When I Meet You

by Olivia Newport

Veronica opened a second suitcase. “This is the case where it has lived for the last decade. I promise not to let it languish there another ten years.”

  “Thank you for letting me see it.”

  “Anything interesting?” Veronica picked up the tablecloth, and Jillian helped her spread and smooth it on the table.

  “You mean like three Parisi brothers, one of whom moved to Denver?”

  “No way!”

  Jillian gave a quick summary of the three brothers and what the dissertation’s writer posited about their connections to the Mafia wars of the era and her own letters.

  “So do you think the Parisis only took a bad turn when they came to America,” Veronica said, “or were they already trouble in Sicily?”

  “Only in America, I think.” Jillian smoothed the last wrinkle out of the tablecloth.

  “Do you wonder sometimes what makes people change?”

  “That’s a good question. Survival. I don’t think Luciano was bad at heart necessarily. He just had a family to look out for and did what he thought he had to do. Something specific must have happened to make Salvatore decide the moment had come to leave New Orleans, but the dissertation doesn’t say, and neither do the letters from Luciano.”

  “It sounds like Luciano wanted to change.”

  “Agreed. Whether he did when he didn’t get out of New Orleans, who knows?”

  “And Geppetto?” Veronica asked. “Do you know who that is?”

  Jillian shook her head. “My mother always seemed to think she didn’t have any other branches of the family in Denver. Now I wonder. Though of course it was a long time ago. Anything could have happened to them.”

  The Inn’s front door opened, and Kris Bryant came in.

  “Look who’s here,” she said. “I thought I’d stop in and see if there’s something more I can do to help your dad.”

  “He’s grateful for space in your fridge,” Jillian said. “Goodness knows every square inch at our house is in use.”

  “What’s the word on the street?” Veronica asked.

  “Sales were brisk yesterday,” Kris said. “The fine weather means lots of people out—and in my case, selling lots of ice cream. Even Marilyn seems to be having a good time.”

  “Do I hear a band starting already?” Jillian said.

  “Keep up with the schedule, girlfriend,” Kris said. “Catch you later. I’m going to go find Nolan.” She disappeared around a corner.

  “I should go see if Dad needs help too,” Jillian said.

  “Don’t leave yet.” Veronica reached behind a chair where she’d stashed several bags of supplies. “I was going to give this to Nolan, but I suppose you’ll know what to do with it just as well. It’s the forensic accounting report from Luke’s friend. He printed out the email.”

  Jillian scanned the sheet Veronica handed her and then raised her eyes to Veronica’s. “Do me a favor, please. Let my dad know I decided to walk home. I want to do a couple of things before I get involved helping him in the kitchen.”

  Veronica pointed at the page. “This report changed your morning plans?”

  “I need to check some things out. Just tell my dad, please.”

  In ten minutes she could be home comparing what this report confirmed with what the trial transcript revealed.

  What makes people change, Veronica had asked a few minutes ago. Maybe she could figure out the answer to what made Lynnelle change in the way she did before she explained everything to Drew.

  On top of the refrigerator, Jillian found a loaf of bread that was fair game for toast, and she made herself a second cup of creamless coffee before settling in to dissect the accountant’s email alongside her notes from the trial transcript. For now she would have to do without her father’s legal mind.

  “In summary,” the accountant wrote at the end of his message, “while it is clear that some prominent records are missing from the chronology these records present, a sly pattern is apparent in the timing of requests for funds allegedly for investment purposes, suggesting that these requests were made with increasing pressure that the client might miss out on unique opportunities for significant profit by demonstrating any hesitation in complying with the investment funding. At the same time, there is an alarming lack of accountability for the funds disbursed. The outgoing expense is not offset in an income column in the usual manner, but neither is it written off as an investment gone bad within a reasonable period of time, suggesting that the receiver of funds was continuing to make promises that the investments would yet pay off. In fact, similar yet gradually increasing amounts were disbursed, by a blend of wires and checks, to a shifting roster of investment opportunities that are most likely a coded arrangement for moving money between accounts in a way that would eventually create difficulties in tracking it and ultimately add up to fraud. However, without being able to do a full audit of the disbursing company’s books and based on the explanation you provided of the reason for this inquiry, I would agree that the bearer of these documents was not complicit. To the contrary, she might well have been in grave danger if she trusted the wrong person. This would have been easy to do. The people who ran these confidence schemes were just as adept in their time as they are in our own.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Denver, Colorado

  May 14, 1909

  Dear Miss Bendeure,

  I am sure this will be our final correspondence before your journey begins. The matters you have inquired about, and the lines of investigation Pinkerton’s has pursued on your behalf, have revealed inconsistencies and irregularities that bear close scrutiny not only on your behalf but on behalf of others who have been less vigilant than your father or, in some cases, less determined to right injustices once discovered. I do urge caution in all things upon your arrival and look forward to speaking in person without inhibition about all these details, realizing that since our progress reports in the meantime cannot reach you, we will simply hold them for your arrival.

  Yours sincerely,

  James McParland

  Manager, Western Division

  Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency

  Monday, May 24, 1909

  Denver, Colorado

  The next time a knock came, she said, “Who is it?”

