Rory’s heart went out to her. How dare his father behave so cruelly, flaunting his peccadilloes?
“One of these days …” Kiki went on.
“One of these days, you’ll what, Mother?”
Her shoulders slumped. “I … don’t know. Things have been so terrible lately, but I’d never give him the satisfaction of leaving. At least now he has to sneak around.”
“If it pleases you,” Davis said from the doorway, “I’ll stop sneaking and be open about it.” Dressed in a black DCI golf shirt and starched blue jeans, his long-limbed body advanced into the room like a big cat’s.
Rory scowled.
Davis flung himself down into an armchair that was too small for his frame. “Now I know why I never come into this room.” He rose again and glared at his wife’s wineglass. “How many of those have you had?”
“Not nearly enough,” she replied, taking another long swallow.
“Jesus!” Rory burst out at his father. “You’ve been a real bastard lately. What in hell’s the matter with you?”
Davis stretched his arms over his head and looked bored. Ignoring the question, he turned to his wife. “Are you coming with me to Tanzania in August?”
“Lion hunting,” Kiki mocked. “Sleeping out in tents and listening to baboons at night.”
“You’re just afraid you won’t be able to get the red dye number twenty for your hair.”
“It’s just that I could never imagine taking up a gun and deliberately killing anything.”
Davis smiled, a lazy confident expression that said he could more than imagine it. It sent a chill through Rory.
“Why don’t you take one of your little diversions to Africa?” Kiki suggested coldly. “Impress her.”
“It worked on you,” Davis came back without missing a beat.
Rory’s father and mother had met when Gates Campbell and prominent surgeon Carl Mainwearing brought their adult children on safari. The matchmaking must have been effective, for within weeks after the trip, Kiki and Davis were married.
“What about you and Tanzania, son?” he asked. “Why not bring Sylvia?”
“No, thanks.” He didn’t bother to reveal he’d not seen her since the night of the Senator’s fundraiser.
“Speaking of Sylvia …” Davis’s casual air turned intent. “Wilson McMillan’s house party this weekend will be a nice place for you two to make an announcement.”
Wilson McMillan, well over seventy years old, was one of the founding fathers of the northern California developer’s club. Rory had been invited and planned to go … alone.
“I’m not taking Sylvia to McMillan’s.”
“She’ll be there,” Davis assured. “She, Larry, and her mother.” He frowned. “You’re not planning to bring Mariah Grant, are you?”
These past weeks Rory had tried to forget Mariah. A hundred times, he’d played back her hurtful words in the hospital hall, when she’d accused him of causing her father’s heart attack. He’d driven his Porsche relentless miles. Yet, each night, tossing on sweat-dampened sheets, he was haunted by her quick intelligence, the soft look in her golden eyes when she came into his arms.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not bringing Mariah to McMillan’s.”
Rory noted that at the mention of John Grant’s daughter his mother sat straighter and studied him. Perhaps she read the sadness in him, kindred to her own as she said, “Don’t settle for the wrong woman, Rory. Even if you have to remain alone.”
Turning to her husband, Kiki went on, “I was foolish enough to believe I was the one you wanted.”
“I’ve stayed with you all these years …” Davis began.
“You’ve stayed, I’ve stayed.” She slashed at air with her hand. “But lately, you’ve been so strange I might surprise you and go.”
Rory couldn’t take any more. “I hate to give you the satisfaction, Father, but I’ve had about all of these family values I can take.” He bent, brushed a kiss on his mother’s cheek where there might have been tears, and left the house.
His mother’s suggestion of staying alone rather than being with the wrong woman was exactly what he planned. But why did Mariah Grant, whom everyone agreed was wrong for him, continue to feel so right?
CHAPTER 10
Thaddeus Walker of First California did not belong at Grant Development unannounced on a Wednesday morning.
With a sigh, Mariah pushed the button on her office phone and told the receptionist that someone would be with him shortly. She rose from her desk, sorting through the possible reasons for the visit, and wished she knew Walker better. The bank representative had taken over the company account last winter when Bill Bryan, Grant’s manager of twenty years, had passed away. Not even John had had much time to develop a relationship with the new man. In fact, he had mentioned several times that he was thinking of shopping for another bank.
Although it was nearly nine, a glance down the hall told Mariah that Tom Barrett wasn’t in. She thought of asking corporate attorney Ed Snowden or PR director April Perry to join her with Walker, but dealing with the financial side was Arnold Benton’s turf, and she knew it. With reluctance, she phoned and asked him to meet her in John’s office.
In the reception area, she found the narrow-faced banker reading The Wall Street Journal. His close-cropped grayish hair did nothing to hide his prominent ears. His cuffs were shot from the sleeves of his expensive charcoal suit, and his tie depicted money, gold coins on blue silk.
Mariah wished she’d worn something more formal than olive drab slacks and an open-necked khaki shirt, but she had not expected outside meetings today.
She greeted Walker and found out he shook hands like a dead fish. Then she led the way to the corner office while he silently followed. Arnold, jacket on, pale hair neatly combed, had beaten her to John’s chair.
“Coffee?” she asked Walker.
