“Makes sense.” He took one of the glasses and tried to look like he had half a clue about what was going on here. “Since, as you say, your message was a little vague, why don’t you start at the beginning and fill me in?”
“All right.”
She walked to a low-backed leather sofa and curled into the corner, one sleek leg bent at the knee. He noticed a sheet of creamy notepaper filled with elegant, feminine handwriting lying on the glass table in front of the sofa. Next to the note was an open envelope. A small, elaborately carved gold key set with a blue gemstone rested on top of it.
“Long story short,” Cady said, “is that Aunt Vesta, in addition to leaving me her house, an important piece of jewelry and her collection of antique boxes, bequeathed me a controlling block of shares in Chatelaine’s. The entire family is still in shock.”
“Why is it so strange that she would leave you the shares?”
“She knew that I had no interest in the day-to-day operation of the business. It was understood in the family that she would leave her voting shares to my cousin Sylvia, who is currently the CEO.”
“And now?”
Cady sipped tea thoughtfully and then lowered the glass. “Now, for all intents and purposes, I hold the future of Chatelaine’s in my hands. And I have no idea why Vesta arranged for that to happen.”
“I take it congratulations are not in order?”
“I told you, I never wanted to be a part of Chatelaine’s. Corporate operations, five-year plans and retirement benefit programs bore the socks off me. Aunt Vesta knew that.”
“Yet she stuck you with those shares.”
“Yes.” Cady tapped one elegantly manicured fingernail against the glass. “At a time when, as fate would have it, Chatelaine’s is facing a major crossroads.”
“What kind of crossroads.”
“Next month the board was scheduled to vote on whether or not to merge with the Austrey-Post galleries. The proposal has been in the works for months.”
Mack felt he was on firmer footing now. He knew something about the long-standing friendly rivalry between the two privately held firms.
“That would be a major move, all right,” he said.
“It has a lot of possibilities. Combining the resources of Chatelaine’s and Austrey-Post would catapult the new company into the big leagues as far as the art world is concerned. Sylvia is already talking about expanding to the East Coast and possibly opening a branch in London. Randall and Stanford want to establish a presence on the internet.”
“Who are Randall and Stanford?”
“Randall is Randall Post,” she said. “His grandfather Randall Austrey founded the Austrey Gallery. Austrey’s daughter eventually married John Post. Austrey made his son-in-law a partner in the firm and the gallery became Austrey-Post.”
The name clicked. “Randall Post is your ex-husband, isn’t he?”
Her jaw tightened. “Yes.”
He had done his research before contacting her the first time. Post was the man she had divorced after a nine-day marriage. Morbid curiosity pulsed through him, but he could see that Cady was not inclined to elaborate on her relationship with her ex.
“Stanford would be Stanford Felgrove, then?” he asked. “The current president and CEO of Austrey-Post?”
“Right. John Post died when his son, Randall, was thirteen. Randall’s mother remarried Stanford Felgrove.” Cady’s mouth was a grim line. “Jocelyn Post died of alcoholism and left fifty-one percent of Austrey-Post to her second husband. Stanford Felgrove took over control of the gallery. Today, Randall is only a junior partner in the firm his grandfather founded and which his mother inherited.”
“That’s got to be a little hard for your ex to swallow.”
“Yes.” Cady paused. “Randall and Stanford have handled the situation by dividing the business into two different spheres. Stanford manages corporate operations. In fairness, he’s good at it. He has certainly kept Austrey-Post profitable. Sylvia tells me it has just completed a record-breaking year. Randall is the one with the background in art and antiques, though, and the connections. He courts clients and brings in the major consignments. Both of them are pressing for the merger.”
“Am I missing something? Is there a problem with the merger?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” Cady tapped the glass again. “Until shortly before my aunt’s death, things were on track for the board vote next month. There shouldn’t have been any glitches. Both boards wanted the merger to happen. The families on both sides are enthusiastic about the prospects for the future.”
She stopped talking abruptly.
“But?” he prompted.
“But a few days before she drowned, Aunt Vesta postponed the vote. At about the same time, she changed her will to leave me the shares in Chatelaine’s.”
“And you don’t know why?”
“She just said that she was having some last-minute doubts about the wisdom of the merger.”
He considered that for a moment and then shrugged. “If that was true, why wouldn’t she have discussed them in detail with your cousin Sylvia and the other members of the board?”
“I don’t know. Probably because she was uncertain of her information.” Cady’s hand tightened visibly around the glass. “My aunt was secretive by nature and the tendency got more pronounced as she got older. She rarely confided in anyone. But I do know that she was in favor of the merger, at least until quite recently.”
“I believe you. Vesta Briggs controlled Chatelaine’s. Something as big as a merger couldn’t have gotten to the voting stage without her approval.”
