“Sure. The career woman who wants no complications.” Donna’s plucked brows raised expectantly. “Tell me another one.”
“I thought you knew that Victor’s my father.”
“I’d guessed that much,” Donna admitted.
“And Kent—he works for Dad.” She purposely left out the fact that they had once been engaged. It was over. No reason to bring up the sorry past.
“He sounds desperate.” Her gray eyes appraised Marnie. “And he keeps talking about some boat. Your boat?”
“Believe me, it’s a long and boring story,” Marnie said, stuffing her empty chow mein carton into a white sack.
“What about Adam Drake?” Donna asked, blowing on her nails.
Good question. What about Adam? She couldn’t spend a waking hour without thinking about him. “Adam used to work for my father. Maybe you read about him. It was in all the papers a year ago.”
“A year ago I was in Santa Barbara.”
“Another long and boring story,” Marnie assured her as she tossed the sack into the trash. “Let’s just say he and my dad are mortal enemies.”
“Sounds interesting. Besides, I don’t think anything about that man could be boring. He stopped by yesterday.”
“He did?” Marnie was flabbergasted.
Donna read the expression on her face and frowned. “You know, I should’ve told you, but you were gone at the time and he said it wasn’t important, that he’d come back in a few days and then I got busy with tax reports for Miles and—”
“It’s all right,” Marnie assured her, though she wasn’t up to another meeting with Adam. Not yet. She needed more time for her emotions to settle. If that were possible.
“If he shows up again, what should I tell him?”
“That I’m busy…well, no,” she retracted. She couldn’t avoid him forever, and she really didn’t want to. Sooner or later she’d have to confront him as well as her own feelings. “Tell him I’d be glad to see him,” Marnie said against her better judgment. There was a part of her that couldn’t resist Adam Drake, no matter how many times she told herself that being with him was only inviting disaster.
Two hours later, her father called. “I’ve reconsidered,” he said, and Marnie, sitting precariously on the corner of her desk, nearly fell over. Victor Montgomery wasn’t known for changing his mind once he’d taken a stand.
“And?” she said.
“I spoke to several people on the board who want to give you a chance, and it goes without saying that Kent is in your corner. He tells me I’m a fool to let pride stand in my way.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Instantly, Marnie’s defenses were up.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just show up at the meeting next Monday morning, 9:00 a.m. sharp and lay out your proposal. I want Simms, Byers, Anderson and Finelli to see what you’ve come up with. Then I’ll let you know.”
“Fair enough, Dad,” she said, trying to keep the smile from her voice. Maybe doing business with Montgomery Inns would work out after all. This might just be the first step to reconciling with her father. She and Victor were the only members of the Montgomery family. And she never doubted that her father loved her; he was just misguided in his attempt to control her life. Finally it looked as if he was about to treat her as an independent woman.
“But I think we should be clear on one point,” Victor said, his voice taking on that old familiar ring of authority.
Here it comes—the bomb. “What’s that?”
“Adam Drake.”
Her heart nearly stopped. “What about him?”
“I never want to hear his name mentioned again.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little theatrical?” Marnie asked. “He was your employee once. His name is bound to come up.”
“Not from you.”
“I can’t promise that, Dad. But I’ll try,” she conceded.
“Fair enough. I miss you, Marnie. We all do.”
“And I miss you, Dad.” She hung up feeling better than she had in weeks. Most of her anger had cooled, and she was ready to deal with him as businesswoman to businessman. She wasn’t sure just how she would handle the father/daughter relationship yet, but she was buoyed that Victor had taken the first step toward mending fences.
“One step at a time,” she told herself firmly.
The afternoon sun was pale behind a hazy layer of clouds. The smells of diesel and dead fish floated on the air and in the water. Adam shoved his sunglasses onto his head and lifted his binoculars, focusing on Elmer’s Folly, a charter fishing boat churning toward the docks of Ilwaco with Gerald Henderson on board.
It had taken him nearly a week to track down Henderson, who had fled Seattle the day after Adam crashed the party at the Puget West. The way Adam figured it, Gerald had read about Adam being thrown out of the hotel in the Seattle Observer, realized there was going to be trouble and decided to disappear for a while.
Unfortunately for Henderson, Adam knew about his sister’s beach cabin in Longview and also knew that Henderson enjoyed deep-sea fishing and usually reserved space on the same charter boat which moored in Ilwaco, a small fishing village located on the Washington shore of the mouth of the Columbia River. Elmer’s Folly chugged into the small marina, located not far from the fish-processing plant, where you could buy anything from clams to salmon or have your trophy gutted, skinned and canned or smoked, depending upon your preference.
Adam spied Henderson on board with eight other men. Good.
Lowering his binoculars, content to wait until all the fishermen disembarked, he leaned against the sun-bleached rail and shoved his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose.
Gerald Henderson took his time about getting off the boat, but finally he appeared on the dock, wearing worn jeans, flannel shirt, jacket and a hat decorated with fishing lures and hooks. He hauled a couple of fishing poles and a tackle box with him.
