Against All Odds (Arabesque) (24 page)

Adam considered his words carefully. “There are some who think your family may be involved, though I’m certain that the culprit has help from at least one of our employees.”

She leaned forward, squinting, and he could almost see her mental wheels spring into action. “Do you believe I’d knowingly hurt you?”

“I don’t want to believe it.” He watched her rise from the sofa as a woodland sprite would drift up from a spring, though her vacant eyes belied serenity.

“But you do?”

He couldn’t lie. He considered her guilt in the sabotage unlikely, but he hadn’t exonerated her, either. “I’m a cautious man, Melissa, and I—”

She interrupted him, walking out of the living room as she did so. “I’m going to the kitchen, and I want you to be out of my house when I get back here.”

Her words stabbed him. He’d hurt her, and for once he knew that special kind of pain, a deep agony that only one woman could relieve. He walked into the hallway and looked toward the kitchen. He couldn’t see her, turned in that direction, and stopped. Until he cleared up the mess at that factory, what could he say to her? He had no choice but to do as she’d asked.

* * *

Melissa wouldn’t have believed she’d allowed herself to be duped a second time. He’d numbed her senses, coaxed her into submission with tenderness and with his blazing heat, and she’d spilled her longing, told him her heart’s secret. Lost herself in him. He’d said he cared, but he’d confessed it grudgingly, and minutes later he had implicated her family and all but accused her of aiding the ruination of his business. If any member of her family had a hand in it, she’d find out.

* * *

Adam sat at the desk in his bedroom, planning his strategy to trap the culprits, when he received a call from his private investigator.

“I’m certain it was Melissa Grant,” the man insisted, when Adam suggested that he might be mistaken. “I saw her here at the factory about an hour ago, but she only looked around outside the gate and left. I waited for any follow-up before calling you.”

“Thanks. Stay there, and if she comes back, call me.” He didn’t welcome that news. He had discarded the idea that she might be involved—now he had to rethink his strategy. Had she intended to meet someone? If not, what had she sought? He called his manager.

“I secured the gates myself, Adam, but someone gained entrance, and that person must have had a key. I can’t even guess who it might have been. This time the damage involved finished shoe leathers. The criminal has realized that it is more damaging to attack after we’ve spent the money and time tanning the leathers. Damned if I know what to make of it.” Adam thanked him and hung up. He wouldn’t call local authorities. Why waste the energy? Rafer had the deputy chief of police or deputy sheriff, as he preferred to be called, in his pocket. He’d deal with it tomorrow.

He got to his office around nine o’clock the next morning and called the Physicians’ Registry. A young doctor named Grant practiced in Hagerstown. On a hunch, he called the office, and without hesitating the unsuspecting young receptionist gave him the information he cleverly wrested from her. He taped their conversation.

Next he headed for The Refuge, where he knew he’d find Emily, engaged her in casual conversation, and satisfied himself that she had no part in the crimes at his factory.

He’d begun to like Emily Grant. “Are you sure you’re up to this work? It’s mentally as well as physical demanding.”

Her smile reminded him of Melissa when she teased him. “I love it. And I’m not frail, Adam. That’s what I’ve been led to believe for over thirty years. Not a bit of it’s true. I’m strong.”

He squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of affection. “I’m glad you’ve joined us. I like your spirit. Have you discussed this with Rafer yet?”

She hadn’t, she told him without any apparent regret, and asked him to let it be.

“What about Melissa?”

She shook her head. “This is my own. I’ll share it when the time comes. When I have to.” He patted her shoulder and headed back to the Jacob Hayes Building. Emily Grant could grow on a person. He could appreciate his uncle’s passion for her: a lovely, giving woman. She must have been captivating in her youth, for she remained a beauty, and she could charm a mouse away from its cheese.

* * *

Adam called his New York office. He’d have to get back there soon, but he couldn’t leave Frederick so long as his relationship with Melissa hung in limbo, and to straighten it out, he’d first have to unravel the mystery at Leather and Hides. A short conversation with Jason Court assured him that, for the time being, he needn’t worry about his New York office. He had two detectives working in the plant and had hired a private investigator, but the criminal who wrought destruction in the factory seemingly at will remained undetected.

