Children of Dynasty

by Christine Carroll

  Supervisor Cassie Holden greeted them in the main trailer. “John, Mariah. I’m glad you’re here.” Her cheek bore a healing scar where flying glass had struck her, a little more prominent than the one on Mariah’s forehead. “Ramsey Rhodes is touring the site with the OSHA rep. Said they’ve got the final results of the investigation.”

  Mariah’s pulse accelerated. “What caused it?”

  “He didn’t want to tell me before he had a chance to talk with you and John.” Cassie opened the trailer door and yelled to a man in a hard hat standing near the base of the replaced hoist. “What floor is Ramsey on?”

  “Top,” came the answering shout.

  “Let’s go.” John’s expression suggested both determination and wariness.

  Mariah headed for the hoist with him, suspecting he was thinking about Davis. Cassie discreetly stayed behind.

  The metal cage waited at the base of the tower. Normally, Mariah loved the sensation of ascending a structure that only existed from hard work and imagination. Today, her stomach fluttered as she and John rose into the sky. The closer they got to the top, the less she wanted to hear what Ramsey had to say. If her suspicions were correct, the heat stress already found on the cable held the evidence of sabotage. There might not be any way to pin it on Davis, but for the sake of Charley and his family, she had to try and find justice.

  If she, if her PI, found evidence his father were guilty would Rory want to divorce her?

  The hoist reached the top floor. Though the view of the city, Bay, and bridges was spectacular, she turned without savoring it and went into the building.

  Afternoon light grayed in the center away from the tinted windows. Bits of paper and other debris littered the concrete floor from one side of the building to the other. The only breaks in the space were the central elevator shafts and stairwells. Ramsey stood at the north windows talking on his cell phone.

  Mariah headed for him with slow dread. How was it possible that after the long wait for answers, she no longer wanted to hear? With all her heart, she wished that Davis had nothing to do with Charley’s death.

  As she approached Ramsey, she heard him say, “She and John are here now. I’ll tell her you’re waiting on the okay for a press release.” He pressed the “end” button. “That was April. Ready to give out the good news.”

  “About the foreclosure?”

  Ramsey shook his head. “No. She’s already sent that one.”

  Mariah replayed what he’d said about good news and her steps slowed further. The knot in the middle of her stomach twisted. “It wasn’t sabotage?”

  Completely out of character, Ramsey grinned from ear to ear. “A design flaw, the best possible outcome for us. The hoist company is calling a warning for all of their leased equipment to be inspected before tragedy strikes anywhere else.”

  “Thank you,” Mariah said. “Oh, thank you.”

  Near the end of the arduous day, Rory was left alone, sitting in his father’s chair. His tie had been put aside, his collar loosened. It was all over, as that tired saying went, all but the shouting. Father wasn’t going to take this quietly, even if he had left the building as soon as his letter was signed.

  Just after six, Mariah called Rory from outside the locked lobby doors, and he went to meet her. She looked beautiful; a few strands of her hair wisping around her neck, and he wanted to take the rest of it down. To run his hands up her arms and pull her against him.

  Because John stood beside her, he did not.

  “The accident report is complete,” she said. “We got it and came straight here.”

  Sweat broke out on his palms and under his arms. His heart set up a rough and heavy beat. Not Father, oh, not Father. “What caused it?” he asked in as normal a tone as he could manage.

  John answered. “The hoist cable showed metal fatigue caused by the heat of vibration. A gear misalignment.”

  Rory’s eyes closed, and he let out his breath. No matter what else his father had done, he wasn’t a murderer.

  “The cable was past due for replacement from a work standpoint, but not according to hours,” Mariah said. “Only under the scanning electron microscope in a metallurgist’s lab could the problem have been detected. And the fact that the emergency brake failed to arrest the fall is a one in a million piece of bad luck.”

  “He didn’t do it.” Rory’s voice rose. “He didn’t do it.”

