Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (18 page)

Reid, rather than taking the seat that would have given him most control, moved to rest one flank on the corner of the desk. He made no effort to initiate the discussion, but waited, allowing his silence to force Gordon into an explanation. He thought for a moment that Gordon was going to call his bluff. The other man's face was set, his manner overbearing. Then his features took on a purplish tint and his light brown eyes, deep-set and almost lashless, turned feral. He pressed his lips together, the corners turned down, before he spoke.

“This title business has been going on for some time, too long, to my way of thinking. We had a preliminary report, but it seemed best to double-check it. I wanted to be certain the whole thing wasn't some idiot mistake made by this girl hired to do the leg work. You have to understand that we can't move on this until we're certain of the facts.”

The sound of the other man's voice grated on Reid's nerves. “You were the one who contacted the law firm, authorized the title search?”

“As a part of normal routine when the possibility of the sale came up, yes.”

Reid nodded. “But you didn't report the results to my father.”

Gordon smiled with a tight movement of his lips. “What was found was so unlikely that it would have been stupid to go off half-cocked over it. Good business practice required a thorough evaluation before any decision was made, and then a slow and careful assessment—”

“Don't patronize me, Hutton,” Reid said in trenchant tones. “I'm well-aware that the legalities must be observed and normal care taken to prevent errors. But I also realize that the preliminary report could, and should, have been presented weeks ago. What interests me is why it was suppressed.”

Hutton clenched his jaws. “What I want to know is how you found out about it. I will not tolerate leaks in my operation—”

“Our operation,” Reid corrected. “And how I found out isn't important; I'm extremely grateful for this particular leak.”

“All right, all right, but all I've done is protect your interest as well as mine and Keith's. I don't think you want to let go of a multimillion dollar operation like this on the say-so of a silly legal aid who doesn't know a deed from her right tit. You wouldn't have come home, wouldn't have interfered in mill operations you've ignored for years, if you weren't interested in protecting what you have here.”

Reid felt his temper heating, though he kept it under rigid control. “You think you have me figured, do you?”

“That's right,” Gordon said, his expression coldly contemptuous. “You're tired of risking your neck in godforsaken hellholes for peanuts. You thought you'd come on back here where the living is easy, just step in and take over where dear old dad left off. The timing is just dandy, with the sale that's pending; you can draw your share, kick back, and never hit another lick at a snake. Fine, I don't care. But just don't give me any bullshit about what happens between now and when the sale is final.”

“Suppose,” Reid said in even tones, “that the mill turns out to belong to Cammie?”

“Too bad. We aren't ready to turn it over to a damned female who never had a thing to do with it just because of a missing piece of paper.”

“Why not, if the problem with the land is legitimate?”

Gordon Hutton stared at him a long moment, then swore under his breath. “That bitch. I might have known. She has you under her spell like all the rest, like she had Keith until he was man enough to get out from under her. I can't begin to understand what it is she has between her legs that turns grown men into weak-kneed patsies, but it must be some hot stuff.”

Reid came to his full height with lithe strength. The space between him and the other man was not wide; he crossed it in two even strides. Skirting the chair between them, reaching out with casual force, he caught Gordon Hutton's shirtfront in his fist. He twisted it, pulling the heavyset man up on his toes.

“The lady,” he said with soft emphasis, “is a beautiful and intelligent woman. It disturbs me to hear her spoken of in the terms you just used. I sometimes have an uncontrollable urge toward violence when I'm disturbed. Do you think you can understand that?”

Hutton's eyes were glassy and staring from their sockets. He tried to speak, but only made a coughing, choking sound. Reid eased his grasp a fraction.

“Yes. All right, I see,” the larger man wheezed.

“Good.” Reid released him, giving a brush to the wrinkles in the other man's polyester and cotton shirt. “Maybe you'll understand, too, that you don't know me as well as you think. You don't have the slightest idea of how I feel or what I want. And you aren't equipped, mentally or morally, to guess.”

