High Stakes Seduction - Book 1 (2 page)

Maria nodded resolutely and together we pulled back the flaps and leaned over the box to peek inside.

"Not very exciting," Maria frowned, pulling out a few of the file folders. She flipped through them, pausing every now and then to examine a document more closely, while I shuffled through the other contents of the box.

"Christmas cards," Maria said, opening an envelope with Mom's name on it. "And birthday cards." She pulled a few of them out. "These are all from Uncle Benito." She looked up from the inscriptions. "I wonder why she kept them. Or, more importantly, why Dad would bother to hold on to them after she was gone?"

I shook my head. "Remember how much she loved Christmas? And she always made such a big deal about the checks he sent with them, insisting they were meant for both of us to enjoy." I laughed. "I suppose we should put these away with the other Christmas stuff."

"I always looked forward to the cards on my birthday. Until I turned twenty-one and they suddenly stopped. Now we only hear from him at Christmas," she frowned. "Too bad the envelopes never have a return address. We couldn't even let him know about her funeral."

"Mom’s jewelry," I said, holding up a dark blue velvet pouch. Mom used to have the most elaborate jewelry box. The kind with fancy doors and hooks and slots and drawers for every single item. But her favorite pieces, she kept in this pouch. Tears came with the memories as I poured the pieces onto the table.

I used to sneak into Mom's room when I was little, looking through the jewels, pretending I was a princess. To me, the pieces had magical powers and I would make up stories about how they came into my possession. A ruby pendant in the shape of a butterfly, a silver necklace, pearl earrings. I remembered the earrings were part of a set that had a matching necklace and bracelet. But as I dug around in the little trinkets, I realized those and several other pieces of her nicest jewelry were missing, including Mom’s wedding ring.

Maria’s voice broke through my thoughts. "Oh! I wonder what this is for?" she said. I looked at her outstretched hand, a little silver key resting snuggly in her palm.

So much for that nice, long bath
, I thought as I followed the teller into the back rooms of the bank. I’d never have known what that key was for if I hadn’t watched about a million movies. While I’d never actually seen a safe deposit box before, it didn't take long to figure out the key must be connected with the other documents leading to Dad's bank.

The teller droned on in a nasally voice. As I tried to listen to what she was saying, I somehow suspected my life story was not going to involve finding a secret treasure trove squirreled away in my dad's box.

"Here we are," the lady said, waving a hand toward the row upon row of little gray doors lining the wall. "Box 5689," she said, repeating the number engraved on the key in my hand, and inserting her own key.

I nodded and stepped into the vault. I had to stretch a bit to reach the box. I wasn’t a short woman, but why did it have to be in the top row?

"I’ll be right outside," said the teller, pausing before she closed the door to add, "just take your time," in a tone that told me she had no interest in waiting around for too long.

I stood looking at the long, metal box resting on the counter before me. I paused, pulling out my cellphone and speed-dialing Maria.

"What’s in it?" she asked, voice crackling with excitement.

"Just about to open it," I replied, and then did just that. I frowned in silence. Laying inside the box was an envelope. One large, single envelope. I picked it up. "There’s an envelope with some papers and such inside. Why would Dad have a passport?"

"I don’t know. What else is in there?"

I pulled out a folded piece of paper, immediately recognizing my father's messy scrawl. "It’s a note from Dad," I told her, and began to read it aloud into the phone.

"Maria, Angela, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have left you a better memory of me. I tried. I really tried to fix things. But if you’re reading this, it means it didn’t work out and I wasn’t able to get back the rest of the things I sold to pay down on my debt. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me one day."

My stomach dropped. Now I knew what had happened to Mom’s wedding ring and her other jewelry.
Her beautiful jewelry
! I crumpled up the note and tossed it into the box. I heard Maria grunt on the other end of the phone. I couldn’t tell if it was a sound of disgust or impatience.

I picked the envelope back up and pulled out an official looking document. I straightened it out and skimmed over the words. "There’s an insurance policy," I said as I scanned the details. My eyes went wide when they hit on a number. "For $500,000!"

"What?" Maria asked. "Are you serious?"

The excitement in her voice reflected exactly what I was feeling. Dad’s gambling debts had left us no end of trouble. I'd done the best I could, but we'd even had to dip into the "Uncle Benito Educational Training Fund" as we'd called the $30,000 Maria had received upon graduation from high school. Uncle Benito's note had said it was for college, but Maria was going to use it to study painting in Paris. Well, at least that had been the plan before the accident.

Oh, but, half a million dollars!
This was enough to pay off the house and take care of the both of us while I kept hunting for a better job.

"I knew Dad wouldn’t let us down!" Maria exclaimed.

I continued scanning the policy, my eyes falling on the most important detail.

"Maria," I said, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. "We’re not the beneficiaries."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I don’t know," I said, reading the name over and over again, tears of frustration threatening to fill my eyes. "Did you ever hear Dad talk about an Antonio Mancini?"

I slumped on a bench outside the bank, resting my aching head in my hands. I’d just spent what felt like an hour on the phone with the insurance company identified on the documents in Dad’s locked box.

But they wouldn’t tell me anything useful about this Antonio Mancini. All they could tell me was that the claim was legitimate, though they suggested I could seek legal advice if I wanted to contest it. Which meant my sister and I were still dealing with Dad’s debts, while some complete stranger would be getting half a million dollars.