Impatient with their lack of progress, Adam dressed in jeans, a sweater, leather jacket, and sneakers after dinner that evening, and to avoid the noise and headlights of his car, rode his bicycle to the factory. The moon had shone brightly all week, and he considered himself fortunate that it settled behind the clouds as he left home, affording him the cover he needed. He secured the bike and leaned well hidden against a large oak tree. A red Corvette appeared, and its driver parked and waited. Very soon, another car arrived. Apprehension gripped him as the door of the familiar car opened, and stark, naked pain raced through him when he saw Melissa get out of the car and walk around to the driver’s side of the Corvette. He watched, motionless, as she stood there and talked with the driver for at least ten minutes, before the Corvette drove off and left her standing there alone in the darkness. Minutes later she, too, drove away.

As if he shouldered the weights of Atlas, Adam moved with slow steps toward his bicycle, numbed with pain. He mounted the bike just when a third car arrived. The intrigue heightened as the driver cut the motor, turned off the lights, and waited for thirty minutes before driving. Whoever it was didn’t get out of the car. Crossed wires, Adam decided. Melissa would answer to him for her part in the scheme.

Chapter 11

M
elissa sat in her office the next morning, tortured by what she’d discovered and bleary-eyed from the sleepless night it had caused her. She hadn’t answered her phone nor the loud knocks on her door the night before for fear of reprisal or that she might get into a hassle with her father. Her head lolled against the back of her chair, and she tried to concentrate in spite of the intruding noise. She hadn’t realized that it was she who kept up the consistent, rhythmic rapping until she noticed the wooden letter opener waving up and down in her hand. She laid it aside and attempted to make notes for her regular morning calls to her satellite offices in Baltimore and New York. But no sooner had she begun to gather her thoughts than Adam burst unannounced through the door, and she’d never seen a colder, more furious and feral expression on a human face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked before he could speak.

“You ask me what’s the matter?” he growled. She couldn’t imagine what her facial expression had imparted to him, because his anger evaporated, and a sad, bitter expression cloaked his handsome face.

“You want to know what the matter is? I’ll tell you.” He spoke slowly and with deadly softness as though killing his feelings, shredding his emotions. “Have you known all this time who was ruining my business, trashing my factory? Why didn’t you tell me, Melissa? Don’t you feel that you owe me
any
allegiance?”

“You’re out of your mind,” she protested, trying to figure out why he seemed so certain.

He leaned over her desk, his face inches from hers. “I was, but not anymore. Just two nights ago you swore innocence, and you curled up in my arms and told me you loved me. You defended me against the charge that I shot your cousin. Was that a screen?”

She pushed her chair back and braced her palms against her desk. Horror gripped her at the depth of disappointment in his eyes. “You’re wrong, Adam,” she said in a strong voice, but one that held such sadness that she barely recognized it as her own.

He didn’t give quarter. “Oh, no, I’m not. I saw you there last night. The three of you got your wires crossed, didn’t you? Your other partner, whoever he was, drove up right after you left and waited a full thirty minutes for you. Did they meet at your house later? Is that why you didn’t answer your door and ignored your telephone?”

She wouldn’t have believed that she could endure such pain. She took a deep breath and told the man she loved—the man who still leaned toward her, his anger less apparent now and his face warped with sadness—that she’d done nothing for which she felt ashamed and that if he believed her guilty of so heinous a crime, nothing she said in her defense would matter.

Melissa sat tongue-tied, stunned, while he walked out of her office without another word, leaving the door ajar. Her glance fell upon the framed portrait reproductions that hung on her office walls, and she winced as every eye seemed to accuse her. None of them would have tolerated such an unfounded accusation without a history-making defense. Frederick Douglass wouldn’t have, nor would Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Eleanor Roosevelt.

She’d heard that a thin line often separated love and hatred and took some solace in knowing that Adam could not have expressed such bitterness, such disillusionment, had he not cared deeply. He would discover the truth, she hoped, but in her present mood, she didn’t give a snap what he found out about that factory.

She reviewed events of the night before and wondered whether she should have told Adam. She buzzed her secretary with the intention of asking her to dial her New York office, but to her amazement her mother walked into the room. Emily had visited her at home once, but had not come to the office. She was about to tell her mother of Adam’s accusations, but Emily Grant had her own agenda.

“You don’t know it,” she began, “but for the past few weeks, I’ve been volunteering four hours a day at The Refuge. That’s the shelter for abused women and children that Adam operates over on Oak Street,” she rushed on, as though oblivious to her daughter’s air of incredulity. Melissa ushered her to a chair.

