Читать книгу The Cabin - Carla Neggers - Страница 10

Four

After thirty years of running a neighborhood pub, Jim Haviland considered himself a good judge of character. It came down to experience and survival—they’d honed his instincts about people. Still, he had to admit that the woman at the bar had him stumped. He guessed she was in her late twenties. Slightly built, short, curly, dyed red hair and pale skin, almost pasty looking. She wore a lot of makeup and about a half ton of gold jewelry. Dangling earrings, rings on both hands, bracelets, a thin gold necklace with a tiny heart pendant and a thicker chain necklace. He wouldn’t want all that metal on him in a nor’easter. But the snow had finally stopped, and the cleanup was in full force. The plow guys would be showing up later for the beef stew special.

The woman’s clothes made her stick out in this neighborhood, too. She had on a close-fitting baby blue ribbed V-neck sweater, tight Western-cut jeans and leather boots that would land her on her ass on an icy sidewalk. She played up her femininity, but there was a hardness to her, a toughness that Jim couldn’t reconcile with the jewelry, the clothes, the painted nails. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had a .22 strapped to her ankle.

After making sure he didn’t use a mix, she’d ordered a margarita. Her accent wasn’t local, but Jim was no good at placing accents outside of New England. He drew a couple of drafts for two firefighters who’d come in, complaining about the hazards of space heaters and overtaxed extension cords. Davey Ahearn, on his stool at the end of the bar, was listening in, nursing a beer and keeping an eye on the woman with the makeup and the margarita.

“New in town?” Jim asked her.

“Two days. It’s that easy to tell?”

“With that accent?” Jim smiled at her. “Where you from?”

“Texas. A little bitty town outside Houston.”

“Hope you brought a good winter coat with you.”

She gestured toward the coat rack next to the door, gold bangles sliding down her slender wrist. “No, sir, but I bought one on sale this morning. They said it’s a basic parka. I never knew there was anything but. I bought a winter hat and gloves, too. I think mittens would drive me batty.” She raised her gray eyes at him. “I’m holding off on the long underwear.”

She had an engaging manner, whoever she was. “That’s one thing about owning a bar,” Jim said. “I can get through a Boston winter without long underwear. You’ll like it here in the spring. Are you planning to stick around that long?”

“I’m hoping to relocate here, but have you checked out the rents lately? Whoa. They’re sky-high.” She sipped more of her margarita, looking as if she relished every drop. “I don’t know why you put up with it. Aren’t you the folks who dumped the tea in the harbor?”

“That we are. You have a job lined up?”

“More or less, yes, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Audrey,” she said. “Audrey Melbourne.”

Jim studied her a moment, noticing she didn’t flinch under his frank scrutiny. Definitely a tough streak. “What are you running from, Audrey Melbourne?”

She shrugged. “What do any of us run from?”

“The law and husbands,” Jim said. Davey Ahearn glanced down the bar, not saying a word, but Jim knew his friend’s suspicions were on full alert.

“No, sir, I don’t believe that’s the case at all.” Audrey Melbourne slid off her stool, looking even smaller. “Mostly we run from ourselves.”

She walked over to the coatrack and put on her new parka, hat and gloves as if they might have been a space suit. She left without looking back.

Davey breathed out a long sigh. “Sure. I hope she comes back real soon. That pretty little number is trouble.”

One of the firefighters snorted. “All women are trouble.”

Two female Tufts graduate students took exception to this comment, and the argument was on. Jim didn’t intervene. The Bruins and the Celtics were having a lousy year, the Patriots hadn’t made the playoffs, and pitchers and catchers didn’t report for weeks yet. People needed something to do. Maybe he needed to wonder about a redheaded Texan coming into his bar. It happened now and again, a stranger popping in for a drink. He doubted Audrey Melbourne would be back.