He refused with a curt shake of his large head.
Arnold said, “Black,” with a tight grin.
Mariah crossed to the door and asked John’s secretary to get it.
Taking a seat in one of the chairs across from Arnold, Walker leaned back and made a tent of his fingers. Apparently in no hurry to get to the point of his visit, he proceeded to study his hands as if the solution to a fascinating and intricate problem lay in their proper alignment. Twenty-nine stories below on Market Street, an emergency siren wailed faintly.
At last, Walker addressed Arnold, “Back in May when Grant had those late loan payments …”
Mariah almost gasped aloud. She’d worked at Grant the entire month of May and heard nothing about any payments in arrears. She shot a hard look at Arnold and found him avoiding her eyes.
Walker went on, “I was willing to accept your explanation that you were changing software. Now, this accident and the news coverage have spooked our directors.”
Mariah got a griping sensation in her gut. Her father had always advised that saying too much was more deadly than too little, but Arnold began babbling about the unreliability of computers. She knew the trouble with that. Computers were built by people, programmed by people, and used by people.
Walker looked at John’s desk as if estimating its cost. “After the … incident at Grant Plaza, I was willing to give a company with the strength of yours the benefit of the doubt, but with John’s health problems …”
Mariah interrupted. “His doctors say he should be back at work in a matter of weeks.” They had originally projected twelve, actually months, but she wasn’t going to tell Walker that or anything about the complications her father had been having.
Arnold joined in. “Grant Development is not about John Grant, or his family.” He gave her a disparaging look. “We have many projects and fine people.” Though the statement was a backhanded attack, he’d essentially said what she would have told the banker.
“I’m sorry.” Walker’s tone said he wasn’t. “I’ve got no choice but to call your business loans with First California
.”
Mariah went hot all over. Two hundred million dollars, all but a few tied up in properties under construction.
“For God’s sake,” she said, “we haven’t even completed our investigation of the accident.”
“You know the bank has a perfect right to call your notes.” Walker’s eyes narrowed. “Your payments were late, and that allows me to foreclose.”
She wanted to storm at Arnold, to ask how he had permitted this. All companies borrowed money as their lifeline, but his department had tightened their rope into a noose.
“You know we don’t have that kind of money lying around.” Her hands started to shake, and she folded them together in her lap. Thank God that Dad wasn’t here.
Arnold continued to talk too fast. Walker simply stared at him.
At last, Mariah turned and waited until the banker met her direct look. “Do we have any room here?”
He shook his head. His porcine eyes made her understand why John had wanted someone else to handle their account. It also reminded her with sharp clarity of seeing him cozying up to Davis Campbell at his mansion last month.
“Effective date?” she asked.
“June sixth. Cash.”
“It’s May twenty-eight. That’s next Friday,” Arnold blurted.
“The sixth is the monthly payment date on your schedule. Good as any, I expect.”
Mariah felt a dizzying sensation. She stayed upright by pinching the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger and telling the black sparks in her vision to go away.
“Shouldn’t we have ninety days or something?” She hoped her voice sounded normal.
“Old Bill Bryan and your dad were great friends. Their loan agreements were dirt simple, either party could back out any time. Guess John shouldn’t have trusted Bill would always be around.”
Mariah rose to indicate the meeting was at an end and let Arnold see Walker out. Left alone, she looked at her father’s empty chair. Such a short time ago he’d had been on top of the world, watching Grant Plaza soar toward completion.
Arnold came back with Tom Barrett. The big man looked as rumpled as Mariah felt. “I heard,” he said gravely. She waited for him to tell her what to do, but he sank into a chair with a sigh and offered nothing.
“This isn’t my fault.” Arnold’s hands moved restlessly. “We were changing our accounts payable software. Your father did those deals with Bill Bryan, you heard …”
“I should fire you right now,” Mariah said.
He reddened. “How dare you sweep in here and start running the place? I’ve been with John for the past seven years and where were you?”
“Arnold,” Tom warned.
Though the tirade subsided, Arnold continued to glare at her.
“As for you, Mariah,” Tom went on, “you may be John’s next in line, but this isn’t the time to go throwing your weight around. If there’s any way out for Grant, we need a man who understands our finances inside and out. God knows, I haven’t been much help lately.”
Without her father, with Tom a beaten shadow of his former self, and the loans due in a matter of days, the future of Grant Development settled onto her slender shoulders.
Driving south from downtown, Mariah tried to think how she’d break the news to her father. Though both Tom and Arnold had offered to come with her, she’d insisted on going alone. John didn’t need to see any displays of disunity in his senior staff.
What could they do? Try another bank, but with all the negative publicity, it would be an uphill battle. The most obvious solution, and the one she hated most, was to try and sell off properties prior to their completion. Her hands clenched the wheel as she realized Grant Plaza might have to be one of them.
Arriving too soon in Stonestown, she parked in front of her father’s house. Inside, she found him in his recliner, dressed in casual flannel pants and a T-shirt. His legs, encased in elastic stockings, were elevated.
“Where’s Mrs. Schertz?” she asked, surmising from the air of stillness in the house that he was alone.
