“Who else knows the terms of Conrad’s will?”
“Probably everyone. When there’s that much money involved, heirs go to great lengths to make sure they’re not getting the shaft and being cut out.” He laughed long enough to cough. “It’s just human nature.”
“If you say so.”
Walt snorted. “Look, you may have turned your back on a fortune a few years back, but most people don’t. In fact they’ll do anything for the kind of money we’re talking about. Lie, cheat, steal. Even kill.”
Nick considered the list of dead and dying: Pam Delacroix, Charles Biggs, and tonight Marla could have lost her life. Just as she could have in the accident.
“I haven’t figured out what’s going on down there,” Walt continued, his voice muffled as he drew on his smoke. “But I expect whatever it is, it might just get worse. Watch your ass.”
“Always do.”
“Good.”
He didn’t like the turn of his thoughts. Marla was in danger. He could feel it. “Look, Walt, I know this is a helluva imposition, but I wonder if you could come down here for a few days, do some of the legwork. I’ve got a room at the hotel, you could take it over. I’m gonna move up to the house.”
“I’d have to tie up a few things here, but I could be down within the week.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep the room until you show up, so you can leave messages here for the time being. Like I said, I’ll be moving up to the house, so if you want to send me any more information, why don’t you leave me a message on my cell phone or here. If you want to fax, you can do it to a little copy center—CopyWrite—I found not far from this hotel. Put it to my attention.”
“Why not the hotel?”
“Just a precaution. Everyone in my family knows I’ve been staying here.”
“Don’t trust them much, do you?”
Nick stared past the curtains that fluttered at the windows to the city lights beyond. “Nope,” he admitted, thinking it a sad comment on his life. “Not at all.” He hung up and started throwing his few belongings into his duffel bag. For over fifteen years he’d avoided the house on the hill like the plague, now he was eager to return.
Because of Marla.
That much was the truth. He wanted to see her again. Wanted to kiss her. Wanted his damned brother’s wife. But more than that, he wanted to make certain she was safe. In the past few weeks she’d had two brushes with death. Accidents? Or was someone trying to kill her?
Chapter Twelve
The room had changed. Nick eyed the matching drapes, bedspread and throw rugs and decided it didn’t matter a helluva lot. The memories he had here weren’t all that great to begin with. It hadn’t felt like home then, and it sure as hell didn’t now. He dropped his duffel onto the brass bed. His stay here was temporary. Just until he figured out what was going on. He could live with the fluff and ruffles, but he didn’t know if he could stand the thought of Marla only two doors down. Christ, that woman had a way of getting under his skin. Like no other. Even now, after all these years, while she was still recovering, she got to him.
“Hell.” He felt claustrophobic and tossed his jacket over a bedpost. When that didn’t help he walked to the window and opened it, letting in the cold November wind and staring over the lights of the city to the black sky where not a star was visible. How would he stand it, being this close to her?
When could he leave?
What the hell was going on?
He’d spent hours reviewing the company’s books. Alex was right, Cahill Limited was sinking deeper by the day into an ocean of red ink. Bad investments, expenses outrunning income, an employee who had been caught embezzling, an incredible amount of money spent on philanthropic causes such as Cahill House and Bayside Hospital’s new pediatric wing, an excellent employee benefit package and an extravagant lifestyle of the CEO, all contributed to the problem. But these were simple, extremely basic facts that any snot-nosed kid with a two-year accounting degree could have figured out. Yet Alex had been insistent to draw Nick back into the fold. Was it to appease his aging mother who had, for years, pleaded with Nick to return? Was it because of Marla and her accident? Or was there another reason, something that escaped him, something, he sensed, was far deeper and darker.
For some reason Alex wanted Nick around Marla. And yet they had been rivals for her affection before.
He plowed stiff, impatient fingers through his hair.
Whatever Alex’s motivation, Nick was trapped. Not because of the diminishing bottom line of Cahill Limited, nor because of his mother’s needs to have both her children near her. No, he was bound here in this huge, soulless house, in a city he despised, because of Marla. Because he was scared shitless for her life and because, damn it, he’d never been able to use his head whenever he was around that woman.
He walked into the deserted hallway where the reflection of dimmed lights gleamed on the railing, and oil paintings of longdead relatives peered from gilt frames, and where moments before his mother had told him how happy she’d been that he’d finally “come to his senses” and moved home. She’d even gone so far as to touch him on the sleeve, a major show of emotion for Eugenia.
“It’s good to have you back, Nicholas,” she’d whispered. “I know we’ve always been at loggerheads with each other, and, perhaps while raising you I made some mistakes, expected you to be more like Alex, but . . . in my own way . . . I’ve always loved you and missed you.” Her lower lip had wobbled a bit and she’d quickly tightened her jaw.
Nick had been stunned, looking down at her. Without a trace of makeup, a red-and-black Japanese robe tied at her waist, the lines of her face so much more visible than ever before, she’d seemed, for the first time in his thirty-nine years, vulnerable. Real. That she cared.
He’d found it hard to believe. “I won’t be staying long.”