Perfect Partners

  Maybe she had concluded he was crazy. Psychotic or paranoid or nuttier than a fruitcake. It might be hard for the president of the company to have a lot of confidence in a psychotic CEO.

  Joel lay back against the pillows and watched the rain drip steadily outside the window. One thing was clear as crystal this morning. He owed Letty an explanation. In fact, Joel suddenly realized, he wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to talk about it. He wanted Letty to understand.

  It was an odd sensation, this feeling of wanting Letty's sympathy. He had rarely bothered to explain himself to anyone during the greater portion of his adult life. He had certainly never felt the need to justify his actions to anyone.

  But Letty was different.

  He had never known anyone quite like Letty.

  Joel shook his head in amazement as he recalled the events of the night. Little Letty Thornquist, respected member of the staff of Vellacott College, professional librarian and ex-fiancée of some turkey professor, had single-handedly strong-armed the forces of law and order in Echo Cove, Washington.

  Translated, that meant Letty had gone up against the Copeland power and won. She had gotten her chief executive officer out of jail. All charges had been dropped.

  She was turning out to be an okay executive, Joel decided. As a mentor he must be doing one hell of a good job. The thought made him grin briefly.

  The cocky amusement faded as he sat up in bed and became more acutely aware of his assorted bruises. Escott might look like a preppy, but he had managed to get in a few good punches last night.

  Joel tossed aside the covers and surveyed the motel room with a sour gaze. No doubt about it, the place was beginning to get to him.

  It was time to get out of Echo Cove. He and Letty were scheduled to leave today. But first he wanted to explain things to her. She had a right to know.

  Half an hour later Letty walked into the motel coffee shop. Joel glanced up and watched her as she came toward him down the aisle between the vinyl-covered booths. She appeared to be oblivious of the murmured comments and speculative glances she received en route.

  This morning Letty was both brisk and rumpled, as only she could look in a businesslike navy blue suit. Her little round glasses were perched firmly on her nose and her wonderful, wild hair was held back over her ears by a pair of gold combs. There was a militant expression in her fine eyes.

  Joel sprawled in the booth, gazing at Letty with a pleasant rush of possessiveness. It was getting to be a familiar sensation. He was not certain when he had started thinking of Letty as his woman, but the feeling was entrenched somewhere deep inside him now.

  And maybe it wasn't a one-sided feeling, either, he thought.

  He remembered what she had said last night when she discovered that he was being hauled off to jail: “This man happens to belong to me.”

  “I'm certainly glad one of us has something to smile about this morning.” Letty sat down across from Joel and gave him a severe glare. “What's so amusing? I'd have thought you would feel quite awful. You certainly look it.”

  “Sorry, boss. Didn't mean to annoy you. After last night we all know how you kick butt when you get annoyed.” Joel saluted her with his coffee cup.

  “It's not a joking matter, Joel. I have never been so outraged and so mortified as I was last night when I watched that man put you into a patrol car and take you off to jail.”

  “Not even when you found Dixon with Gloria the grad student?”

  Color stained her cheeks. “If you have an ounce of common sense, you will not make any more stupid remarks like that one this morning.”

  “Right, boss.”

  “Don't you dare get sarcastic with me today. I am not in the mood to tolerate it.”

  Joel held up a palm. “Okay, okay. No sarcasm.”

  Letty sat back. “What occurred last night was absolutely inexcusable. You are an executive, the CEO of a major company. How could you get into a barroom brawl?”

  “Would it help if I told you again that Escott started it?”

  “No, it would not. Joel, I will not tolerate that kind of behavior from you in the future. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was immature.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was unprofessional.”

  “Yeah. You know something, boss? It's not a good idea to chew out a subordinate in front of an audience.” Joel indicated the crowd of locals hovering over their morning coffee, ears cocked. Conversation in the room was at a minimum. Everyone was straining to listen to Letty. “Just a small management tip from your mentor.”

