Cynthia Hamilton - Madeline Dawkins 01 - Spouse Trap (20 page)

THIRTY-SIX

Madeline sat bolt upright, the wisps of a particularly vivid nightmare dissipating as she switched on the lamp. She panted as she tried to convince herself it was only a dream. When she had calmed down, she turned out the light in hopes of getting back to sleep. But her mind held stubbornly to the half-remembered images of Steven cavorting with her replacement, in Santa Barbara, in front of her friends, in her own home.

Finally, at quarter to two, she gave up and got out of bed. By this time she had the beginnings of an obsession brewing, and the only way to satisfy her curiosity was to find out everything she could about Elizabeth Collins-Wainwright.

After half an hour of scouring the internet, she could at least put a face to the name. Ms. C-W was attractive, at least in the way that time and money could compensate for rather average features. In all the photos Madeline had been able to unearth, it was clear this woman had used hairstylists, makeup and clothing to the fullest advantage.

It was mean-spirited to accuse this woman of relying on the stealthy artifice of modern beauty when she was just as guilty. But what other weapons did she have in this situation? Gloating over her genetic superiority was the only way Madeline could whittle her down to a more manageable entity. By the end of her unkind examination, she had convinced herself that Steven was only using the newcomer for her money. At least she felt confident she hadn’t been thrown over for a younger, prettier model.

Other than having a reasonable idea of what her rival looked like in any given setting, from any given angle, Madeline’s knowledge of this woman was still frustratingly scant. She hadn’t served on any charitable boards or launched any businesses. She seemed to gain all her press coverage by being connected to rich and powerful men, and divorcing them.

Madeline sat back and contemplated this match up. How was it this woman—who now had a reported $60 million from two lucrative divorces—would suddenly develop a fancy for Steven? He was successful, but hardly of the caliber of her last husband. But he was very handsome and
oh so
charming when he wanted to be.

But still, a woman like Elizabeth Collins-Wainwright would hardly be wooed by Steven’s attributes in the space of one weekend. No, of course she wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t have him staying at her home after a casual introduction.

Madeline began to pace as the implications registered. This whole mess—from discrediting and displacing her, to the sudden appearance of her successor—had to have been planned well in advance.

Madeline’s pacing halted abruptly as the horrible truth hit home. This thing between Steven and the rich divorcée didn’t just happen out of thin air. Madeline’s hand flew to her mouth as the veil fell, exposing Steven’s outrageous betrayal. The whole elaborate plot to frame her as an adulteress was a ruse to cover
his
broken wedding vows.

Madeline felt like she was going to be sick. All his cruel acts against her were a mechanism to push her out of the way to make room for the women he must’ve been courting for months, maybe longer.

Her head spun as she imagined how Steven had gone in pursuit of this woman, claiming he was in a loveless marriage, wanting to be free of his heartless wife. He probably strung E C-W along, giving her hope, dragging it out, making her desperate to have Steven’s cold, unloving wife out of the way. Madeline sank into a chair, her face as pale as the moon.

It all had to have started with a need. That need had been money. Burt had pretty much proved that. So, the question was, when did the shortfall begin. Madeline would bet every penny she had that the need coincided with the pursuit.

Perhaps Burt could recreate a timeline, starting with the first deed that was not reconveyed at the time the mortgage was paid off. But that wouldn’t be conclusive proof, for Steven could’ve been running this scam without a hitch for some time, replacing funds in a more timely matter.

She grabbed her notepad.
Ask Burt when the loans were paid off,
she wrote. So far, Burt had uncovered four instances of embezzlement. How many more would he turn up? Was there any way to unearth the other tardy reconveyances that had eventually been paid? Sure, there had to be. The district attorney would put a forensic accountant on the case. Burt was right wanting to handle it this way. It was too bad they had to wait for her to return to the mainland before they could sic the law on her reprehensible soon-to-be-ex.

Okay,
she thought,
we’re on the right track. But what if Steven is able to siphon money out of Elizabeth and repay his investors before the borrowers act?