* * *

An icy gust bit at Alice Parker’s face as she climbed over a blackened, frozen, eighteen-inch snowbank to get to her car. The Texas tags were a dead giveaway, but what the hell—so was her Texas accent. She’d arrived in Boston in the middle of a damn blizzard, and now it was so cold her cheeks ached and her eyeballs felt as if they were frozen in their sockets. Her chest hurt from breathing in the dry, frigid air.

“I should have bought the damn Everest parka,” she muttered, picking her way over an ice patch. Even sanded, it was slippery. She supposed she’d need new boots if she ended up staying more than a few days. Damned if she’d move up here on a permanent basis. She’d rather sit in prison.

She did not understand why Susanna Galway was living here on an old, crowded street in a working-class neighborhood, with the salt and sand and soot making everything even uglier. She had a nice house in San Antonio. A Texas Ranger husband. What the hell was wrong with her?

Alice tried fishing her keys out of her pocket with a gloved hand, decided that wouldn’t work and peeled off the glove. Winter was complicated. She couldn’t believe she’d driven a couple thousand miles in her crappy car to track down Susanna, just so Beau could think she still had the tape. Not that he was biting—he kept telling her she could go to hell and threatening to turn her in for blackmail and extortion. She was calling his bluff. He’d pay her to steal the tape and hush up about it. She knew he would. Things worked on his nerves. He was paranoid and dramatic. She’d made that one little remark about Rachel smothering him in his sleep, and less than a day later, her friend was dead.

Alice was confident he’d come around. He deserved to pay for something.

Of course, he could decide to shoot her in the back and go after the tape himself, but that was extreme. Even Beau couldn’t think he’d get away with two murders. He’d let her do his dirty work for him. And pay her.

If he did end up shooting her, Jack Galway and Sam Temple could catch him. At least he’d go to prison for her murder, if not Rachel’s.

An old woman pushed open the porch door to the stucco house just up the street. She had on pants stuffed into fur-trimmed ankle boots, a dark wool car coat, a red scarf, a red knit hat and red knit gloves.

It had to be Iris Dunning. Susanna’s grandmother.

Alice had found out from Beau that Susanna Galway was living up north with her daughters and grandmother. He’d obviously expected this information would make Alice give up on her plan. She’d thought about it. It was kind of nuts, traveling two thousand miles, taking the risk of breaking into Susanna’s house to steal something that wasn’t there.

But what else was she supposed to do? She had the tape. Beau would not be pleased if he found out she’d had it all along—for one, he’d never pay her the fifty grand. For another, he’d probably shoot her. He was balking as it was. If this was going to work, Alice knew she had to go through the motions.

She climbed back over the snowbank. “Mrs. Dunning?” Alice stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, not wanting to slip. “Excuse me, ma’am, I didn’t mean to startle you. My name’s Audrey Melbourne—I’m new in town. Someone mentioned you might have a room for rent.” No one had, but Alice decided it was a good way to launch a conversation.

The old woman’s clear green eyes cinched it for Alice. They were just like Susanna’s. She had to be Iris Dunning. “I’m sorry, I’m not renting rooms at the moment. Are you a student?”

Alice shook her head. “No, I’m in the process of moving to Boston. This seems like a nice neighborhood.”

“It is,” Iris said. “I’ve lived here for years and have never been robbed.”

That would probably change, Alice thought, if she had to stage a robbery to convince Beau she’d gotten the tape off Susanna. “Well, ma’am, I don’t want to keep you out in the cold—”

“Have you had supper yet? Jimmy Haviland makes good, hearty food. His clam chowder’s the best in the city, but tonight’s not chowder night.”

Alice hated even the thought of clams. They had to be slimy. “I know—I was just in there. I think he’s serving beef stew tonight.”

“Come on, then, I’ll buy you a bowl.” Iris Dunning seemed ready to take Alice by the arm and walk her into the pub. “I was new in town and all alone once. My granddaughter and daughters are out for the evening. I’d like the company.”

“Ma’am, I don’t want to impose—”

“You’re not imposing, and you can stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ Iris will be fine.”