“Any luck?” Adam asked, once he’d closed the distance between himself and Henderson. He’d waited around most of the afternoon and now he wanted answers.
“Nah, not even a nibble,” Henderson replied before looking up and realizing Adam wasn’t just another interested fisherman asking about the salmon run. Henderson’s face fell. “What’re you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why? I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“Have you?” Adam surveyed the smaller man. Henderson was nervous, glancing over his shoulder and gnawing at his lip.
“I just want to know how deeply Simms was involved in the embezzling mess.”
“Kent?” Henderson shrugged. “We went over this, Drake. I’m not sure who was involved. It could’ve been you.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Probably not,” Henderson admitted, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Kate and I found the discrepancies on the books and brought them to Kent’s attention. He took it from there. But he seemed as surprised as I was that there was something wrong.” He tried to shake out a single cigarette, but three or four dropped onto the dock. Swearing, Henderson bent over and picked them up.
“Maybe Kent was just surprised that you figured it out,” Adam offered.
Henderson stuck one cigarette between his lips and shoved the others back in the pack. “Maybe.” He began walking again, toward the sandy parking lot.
“And you were paid to keep your mouth shut.”
“I wasn’t paid a dime.” He cupped his cigarette against the wind and clicked his lighter to the tip.
“Then how’re you surviving?”
“Disability.”
“What?”
“And my pension. You should’ve stayed on with the company a few more years. Great benefits.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” Henderson took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Look, Drake, I don’t know why you think I’ll say something more than you don’t already know, but I w
on’t. You know everything I do, so why don’t you just bug off?” With that he stalked across the lot to a dusty red pickup and threw his fishing gear behind the seat back.
Adam was right on his heels. “There’s more that you’re not telling me.”
Henderson tossed his cigarette into the gravel where the butt burned slowly, a curling thread of smoke spiraling into the clear air. “I don’t know anything. I just have hunches.”
“What are they?”
“Nothing that I can prove.” He started to climb into the cab of the pickup, but Adam grabbed his arm and spun him around, slamming him up against the back fender.
“I’ll do the proving,” he said, shoving his face next to Henderson’s and seeing a drip of perspiration as it slid from beneath the smaller man’s hatband. “Who agreed to pay your disability?”
Henderson gulped. “The old man himself.”
“Montgomery?”
“Yeah.”
Adam didn’t let go of Henderson’s lapels. “And who told you that you’d be paid?”
“My boss. Fred.”
“Fred Ainger?”
“Right.”
Adam’s hard gaze pinned Henderson to the fender. Henderson was shaking by this time, sweat running down his neck in tiny streams. “You think he was involved?”
“I told you, man, I don’t know.” Henderson’s gaze slid away, and he smoothed the front of his jacket. “Fred has money problems—I don’t know how serious.”
“What kind of money problems?”
Chewing on a corner of his lip, Henderson said, “Fred’s still paying off Hannah for their divorce—she took half of everything they owned and even got part of his pension, I think. Good old community property.” Gerald lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. “And now he’s got Bernice for a wife. She’s the daughter of some bigwig doctor back east. Used to expensive things. Fred tries to get them for her. And she’s hell-on-wheels with a credit card. Seems to think credit means free money.”
Bernice Ainger was thirty years younger than Fred. He’d met her at a convention, become obsessed with her and divorced Hannah to marry the younger woman. He’d been in his early fifties at the time and he’d been paying for that mistake ever since. So how did Fred connect with Simms?
“Funny,” Adam drawled, though he wasn’t the least in the mood for humor, “but every time I’m around Simms, he seems nervous—like he knows more than he’s telling. The thing is, I don’t believe that he’d intentionally get caught up in anything that might ruin his career.”
“Sometimes people do things on impulse.”
“No, this was planned for a long time. Otherwise the money would’ve been recovered.”
Gerald’s gaze shifted again, and Adam got the feeling he was wrestling with his conscience. For that, Adam respected him. Ratting on his friends didn’t come easy to Henderson. Or else he was just trying to save his own neck.
“I heard something once,” Henderson admitted, as the scent of dead fish wafted across the parking lot.
“What?”
“It was Simms, I’m sure it was, though he didn’t know that I was on the other side of the partition in the accounting room. I’d been in the vault, and when I came out I didn’t say anything. Simms was on the other side of that partition that separated Fred’s office from mine…you know the one I mean.”
Adam nodded, his heartbeat accelerating slightly. Now, finally, he was getting somewhere.
“Well, anyway, Simms was angry, really angry, telling someone off, but I didn’t see who it was. They were walking out the door.”
Adam could hardly believe his good luck. For the first time he was learning something new, that Simms was directly involved, but that he had an accomplice. Adam had to force himself not to shake every detail out of Henderson.
“Who was in Fred’s office when you went into the vault?”
“No one.”
“Not Fred?”
“Nope, he’d gone home for the day. Saw him leave myself.”
“And Kent?”
Henderson shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t there either, but I was in the vault for a good five or ten minutes. And when I came out, Simms and whoever he was talking to were on their way out.”
“And you don’t think Fred came back? Couldn’t he have returned to the office for something he’d forgotten, his keys or wallet or something?”