“I sent her to the grocery store.” Something sharp in his tone tipped her.
She met his eyes. “Who called you?”
“Arnold.”
“That weasel.”
Her father looked reproachful. “The man is as distraught as can be. He said you refused to let him come with you.”
“I didn’t want you upset.”
“You can’t protect me from everything. I’m just as disturbed about the threat to the company no matter who brings the news.” He patted the hassock beside his chair. “Your attitude toward Arnold is a great disappointment to me.”
Mariah ignored the summons to sit. “Can’t you see he despises me precisely because I’m your daughter? I’ll bet he thinks without me he’d be your heir apparent.”
John studied her with steady eyes. “He would. Tom and I aren’t getting any younger, and you’re not ready to run things alone.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Now that Thaddeus Walker had pulled the foundation from under Grant Development, she longed for her father to be whole and well, to take the burden from her.
“Rely on Arnold, daughter. He does care for me, even if you can’t see it.” He nodded toward an expensive carved soapstone chessboard that had appeared in the house a few years ago. “He brought that back for me from Alaska. We play together every Wednesday evening … it’s time we started again.”
It was no use arguing that she’d seen Arnold’s kind before, people who sucked up to get ahead.
“About the loans …” she said.
John nodded. She would have expected more emotion, but he sat expressionless. Then she recalled his doctor saying the beta blocker drugs used to slow his heart rate kept a person calm.
Trying to keep her own head, she finally took a seat. “Before I came home, I talked to Ed Snowden and had him give a legal opinion on the borrowing agreement. At first, I thought it was impossible for First California to do this, but Ed says it’s going to happen unless we do something drastic. Sell some properties.”
Her father stirred to life. “Davis Campbell would love that.”
He was right. Despite Arnold’s accusing her of seeing bogeymen under the bed, she wondered if Davis had influenced the banker’s decision by dangling some bait, like sending DCI business to First California.
“Dad,” she said. “I saw Davis and Walker together at his party. They looked mighty cozy.”
Despite the drugs, her father swore a vicious oath. “I’ll have to come back to work.”
“No,” she argued. “Your sternum won’t be healed for another three weeks, and you can’t drive or lift over ten pounds until then. Let me take care of things.” It was the least she could do to make up for her role in putting him in the hospital.
He scratched at his scar, his angry expression dissipating. With his ability to read her, he said, “It’s time for you to stop blaming yourself.”
How she wished she could shed the weight of guilt. “Every time I think of it, I want to go back in time and undo that phone call. Telling you I was with Rory right after we buried Charley was unforgivable.”
John reached toward her with a pale hand. Blue veins showed through his skin as though he were a much older man. “Love makes everything forgivable.” He smiled gently. “There is no way you gave me a heart attack by letting me know you were with Rory. I’m just glad you figured him out before you got hurt again.”
She looked away, hoping to hide how the mention of Rory slashed at her. Her eyes sought a tapestry over the sofa. An elderly bearded man in traditional robes stood on an arched wooden bridge with a young woman. Behind them, the uniquely serrate mountains of Japan strove for the silken sky. When she was a child, she and her father had liked to walk in the Japanese Garden at Golden Gate Park, and she’d imagined the picture was a magic glimpse of them when she grew up.
“Look at me.” John put a hand over his chest and breathed a little fast.
She
lowered her eyes from the threads, reminded of the complex web woven by deceit. She still wanted Rory and had to hide it.
“Just as I’ve never been able to care for anybody but your mother, you’ve never moved on in all these years. I’ve watched and hoped you’d find someone else, not make work your life the way I have.”
His words underscored how the threat to Grant Development cut to the core of everything she stood for.
The telephone rang. Perhaps Mrs. Schertz was calling on her cell to ask what brand of mustard John preferred. On the other hand, it might be Tom with something from the office. Mariah moved to answer it.
“Hello, it’s Lyle Thomas,” said the assistant D.A. she’d talked with at the Marriott, a blond Norseman tamed into a business suit. “I tried your office.”
“I came home to see Dad.”
“I was sorry to hear about his health problems,” Lyle said sincerely. “Please give him my best wishes.”
“I’ll do that.” She reminded herself that as big a gossip as Lyle was, she must be careful not to let him know about the loans.
“You remember I said I’d introduce you to some people?” He sounded hearty even on the phone. “Well, there’s a house party at Wilson McMillan’s place in Pacific Grove this coming weekend.”
Mariah knew of McMillan well. An attractive offer, but she couldn’t see leaving Dad alone overnight. “I’m sorry, Lyle, but …”
“No ‘buts.’” He chuckled. “If you’re worried about sleeping arrangements, this is strictly platonic.”
“I believe you,” she said, “but with my father’s illness, I won’t be able to go.”
As soon as she got off the phone, John asked. “Was that Lyle Thomas of the D.A.’s office?”
“That’s right.”
“You said no to what?”
“He asked me to Wilson McMillan’s house party.”
With a gesture toward a pile of mail on the table beside him, John said, “I was invited.” He rummaged, found an envelope and tossed it to her. “That’s his house.”
Children of Dynasty Page 13