Alice was taken aback. No wonder Susanna had ended up here—her grandmother was a good soul who’d take in anyone. “I’d love a bowl of stew, Iris, but I’ll pay my way.”

They entered the bar together, and Alice immediately noticed the obvious suspicion of the owner and his friend with the handlebar mustache. If Iris noticed, she didn’t care. She headed to a back table. Alice smiled self-consciously at the two men, who continued to frown at her. Well, that was a good sign. At least Iris Dunning had people who looked after her. She was the sort of person people could easily take advantage of.

“Now, Jimmy,” she said when the owner came over to take their order, “don’t start lecturing me about strangers. I can have stew with anyone I want. Miss Melbourne is new in town.”

“Audrey,” Alice corrected with a smile.

“I’d never lecture you, Iris,” Jimmy said. “What are you drinking with your stew?”

“I think I’ll have merlot tonight. I haven’t had wine in ages. Alice, what about you?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, I don’t drink. I’ll just have a Coke.”

“And don’t skimp on the beef when you dip up my stew, Jimmy. I had a low-fat lunch.”

He still didn’t seem too happy.

Iris sighed at him, her green eyes vibrant. “Jimmy, I know about women on their own. They’re either widowed, divorced, broke, on the run or ex-cons.” She turned her bright gaze to her new friend. “Am I right, Audrey?”

Alice laughed. “One or more of the above.”

“There. I knew it. I guess that’s better than ‘all of the above.’”

* * *

Tess Haviland sank into the soft leather couch that Susanna had bought when Tess had moved out of their shared office space the summer before. She still had the remnants of her tan from her holiday in Disney World with Andrew Thorne, her architect husband, and seven-year-old Dolly. Harley Beckett, Dolly’s reclusive babysitter, had stayed home and worked on Tess’s nineteenth-century carriage house. She took possession of it last May and promptly found a skeleton in the cellar—something that hadn’t sat well with Jack Galway, Texas Ranger. Not that Susanna had told him about her involvement. The girls had let it slip. She remembered his call. “You and Tess Haviland crawled around in a dirt cellar looking for a body?”

“We didn’t find it.”

Small consolation.

Tess’s move to the North Shore, her marriage and new family seemed to agree with her. Her blond hair was longer these days, her dedication to her graphic design work still high but not as all-consuming. She’d hired an assistant. She had balance in her life. She also had strong opinions, which made her more like her pub-owner father and plumber godfather than she would ever admit to.

She’d brought her own latte, Susanna’s coffeemaking abilities the only source of conflict between them. She had on her business-in-the-city clothes. “I like the leather,” she said, sweeping a critical glance over the conversation area Susanna had set up in Tess’s vacated half of the office. A contemporary leather couch and chairs, an antique coffee table and three orchids painstakingly chosen for their forgiving natures. Tess smoothed one hand over the soft leather. “I didn’t think I would. I really wanted you to go with a Texas theme. At least it’s not stuffy.”

Given that her office was on the fourth floor of a late nineteenth-century building overlooking Boston’s oldest cemetery, Susanna had rejected a Texas theme. She hadn’t bothered to confront her friend on her ideas of what a Texas theme would entail—all spurs and Lone Stars, probably.

“Susanna, do you mind if I speak frankly?”

Susanna sat on one of the chairs, the sky outside her tall windows gray and gloomy. She’d worked at her computer most of the day. She smiled at Tess. “Since when would it make any difference if I minded?”

Tess didn’t return her smile. “Your computer’s dusty,” she said.

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“It’s part of a larger pattern.” Tess leaned forward, holding her latte in both hands. “It’s like your brain’s gone inside your computer and won’t come out. It can’t. It’s all filled up with numbers and money things.”

“Money things?”

“Investments, annual reports, interest rates, bond prices—God only knows what. I’ll bet you know to the penny what each of your clients is worth.”

Susanna took no offense. “That is my job, Tess.”

She shook her head, adamant. “You go beyond what the average financial planner would do.”

