Trust Me (2 page)

Max opened his mouth, then closed it again. This wholesome-looking veterinarian might be an unlikely femme fatale, but she
was smart enough to cause trouble if he wasn’t careful. “Henry Tremayne has given you custody of the animals in his estate,”
he said, his eyes never leaving her face as he waited for her reaction.

She blinked. “All of them? My goodness.”

“You will be their caretaker in the event of his incapacitation, and their owner upon his death. They may be placed in qualifying
homes, the criteria for which are outlined in a special document, but they must never be abandoned, euthanized, or given to
a shelter.”

He pulled a slip of paper out of his suit pocket, and consulted it. “The sum total of the animals is… twenty-three cats,
eleven dogs, two birds, and an iguana. Are you willing to accept custody under these terms?”

He had intentionally avoided telling her that the pets were only the first part of Henry’s bequest. It was his chance to erase
the Charlotte Martin problem in one quick stroke, thanks to a trick in the wording of the legal documents. If she refused
guardianship of the animals, then she would forfeit everything, and he had the disclaimer statement sitting in his briefcase,
ready for her signature. He waited, concealing his impatience. There was no way that she could possibly agree to this part
of Henry’s plan. He knew, from having questioned the lawyers, that she lived in a tiny basement apartment with barely enough
room for one animal, much less thirty-seven. She had to refuse. She had no choice.

His heart leaped as she began to shake her head.

“No,” She said. “I don’t think—”

Max seized the word. “No?”

“No,” she repeated, more firmly now. “It’s twenty-two cats, and definitely no iguana. Henry found homes for the Persian and
the yellow tomcat, then adopted the new kitten, and Oscar—the iguana—died weeks ago.”

She shot Max a chilly look. “Died of old age, I should add, in case you’re planning to accuse me of murdering him.”

Max put a hand to his forehead and discovered that he was perspiring. The clinic was hot, or maybe the day was finally getting
to him. “Answer the question. Do you, or do you not accept custody of these animals?”

“Of course I do,” she said, but a wrinkle furrowed her brow. “It’s the least I can do for Henry, after everything that he’s
done for me. I just wonder… I can’t bring them to my house… and the cost of feeding all of them…”

She stopped herself and squared her shoulders. “Well, I’ll figure something out,” she said. “Henry loves his animals, and
he’s been a good friend to me. I accept.”

Frustration gripped Max. What was this woman thinking? How could any sane person agree to be his grandfather’s zookeeper?
Her response proved that she already knew what else was included. “I’m sure this isn’t news to you,” he said, “but you’ll
receive a generous income from the trust to cover care of the animals.”

She exhaled softly. “That will help.”

Max paused, hoping to catch impatience in her expression as he delayed the real news. But she didn’t betray a thing.

“There’s more,” he said finally.

Charlotte Martin looked surprised. “Something else?”

“Yes. Something else.” Max narrowed his eyes at her. He had hoped that things would not get this far, but she was turning
out to be more adroit than he had expected. There was no way to delay the inevitable next step, but he reminded himself that
it was only a preliminary defeat. The real battle was only beginning.

He took a deep breath. “My grandfather has given you the Tremayne mansion.”

“What!”

Carly reached back to grab the edge of the counter as her knees went wobbly. “The house?” she said, her voice sounding thin
and squeaky to her own ears. “Henry left me his house?”

“No.” Max Giordano shook his head. “A
house
is a little building with a picket fence. My grandfather left you a mansion with an estimated value of 20 million dollars.
He left you his castle, for God’s sake, and he’s under the impression that you’ll turn it into some kind of stray animal rehabilitation
center. I assume that you know what he’s talking about.”

“Oh, my God. He was serious about that?”

Max nodded grimly, and she stammered, “I mean… it was something that we chatted about, yes, but never in detail, and he never
said anything about putting
me
in charge of it. It was just an idea. I never thought…”

“Really. You never thought. Oh my.” He widened his eyes in disbelief at her shock. “Well, guess what, Ms. Martin. I find that
a little hard to believe. I’ll bet that you’ve been thinking about this for a long time. It must have taken some work to insinuate
yourself into Henry Tremayne’s life and brainwash him into making a gift like this.”

Carly stared at him, finally understanding what had brought this man into her clinic with both fists swinging. Because of
her, Max Giordano was not going to inherit a significant portion of his grandfather’s estate, and he was angry about it. This
was all about greed, and the ugliness of it appalled her. Who would have guessed that gentle, eccentric Henry Tremayne could
have produced a grandson like this?

“Henry and I are friends,” she said. “I make house calls to take care of his pets, and that’s all. Your accusations say a
lot more about you than they do about me.”

“Sorry, Doc, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Old men don’t casually leave mansions to pretty young female
friends.
”

“They do if they have no one else,” Carly exclaimed. “Where have you been? I’ve known Henry for two years, and I’ve never
seen you or heard a single word about you. Just the fact that you think he’s a gullible old man who would fall prey to some
… temptress… is ridiculous. He’s one of the sharpest people I know, old or young. Have you ever so much as spoken with your
grandfather, or are you just showing up now to collect his money?”

Max Giordano paled slightly, and Carly hoped that her question had hit a nerve. She glared at him. “When was the last time
that you visited him?”

“You don’t understand the situation.”

“No? Explain it to me, then. When was the last time you called him? Just to say hello. I’m curious.”

Max remained grimly silent.

“I think I do understand,” Carly said, nodding. “And I’m not surprised that Henry never mentioned you. You had better pray
that he recovers, Mr. Giordano. Your grandfather is one of the kindest and most caring people I’ve ever met, and if you’ve
missed your last chance to know him, you’ll have lost more than you can ever imagine.”