  Letty's mouth tightened. Nevertheless, she lowered her voice. “I think you owe me some explanations of your recent conduct. I want to know what you meant when you mentioned your father last night.”

  Joel put down his coffee and slid out of the booth. “Come on. We can't talk here.” He reached down and tugged her up out of the seat.

  “Joel, wait. I haven't had any breakfast.”

  “We'll pick something up at that fast-food place down the street. Then we're going for a drive.” Joel cast a disgusted look at the crowd in the restaurant. “There never was much privacy in this one-horse town.”

  Joel slowed the Jeep as he cruised past the small weather-beaten clapboard house on the outskirts of town. For some reason it was a shock to realize someone was living in it. A pickup truck was parked in the front yard, and there was a basketball sitting on the tiny lawn. Somebody had planted flowers under the windows.

  “Why are we stopping?” Letty turned to look at the old house.

  “I was raised in that place.”

  Letty studied the house through the steady gray rain that was still falling. “That was your home?”

  “Dad and I lived there after Mom died. Couldn't afford my own place. Took a long time to pay off Mom's medical bills. Copeland Marine didn't provide its workers with much in the way of medical insurance back in those days. Still doesn't for that matter.”

  “What did your mother die of, Joel?”

  “Breast cancer. I was eighteen at the time.”

  Letty closed her eyes briefly. “How terrible for all of you.”

  “Her death changed everything. That house isn't much to look at, but when Mom was alive, it seemed different somehow. It was a good place to grow up.”

  “Your mother made it a home.”

  “Yeah. Dad was different in those days, too. He used to laugh a lot. We did things together. Talked about the future. He always had plans.” Joel paused. “He never talked about the future again after Mom died.”

  “Oh, Joel, how awful.”

  Joel shrugged. “Dad and I combined our paychecks for three years and managed to get the hospital off our backs. I had plans to move out the summer Dad was killed. I was free at last and ready to take on the world. I was heading for the bright lights of the big city.”

  “With Diana.” Letty's voice was very soft.

  Joel smiled wryly. “Yeah, I thought Diana was going with me. I should have known better.” He put his foot back down on the accelerator. “No way was she going to disobey her daddy. And she sure as hell was not going to walk away from everything she had here. Not for some working-class nobody like me.”

  “You've come a long way, haven't you?” Letty asked dryly. “If it's any consolation, Diana apparently regrets her decision fifteen years ago.”

  “I don't give a damn whether she regrets it or not. I'm just grateful she made the choice she did.”

  “Are you certain of that, Joel?”

  “Damn certain. I'll say this one last time, Letty: I am not carrying a torch for Diana Copeland Escott. Got that?”

  “If you say so.”

  Joel frowned. She did not sound convinced. He drove in silence for a few minutes, collecting his thoughts, trying to decide where to begin. He thought he was driving aimlessly with no particular destination in mind, until he realized he had taken the turnoff that led to the old gray barn.
He eased his foot off the gas.

  “Why are we stopping this time?” Letty asked quietly.

  “I don't know. I used to come here sometimes.” Joel halted the Jeep at the side of the road, switched off the engine, and rested his arms on the steering wheel. He stared at the ramshackle barn through the rain. “I could be alone here. Nobody else ever bothered to come out this far. No reason to. The place was abandoned years ago. I'm surprised it's still standing.”

  “This was where you headed when you wanted privacy?”

  “Yeah.”

  Letty smiled softly. “I had a special place, too. Not a great old barn like this, just a little potting shed in my mother's garden. I'm sure Mom and Dad knew where I was when I disappeared into it, but they never said anything or bothered me when I was there.”

  “So maybe you and I have a few things in common,” Joel suggested.

  “Could be.” Letty unbuckled her seat belt. “Come on. Let's go see what's happened to your barn in the past few years.”

  Memories seared through Joel's head. Diana's screams. Copeland's enraged face. The heavy length of teak crashing down hard enough to break bones.

