Maxine (26 page)

Her grandfather died first, and then her stepfather, and then little Johnny, the sweetest little boy she’d ever known. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked like a little angel. But he was an ornery little angel who was always somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, which was how he ended up in a tree when he was supposed to be napping. Johnny’s death was a shock to everyone, and the shock sent their mother over the edge. She’d survived the death of Cara’s grandfather and stepfather, but losing Johnny was too much for her to handle.

Was Lance right about her inheriting her mother’s emotional instability? Could she pass it on to her children someday? Unlike her mother, Cara’s grandfather had been a strong man, physically and emotionally, and he’d been brilliant in business. He was a philanthropist who generously endowed colleges and various charities. Cara wanted to be like him, but she was frightened of ending up like her mother, in a miserable black hole without the strength to climb out.

Her cell phone rang. It was Nick, and his voice brought her out of the past, out of the gloom. As long as she had Nick in her life, she wouldn’t end up like her mother.

Chapter Fifteen

A
ngelo arrived Friday afternoon, and Nick greeted him with a bear hug. He missed his cousins. They bickered and fought sometimes, but he could always count on them, like with the blood donations and Tony taking care of the boat.

They talked in Nick’s suite for several minutes before Angelo asked about Teresa. “She has the afternoon off,” said Nick, “but she hung around to see you.”

Angelo’s whole face smiled. “Where is she?”

“Downstairs.” Nick pointed to the door. “Go on. Get outta here.” Angelo didn’t fall in love easily, but when he did, he jumped in with both feet. He was crazy about Teresa, and Nick hoped she returned those feelings, because if she didn’t, Angelo’s heart would be broken. Angelo was the second youngest of Nick’s cousins. He’d only had one other serious girlfriend, but she wasn’t right for him. Nick liked Teresa. She was definitely right for his gentle-natured cousin.

Cara tapped on Nick’s open door. “Did I hear Angelo?”

“Yeah, he’s here,” said Nick. “He went to find Teresa.”

“That’s one reason he’s here, isn’t it?”

“I thought you wanted a haircut.”

“I do, but he would have come anyway. For Teresa.”

“I guess he can give me a haircut, too, while he’s here.”

She reached up and ran her fingers through the side of his hair. When she started to pull away, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss. She’d been so busy getting the estate in order, he seldom saw her. He understood, but he missed her. They were closer in his little house, when they were always together. When she needed him. “I could use a hug once in awhile.”

“Oh, Nick. Poor baby. Am I neglecting you?”

“Damn right.” He reached out for a hug.

She shook her head. “Nick, your chest. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t pull away from me. I need some TLC.”

“So do I,” she murmured.

“Then close the door and come over here.”

Fully clothed, they crawled into the big bed and snuggled. They didn’t have sex, but that wasn’t what Nick needed at that moment. He needed the closeness, the tender way she touched him, the feel of her soft, warm body in his arms. He buried his nose in her sweet-smelling curls and wanted to keep her there forever.

Cara fell asleep in his arms. Nick’s heart ached, but not from his bullet wound or the surgery. It ached because he’d have to leave soon. He soaked up the warmth and closeness, knowing he’d never love another woman like he loved Cara. It would take time to get back on his feet, and then, if she still loved him, if she still wanted him, they’d talk about the future.

Who was he kidding? She wouldn’t wait for him forever.

<>

Late Saturday afternoon a courier delivered a package from Marge with a note that she’d found more real estate files in one of the empty offices. She said she’d go through those files on Wednesday afternoon, when Mr. Holcomb was playing golf.

Cara took the package into the study and spread the contents on the desk. Marge had obviously spent several hours compiling the information. She’d also typed a summary sheet on each property. There were a dozen properties on the list, all in San Francisco and Oakland. Three were homes, and one of those was scheduled for renovation.

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this,” she said to herself.

“About what?”

Cara looked up to see Gerry standing by the library door. “Did you know the estate owns several pieces of real estate?”

“No. I didn’t see any real estate on the list of assets.”

“Four office buildings, three homes, two parcels of land, a small hotel, and two apartment buildings, all in San Francisco or Oakland. And this property, of course.”

Dropping into the chair beside the desk, Gerry said, “I wonder if this is part of that corporation I couldn’t find any information on. RASH.”

Glancing at the papers on the desk, Cara asked, “Do I own the corporation or a part of it?”

“You own it all, Cara.”

“Would you check with Bart Cantrell on Monday? Get a copy of the financial records on that corporation and see if he has any separate records on the real estate. Nick and I can check out the property next week. He’s climbing the walls sitting around all day, and I don’t know anything about buildings. According to Ron Holcomb’s notes, two of the properties are scheduled for renovation—an apartment building and a single family home. We’ll check those out first.”

<>

Angelo cut Cara’s hair and Nick’s, but he spent most of the weekend with Teresa, as Cara expected. She loved it. The shy looks Angelo and Teresa shared gave the staff something to talk about besides her and Nick.

After Cara’s driver dropped Angelo off at the airport Monday morning, he drove her and Nick to one of the properties on the list, the apartment building that was scheduled for renovation. Cara was reading the file instead of paying attention to where they were going. When the car stopped and Nick said, “This is it, Cara,” she looked up to see a cluster of apartment buildings with broken windows, trash strewn around outside, graffiti sprayed on the buildings and surrounding fence, and a dirty little girl in a torn dress standing beside the car. “Oh, my God! I
own
this?”