  Mariah looked at him with somber eyes. “I wish I could jump up and down and be happy. I am happy … but what I did was terrible, jumping to conclusions.”

  John put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “You have to admit Davis pulled some pretty low tricks this spring.”

  “Yes, but whatever else he may have done, I owe him an apology,” Mariah said.

  Rory felt as though there were a weight on his chest. “He won’t take it. He’ll never want to see either of us again.”

  “Don’t you see, we have to try?” she insisted. “He was making the same mistake so many of us do, dwelling on an old hurt.”

  John rubbed his chin. “You know, that makes me think. The other day Davis said I had never apologized for taking Catharine from him.”

  “You told him you never would.” Rory didn’t see where his father deserved an apology for John loving Catharine.

  The older man looked chagrined. “I said I’d never apologize for loving her, but what we did, getting married while he was in Africa … that’s always set heavy on my conscience. Maybe what I need to do, what we all need to do, is accept blame for our own part in all that’s happened.”

  Thirty minutes later, Rory turned into the cul-de-sac at Seacliff. He was driving Mariah’s sedan carrying the three of them, as his Porsche did not have a back seat big enough to accommodate anyone larger than a preschooler.

  Rory got out of the car, chimed the doorbell, and knocked. An inquiring glance from Mariah reminded him once more of the ignominy of a son not having a key to the house he’d grown up in. His “Halloo!” echoed off stone and glass.

  Anna came to door, moving slowly as usual.

  As soon as she opened it, Rory pushed past her, leaving Mariah and John on the threshold. He went into the kitchen where the Sub Zero threw back his reflection, along with the rest of the ultra modern stone and stainless room. In a ceramic bowl on the counter, he found the spare keys.

  Mariah caught up with him. He recognized the extra door keys, selected one, and twisted it off. He put the key in his pocket. “I should have done this years ago.”

  Together, they returned to the foyer. His mother’s sitting room and the library lay in darkness.

  “Mr. Rory.” Anna twisted her hands together and he hated that he was making the well-loved housekeeper nervous. “Your mother is in the family room.”

  Her eyes avoided his and Rory’s scalp prickled. What if Davis was taking his anger at being ousted out on Kiki?

  Once more leaving Mariah and the slower moving John behind, he raced across the foyer and into the trophy room.

  His mother sat slumped on the slate floor. An Alaskan brown bear on its hind legs towered over her. Rory wondered that she wasn’t freezing, sitting on the chill stone in a thin dress. Tears ran down her cheeks to join the others that had splattered her red silk like raindrops. He surmised now that Anna’s nervousness had been because of her following the family rule that servants didn’t see certain things.

  Like the half-empty brandy bottle atop the bar.

  But the family rules were being shattered, and Rory had a sense that something irrevocable was about to happen.

  Kiki struggled to her feet and went to the wet bar, where she stared at her reflection. Raising her hands to her cheeks, she kneaded the skin with fingers that clutched, then grasped. Her sharply manicured nails produced a line of blood that welled beneath her left ear.

  “Mom,” Rory cried.

  She turned and saw him. He moved toward her, but he was still fifteen feet away when she grabbed and swung the brandy bottle. The
mirror disintegrated into crystal shards. Liquor fumes fogged the falling glass. She stumbled back from the wreckage, clutched the edge of the granite bar top for a second, and then dropped out of sight.

  Rory rushed to her, fragments of mirror and bottle crunching beneath his shoes. He slipped one arm beneath her shoulders and the other behind her knees, carried her to a leather couch, and laid her down. Swiftly, he checked her back and bare feet for cuts. Thankfully, there were none.

  He became aware of Mariah beside him, her fist pressed against her mouth.

  From behind him, John said, “My God.”

  Rory heard Mariah’s footsteps and the gurgle of running water as she wet a bar towel with cold water and brought it to him.

  He wiped the smear of blood from Kiki’s cheek. “Mom.”

  She stirred and opened her eyes. “Rory.”