  “Letty, wait.” Joel stretched out a hand to catch hold of her, but it was too late. She was already out of the Jeep, raising her umbrella.

  Joel reluctantly got out and stood in the rain. Letty hurried around the front of the Jeep to hold the umbrella over his head.

  “Don't you have a hat, Joel?”

  “I'm all right.”

  He started walking toward the dilapidated structure. Letty followed. The place did not look all that much different than it had fifteen years ago, Joel realized. Same barnyard overgrown with weeds. Same broken windows in the loft. Same sagging door.

  But the weathered roof was still doing an amazingly effective job of keeping out the rain, Joel discovered as he led the way into the gloom. He halted and stood searching the shadows. They were still filled with bits and pieces of rusted-out farm machinery and empty feed troughs.

  Compelled by grim curiosity, Joel walked over to the horse stall on the right. Metal hinges squawked in protest as he opened the door. It was the same sound they had made that night fifteen years ago, a sound that had probably saved his life. It had given him the split-second warning he needed to roll to one side and thereby lessen the impact of the teak board Copeland wielded.

  “Someone left some old horse blankets behind,” Letty said, looking past Joel into the stall.

  Joel glanced down at the blankets where he had been lying with Diana that night. Nothing had changed. Even the damned blankets were still here. A surge of uneasiness rose like bile in his gut.

  He should never have come back here today. Not with Letty.

  “We've seen enough.” Joel grabbed Letty's wrist, intending to start back to the Jeep.

  “Wait, Joel. I want to look around some more.”

  “I don't.”

  Letty glanced at him, eyes widening with surprise at his tone. “Joel? What's wrong?”

  “Nothing, damn it.” Joel tried to school his roiling emotions. He could hardly explain that this was where he had brought Diana the night Victor Copeland discovered them. Nor did he want to talk about the peculiar way his stomach was twisting as the memories cascaded through his mind. He should never have come back here, Joel thought again.

  Letty was watching him with anxious sympathy. “Maybe it's time you told me what you meant about Copeland killing your father.”

  “Yeah, maybe it's time I did.” Joel looked down at her. “You're probably going to think I'm nuts. I've got no proof. No witnesses. Nothing to go on except my own instincts.”

  Letty put her fingers gently on his arm. “Tell me everything. Right from the beginning.”

  “You know most of it. I was seeing Diana Copeland. Her father didn't know about us. She said she wanted to wait to tell him. We both knew he wasn't going to like the idea of his daughter marrying me. I was getting impatient, though. I told her if she wouldn't do it, I'd tell him myself. She got really upset.”

  Letty frowned. “Upset?”

  “She started crying. Made me promise not to say anything to Copeland until after she'd gone back to college in the fall. I don't know what the delay was supposed to accomplish. It was just a stalling tactic as far as I was concerned. Hell, I was trying to get her out from under his thumb. She was always telling me how domineering he was.”

  “Sounds as if she was simply afraid to tell him about you and was biding her time.”

  Joel lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “Maybe. More likely she didn't really want to marry me. She just liked the thrill of fooling around with a guy she knew her father would never tolerate. In the end our luck ran out. Copeland caught us together.”

  “Copeland told me that much. He said he was furious.”

  “He was. When Victor Copeland loses his temper, he goes kind of crazy. He's a wild man.” Joel decided there was no point in going into the details. “He fired me, of course. Told me to get out of town.”

  “Did you agree to go?”

  Joel exhaled slowly. “I was more than happy to leave. I asked Diana one more time to go with me, and she had hysterics. Said she couldn't possibly go with me. Wanted me to understand that this wasn't what she had planned.”

  “She was scared. Panicked by a choice she was not prepared to make. She was just a young woman at the time.”

  “Don't kid yourself. She knew what she was doing.” Joel realized he was clenching his jaw. His dentist had told him six months ago he had to stop doing that. He forced himself to relax the muscles of his neck and shoulders. “To make a long story short, I went home and went to bed. It was two o'clock in the morning, so I didn't wake Dad to tell him what had happened. I figured the next day would be soon enough to give him the bad news.”