“Everything but the kid,” said Nick. “Stay in the car. I’ll check it out.”

“Not without me.” Guilt consumed her as she stepped out of the car. She should have gotten involved the day she finished college. Even though she didn’t have legal control until recently, maybe she could have done something to prevent this.

Nick squatted down in front of the little girl and spoke to her for a few minutes, until he coaxed a little smile from her. She must have been about four years old, but her eyes looked older. He stood and took the little girl’s hand. “Cara, this is Laurie. She’s going to take us to her mother.”

“Mama says we gotsta move, but we don’t gots nowhere to go,” said the little girl.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” said Cara.

The bodyguard walked up to them and very quietly said, “Miss Andrews, I strongly suggest you get back in the car.”

Cara glanced around to see three women standing by the corner of the nearest building, arms crossed defiantly. “Do you live in this building?” Cara asked them.

“Why you wanta know?” asked one woman.

Nick muttered, “I sure as hell hope you brought Maxine along.”

As the women approached her, Cara reached out to shake their hands and introduce herself.

“You the owner?” asked one woman.

Cara was embarrassed to say, “Yes, but I just found out today. Has it always been this run down?”

“Long as I been here it has,” said another woman, and the others nodded.

Comments flung at her like arrows, most angry remarks about rich people throwing them out of their homes.

“I don’t understand,” said Cara. “Don’t you want the buildings renovated? Don’t you want to live in better conditions?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” said Nick. “Once a building is renovated, the rents always go up.”

“That’s right,” said one of the women.

Another woman said, “That’s what they did with the buildings over on the next street. They fixed ’em all up nice and pretty and all them people was homeless. Now you’re gonna do the same thing to us.”

“That’s not my intention,” Cara said gently. “Would you show us around, please?”

Most of the apartment doors stood open, the tenants gone. Trash littered the rooms and the hallways, graffiti decorated the walls, and the stench was overwhelming. “What’s that smell?” she asked Nick.

“Mold, vomit, piss, rotten food, you name it,” he said quietly. “I grew up in a building like this. The plumbing didn’t work half the time, holes in the walls, rats, mice, cockroaches. It’s the stench of poverty.”

“Dear God,” she whispered. Thank God Nick got out when he had. She threaded her arm through his and held on tight.

They walked into one empty apartment and Nick pushed on a dark spot on the wall. His hand went through it. He pulled off the wallboard around it and sneezed. “The plumbing has probably been leaking for years. The walls are filled with mold.” He pointed to the kitchen, where something had chewed through the corner of a cabinet. “Rats and mice.”

Eviction notices were stapled to doors. These people were supposed to have been out last week. Cara turned to Nick. “Why can’t they renovate one building at a time and then move people back in?”

He shrugged. “Ask the architect and the contractor.”

She turned to walk back to the car. Nick called, “Hey, where are you going?”

“To call the architect and the contractor,” she called over her shoulder.

Cara sat in the back seat of the Bentley and called the architect and contractor listed in the file. She insisted they meet her and Nick at the buildings at two o’clock. As she flipped through the records from the other files, she noticed Ron Holcomb planned to use the same architect and contractor for the other renovation, and the light came on in her muddle brain. She quickly made two other calls, the first to Gerry. “I need to know who Ron Holcomb plays golf with and what kind of work they do.”

“Why?”

“Just a hunch. Can you check with Paul and call me right back?”

“Sure.”

Her second call was to Marge. “Marge, I need to know if there were other buildings that Ron bought and renovated and then sold.”

“I assume there were. There are boxes of real estate files in the back room.”

“Would you go look at them right now and then call me back, please? I want to know the architect and contractor he used on those projects, and the real estate agent who handled the deals. I want to know if it was the same three people on every project.”

“I’ll do it right now.”

Carrying her cell phone, Cara walked with her guard back to the buildings, where Nick stood talking with the women and three little kids. “The architect and contractor will meet us here at two. Nick, that gives us nearly three hours to review these other records, maybe drive by another building or two.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

Cara smiled at the women and shook their hands again. “Thank you for being so gracious. We’ll see you later.” She leaned down and smiled at Laurie. “Bye, sweetie.”

With a shy smile, the little girl whispered, “Bye.”

Nick settled in the backseat of the Bentley with Cara, feeling useful for the first time since he’d been shot. The doctor said he couldn’t drive or do any physical work yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t check things out for Cara. Someone was making money buying run-down buildings, renovating them, and selling them, but the profit didn’t go to the Andrews estate. If anything, the estate lost money. And Ron Holcomb was right smack dab in the middle of it.

Cara’s cell phone rang. She listened for a minute and scribbled notes, then disconnected. “Just as I thought. Ron Holcomb plays golf with three people every Wednesday afternoon. Apparently they’re not just friends, they’re business partners. One is the real estate agent who brokers the deals on these buildings, one is the architect who designs the renovations, and the other is the contractor who does the work.”

She wrote the corporation name on the page, the letters stacked below one another. Then she wrote names out from the initials.

R—Calvin Richards—architect

A—Mark Anderson—contractor

S
—Jasper Solomon—real estate broker

H—Ronald Holcomb—money

Nick glanced at the page and whistled. “Well, no wonder our old buddy Ron Holcomb plays golf with these guys every week.”