He stepped back, since remaining close was too great a drain on his self-restraint. He continued with measured precision. “I will tell you one thing, and I expect you to remember it. I don't want anything underhanded going on with this sale. I don't want Cammie bothered in any way, shape, or form. And I want to be informed every step of the way through the legalities. I think, in fact, that you had better have Lane, Endicott and Lane report directly to me. I'll feel better, less disturbed, that way.”

The look Gordon Hutton gave him burned with hate and injured ego, but he made no reply. Jerking his clothing back into place, he squared his shoulders. “You will live to regret this.”

“Maybe,” Reid said, “but I doubt it. And you may find that watching your language pays — when we get hit with a suit for reimbursement for the hundred-year lease, plus interest.”

“She wouldn't dare.”

Reid's smile held an edge. “You think not? I don't claim to know the lady well, but I don't think she has much affection for any of us. That being so, I'd say nothing is more likely.”

THE COUNTRY CLUB SPRAWLING OVER ITS HILL with
a view of the lake had once been a family mansion. The columned portico still made an impressive entrance. What had been a ballroom served now as a fine setting for dinner and dancing. The bank of tall windows and French doors that opened out onto the lakefront, and the flagstone terrace descending in easy levels to the water's edge, gave the place the prerequisite air of grace and privilege.

That was all that was right about the club. The house itself needed painting, the drapes inside were threadbare, the food served was barely adequate. The pool and golf course were maintained after a fashion, but it had been years since the tennis courts were resurfaced. Membership had been declining for some time, and no one seemed to care. The days of belonging to the club as a status symbol seemed to be over.

It was possible the country club mentality was dying out with the WW II generation that had spawned it. More likely, the slow demise was just another symptom of a stagnant economy, a dying town.

Cammie stood on the screened porch of the old family camp house across the narrow neck of the lake from the club, watching the activity around it. She could see the lanterns strung along the dock, hear the music drifting across the water. There was a wedding reception in progress over there. She had attended the ceremony and stopped in for a little while at the reception as a courtesy. She slipped away early. The affair had been nice, but she hadn't been close enough to either bride or groom to make staying for the departure of the bridal couple a necessity. Since she was going to be out at the lake anyway, she decided to pack a bag and stay overnight at the camp.

She and Keith had held their own wedding reception at the club. It was one of her nicer memories of their marriage. The music had been sentimental, the champagne heady. Her gown was a drift of candlelight-colored silk and lace sprinkled with spangles, and Keith looked like a wedding cake groom. He'd seemed so proud, so happy. There was the excitement of a new beginning. Or so she'd thought at the time.

Upon ending a marriage, she reflected now, not everything you discarded was terrible. The good times, few and fleeting as they might have been, still tugged at the heart, still caused discomfort.

There was the golden topaz ring Keith had bought her on their honeymoon in Mexico. He knew she liked it when they saw it in the shop, and had waited until she was taking a nap to go back and buy it. He gave it to her in the bottom of a margarita glass. She wasn't fond of the drink; she sipped at it a few times, then started to toss the rest over the balcony railing of their beachfront room. Keith nearly had a heart attack.

Then there had been the day a year or so later when Keith sold his fishing boat to make the down payment on the sports car he thought she wanted. They couldn't afford it; she had only admired the thing because he expected it. Still, it had been sweet of him to want to give it to her. She'd despised the car, with its stick shift and seats that practically skimmed the ground, but it had been months before he found out.

Keith had needed a different kind of woman, she thought, one more frivolous, less prosaic, less emotionally demanding — someone who would have had a fit over the sports car or rhapsodized over a ring hidden in a margarita as the height of romance. Someone who could have accepted material gifts as the only expression of love and affection Keith had to give. She'd never been that kind of woman, though she had tried hard for a long time.

Cammie swung to stare out over the lake as she caught a movement from the corner of her eye. It was a fiberglass bass boat ghosting over the water, the driver sitting in the stern. The low hum of a trolling motor reached her. Moments later she saw the craft turning toward the camp's boat house and dock.

Glancing down at herself, she realized the white T-shirt and cream-colored skirt she'd pulled on when she got to the camp made her easily visible there under the overhanging porch. She took a step backward, ready to retreat into the house. A visitor was the last thing she wanted just now.

“Don't go running off, sweetie, it's just me!”

