over an hour. A long time to simply go to the hotel business center and make a few copies. Her stomach knotted. Her gaze was caught by the glitter of foil on the floor near her feet. She leaned over and picked up the unopened packet. One of the condoms he’d bought, kicked onto the floor in their frenzy.
Moving mechanically, she gathered the others, the few that were left after last night, and tossed them into the drawer of the nightstand. She slammed the drawer shut and then stood there staring at it. Wondering if there would be any need for them.
Had he gone? Taken off, left her here? He had the copy of the codicil. He could fight Alice himself; what did he need her for? Sex? He could get that anywhere, with one look from those soft-lashed eyes, one flash of that crooked grin.
But what had happened between them last night hadn’t been just sex, she thought. It hadn’t been. No matter what he said or thought, it had been more than just a coupling of bodies, more than just an easing of need. And no matter how he might deny it, she’d seen that knowledge in his eyes this morning, when he’d nearly given up the trek down to the lobby in favor of dragging her back to bed yet again.
She shivered as the sudden heating of her body made the room seem cold. She’d had enough of this. She shoved her feet into her shoes and tucked her shirt into her jeans. She didn’t bother with her purse, just scooped up her room key card, making sure the door latched behind her as she left.
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