  “It’s us.” Willie’s voice.

  Lynnelle opened the door. “Where have you been all day?”

  “We might ask the same question,” Carey said.

  So Geppetto’s loyalty exceeded his instinct for self-protection. Lynnelle ignored the remark.

  “Where are the papers?” Lynnelle said.

  Willie unpinned Lynnelle’s hat and shook her hair loose. “Everything went perfectly.” She lifted the satchel over her shoulder and handed it to Lynnelle.

  “They really believed you were me?”

  “Right down to thinking I would go with them into the private offices of a bank and sign the authorization to move the accounts.”

  “But Clarice and Henry?”

  “Just as we thought, they were smart enough not to be physically present,” Carey said, “but our men were waiting for them as soon as their contact inside the bank tried to tamper with the accounts and shift funds to them.”

  “It really was them all along?”

  Carey nodded. “They’ve been operating with half a dozen aliases in four states.”

  Lynnelle dropped into a chair. “A contact inside the bank is a frightening prospect.”

  “It was a chain of confidence schemes. I suspect your father’s representative was legitimate at some point and fell prey to the temptation of greed promised by people like Clarice and Henry. He was integral in infiltrating the bank with his own promises of profit for a few moments of risk. The bank’s president is horrified.”

  “So everyone has been arrested?” Lynnelle said.

  “Right up the line.”

  “What a relief.” Lynnelle exhaled and shook her head. “I didn’t know what I was going to tell my father if you t
wo had snookered me into a confidence scheme of your own.”

  “We were always the guys in white hats, Lynnelle.” Carey’s dimple was back.

  “I have a telephone call of my own to make,” Willie said. “Charles made me promise to call as soon as this was over.”

  “Charles?” Lynnelle said.

  “Her beau.” Carey winked. “Husband, if she would get around to saying yes.”

  Lynnelle looked from Willie to Carey. “But I thought—”

  “The two of us?” Carey’s dimple deepened. “Meet my twin sister. Everything I know about being sneaky, I learned from her.”

  “Your sister?”

  “It was all part of the cover. You understand.”

  “I do now.” Lynnelle feasted on those eyes and that dimple without guilt for the first time. “So I can call my father and then collect my trunk?”

  The dimple disappeared.

  “Carey,” Lynnelle said. “My trunk. It’s only been a day. Surely it’s still at Union Station.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But if you don’t mind, we’d like you to let us handle the communication with your father. We’re going to have to take you into hiding until the trial.”

  “What! We never discussed this.”

  “It seemed better to go one step at a time. We still need to keep you safe.”

  “But you said you arrested everyone right up the line, including Henry and Clarice.”

  “We have reason to believe they’re not the absolute end of the line—or at least that they have nefarious contacts who would prefer that you do not testify at a trial.”

  “I haven’t agreed to testify at a trial. And Pinkerton’s is a private agency, not a branch of law enforcement.”

  “It’s quite important that you do testify, Lynnelle. Bendeure & Company was not the only victim of these activities, but you were the one brave enough to become involved to the degree that you did, even when Mr. McParland tried to discourage it because he thought it might be unsafe.”

  “He never told me it might be unsafe, only that he thought my presence was not strictly necessary.”

  “But you did choose to come. Now your presence has become essential. The banks involved will be pressing charges. Your testimony is vital. We cannot risk having you seen at Union Station or have you exposed on a train anywhere else someone might expect to find you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  So glad you made it back.” Nolan stood back from Nia’s stove and let Drew make what was sure to be an exquisite glaze for the carrots soon to go in the ovens, cut and seasoned just the way Drew had suggested a few days ago.

  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” Drew lifted a spoon and sniffed his concoction.

  “You’re not going to taste it?”

  “Don’t need to,” Drew said. “I’ve made this a hundred times. I’m sorry I had to leave you stranded yesterday, but I’m here today, and I’m all in.”

  Nolan probed. “Something came up at the ranch?”

  “I had to run down there for a few hours, but everything’s under control.” Drew nodded toward rows of bacon and cabbage pies lining the counter. “I’m bummed I didn’t get to see you put those together. I wanted to learn to make them from start to finish.”

  “Another time,” Nolan said. “You know where to find me.”

  They’d been working together most of the day, readying everything that couldn’t be prepared ahead and planning precise use of the oven space and stove burners. With only a couple of hours to go until the first seating, many items were out to bring them to room temperature before final roasting or warming.

  “Jillian’s working on the meat?” Drew said.

  “I sliced it last night, and she volunteered to oversee warming it at our house.”

  “I could go check, as soon as the carrots are ready for the oven.”

  Nolan restrained his amusement. Jillian didn’t need help warming pans of meat or preparing watercress and orange slices, the only other food not yet transported to the Inn.

  “She might like some company,” Nolan said. He’d text her as soon as he had his hands free. Something told him she would appreciate the warning.

  Nia cruised into the kitchen.