I rubbed at my temples, trying to figure out what to do next. I decided to take the insurance company up on their suggestion, pulling out my phone and flipping through my contacts.

"Hi Mr. Conner," I said when his secretary put me through. "It’s Angela Tilson."

"Angelina?" he said, using the name I hated. But he was an old family friend of my mother’s who’d known me since I was young enough to love that nickname. I could forgive him for still calling me that. "How are you? How is your sister doing?"

"Not so great," I said. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, so I spilled right into the details of our situation. Conner listened intently, "hmm"ing and "uh huh"ing at the appropriate times. I could almost see the crinkle in his brow and the look of concentration he always had when he was thinking really hard about something. I could hear him typing away on his keyboard in the background as I spoke.

"Antonio Mancini is pretty well known here in town," he said when I stopped talking. "He's in the fashion business. Seems to have lots of connections." I heard his fingers on the keys again. "Hmm…" he said, trailing off.

"I want to meet this guy, Mr. Conner. I want to know who he is."

"Hmmm, no, Angelina. That's not a wise decision," he said in that lawyer tone of his. "I understand you want to know more about him. So I'll tell you what. Let me have someone look into this Antonio Mancini for you. Promise me you'll sit tight and just wait until you hear back from me, okay?"

I stood gazing at the urn that contained what was left of our father. We hadn't decided yet what to do with his ashes, so they sat on our fireplace mantel, next to Mom's. It was strange to think of the two of them together again, but there was also some measure of comfort in knowing where I could find them if I needed to.

I laughed at myself, feeling silly for the nostalgic sense of family I got, looking at their remains. There was a kind of madness to the whole situation and I certainly hadn't sorted everything out yet.

God, how I hated to wait for things to come to me. I wished there was something more I could do to unravel the mysteries surrounding the events of the past week. I knew my pacing and silent cursing wouldn't change a thing. But it did help to dissipate some of the anger and sadness I didn't yet know how to deal with.

True to his word, Mr. Conner had a thick manila envelope delivered to us by courier within a week. Maria already had the contents spread out across the coffee table when I got home from my job at the restaurant that night. There was quite a pile of papers she was riffling through.

"If I see another set of official documents this week, I swear I’m going to–"

"Oh you’ll want to see this," Maria interrupted, pointing to several photographs strewn across the table.

I sat down beside her, and immediately understood what she was talking about. "He’s … um… gorgeous…" I said, picking up one of the photos.

"
That's
Antonio Mancini," she said, turning the photo over to show me the note written on the back.

The man stared at me with cool dark eyes, well-coiffed hair and a tiny smile on the corner of his lips. He was on a crowded sidewalk with people bustling around him, but he stood out in his perfectly tailored suit. He had the look of a man who was completely in control.

I spread the photos out on the table so I could see them, but I was unable to stop myself from admiring just how handsome this particular man was. Then something caught my eye. Or rather,
someone
. The photographer had managed to snap several shots of Mancini meeting with different people, including the mayor.

The mayor was known less for his charitable work around our town than for his alleged connections with the mob. Nothing had been proven, of course, at least nothing that would get him booted out of office. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about his friendliness with Mancini. I frowned, remembering the calls we’d received about Dad’s gambling debts and wondering if there somehow was a connection.

I looked more carefully at the other photos. "Do you recognize any of these other people?" I asked Maria.

"The Mayor," she said, pointing to the picture I’d just put down. Her finger moved to hover over another image. "Isn’t this that club owner who was in the news recently? The one who survived an apparent mob hit that killed a whole bunch of other people at his club?"

"And this," I said, showing her a newspaper clipping of Mancini with a middle-aged business woman with sharp features and a frowning mouth, "identifies a Mrs. Grant, you remember, that woman whose husband died under mysterious circumstances shortly after she took over his father’s manufacturing business?"

Maria looked up at me, her mouth twisted in thought. "And Mancini seems to be friendly with all of them. What the hell was Dad doing with this guy?"

I picked up a business card Conner had included in the stack. "I don’t know, Maria. But I’m going to find out."

"Yes? What can I do for you?"

I froze when I heard his voice on the other end of the phone. I hadn’t exactly planned out what I was going to say when I got Antonio Mancini on the line. I figured I could handle a simple conversation. But that was before his voice erupted into my senses. It sounded like smoke and velvet, and I found my eyes drifting back to the photos still sitting on the coffee table.

"Miss Tilson," he said, "what is it?" I could hear a touch of impatience unraveling the velvet.

I cleared my throat, snapping myself back to reality. "Mr. Mancini," I began. "I am the daughter of Jack Tilson, who has… recently passed away."

"I’m sorry for your loss," Mancini said a bit too bluntly, but after a pause, he added, "He was a good, if somewhat troubled man."

I looked over at Maria, and took another deep breath. She watched me expectantly. "How did you know my father?"

"You might say we had a business arrangement."

I didn’t like the way he said the words. I didn’t like what the words implied. "What kind of arrangement?" I asked, feeling the heat rise in me. "And why does my father have an insurance policy with your name as the beneficiary, instead of his own daughters, Mr. Mancini? Tell me that."

After a brief silence, he responded in a calm voice.

"Your father had a problem that I am sure you were aware of, Miss Tilson. Though I suspect you don’t know just how deeply his debts have taken your family."

I stared at the phone in my hand. After everything that had happened, how could I
not
know? "And how would
you
know this?" I sputtered, unable to stop the anger from creeping into my own voice.