“Sit down, and tell me what you’re talking about.” Still trying to adjust to the effects of her earlier episode with Adam, she all but reeled under the impact of her mother’s words.

“I’m talking about your father found out that I’ve been volunteering at Adam’s charity, and he packed his personal things and moved out of the house.”

“He what?” Melissa reached for the corner of her desk to steady herself. She’d had about as much as she could handle for one morning. First, Adam’s rage, and now this. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. He raved at me for two hours last night, and when I got downstairs this morning, he’d already packed two bags and put them in the foyer. He said he’s moving into an apartment.”

“Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry.” She watched in awe as her mother tossed her handbag into a chair, jerked off her coat, braced her hands on her hips, and stood akimbo.

“I don’t want anybody’s sympathy. I don’t need it,” Emily told her. “I want a divorce, and I’m going to get it. I’ve spent over half of my life letting people walk over me, behaving like a nincompoop.” Her pacing increased in speed. “That’s my house, and I’m the one with the prestige and the clout in this town, and it’s time I acted like it.”

Melissa advanced toward her mother as though reluctant to disturb her. “Mama, why don’t you sit down while I run to the machine and get you some tea.” She blanched from her mother’s withering look.

“I forgot to add, honey, that I’m not going to let anybody patronize me and that includes you, much as I love you. Your father’s done me a favor, and I’m getting out from under his heel. He walked out of the door grumbling that the whole thing was a Hayes-Roundtree conspiracy, that they inveigled me into working at The Refuge just to humiliate him. To hear him tell it, they’re the reason his party didn’t nominate him for mayor, then for congress, and finally passed over him for governor. Damned if I’d admit anybody was that powerful.”

“Mama!”

“What’s the matter?” Emily asked her. “Didn’t you ever stop to wonder where you got your spunk? You didn’t think you got it from your father, did you?”

“I can’t believe Daddy left you. He’s always so concerned about what people think.”

Emily shrugged with apparent disdain. “It isn’t the first time. He left me once before, and you were born while we were separated. I think it’s the reason he always treated you as though you were his stepchild, rather than his own blood daughter. I thought that after you grew to look so much like him, he’d behave differently, but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” She reached for her coat. “Well, I thought you should know, and tonight I’ll call Schyler and tell him. We’ll talk this evening. I’ve got an appointment with my lawyer in twenty minutes.”

Melissa watched her mother swish out of the door, plopped down in the nearest chair, and expelled a long breath.
What next?

“I might as well get this over with,” Melissa told herself, dialing her father’s office number. She identified herself, and it annoyed her that his secretary nevertheless asked him whether he’d care to take the phone.

“I suppose you and your mother have been talking,” he said by way of a greeting. “I can’t stand any more of their humiliating tactics, Melissa, and I won’t live with a woman who’s in their pay.” Melissa attempted to explain that her mother volunteered at The Refuge and received no pay.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he said. “You’re having an affair with him, and she’s working for him. A man can take just so much. Both of you seem to have forgotten that those people stole your birthright. Old Jacob Hayes bilked your grandfather, and you’re consorting with his rich descendants. I’m ashamed of both of you.” He hung up.

* * *

Tired of the tale and the excuse it provided, she decided the time had come to face him down. She drove to his office building, went in, and started past his secretary.

“You can’t walk in there,” the woman hissed. “Visitors have to be announced.”

“I don’t need your permission to see my father,” Melissa replied, still miffed at the way in which the secretary had treated an earlier phone call. She opened his door, and he glanced up, then continued writing. She hated that his refusal to acknowledge her presence drained her of her anger. She attempted to reason with him.

“Daddy, why do you hold on to that myth? You know it isn’t true. You know my grandfather withdrew his money from that venture and nearly ruined Adam’s grandfather. Anyway, it isn’t your feud, it’s Mama’s, and she dropped it years ago.”

“How dare you speak to me about that?” She didn’t ask him what he meant, but assumed he referred to her mother’s broken engagement and shifted the subject to a more pressing concern.

“You know how Timmy got shot and who did it, don’t you Daddy? And you know the Roundtrees had nothing to do with it, don’t you?” She ignored his sputter and said what she should have said days earlier. “I told you Adam was with me that night. Well, if you accuse me publicly, I’ll tell the town of Frederick where we were.”