“Good. I’d hate to be an ‘average’ financial planner.” Susanna glanced over at her desk, her monitor filled with numbers, which was probably what had unnerved Tess. “I want to be very above average.”

“You see? You’re driven. You’re a perfectionist. It’s causing you to lose perspective on the rest of your life.” Tess set her jaw, aggravated now. “Damn it, I’m making a good point here. Your life is out of balance.”

Susanna slid to her feet and walked over to the table where she had her coffeemaker, a tin of butter cookies, pretty little napkins and real pottery mugs for herself and her clients. “I’ve hired a part-time assistant,” she said. “She comes in two mornings a week.”

“You should have at least two people working full-time for you. You told me so yourself last fall.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did.”

Susanna poured herself a half cup of stale, grayish coffee and turned back to her friend. “All right, I’ll dust my computer. Promise.”

Tess groaned. “You are so thick.”

“Hey, that’s my line. That’s what I tell Jack—”

“There. Jack.” Tess set her latte on an antique table Susanna had picked up at an auction, a nice contrast with the more contemporary pieces. Balance, she thought. If Tess approved, she didn’t say. She narrowed her blue eyes on Susanna. “You haven’t told him how much you’re worth, have you?”

“Why would I? He pays attention to money even less than you do.”

“Susanna, you have to tell him!”

Susanna returned to her desk, feeling stubborn now that they were talking about her husband. “Why?”

“He’s going to find out, you know. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? He’s a guy’s guy. He might not like having his wife sneaking around making millions.”

“It’s his money, too.”

“Uh-huh. And he’s a Texas Ranger. You’ve always said it’s all he’s ever wanted to do, even when he was at Harvard. Suppose he’ll think you’ll want him to quit?”

Susanna frowned. “I’d never tell him what to do, anymore than he’d tell me.”

“Yeah, what about all the other Texas Rangers? What will they think if one of their own’s suddenly worth eight million?”

“Ten,” Susanna corrected.

“Ten million? Damn, Susanna. Maybe it’s time to hire bodyguards—or make peace with your husband. Talk about armed and dangerous.”

“Nobody knows how much I’m worth. You, my accountant and my attorney.” Susanna could feel her heart pounding, but she kept her tone breezy, as if none of this really bothered her. She knew Tess wasn’t fooled. “It’s not as if I’ve radically changed my lifestyle.”

“Moving to Boston, buying a cabin in the Adirondacks. That’s not radically changing your lifestyle?”

Susanna dropped onto her chair in front of at her computer. “I was only worth five million when I left San Antonio.”

Tess swooped to her feet. “God, you’re impossible. If you get kidnapped and held for ransom, don’t expect me to come here and figure out how to fork over the money.” She hoisted her microfiber satchel onto her shoulder. “I’ve got to run. I have one more devil of a client meeting.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Susanna, please—you’ll think about what I said?”

“Tess, you know I will—I appreciate your concern. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Come up sometime. Bring the girls. I know it’s winter, but the ocean’s still beautiful.”

After Tess left, Susanna stood at the tall, arched windows overlooking historic Old Granary Burial Ground, snow drifting against its thin, centuries-old tombstones. No radical changes in her life. Who was she kidding?

Tess was right.

As if to prove her point, the doorman buzzed her and announced Destin Wright was there to see her. Susanna dropped back onto her desk chair and felt an instant headache coming on. She’d been putting Destin off for days. She sighed. How could telling her husband about ten million dollars and a murder suspect showing up in their kitchen be any harder than dealing with Destin Wright? She said into the intercom, “Send him up.”

He would take the old elevator, she knew, not the stairs, and he’d find a way to irritate her within twenty seconds of arriving in her office. She got up and unlocked the door, just so she wouldn’t have to let him in.

He didn’t knock. He pushed open the translucent glass door and grinned at her. “Yo, Susanna. How’s it going? Was that Tess I just saw leaving the building?”

“Yes, she stopped in for a visit—”

“I wasn’t invited to her wedding, you know.”