Cady wrapped one arm around an upraised knee and regarded him with a steady, troubled expression. “I think something must have happened very recently. Something that put some doubts in her mind.”
Leaning back in the chair, he thrust out his legs and regarded the tips of his shoes. “When did she change her will in order to leave you the shares?”
“The lawyer said the change was made about a week before she died.”
He looked up. “If you’re right, then whatever happened to give her some doubts about the merger must have occurred at about the same time.”
“That’s my theory.”
He swallowed some tea, managed not to make a face and put the glass down on a black coaster. “You want to find out what it was that gave her the reservations about the merger, right?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her. “Where do I come into this?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I want to hire you to help me find out what’s going on.”
“Hire me?” He was so stunned by her casual announcement that for a few seconds he couldn’t get past the impact. “You want to hire me?”
“What’s so weird about that? As I said in the message I left on your voice mail, I need an investigator and you know the art business.”
“Cady, I trace and recover missing works of art. I don’t investigate murky financial situations. That’s an entirely different line of work. It sounds like you need a good accounting firm.”
“Perhaps. But Sylvia told me that the Chatelaine accountants had gone over the Austrey-Post books with a fine-toothed comb. As an added precaution, she and Vesta asked Sylvia’s husband, Gardner, to take a look at them, too.”
“Gardner’s an accountant, I take it?”
“Yes. A CPA. He owns his own business in Phantom Point. He confirmed the accountants’ verdict. Financially, things look great at Austrey-Post.”
“Financial problems can be concealed by someone who knows what he’s doing.”
“Yes, but my aunt didn’t back away from the merger after she looked at the books. Her decision to postpone the vote occurred at about the same time that she made some appointments with a man named Jonathan Arden.”
“Who is Arden?”
Cady sighed. “Promise you won’t laugh.”
“Trust me, I’m not in a laughing mood.”
?
??Arden is a psychic.”
It took him a few seconds to absorb and process that information.
“As in someone who, uh, claims to have paranormal talents?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes.”
“You’re not joking, are you?”
“No,” she said wearily. “I am not joking.”
“It’s a little hard to imagine the head of Chatelaine’s consulting a psychic. Are you sure your aunt was in full possession of her faculties there at the end?”
“Several members of the family have their doubts,” Cady admitted. “But I spoke to her on the phone a number of times during the past few months. She seemed as lucid and clearheaded as ever to me.”
“Did she have a history of being interested in this kind of stuff?”
“Metaphysics? No.”
“Any idea why she would suddenly develop an interest?”
“No.” Cady put down her glass. “Seeing a psychic was completely out of character for her. She had no patience with fortune-tellers and psychics and the like. As far as she was concerned, they were all con artists.”
“Mmm.”
“What I’m trying to explain here is that the timing of those appointments with Arden and the decision to change her will is too coincidental to be ignored. Jonathan Arden is involved in this. I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to figure out just how he’s involved?”
“Yes. Furthermore, we need to keep your investigation absolutely quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“Only the members of my family know about the psychic thing. We have to keep it that way. The merger proposal has been postponed, but it is still very much on the table. It’s vitally important that we don’t stir up any wild speculation about my aunt’s state of mind during the past few months. That kind of gossip would not be good for Chatelaine’s or Austrey-Post. Is that clear?”
“Trust me, my lips are sealed.” She was sinking deeper and deeper into some bizarre conspiracy plot, he thought. “Look, maybe you’re coming at this from the wrong angle.”
“What other angle is there?”
“Have you considered the possibility that your aunt left you those shares because she wanted to force you back into the family business?”
Cady shook her head once, emphatically. “She understood that I wanted no part of Chatelaine’s. She accepted my decision.”
“Are you sure of that?”
Cady hesitated. “Yes.”
He saw the flicker of uncertainty and pursued it ruthlessly. “Maybe she hadn’t accepted it. Not deep down where it counts. Founders of family-owned businesses often have very strong feelings about whom they want to inherit. If your aunt was convinced that you should return to the firm, she might have seen the shares as a way of accomplishing her goal.”
Cady glanced at the single sheet of notepaper and the key on the table. “I hadn’t thought of that possibility,” she admitted reluctantly.
“It makes a lot of sense,” he said persuasively. “If that’s the case, there shouldn’t be any big problem dumping your shares back on the family. There’s got to be some legal way for you to transfer them to your cousin or the other members of the board.”
“Probably.”
He exhaled deeply. “You’re not buying my logic, are you?”
She wrapped her arms around both knees and looked at him across the expanse of the minimalist room. “No. I think there’s something wrong and I intend to find out what it is before I make any decisions about the shares and the merger.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“The only question here is whether or not you want to take the job I’m offering.”
One of these days, he would have to learn to be careful what he asked for, he thought. He had come here today hoping to restart a prickly relationship with an unpredictable woman. He had achieved his goal, assuming you could count a job as a relationship.