  “You have to leave him,” he said.

  “Leave me?” Davis said from the door to the interior hall. Still wearing his European cut suit and Italian silk tie, he surveyed the wreckage. A hundred tall men seemed to march off in all directions where the remaining bar mirrors faced against one on the other wall. To Rory’s relief, he sounded sober and he looked as though he’d just gotten home.

  When Kiki spoke, Rory realized she wasn’t drunk, either, as he’d thought. “Yes, leave you.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position on the couch. “I always stayed, because I thought someday you’d get over your precious Catharine, that no living woman could ever hope to equal.” A fat tear streaked down her cheek, leaving a darkened trail in her face powder.

  Rory got between his father and his mother, a deep trembling in his chest. From the corner of his eye, he saw that John had his arm around Mariah as though to insulate her.

  Kiki’s voice gained strength. “I got a call from a florist today, one I’ve never used. It seems that Chez Paris has a new employee, one who made the mistake of calling your home instead of your office to ask about your weekly order. My God, you’ve sent flowers to her grave every week for nearly thirty years.”

  “Respect for the dead,” Davis replied.

  Rory wanted to slug him. “Show some respect for the living. Mom and I have been here for you, all those years.”

  “Haven’t I been there for you?” His father pointed an unsteady finger at him. “I taught you to sail, to build … I wanted you on the executive floor with me. If I was tough on you, it was because I wanted you to do well.”

  “You mean all the times you’ve given me a hard time, you thought you were being a stern taskmaster?” Rory raised his voice and felt a hand on his shoulder.

  John restrained him. “Davis always has been a perfectionist. Whether he was sailing,” he pointed to a shelf of prominent gold cups, “hunting,” he gestured to the world record trophy animals, “or working, he has to have things just so.” He looked at Davis. “Am I right?”

  “You’re right,” Davis said with a trace of wariness.

  “And isn’t it true,” John went on, “that you love your son? From the time he was a kid on that sailboat and you taught him how to steer?”

  Davis made a gesture of impatience. “Of course I love him.”

  Rory went still inside, but he couldn’t help his reply. “Your delivery could use some work.”

  Kiki pushed up from the couch and faced her husband. “I always dreamed someday you’d come to love me. Do you have any idea what it’s like to go on living day after day, without hope?”

  The silence that fell seemed as vast as the Pacific outside the wall of windows.

  Rory developed an urge to clear his throat and suppressed it.

  The moment lengthened, while his parents searched each other’s eyes in a manner he suspected they had not for years.

  Finally, Davis spoke in a voice that sounded thick. “I love you, too.”

  “Then why can’t you let go of the past?” Kiki’s voice cracked.

  Davis glanced at Mariah. “Whenever I see her, looking so much like Catharine, it brings up the possibilities I dreamed of and never had.” He took a step toward his wife. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t choose you. I remember how the setting sun caught fire in your red hair on the banks of the Zambezi. How …?”

  “Ancient history,” Kiki drilled. “What about that bitch that called you on the phone in the Marin Club?”

  “I swear to God it was Thaddeus Walker’s assistant Louise arranging a meeting. I would have told you, but after you threw your wine at me I didn’t even try.” He drew a shaking breath. “As for the stories about women, the paparazzi make things out to be more spicy than they are.”

  “Amen to that,” said John.

  Davis shifted his gaze to him. “You were right that seeing Mariah grown dredged up a desire to make you pay for stealing Catharine … especially when you knew I loved her.”

  John left Mariah’s side and took a step toward Davis. “You know very well that I couldn’t steal what you never really had. The other day I said I would never apologize, but I was wrong.”

  Davis cocked an eyebrow.

  “I am sorry for the way things happened. If I had it to do over, I would never have married her until after you came back from Africa. I’d have insisted Catharine meet with you and tell you in her own words what her desires were. Then, maybe you could have found a way to remain my friend, perhaps we could have worked together instead of at cross purposes.”