Susanna felt the blood pulse behind her eyes. “Destin, you and Tess aren’t even friends.”

“What? We grew up together.”

“You’re ten years older than she is.”

“So?”

Susanna gave up. Destin Wright had grown up on the next street over from her grandmother’s house, never, apparently, making a secret of his desire to get out of the neighborhood at his first opportunity. He was in his mid-forties and fit the stereotype of the preppy Harvard grad with his blond good looks, except he’d quit a local junior college after one semester. He’d started an Internet company a few years ago and made millions, then went broke almost overnight. He’d had a fun idea, but no real business plan, no profits—and wildly expensive tastes. Now he wanted to start over. With Susanna’s help.

“Destin...”

He held up a hand. “No, wait. Hang on. I’m not here to pester you about money.” He grinned sheepishly, as if he’d known he’d pushed her too far with his various comeback schemes. He was charming, energetic and incredibly self-centered, with a sense of entitlement that knew no bounds. He had on an expensive camel coat left over from his high-on-the-hog days. “I just wanted to tell you I followed your advice and wrote up a business plan. The whole nine yards.”

“Good for you, Destin.”

He scratched the back of his neck, eyeing her. “I was thinking you could take a look at it. As a favor.”

Susanna shook her head, adamant. “You know I’m not getting involved in this project. I’ve told you. This isn’t what I do, even if I thought it was a good idea to help out someone from Gran’s neighborhood.”

“One little look?”

“No. I’m sorry. I can recommend people—”

“I can’t pay anyone. Come on, Suze, you know the score. I need to do a deal, barter a little. I’ve downsized as much as I can. Hell, I’m about to have my BMW repossessed.”

How he’d ever pulled together the attention span and backing to start a company in the first place was beyond Susanna. Luck, guts, flare, charisma, just enough skill. If he’d come to her sooner, she might have been able to help him save some of his personal wealth when the dot-com craze came crashing back to earth, but the same relentless optimism that had drawn Destin Wright into starting a risky business made him stick with it too long. He just hadn’t seen the bottom coming. When he hit, he hit hard.

“I just need some angel money,” he said, unable to resist.

“If you have a good idea, you’ll get it. But not from me.”

“A hundred grand would get me off the ground—”

“Not a dime, Destin.” She’d learned from hard experience that she had to be very clear and very straight with him. Subtle didn’t work with Destin. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“You could be a founding partner. Suze, you’re bored, you know you are. This’d be exciting, a new company, your business experience and smarts hooked up with my ideas and energy.” He paused, obviously waiting to see if his words were having any impact on her. When they didn’t, he sighed. “Okay, okay. You’ve got a full well, and you don’t want me dipping in my rusting, leaking bucket. I understand.” He was remarkably good-humored for a man who’d been told no for at least the fourth time. He grinned suddenly. “I’ll just have to work harder to convince you. If you could take two seconds and peek at my business plan—”

“I can offer you cookies and a cup of bad coffee,” Susanna said. “That’s it.”

He dropped a shiny black folder on her desk. “If you get a chance,” he said, leaving it at that. He started for the door. “I’ll see you around the neighborhood. You know, people are starting to talk about how much money you have. I heard one guy say he thought it was at least five million.”

“People like to talk.”

“If you’re worth five million, you wouldn’t miss a hundred grand, even if you threw it down the toilet, and I’d—”

“Destin.” She shook her head, unable to suppress a laugh. “Look, I’ll talk to some people. If this idea doesn’t work out, another one will. You’ll be okay.”

But he barely heard her. He hadn’t come for a pep talk from her. He wanted free advice and money. He headed out, and Susanna sank back against her chair, wrung out. Destin never knew when to quit—and sometimes she wondered if she quit too soon.

She thought of Jack, what he might be doing late on a Thursday afternoon. Would he quit on her? Had she already quit on him?

Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she quickly shut down her computer and packed up her briefcase, turned off the coffeepot. It had been a lousy day, but at least tonight was chowder night at Jim’s Place.