It wasn’t nice, but she hadn’t intended to be nice. She wanted to slap him verbally, to see if he was capable of feeling even
a flicker of shame over the way he had neglected his grandfather. Any kind of guilty reaction would have satisfied her, but
what she saw was astonishing.

A shadow crossed his face; dark, naked, and saturated with a grief so great that every healing instinct in Carly’s body cried
out in sudden sympathy.

And it was gone as quickly as it had come. Carly blinked, feeling as if a ghost had just flitted by and touched her with one
stroke of a spectral finger.

“Mr. Giordano?” she said hesitantly, regretting her harsh words. For all his abrasiveness, he apparently was no stranger to
pain, and she was suddenly ashamed to have added to it.

He simply reached for his briefcase, giving no sign that he had heard her. “One of the lawyers will meet you in front of the
mansion at six,” he said. “You’ll be given the keys then, and you can come and go as you please. For now.”

“For now?”

“Don’t get too comfortable, Ms. Martin. You’re only the temporary guardian of the animals and the mansion. If my grandfather
recovers, this will all have a very different ending. And believe me, in the meantime, I’ll be watching you.”

T
he hills of San Francisco’s elegant Pacific Heights district were one of the last parts of the city to be touched by the rays
of the evening sun. Golden springtime light dappled the roof of the Tremayne mansion, illuminating the dark slate tiles and
gloomy gables, which would have looked more at home in the midst of a perpetual thunderstorm. Henry’s house was a Gothic wonder
in a neighborhood of Victorian gingerbread, and it stood high on the highest hill around, bordered by a stone wall that gave
the estate the look of a fortress. The combination of house and grounds covered an entire city block, and Carly knew from
Henry’s stories about his childhood that the property had once been even larger.

The Tremayne family had been in San Francisco since the nineteenth century, and Henry’s own father—an old-fashioned rogue
given to legendary gambling binges and surprisingly good investment decisions—had built the house with the fortune he made
from his shares of the Comstock Lode, won in a gin-soaked all-night game of poker. Or so Henry claimed. He liked to tease
her, and he knew that she was susceptible to believing any wild yarn as long as it was delivered with a straight face. It
was just as likely that his father had been a sedate church elder in the grocery business.

The wrought-iron gate was open, as always. Carly had never seen it closed, and from the look of the hinges, it would take
a strong man and a blowtorch to close it. She turned her VW into the driveway and headed uphill toward the house. It was a
familiar route by now. She had been making weekly visits to Henry and his menagerie for two years, ever since the day her
business partner Richard had buzzed her on the clinic intercom to tell her to take the call holding on line one.

“There’s a weird old guy on the phone. He says he’s got a sick raccoon.”

“A raccoon? He shouldn’t be handling a wild animal. Has he been bitten? You’d better give him the number for Animal Control.”

“No, no. It’s not wild, it’s a pet.” Richard sounded appalled by the idea. “It ate some spoiled tuna, and now it has indigestion,
or something. He wants a house call. I told him you’d go.”

The “weird old guy” had turned out to be Henry Tremayne, calling with his usual lack of pretension. His regular veterinarian
had retired and moved to Florida, he told her, his enunciation as elegant as his grammar, and he did not care for the fellow’s
successor. He was looking for someone new, but he was having a bit of trouble finding a doctor who was willing to come to
the house. Would she be so kind? He would certainly compensate her for the trouble.

At the time, Carly was fresh out of her small hometown of Davis, California, and the Tremayne name meant nothing to her. After
a brief conversation, she had decided that he seemed like a nice old man, harmlessly eccentric, and had taken his address
and promised to stop by later that afternoon.

When his directions led her to the foot of the driveway leading up to the towering Tremayne mansion, she had checked and rechecked
the numbers on the gate against the ones in her notes, convinced that she had made a mistake. Finally, she had worked up the
nerve to drive up the hill and approach the front door.

Looking back on it now, she found it hard to imagine that there had ever been a time when she hadn’t spent Wednesday afternoons
sitting with Henry in the solarium, drinking tea from the antique silver service and making genteel conversation. He was a
great fan of both pets and poetry, and had spent most of her first visit reading to her from T. S. Eliot’s
Old Possum
’s
Book of Practical Cats.
On her second visit, he had presented her with her own copy, a first edition. At the time, she’d had no idea of what it was
worth, and later, when she found out, Henry had only laughed when she tried, red-faced, to return it.

Richard had been shocked when he realized what kind of client he had tossed away, and he had insisted on making the next trip
to the mansion all by himself. But Henry took an immediate dislike to him, and the next week Richard grudgingly told Carly
that he was too busy to waste his time on house calls.

Carly had met Richard Wexler when he lectured at the University of California in Davis on the use of lasers in veterinary
surgery. He was thirty-five then, ten years older than she, and somehow her postlecture questions had turned into a discussion
over dinner at the nicest restaurant in town. They dated through her last year of school, and as graduation approached, Richard
had stunned her by suggesting that she join him as a partner in his San Francisco practice. She had been over the moon with
delight, and had completely ignored everyone who warned her that mixing romance with business was a recipe for disaster.

Carly grimaced. She hated to remember her own dewy fantasies of gazing into Richard’s eyes as they worked together, tenderly
ministering to the sick and wounded creatures of the city. At least she hadn’t married him, she thought—not that he had asked.

He was a brilliant and tireless surgeon, happiest when he was in the operating room involved in some complex procedure. His
practice, though physically small, had one of the best-equipped facilities in the Bay Area, and other veterinarians regularly
referred cases to him. He would have been welcomed onto the faculty of any vet school in the country, but he was a cowboy,
not a team player, and academic life would not have suited him at all.