Madeline got up and began pacing again.
It’s okay; Burt’s made at least two people aware of the time lag.
That’s probably enough to launch an investigation.

She walked out onto the balcony and listened to the sound of the waves as they broke on the shore. She tried to make her breathing match the cadence of the tide, calming her mind in the process. But it was no use; as long as she was stuck on Guam and Steven was using all his wiles to win Elizabeth’s trust, there was a chance he would get away with everything.

She went back inside and used the time conversion site on her phone. It was 10 a.m. PST, the previous day, which was Friday.
Perfect.
She grabbed Burt’s phone and called him. It went to voicemail. She hung up and held the phone thoughtfully against her chin. Either he would call back right away, or he was in the middle of an interview. She gave him a couple of minutes to reply before figuring it was the latter.

There was no hope of going back to sleep now. Fortunately for her, the hotel had 24-hour room service. She perused the menu, settling on tropical pancakes with macadamia nuts and papaya, sausage and fresh guava juice. Naturally, Burt called the moment her breakfast arrived.

“You’re up early,” he said, as Madeline let the waiter in.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied, motioning for the waiter to set the tray on the coffee table.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I’ve used the time for thinking,” Madeline said as she signed the check. She mouthed the words “thank you,” and turned her attention back to Burt.

“Thinking is a good use of time,” he said.

“Well, actually, I’ve been mostly worrying.”

“Ah, not such a good use of time. What’s on your mind?”

“I guess I’m feeling nervous. I’m afraid Steven will manage to come up with the money needed to cover the notes before we have enough evidence of what he’s done. If we don’t catch him on this, then we’re not going to catch him on anything. He’ll walk away as the Golden Boy hero he’s always been, with a garnish of wronged husband to further endear him to the faithful.”

“You get quite eloquent in the middle of the night.”

“Please tell me I’m worrying for nothing.”

“I can’t blame you for worrying after what your husband’s put you through—”

“Ex—
ex-husband,”
Madeline reminded him.

“Almost ex,” Burt reminded her.

“Okay, almost ex. Wait a second—should I be waiting until we’re legally divorced before we go after him?” she asked, her voice high with new concern.

“No. We definitely don’t want to wait. Time is crucial right now.”

“But I’m just thinking that I—”

“I know what you’re thinking, but as you’re not a partner in the L.P., you won’t have any liabilities as far as criminal or civil litigation goes. So don’t be looking for problems that don’t exist. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

“Okay, I just needed to hear that from you. Any updates?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve found another duped borrower.”

“That’s fantastic,” Madeline said, suddenly jubilant. “Well, I guess that’s not so fantastic for the borrower. Have you set up any more meetings?” she asked before she stuck a forkful of pancake and sausage in her mouth. She made a mental note to start visiting the hotel gym.

“One confirmed. Still waiting to hear back from the fourth victim. We have a tentative appointment when he gets off work. Either way, we’ll have plenty of ammo to hand over to the D.A.”

“Thanks. I feel so useless stuck out here in the middle of the Pacific. I feel like my world is imploding and all I can do is watch it from afar. Hey, would there be any benefit to putting Steven under surveillance? It might be a good idea to keep tabs on his moves.”

“Two problems with that—I’m a one-man operation, and Steven’s got his own in-house security. Even if I partnered with another P.I., chances are very high we’d be detected before we got anything.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” Another scary thought occurred to her. “Do you feel like you’ve popped up on their radar? Are you worried they know you’re investigating Steven’s company?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘worried,’ but it is always a concern in a situation like this—especially in light of Steven’s shady dealings and his posse of hired thugs.”

“Hired thugs?” Madeline was taken aback by this characterization of men she had always assumed were the “good guys.” She never knew much about them, but had always taken comfort in their presence. How silly to not realize they were Steven’s stooges all along. Still, it gave her a creepy feeling to think of them as thugs. “Did you do a background check on them, too?” she asked.