She heard the sadness in her father’s voice and saw the grimness that lined his face, but she couldn’t let that sway her. He had no interest in upholding the truth, only in besting the Roundtrees and Hayeses.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day one of my children would take sides with those people against me,” he told her in the weary voice of one facing defeat. “Why do you defend him? He’s nothing to us.”

“You’re mistaken, Daddy,” she told him, her voice strong and sure. “Adam Roundtree is my life, and if you force him to go to court, I’ll stand with him.” What had she said? She stood looking at the man for whose love and approval she had begged most of her life and felt as though she had suddenly flown free of him. He—a lawyer sworn to uphold the law—would ruin a man’s reputation in order to shield his nephew from what she was certain involved some kind of crime. He didn’t deserve her blind devotion. Perhaps no one deserved that.

Rafer Grant stared at his daughter. “Just like your mother. Hot after the Hayeses.” He picked up his pen and returned to his writing. “Well, both of you can have them.” She stood there long after he’d dismissed her, giving him a
chance to soften his blow, but he continued to ignore her. She left, thinking him a lonely man.

* * *

Adam despaired of getting any work done, and for the remainder of the morning, roamed around in his office shuffling in his mind his unsatisfactory conversation with Melissa. She hadn’t attempted to defend herself, and he had seen the honesty in her shock and outrage at his accusation. He couldn’t imagine why she would drive out to the factory alone on successive nights if not to meet someone. And she had met someone. Yet when he’d confronted her with it, she’d withheld information that he needed. He slapped his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Alright, so he’d gone about it wrong; he’d accused her. He’d try another tactic.

When he walked into Melissa’s office early that afternoon, Adam brushed past Magnus Cooper as he left. Angered beyond reason, he skipped the greeting and demanded, “What’s he doing here?”

“We have a contract. Remember? I’ve just found a ranch manager for him.” Relieved that she ignored both his temper and his audacity, he said in a more even tone, “I thought you made it a policy to take the employees to the new boss, but at least you avoided that long trip to Houston.”

“Magnus thinks I ought to have an office in the capital of every state. He wants to invest in my business.”

Adam tried to shake off his annoyance at her use of the man’s first name. “And what do you think?”

“He’s impressed with my work, and he made a good case for a bigger operation,” she said, letting the words come out slowly as if to keep him dangling.

“And?” She squinted at him and, in spite of himself, he softened toward her.

She shrugged. “Then he or somebody else would own my business. I said no thanks. He was very disappointed.”

Adam blew out a deep sigh. “I’ll just bet he was—he won’t have an excuse to come up here to see you.” He ignored her silent censure. “He may fool you with his trumped-up reasons for hanging around you, but he isn’t fooling himself and definitely not me.” He noticed that her voice lacked its usual verve and color and told himself to lighten up.

“Am I interrupting something private?” Banks asked, surprising them since neither had heard her approach. “Your secretary must have stepped out,” she explained to Melissa. “Bessie called me. She just got in a load of stuff at Yesteryear, and if we get down there this afternoon, we can have our pick before she does her Christmas ads.” She must have noticed their preoccupation, Adam decided, when she exclaimed, “Oops! See you later,” and ducked out of the door.

“Melissa, we have to talk, but not here. We need to speak openly and honestly with each other, and we need privacy for that. Can we get together this evening?” He suspected from her deep breath and the way in which her fingers had begun to drum her desk that she intended to refuse.

“I’m not about to let you harass me the way you did this morning, so whatever you have to say, you may say now.”

“Fine. Lock your door.” She stood and moved toward it but stopped when he said, “Not even your friend, Banks, would resist broadcasting the fact that you locked the door with only the two of us in here.”

He had the advantage, but that didn’t mean he’d keep it. “Well?” He persisted, standing to leave.

“Alright, Adam,” she said, with obvious reluctance. “I’ll be home around eight tonight.” But at seven o’clock that evening she called him, canceled their date, and refused to give an excuse.

“I can’t see you tonight.”

“That’s it? No reason?”

“That’s it.”

* * *

Melissa hung up, threw off her robe, and crawled into bed. She had no appetite and hadn’t bothered to eat dinner. The day’s happenings crowded her thoughts. Her mother had filed for a divorce, and her unrepentant father pouted somewhere, sad and alone. She’d telephoned her brother, thousands of miles away in Kenya, in an effort to understand how it could have happened. His summation had astonished her.