Merrick scowled. “What do you mean?”
“Forget it. Why did she break up with Galloway?”
Merrick sighed. “She told everyone that the stress of the hostile takeover put too much strain on their relationship. And it was true, as far as it went. After you demolished her company, Camille blamed Garth for leaving the firm financially vulnerable. Garth blamed everyone in sight for his failure. He got angry, and then he got depressed, and then he started sleeping with someone else.”
“I see.” Jack looked at the fast-moving water. “I didn’t know that Galloway was engaged to Elizabeth.”
Merrick gave him a derisive look. “Would it have made a difference?”
He hesitated, thought about Larry, and then shook his head. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. In the end, she confronted Garth with his infidelity and broke off the engagement.” Merrick paused a grim beat. “Garth then told her that the only reason he had gotten engaged to her in the first place was because his mother had wanted the match. Camille liked the idea of having the Aurora Fund in the family, you see. She thought that it would make a nice, ongoing financial cushion for her company.”
Jack felt his insides turn cold. “In other words, Galloway wanted to marry her for her money.”
“He wanted to use her,” Merrick said evenly. “The same way you did. But I’ll give Garth Galloway credit for one thing. He didn’t humiliate her in a public scene in front of her friends and colleagues.”
“Do you think she loved him?”
“Well, sure.” Merrick frowned. “I mean, she was engaged to him, right?”
“If you say so.”
“Of course she was in love with him.” Merrick hunkered deeper into his coat. “She got over him eventually, but it was hard on her for a while. And then you come along a second time and screw up her life all over again.”
“Believe it or not, I didn’t mean to screw it up this time.”
Merrick gave him a dark look. “So what’s the deal between you two?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that one out for six months.”
“Come up with any answers?”
“No.”
“Well, let me help you get some context here,” Merrick said. “It’s real simple. You need the backing of the Aurora Fund to keep Excalibur going, so you’re sleeping with the lady who writes the checks. What’s going to happen when you no longer need her money?”
“Beats me,” Jack admitted. What would he do when he no longer had that tenuous link with her?
“I don’t get it. This whole thing just doesn’t make sense.” Merrick eyed him for a few tense seconds. “There’s something else going on here. What is it?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Like hell. She’s family. I’ve got a right to know—”
The cell phone rang, silencing Merrick. Grateful for the interruption, Jack quickly removed the small instrument from his jacket pocket.
“Fairfax here.”
“This is Leonard Ledger. You know that guy you were looking for? Tyler Page?”
Jack stilled. “I’m listening.”
“I think I’ve got a lead on him.”
“Where is he?”
“I can’t talk now. Come to my hotel room tonight, okay? Make it around eleven-thirty. I gotta go to some screenings, and then I gotta have drinks with some people who are interested in investing in my film.”
“Ledger, if you expect me to shell out hard cash for your next project, you’d better come across now—”
“You never told me this guy was trouble.” A whining note infused Leonard’s words. “I can’t afford to piss off certain people, y’know? I gotta be real careful here.”
“Listen, Ledger—”
“Room three-oh-five. The Mirror Springs Resort. Eleven-thirty. Don’t bother coming around earlier. I won’t be here.”
The phone went dead.
“I DON’T LIKE this, Lizzie.” Merrick shoved his fingers through his hair and slanted a suspicious look at Jack. “I don’t like leaving you here alone with him.”
Jack, occupied with making coffee in the kitchen, did not look up from his task.
Elizabeth summoned up a reassuring smile for Merrick. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
Jack did pause briefly at that comment. He glanced at Merrick. “My advice is to listen to her. She’s an adult. She’s smart. She knows what she’s doing. She’s also real stubborn. Take it from me.”
Merrick stabbed his fingers through his hair again. “There’s something about this whole damn situation that doesn’t ring true.”
“If I tell you the truth, will you give me your word that you’ll keep your mouth shut?” Elizabeth asked him.
Jack shot her a quick, warning glare. “Elizabeth—”
“It’s okay, Jack,” she said quietly. “I trusted you earlier when you said you wanted to talk privately to Merrick. Now you’ll just have to trust me.”
Jack subsided, but he did not look thrilled.
“I knew it,” Merrick turned eagerly back to Elizabeth. “Something is going on. What is it?”
“What do you think it is?” Elizabeth smiled blandly. “It’s business, of course.”
Relief flashed across Merrick’s face. “That makes more sense. I knew that you were way too smart to fall for another jerk.”
Elizabeth was very careful not to look at Jack. “I appreciate your faith in my intelligence, Merrick.”
“But what the hell kind of business are you doing here in Mirror Springs? Don’t tell me it’s got something to do with the film festival.”
“Indirectly,” Elizabeth said smoothly. “We’re trying to put together a deal with someone who is attending the festival. He wanted to spend the week here. We wanted to get together with him, so we’re here, too.”
“Huh.” Merrick’s brow puckered slightly. “If it’s business, why did Shaw give me that song and dance about the two of you being involved in an affair?”
“Hayden Shaw is pursuing the same prospect we are,” Elizabeth said. “He’s got his own reasons for wanting to put a spanner in the works.”