“Let’s just say I got a snapshot of their operation and an outline of their work-slash-military history. I guess I shouldn’t have referred to them as thugs, though I do think as a group they could be pretty dangerous if called upon.”

Chills ran down Madeline’s arms. She found herself grateful for being on Guam, away from all the possible dangers. Hopefully, now that Steven was getting his expedited divorce, all the scare tactics would be dropped. But what if he got wind of Burt’s investigation?

“Burt…are you sure you’re okay with snooping around Steven’s business dealings?”

“What do you mean?”

“You called Steven’s security team hired thugs. Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie.” There was a long silence on Burt’s end. “Burt?”

“Are you saying you want to drop this? I thought you wanted to nail Steven for embezzlement since you couldn’t get him on the rape.” Madeline let out an exasperated sigh.

“It’s not that I don’t want to nail the bastard—believe me, that desire is still as strong as ever, if for no other reason than to show him he can’t ruin people’s lives and walk away unscathed.”

“But…?”

“But I don’t want you to be in any danger.”

“Don’t worry. I know my way around scum like your husband. I’ve been chasing after his kind in one capacity or another for many years.” Madeline wasn’t reassured by this. Now that she had the specter of the goon squad in her head, she couldn’t think of them in less malignant terms. “Let me put it this way, I’ve been up against worse. And I’m not worried. Okay? Feel better now?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you want me to stop the investigation into RAM, L.P.?” Madeline didn’t answer. “Do you want me to just confine the scope of my duties to finding out who set you up? Madeline, I need to know if you’re still behind this. If you’re not, then we drop it—plain and simple. By law, I can only investigate in accordance to your wishes.” More silence on Madeline’s end.

“I’ve got a couple appointments to cancel if you’ve got cold feet about this,” Burt said. “I guess there’s really no harm in letting it go—we’ve already put the bug in the borrowers’ ears. They can look into it on their own and pursue Steven if they want. I mean, really, it’s no skin off your nose if they’ve been burned by your ex. You had nothing to do with any of that.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Madeline replied, getting up to pace again.

“I need a decision from you one way or the other, and honestly, it doesn’t matter to me which way we go. I do have to tell you that I’m feeling the trail go cold on the rape case. You can always take your story and the photos to the cops and maybe they can shake something loose. But the truth is, we really don’t have a lot to go on. I mean, you could scour the fundraiser photos and video footage some more, see if you can find a clear image to work off of…”

“Oh, God—I really don’t know what to do here,” Madeline moaned as she looked out at the predawn glow from the east. Something about the lighting brought her back to that horrible morning at The Edgecliff.

“I guess there’s really less harm in you taking their statements than in letting the worry fester in them. Just because you take their written statements, doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to act on them…?”

“I don’t know about that,” Burt said. “I think you need to fish or cut bait. I don’t think you can compromise here. You can’t leave the borrowers with the false impression that someone’s taking action on their behalf.”

Madeline sighed, looking up, as if she were appealing to a higher authority. She was afraid of Steven now. But she was even more afraid of living with herself if she didn’t hold him accountable in some way. If she didn’t, she would always have the feeling he still had control over her.

“Continue as planned,” she said. “A man like that can’t be allowed to go free and seek other victims.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

After she hung up with Burt, Madeline tried to think of anything but Steven and her replacement. It was hard, given the circumstances. Being stuck in a hotel room didn’t help. She felt boxed in, mentally and physically. But she needed to focus on her future, one that would begin the moment she landed back in California.

In an effort to concentrate, she got down on the floor and began stretching exercises. The old habit had the desired effect, and soon her mind became more or less a blank slate. On that clear surface, she started prioritizing her needs.

Housing was still the most urgent requirement. The dilemma was what kind should she look for: the very temporary hotel/vacation rental type, or the type that required a commitment, i.e., a lease? This brought her to her second most pressing matter: how best to spend and protect the proceeds of her divorce?

Thinking of money led her to thinking about her car. The sale of it would mean more money and a more secure future. She gave one final stretch and got off the floor. Seizing the window of compatible time, she picked up her phone and called Mike.