  “What happened the next day?”

  “Dad left for work early that morning, before I got up. I spent the day packing my stuff. When he came home after work, he was very, very angry. I'd never seen him like that. Said Copeland had just fired him. He said that he had lost his job, that he was too old to find another one, and that his life was ruined.”

  Letty looked at him with an aching sympathy in her eyes. “Copeland fired your father? Because of what you'd done?”

  “Right. Or as Dad put it, because I didn't have enough sense to keep my pants zipped around Diana Copeland.” Joel ran his fingers through his damp hair. The old tight feeling deep inside was getting bad. He could feel himself growing tense and twisted like a spring. Usually it got like this only late at night. Usually he could run it off.

  But today there did not seem to be anyplace to run.

  “Joel, that was a terrible thing for Copeland to do. It was so unfair. I can see that in his anger he might have fired you, but he had no right to let your father go.”

  Joel swore softly at her naïveté. “Fairness had nothing to do with it. Copeland was in one of his rages, and he was determined to punish all Blackstones, not just the one who had transgressed. My father had worked for Copeland Marine for over twenty years, but that didn't matter a damn to Victor Copeland. Copeland killed him.”

  Letty searched his face intently. “I don't understand. What do you mean he killed him?”

  “It's real simple, Letty. Getting fired was more than Dad could handle. His job down at the yard was the only thing that kept him going after Mom died.”

  “He had you.”

  Joel leaned back against the stall door, remembering the emptiness in his father's eyes. “I don't think he cared too much one way or the other about me after he lost Mom. He just sort of sank into himself. We shared the same house but it was like having a roommate. Something went out of him after Mom was gone.”

  “It sounds as if he fell into a clinical depression and didn't come out of it.”

  “Whatever. All I know is that losing his job was the last straw. He went out to the Anchor. Stan swore he drank himself stupid, but a couple of guys who w
ere at the Anchor that night said he wasn't that far gone when he left the place. They told me they would have driven him home if he'd been drunk. They were old friends of his, and I believe them.”

  “What happened?”

  “He drove off a cliff into the sea on the way home. A lot of people said if it wasn't drunk driving it was probably suicide. Everyone knew he had never recovered from Mom's death.”

  “My God,” Letty breathed.

  “But I've always had a few other ideas,” Joel said slowly. “He took my car that night because his pickup was out of gas. He was driving home alone in the rain. It was late at night. It would have been impossible for anyone to tell who was behind the wheel.”

  Letty's eyes widened. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

  Joel clenched his teeth. “I think there's a hell of a good chance that Victor Copeland saw my car on that narrow, winding road above the sea that night. I think it's possible he decided to take advantage of a golden opportunity to get me out of his daughter's life once and for all. I think he might have run Dad off the road with that big old Lincoln he used to drive.”

  Letty looked shaken. “That's an incredible accusation.”

  “I know. Also one I can never prove. I went down to the yard after they found Dad. I told Copeland what I thought. He got livid and called a few of his men. They threw me out.”

  “Copeland told me you went to see him at the yard.”

  “For all the good it did. But even if that isn't the way it happened, even if it was an accident or suicide, Copeland is guilty as far as I'm concerned. Guilty as hell.”

  “I understand how you must feel,” Letty said softly.

  Joel was quiet for a moment. “For some reason the worst part has been never knowing for certain just what did happen that night. I think that's what twists me up and makes me dream about it sometimes. I think it's the uncertainty. Not knowing if it was an accident or murder or suicide.”

  “There's no sense of closure because you don't know the answer. Too many loose ends and too many questions. You keep going back to it, trying to resolve it.”

  Joel gripped the side wall of the stall, bracing himself for what he was going to say next. “Do you know what Dad said to me that night before he went down to the Anchor?”