  Davis strode toward the bar, sidestepped the mess of glass and liquor and took down a bottle of scotch. He pulled down a glass, poured two fingers and tossed off one.

  “You’re apologizing to me?” he said in disbelief.

  “Not for loving Catharine, not for marrying her,” John said firmly, “but for doing it in a way that inflicted maximum pain.”

  Davis stared at him for a long time. The silence was once more absolute in the great, high-ceilinged room. Rory watched the two men and realized he was holding his breath.

  Finally, his father nodded. “I suppose that’s as good as I can expect.”

  He reached to the bar shelf and took down another glass. He poured scotch into it, picked it up, and gestured with it toward John. His arrogance had been replaced by what looked like regret.

  John took three steps toward the bar and stopped.

  Davis brought both glasses and met him halfway. “We could have made a hell of a team.”

  John took the drink and knocked it against Davis’s. Both men drank.

  “Of course, that will never happen after this morning,” Davis went on.

  “What happened this morning?” Kiki asked sharply.

  He turned to her. “It was on the news. I thought when I walked in that you’d heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Rory and Mariah got married yesterday in Lake Tahoe.”

  Kiki gasped and swiveled her head. Her green eyes glinted at Rory and then shifted to Mariah.

  “And they found a way to pressure me out of the company.” In a transparent effort to save face, Davis went on, “John’s out, too and the kids are going to form one company.”

  She looked from Rory to Mariah. “They’re married?”

  “It was a sound business strategy, so I suppose I did teach him a thing or two,” Davis said grudgingly. “And I guess you taught your daughter well, John.”

  Mariah moved, her heels rapping the slate floor. “Business strategy?” she echoed. “Business strategy?” She came to Rory’s side and took his hand. “I’ll have you know I happen to love your son.”

  Though Rory had hoped she loved him, and been ready to tell her himself this morning, her words sent him spiraling. Hoping and hearing it were two different things, and the roller coaster they’d been on hit a new high.

  Before he could tell her and the whole room he loved her, Mariah focused on Davis.

  “The reason I came here this evening is to apologize to you as well. We found out today that the hoist fell due to a design flaw. I was wrong to believe you were behind the accide
nt.”

  “I’m sorry about that, too, Dad.” Rory used the name he’d called his father when he was a boy.

  Davis drank off the rest of his scotch, set down the glass with a clatter on an end table. He sighed. “Thank you for that much.”

  Kiki got to her feet. “I don’t understand all this. You and John, Rory and Mariah taking over … are you talking about the accident at Grant Plaza?”

  “I’m afraid we are,” Davis replied. He turned to the others. “I think my wife and I need some time to sort things out.”

  “Of course,” John said.

  Rory looked at his mother to gauge her reaction. Her tears, that had dried, once more brightened her green eyes.

  He went to her, bent and kissed her cheek. “Is that okay with you, Mom? Should we go now?”

  Davis had said he loved her, and Rory wondered how long it had been since he’d told his wife that.

  Kiki put her arms around Rory. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “And remember he said he loved you, too.”

  Despite that his father’s delivery needed work, the content sounded like a good start.

  At nine that night, Mariah sat beside Rory in his Porsche as he pulled into his townhouse garage. They’d left Davis and Kiki alone and had dinner with her father. It had not taken much persuasion on his part to convince them to go to one of their places for privacy.

  “I’m glad we came here,” she told Rory. “I don’t want to spend another night in my apartment.” Though it was not time to forget Charley — that would never happen — she needed to move on.

  Inside Rory’s home, her home now, they passed through the kitchen and living room and took the stairs to the second floor. Dusk was falling outside his bedroom and when he reached for the switch, Mariah stayed his hand.

  “The view is beautiful.” She was glad he’d left the drapes open.

  They walked past his king-sized bed to the window. From their vantage point high on Vallejo, the vista was of the higher Telegraph Hill to the northeast and the slope down to the Embarcadero and the Bay.