The hail coming over the water stopped her. Wen Marston. That rich, humor-laden voice was recognizable anywhere.

The tension left Cammie in a rush. Smiling, she pushed the screen door open and walked down the gravel path that lead to the edge of the lake. As the boat bumped the dock, she caught the line Wen threw to her, then stepped back as her cousin clambered up the ladder.

Cammie spoke over her shoulder while she tied off the line. “What are you doing out at this time of night?”

“Visiting, honey. I skipped the wedding and was late for the reception over yonder — old Mrs. Connelly called me out to appraise her grandmother's diamond bar pin again, which is a big tease because the woman's never gonna sell it. Anyway, somebody said they thought you left for the camp. I figured I'd come tell you this great story I just heard.”

Cammie hid a smile for Wen's unselfconscious rattling as she turned toward the camp house. “Come in and let me fix you a drink.”

“Now you're talking.”

Cammie poured a stiff bourbon and Coke for Wen and white wine for herself. They took their glasses back out onto the porch since the night was so pleasant. Settling into a pair of Adirondack-style lounge chairs made of cypress, they leaned back, breathing deep of the soft air. Their faces were barely visible in the light shining from the kitchen.

“I don't know why you don't just move out here,” Wen said as she swallowed a large part of her drink. “I would if it belonged to me.”

“I think about it now and then,” Cammie said.

The camp house, with only two bedrooms and a great room that encompassed kitchen, dining room, and living area, was compact and convenient. The bungalow roof that spread over wide-screened porches on four sides, and the cathedral ceiling and soaring fireplace faced with dovetailed pine, helped give it a more spacious feeling than its size indicated. There was a restful quality about it also, a sense of long, drowsy summers, quiet winters, and unrelenting comfort. But it was nearly fifteen miles from town, and it wasn't Evergreen.

The two of them exchanged a few more bits of banter. Finally, Cammie said, “So what's the story? Don't keep me in suspense.”

Wen gave Cammie's relaxed form a skeptical look before she tipped up her drink again. “All right,” she said, after she'd swallowed and wiped her mouth. “There's this girl who works for Arthur Lane — quiet little thing, bit on the mousy side. She was a Reese before she married the Baylor boy. They got a divorce last year, you might remember?”

“Janet Baylor.” There was a chilled feeling at the back of Cammie's neck that had nothing to do with the glass of cold wine in her hand. Janet was the paralegal who had found the problem with the mill title.

“Right,” Wen said, giving her a stabbing stare in the dimness before she went on. “Seems she's been living in the apartments out on the old cemetery road since she broke up with her husband. Well, yesterday morning, she didn't come in to work. One of the other girls at the law office called, but there was no answer. Nobody thought too much about it until she didn't come in again this morning. When they still couldn't get hold of her, they called her mother. She went over to check. Janet was gone.”

“Just — gone?”

“Closet empty, nothing in the bathroom, purse and car nowhere in sight. It looked like she threw everything into a suitcase and took off. Left her breakfast dishes, stuff in the refrigerator, picture albums, cedar chest full of the kind of souvenirs girls keep — dried-up corsages, empty valentine candy boxes, the toasting glasses from her late, unlamented wedding. Everything was helter-skelter, like she was in a tearing hurry. But she didn't stop to tell anybody where she was going, or when she'd be back.”

“Nobody saw her leave?”

Wen shook her head. “They found her car late this afternoon in the parking lot at St. Francis Hospital in Monroe. They thought maybe she walked to the bus station from there, since it's nearby, but nobody remembers seeing a woman like her. Far as anybody can tell, she just disappeared.”

Cammie frowned as she stared out over the lake. The moon was coming up, edging cautiously above the trees. She watched it lay a shifting, silver-gilt path across the water. “Why would she do a thing like that? Anybody have any ideas?”

“There's nothing much to go on,” Wen said with a shrug. “Janet wasn't the kind of girl who had a lot of men friends. She didn't drink or go out of town to make the rounds of the lounges. The only thing at all unusual, apparently, is that she had a male visitor the night before she left. But there's only the word of a widow lady down the street on that. It was almost dark and the widow's eyesight isn't what it used to be; she couldn't put a name to the man.”