“What will you do if I turn it down?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She pursed her lips in a meditative expression. “Find another investigator to help me check out Jonathan Arden, I suppose. I would much prefer to work with you because you’re very low profile. It’s highly unlikely that anyone in either Austrey-Post or Chatelaine’s has ever even heard of you. That kind of anonymity would be extremely useful in this case.”
“Always knew there was some advantage to being low profile.”
She said nothing, waiting.
“Why do I have the feeling,” he asked after a while, “that I’m not getting the whole picture here?”
“What do you mean?” she asked with an expression of offended innocence.
He groaned silently. She really was holding out on him. If he had an ounce of common sense he would not touch this situation with a ten-foot pole.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll take the job.”
“Excellent.” She gave him a brilliant smile, unclasped her knees and swung her bare feet to the floor. “Now that’s settled, we can talk about the details of my plan.”
Premonition tightened his insides. “Are there a lot of them? Details, that is?”
“As I told you, I can’t just go charging into Phantom Point with my own personal investigator in tow. Not only would it start nasty rumors about the financial status of both galleries, it would offend a lot of folks. Also, you’re going to be asking questions. Subtly, of course.”
“Hey, subtle is my middle name.” This was a mistake. He could sense the potential for disaster looming on the horizon. But he could not seem to work up the willpower to turn aside before it was too late.
“You’ll have to go in as an insider.”
“Okay. What do you intend to do? Bring me in as an employee of Chatelaine’s?”
“I considered that.” She waved the idea aside with a whisking motion. “But that wouldn’t put you into the right circles. You’ll need to be able to move in my aunt’s world. That means mingling with the people she came in contact with in the course of her daily life. Family, friends, clients.”
He watched her face, unwillingly fascinated. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been pretty focused on it since the funeral.”
“So, how do you intend to insert me into the right circles in Phantom Point?”
“Simple. I’m going to introduce you as my future fiancé.”
He stared at her for what must have been at least five seconds. He was dimly aware that it took him that long to recover sufficiently from the shock to be able to speak coherently.
“Are you serious?” he asked without any inflection whatsoever.
“Dead serious. It will put you in the eye of the storm.”
“That is not a reassuring sort of metaphor.”
“Relax, this is perfect. Just about everyone has despaired of my ever getting married again. The assumption is that I’ll end up like Aunt Vesta, you see.”
“What, exactly, is a future fiancé?”
“We haven’t officially announced our engagement but intend to do so soon.”
He nodded. “In the future.”
“Right.”
“In other words, we’re sort of semi-engaged?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, that certainly clears that up nicely. Thanks for the explanation.”
“Believe me, when I show up in Phantom Point with a potential fiancé, the curiosity factor will be huge. After all, I’ve just inherited a controlling interest in Chatelaine’s. People will stand in line to get a chance to check you out.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered. “They’ll assume that I’m marrying you in order to cash in on Chatelaine’s.”
“Precisely. You see how this will work?”
“Sure do. Everyone will think I’m marrying you for your money. Your family and friends will conclude that I’m an opportunist. A fortune hunter.”
“Okay, so it’s no
t great for your ego. But it’s perfect for our purposes.”
“Perfect.”
“Well?” she prompted impatiently.
“Well, what?”
“Now that you’ve heard the details, are you still interested in the job?”
He hadn’t heard all the details, not by a long shot. What was she keeping back?
“Sure.” He could be cool, too. “Not like I’m doing anything else at the moment.”
She looked relieved. “Good. That’s settled then.”
“I’ll want a contract, of course.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I never work without a contract.”
“Oh, right. A contract.”
“Just the standard one will do,” he said.
“Like the ones I signed with you when I worked for Lost and Found?”
“Yes.”
She cleared her throat. “I’ll, uh, draw something up.”
“Have you got a basic contract?”
“Well, no. I haven’t had a chance to ask a lawyer to draft one that I can use for this kind of job.”
“Swell.” He said smugly. “Why don’t you dig out the last one you signed with Lost and Found? You can borrow the basic boilerplate from it.”
“Good idea,” she said, a little too brightly.
“About my fee,” he continued smoothly.
She sat very still. “It’s negotiable.”
“No, it’s not negotiable. I’ll give it some thought on the way home tonight. I’ll have a figure for you by morning. It will be up to you whether or not to accept or reject.”
“And if I reject?”
“You can always shop around for another low-profile investigator who doesn’t mind masquerading as a sleazy opportunist.”
Some of the enthusiasm in her eyes vanished. A steely expression replaced it. “You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“The way I see it, it’s already difficult. I’m just trying to make sure I get fairly compensated for all the difficulty involved.”
“And also for having to put up with knowing that everyone will think you’re a fortune hunter, right?”