“Hey, I was wondering when I’d ever hear from you,” he said. “I guess you forgot about your old pal once you hit the duty-free boutiques.”

“How did you know about those?”

“I can go
virtually
anywhere you go,” he reminded her. “Now you’ll be able to put a sizeable dent in their inventory…”

“Did you sell the Porsche?”

“Sure did.”

“For how much?” she prodded him.

“More than I thought we’d get…”

“How much?” Figures he’d want to drag this out for theatrical purposes.

“Hey, I think you need to show your dealer some respect.”

“Okay—the suspense is killing me. Just tell me so I can praise you inordinately,” Madeline said.

“Eighty grand,” Mike said dreamily, managing to evoke the image of stacks of 800 C-notes.

“No way! That’s amazing!’

“Now, that’s more like it,” he said. Madeline shook her head. Some things never change, like Mike’s constant need for stroking.

“You are magnificent, Mike Delaney,” she said. “Truly, truly incredible—”

“You don’t have to be snide.”

“No, really—I’m over the moon with gratitude. Seriously.”

“Now you’re being condescending,” Mike pouted.

“Oh, stop. Tell me how you got so much for it. I thought we’d be lucky to get close to seventy.”

“Well, there’s luck, and then there’s skill. You were
lucky
to entrust the task with such a
skillful
negotiator.” Madeline groaned. If the preamble was going to take this long, the story would be never-ending.

“Okay, you told me a guy was interested before I left…”

“Yeah, he was very hot to trot. But while I was showing it to him, I got two other responses. So…I worked them a bit, let ’em know there were several other parties interested—”

“And you got the first guy to come up to eighty grand,” Madeline deduced, thoroughly spoiling Mike’s big wind-up.

“You are a real killjoy, you know that?”

“Hey, don’t be sore. You’re still my number one hero.”

“Oh really? Who died?”

“Okay, so I’m a killjoy—”

“And a sore winner,” Mike added testily.

“I’m just bored out of my gourd, stuck on this speck in the ocean. I’m holed up like a fugitive, my life’s been yanked out from under me, I’ve got no future—should I go on?”

“If you’re apologizing, I accept,” Mike said magnanimously.

“Apologizing for what?” Madeline barked before giving into the silliness of the conversation. She could never really stay mad at Mike, though there’d been times she’d wished he’d get out of her life for good. Thank God he didn’t.

“So, are you happy about the sale?”

“Ecstatic. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Have you given any more thought to moving down here?”

“No, Mike—L.A.’s really not the place for me. I’d feel more lost and insignificant than I already do. I’m sure I’ll feel like a pariah in Santa Barbara, though I can’t understand why. I didn’t do anything wrong. But scandals like this one are hot one minute, and forgotten the next. I’ll have to hide my face for a while until it all calms down. But I plan to stay up there, see if I can find a way to support myself.”

“Got any prospects?”

“No, not really. I’m sure I’m good at something, I just can’t remember what it is.”

“You’d make some lucky guy one hell of a wife,” Mike hinted.

“Oh please! Don’t even pretend that’s an option. Just because I’m single again doesn’t mean we have to torture ourselves with another bad relationship.”

“We didn’t have a bad relationship,” Mike protested.

“No, you’re right—we had three or four,” Madeline reminded him.

“They weren’t all bad,” Mike insisted meekly. Madeline had to laugh.

“Right. And they say hindsight’s 20/20.”

“Okay, now that I’ve gotten your car sold and let you trash my fond memories of our time together, I suppose you’re ready to move on. No, no—it’s alright. I’ll pull through somehow. But if you ever need me again, I’ll come running.”

“I know. That goes for me, too. We’re better friends than lovers…”

“Well, I wouldn’t say
that…”

“Okay, crazy man, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a week to sort my life out, and so far it’s not looking very promising.”

“If I may make an innocent suggestion…”

“What is it?” Madeline asked guardedly.