“Was there sign of a struggle?”

“Not so you'd notice. It appears Janet left the apartment under her own steam. Some think she took off with this visitor of hers, then maybe her car was stolen later. Either that or the two arranged to meet out of town so they wouldn't be seen together, then caught a cab to the airport for some romantic getaway. On the other hand, there's also the possibility she might have been duped into going off with some maniac, and her body will turn up in a ditch.”

Cammie was silent as she sat thinking. Maybe Janet Baylor's disappearance had nothing to do with the girl's discovery at the courthouse, but the possibility was there. If there was a connection, then it was important that the sheriff's office should know what they were dealing with. It bothered Cammie that her business would have to be made public, but there was no help for it.

“Janet came to see me last week,” she said. Sighing, she set her wineglass down beside her chair. Pushing her fingers into her hair and resting her head on her hand, she told the story of what the paralegal had found at the courthouse.

“That explains a few things,” Wen said in grim tones when Cammie had finished. “Nancy Clemens, one of the women in the Clerk of Court's office, was telling me that somebody took an Exacto knife to the record books a couple of days ago. She said several big folio pages are gone, though they aren't exactly sure when they were taken.”

“It makes sense if it's the divorce records that are missing,” Cammie said, frowning. “But I can't believe Janet would do that. She just doesn't seem the type.”

Wen gave a cynical snort. “People will do a lot of things you wouldn't believe for the right amount of money.”

“But everybody knew she worked with the records; they must have known when she came and went. It would be so obvious.”

“A person who's always there might be the last one anybody would notice. Of course, it could also have been somebody after what she found, somebody who hoped it would be a long time before the missing pages were discovered. It might have been, too, except Nancy Clemens is a neat freak. She picked up a giblet of paper from the floor and recognized that it came from the old record books.”

“I'll have to go back to the house to call Bud,” Cammie said. There was no phone at the camp house, never had been. That was one of its many benefits.

“He'll be glad to have the lead,” Wen said in agreement, “though I'm not too sure I'll be thrilled if he tracks down Janet and the papers. You realize my side of the family just got made illegitimate retroactively?”

Cammie turned toward her in the dimness. “I know it does, and I'm sorry. But surely it can't matter, not now.”

“Not to you. You've got the name and the big house — and maybe even the mill.” The undercurrent of envy, faint and coated with humor though it was, sounded plain in the other woman's voice.

“By accident of birth only,” Cammie objected. “I can't take any credit, so I don't see why I should have to take the blame.”

“Nice, too,” Wen moaned, “and so gorgeous you've got men fighting over you. I can't stand it.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Cammie said, reaching for her wineglass.

“You didn't know? My ever-humming grapevine tells me Keith and Reid had it out in Keith's office a few days back. Keith got the worst of it.”

“What do you mean?” Cammie said sharply, pausing with her wine suspended halfway to her lips.

“A black eye, a bloody nose, and a two cracked ribs,” Wen said succinctly.

“Reid wouldn't—” Cammie began, then stopped. He had mentioned something about talking to Keith. Maybe the discussion had got a little out of hand. When she spoke again, she said, “Who was out spreading this story? One of the mill secretaries?”

“Actually, I think it was Vona Hutton. Gordon came home raving about it, and poor Vona caught the fallout. Naturally, she had to tell somebody, just to relieve her hurt feelings. She was due to help decorate the church down at the First Baptist. That did it.”

The source seemed unimpeachable, but still Cammie sat frowning. The whole thing didn't fit with what she knew of Reid's formidable self-control. It was always possible, of course, that he hadn't wanted to control himself.

Wen stayed until she'd finished her drink and the lights inside the club across the way began to go out. As they rehashed the news Wen had brought, Cammie thought that her friend would have liked to delve a little deeper into what was behind it. She wasn't sure what held Wen back, but she doubted it was discretion.

Cammie walked Wen down to the dock. They said good night, then Wen climbed down into her boat and started the trolling motor. Cammie released the line holding the boat and tossed it into the stern. Then, just before Wen reached back to put the motor in gear, she stopped.