  “The place looks fabulous!” Nolan said.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way for a couple more hours,” Nia said. “The wait staff and dishwashers should be here soon, so be thinking about whether there’s anything you need to tell them about how to serve the food and clear up efficiently.”

  “Will do.”

  Nia peered at three sheets of paper taped to the refrigerator doors, outlining the schedule by fifteen-minute time segments. Drew had sufficient experience with banquets to be extraordinarily helpful mapping out the evening. The schedule and task list were printed in large type, and Nia’s large kitchen clock would keep them both mindful of keeping things moving.

  “We’re on time,” Nolan said.

  “And you’re confident you can keep to this?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t ma’am me, Nolan,” Nia said. “I used to babysit your kid.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She scowled. “Can I do anything to be helpful?”

  “You could slice bread,” Nolan said. “Drew was just about to pop over and see if he can give Jillian a hand with the spiced beef.”

  Nia looked again at the list on the fridge. “Don’t forget the watercress.”

  “No, ma’am.” Drew ducked on his way out of the kitchen.

  “You have corrupted a perfectly nice young man,” Nia said.

  Nolan shot off a text to Jillian and kept his singing to a minimum—humming, actually—while he and Nia worked their way down the tasks, adding the first batch of barley and wild rice casseroles to a low temperature oven to begin warming through, arranging the first vat of soup on the stove, where it would have to be watched carefully while it simmered, slicing bread, counting up how many vegetarian stuffed portobellos were reserved for the first seating.

  He felt ready.

  Forty minutes passed before Jillian arrived.

  She came in through the front door, calling, “Hello!”

  Nolan paced through the exquisitely appointed dining room and into the hall. His daughter looked spectacular in an emerald-green dress grazing the tops of her knees, her mother’s pearls, and her black hair piled in waves on top of her head. He’d seen her speak before, and never had she presented herself with this degree of elegance. If she’d taken the extra effort because of Drew—well, it was about time she met someone who made her feel like doing it, even if it was just for an evening or two. Drew had found time to put on a clean, crisp white chef’s shirt for the evening, one of his own he brought back from the ranch. He balanced three enormous containers of salad.

  “He wouldn’t let me carry anything,” Jillian said.

  “You’re the featured speaker,” Drew said. “We can’t risk getting anything on your dress.”

  Nolan swallowed glee at the pair of them. “Here, let me take the salad. What have you done with the meat?”

  “In my truck,” Drew said. “In the insulated bags. I’ll get them.”

  “You look very nice,” Nolan said as Jillian followed him through the dining room.

  “Nia and Veronica were afraid I might show up in jeans.”

  “Were you tempted?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to Marilyn,” Jillian said.

  Placating Marilyn would have taken far less effort than this stunning visage.

  “I’m not sure you ought to come in the kitchen,” Nolan said. “Things spatter and spill in there.”

  “Now you sound like Drew.”

  Nolan winked. “I like him. Don’t you?”

  Color rose in Jillian’s cheeks. “Dad, stop.”

  Drew was coming through the front door again and caught up with them. “Nolan, I have to say this meat smells divine.”

  “Let’s hope at some point in the evening we all
get a chance to eat the fruit of our labors,” Nolan said. “Time to start putting more things in the ovens.”

  Jillian dutifully remained beyond the boundary of any potential soiling of her ensemble, pulling a chair from the dining room table to a position where she could observe activity in the kitchen. Whenever Nolan glanced at his daughter, though, her eyes were not on him but on the movements of his assistant chef. Nia had withdrawn to her private quarters to get herself properly outfitted for hosting the evening. The clock ticked toward the arrival of the first guests. The entire day had gone precisely as planned.

  The Inn’s front door opened and thudded closed. The footsteps in the hall were measured but solid.

  Nolan raised an eyebrow in Jillian’s direction, and she got up off her chair to peer into the hall.

  She scampered back. “Drew, you’d better come.”

  Startled, he dropped a ladle deep into the cucumber soup. Nolan grabbed a pair of tongs and fished it out.

  “Drew!” Jillian hissed.

  He ran his hands under some water at the sink, dried them, and paced—unenthusiastically—into the hall. Nolan followed his progress. Clearly, Drew had an inkling what he would find. Nolan turned off the burners and trailed behind.

  Min stood in the hall examining one of Veronica’s luggage arrangements, accompanied by a woman Nolan judged to be about his own age.

  “Hello, Aunt Min,” Drew said. “I thought you and Michelle were going straight back to the ranch today. Everything is ready. Fresh groceries. Made up the bed for Michelle. Animals all look great. Weeded the garden.”

  “Then all we need is you.” Min glanced around. “I heard from your sister’s husband that you’d been home, but then you drove all the way back up here for some wild reason.”

  “It’s nice to see you, Drew,” Michelle said. “We seem to have stumbled into an affair of some sort.”

  “Yes,” Min said. “The place does look rather different than the last time I was here. But I can’t imagine what any of this has to do with you. I’m certain I made my feelings quite clear when we were here together.”

  “Yes, you did,” Drew said.

  Nolan saw no sign of Drew’s countenance shrinking in Min’s presence this time even as concern vaulted into Jillian’s features.