Henderson took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. A ring of sweat curled his thin sandy hair. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know.”
“So you think Kent, with or without Fred’s help, took some of the Puget West funds?”
“I can’t say. I don’t know much about Simms. He’s kind of a pretty boy, and I doubt he’d do anything to jeopardize his job. After all, he’s engaged to the boss man’s daughter.”
“Was engaged,” Adam said quickly, irritated that anyone, even Gerald Henderson, who probably had been out of touch with the gossip at Montgomery Inns for a while, would think that Marnie and Kent were still an item. “Past tense.”
Henderson stuck out his lower lip and shrugged. “Well, then, who knows. He might have got himself into a heap of debt somehow. That’s what happened to Fred. He’s hurtin’ for cash.” He hesitated a second, but then, like so many men when they can finally get something off their chest, Henderson added, “This might sound strange, but…well, I got the feeling that Simms was talking to a woman—not by what he said, but by the scent in the room. You know, like some kind of expensive perfume.”
Adam’s heart nearly stopped. “Would you recognize it again?”
“I…” Henderson shrugged, then shook his head. “Probably not.”
“But who do you think it was?” Henderson’s intuition might naturally come up with the right suspect.
“I said I don’t know. There’s got to be seventy-five women working in that building. Simms was probably on a first name basis with half of ’em. I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Linda Kirk works in accounting,” Adam ventured, turning his thoughts away from a dark possibility.
“But she was home sick that day. In fact she was gone for over a week with the flu.”
Marnie. She’d been going out with Simms at the time… But she had no reason to embezzle funds. Just because Marnie was involved with Simms wasn’t any reason to think that she would steal from her own father…no, that line of thinking was preposterous.
Henderson was obviously thinking he’d said too much. His face was flushed; his eyes showed a hint of panic. “Look, Drake, that’s all I know. Really.”
This time Adam believed him and stepped away from the truck.
Climbing quickly into the cab, Henderson flicked on the ignition. The engine sparked, died, then caught with a roar and a plume of foul-smelling exhaust. Above the rumble of the engine Henderson said, “Fred’s not such a bad guy, you know. Just got himself into a little trouble. And Simms—hell, what can you say about that guy?”
“And the woman?”
“If there was one. I’m not sure…” He rammed the truck into first, pulled the door closed and took off, spraying gravel and dust behind him.
Adam didn’t know if Henderson’s information had helped him or not. All along he’d thought Kent Simms was responsible for framing him and that he’d done it alone. Had he been wrong? Was Ainger or a mystery woman involved? Or was Henderson just blowing smoke? Trying to save his own tail?
Adam didn’t think so. The man was terrified that he’d slipped up by spilling his guts. So now, he had to try to locate a woman…a woman involved with Kent. But not Marnie!
Angrily Adam stomped out Henderson’s still-smoldering cigarette and watched as Gerald’s pickup wound down the dusty road. Without any answers, he walked across the gritty parking lot and slid into the interior of his rig. Spinning the steering wheel, he headed north to Seattle.
Next stop: Marnie’s place. She’d been avoiding him for too long. She’d had enough time to think things throug
h. Besides, he needed her to help him get to the bottom of this.
And you want her. Scowling, he twisted on the radio, hoping to drown out the voice in his head. A jazzy rendition of an old Temptations song came on the air. Yes, he wanted Marnie. Damn it to hell, he’d wanted her from the second he’d seen her trying to helm that boat in the middle of the storm. And wanting her was all right. Making love to her was okay. But falling in love with her could never happen.
Falling in love? Now, why the hell did he think of that?
Chapter Ten
As she walked out of the boardroom, Marnie couldn’t believe her good luck! After all his blustering and blowing about company loyalty, Victor had actually signed a contract with her. Of course he’d tried to talk her into coming back to the company and she’d declined. And of course Kent had tried to maneuver her into a quiet corner to convince her that they should get back together.
Now Kent tagged after her. As if their last encounter hadn’t been violent and revolting. “Let’s just take a boat ride Saturday,” Kent suggested with that same all-American smile Marnie had once been dazzled by. “We can try and work things out while we’re sailing the Marnie Lee together. Come on, Marnie, what d’ya say?”
The man didn’t understand the word “no.” She didn’t bother answering, just continued down the hallway from the boardroom toward her father’s office.
“You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” Kent insisted, touching her lightly on the arm.
“Mad doesn’t begin to describe how I feel,” she said furiously, jerking away from him, her shoulder banging against the wall.
“You know, the boat’s half mine.”
“I’ll send you a check.”
“But the Marnie Lee was a gift. You can’t just buy me out. I won’t sell.”
“I don’t think you’ll have much of a choice, unless you want to buy my half.”
“I don’t have that kind of money!”
“Then you’ll have to borrow it, or we’re at an impasse.” She started down the hall again.
Kent swore under his breath as he raced to catch up with her.
“This has gone far enough, Marnie. You’ve had your chance at being independent. Hell, you’ve even had your little fling with Drake. But now I’m tired of playing your little games and—”