“I think you should stay over in L.A. at least a day. You really can’t do anything until you find a replacement car, and you might as well take advantage of the competition down here.”

In the excitement of becoming $80,000 richer, Madeline had overlooked the fact that she was now car-less. She was no longer privileged to have a stable of high-end automobiles at her disposal. She saw her monetary triumph suddenly dwindle.

“You’re right. What was I thinking? I don’t even know what kind of car I should be shopping for. I don’t even know what cars cost these days.”

“You can always lease something.”

“Yeah, but what?”

“Guess that’s one more thing for your ‘to do’ list,” Mike said. Madeline sighed. She was even less equipped for the single life than she realized.

From her cozy, spherical beach cabana on the hotel’s plot of white sand, Madeline took a hard look at her prospects. As she would be solely responsible for her success from this point forward, she started with an assessment of her physical attributes.

At forty, she was still in good shape. Thanks to a rigorous workout regimen and a mostly stringent diet, her figure was basically the same as when she left the singles arena. Her body had not betrayed her with the inevitable sagging of skin and muscle yet. The amount of time, effort and money that had gone into skincare had paid off, so she counted that as a check in the plus column.

Her wardrobe and jewelry would get her through many years—maybe not on the cutting edge of fashion, but she would still be considered well-dressed by most standards. So, on the exterior, she was on solid ground. On those two fronts, she gave herself a B+.

Where she had allowed herself to fall behind was in the professional domain. She hadn’t held a real job for almost thirteen years. Fortunately, keeping up with technology was not only hip but essential for a woman of her means in this day and age. As far as skill sets went, she felt comfortable enough that she could learn to work any software program put in front of her.

But what field would she best be suited for? That was the big question. From straight work experience, she was not qualified for much. With the fierce job market, this would make it especially hard. She tried to envision herself interviewing for job placement, imagining the kinds of questions she’d have to answer. It was not a comforting prospect. Nor was the thought of resorting to her last occupation, which was hotel concierge.

Besides, where could she do that? She didn’t want to go back to Denver; she hadn’t kept pace with the changes there and would not find it easy to land a job. Santa Barbara was the place she knew best, but where would she feel comfortable sitting in full view of everyone, including her former friends. How humiliating would that be? Besides, the pay wasn’t great. No, another avenue had to be found. But what else was she qualified to do?

In an attempt to pump up her attributes, she made a mental list of her talents. She had a gift for shopping, no one could deny that. But she had a hard time picturing herself rounding up outfits for the fashion-challenged in a department store.

What else did she know how to do? She was stumped. She had considered herself a good wife, but applying for that position again was not an option, not after what she’d just been through, not for the foreseeable future, at any rate.

Other than that, all she had done for the last twelve years was issue orders, plan events or serve on nonprofit boards.

Of course!
she thought, realizing belatedly that she
had
learned some marketable skills. She had become quite adept at organizing functions of all sizes and budgets. She could do what she’d been doing for years
and
get paid. And it would be an easy transition; instead of just shelling out the cash, she could be pocketing some of it too.
What a perfect idea!

With that end in mind, she began to examine the logistics of setting up her own company. She started making a list on her iPhone of what it would take to put her in business. All she really needed was a website, some business cards and some referrals. This last thought gave her pause; could she really switch from the front entrance to the back so seamlessly? Would her friends be so accepting and supportive now that she wasn’t married to Steven Ridley, man of many charms and accomplishments?

If I approached it with the right attitude…
she mused.
Many women have reinvented themselves after divorce,
she reasoned.
Events by Madeline,
she tried on for size. She frowned; not exciting enough.
Life of the Party.
That had potential.

Yes, yes—
she could see herself in the business of planning events for others. It would still be noble work, even if she wasn’t giving of her time and experience for free. She would do it. She would have a career.

Feeling as though she had made sizable headway, she became restless. She needed movement. But frolicking in the water didn’t qualify. She needed a change of scenery. She needed to meander. She packed up her bag and headed for a neighboring hotel.