Merrick slanted another suspicious glance at Jack. “So how come you and Fairfax are both staying here together?”
“There’s a severe shortage of accommodations in town.” It occurred to Elizabeth that she’d had to make this excuse a lot lately, first to Louise and now to Merrick. “When Jack arrived he was told his reservation had been lost. He didn’t have a place to stay. I let him share this place. There’s plenty of room.”
Merrick eyed the twin sleeping lofts. “Not a lot of privacy.”
“We’re careful,” Jack said from the kitchen.
Merrick frowned at him and then turned back to Elizabeth. “What kind of deal are you two putting together that involves both Excalibur and the Aurora Fund? Licensing agreement?”
“Something like that,” Elizabeth said. “I really can’t tell you any more than that. Lot of money involved. If we close the deal, the Aurora Fund stands to make a huge return on its investment.”
“I see.” Merrick was definitely wavering now.
Elizabeth decided to take advantage of his growing uncertainty. She looked pointedly at her watch. “It’s getting late, Merrick. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you if you’re going to make your plane. Rowena will be waiting.”
A pang of anxiety lit Merrick’s eyes. “I know.”
“I’ll walk you out to the car,” she said gently.
She crossed the room and opened the front door. Cold, crisp air wafted into the room. Merrick looked at the open door and then at Jack.
“Business, huh?” he said, obviously wanting to be convinced.
“You heard Elizabeth.” Jack flicked the switch on the coffee machine and lounged back against the edge of the counter. “Business.”
“No other reason she’d be here with you,” Merrick muttered.
“Right,” Jack said without any
inflection. “There’s no other reason why she’d be here with me.”
Merrick turned slowly and walked through the door past Elizabeth.
She followed him out onto the deck, closed the door, and went down the steps beside him to where his car was parked in the drive. She could feel the uneasy tension in him and was touched.
“It’s all right, Merrick. Everything’s under control.” Mentally she crossed her fingers.
“If you say so.” He stopped beside the car and looked at her. “You’ll call me if you need me?”
She held her blowing hair out of her eyes. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Rowena and I are here for you, Lizzie. Always. You know that.”
“I know.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He was solid as a rock and, as long as you didn’t look at the financial aspect, just as dependable. He would always be a dreamer, filled with plans and ideas that would probably never quite work out the way he had envisioned, but she knew that if she ever needed him, he would be there. Just as she knew that her sister would always be there.
He hugged her back, a big, brotherly, bearlike embrace. Then he patted her on the shoulder with one broad hand and opened the car door. He wedged himself in behind the wheel and looked up at her.
“I’ll send a revised copy of my business plan to your office.”
She sighed. “Thanks. I’ll get to it as soon as I get home.”
Optimism glowed in his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll tell Rowena everything’s all set.”
Elizabeth reminded herself that some things were more important than making money. Family was one of those things.
“I’ll call you next week,” Merrick promised.
He closed the car door, put the vehicle in gear, and drove down the drive to the tree-lined road.
Elizabeth watched until the car disappeared. After a while she turned to find Jack standing in the open doorway behind her.
“You’re going to give him the money, aren’t you?” he asked neutrally.
“Probably.” She started up the steps. “Don’t worry about it, Jack. It’s not your problem. The Fund has a special account for family loans. Aunt Sybil was very farsighted.”
“You’re not doing him any favors. He’ll never learn how to handle his business affairs if you keep bailing him out.”
She brushed past him. “Like I said, it’s not your problem.”
He followed her back into the house, closed the door, and stood in front of it as though he would block the exit if she tried to make a run for it.
“I didn’t know you were engaged to Garth Galloway,” he said.
She opened the refrigerator. “Would it have made any difference?”
There was a long silence behind her. She finally glanced at him.
“Your brother-in-law asked me the same question.”
She raised one brow. “Well?”
He did not reply.
“Didn’t think so,” she said.
She walked behind the granite counter and opened the refrigerator. “What do you say we have a sandwich? We never did get to eat lunch today.”
“Elizabeth, I didn’t even know you when the Galloway deal went down.”
“No, but you knew there were a lot of innocent people who were going to get hurt.”
His jaw tightened. “It happens in business. You know that.”
She looked out the window as she took some feta cheese out of the refrigerator. There was some yellow in the trees on the hillsides, she noticed. The aspens were starting to turn color. In a short while they would ignite the mountains in a blaze of gold.
“Damn it, Elizabeth—”
“Speaking of business,” she said, picking up a knife, “why don’t we talk about ours? It certainly beats raking up old history. Tell me, what do you think Leonard Ledger meant when he told you that he did not want to make certain people mad?”
“I don’t know.” Jack abandoned his guard post in front of the door and came to stand on the other side of the counter. He picked up his unfinished coffee. “That’s one of the questions I want him to answer tonight. Elizabeth, about your brother-in-law—”
“I’m sorry he hit you this afternoon.” She rinsed off the tomato under running water. “It’s not like him at all. He’s really a gentle man. He must have been extremely upset. Are you okay?”
Jack hesitated. She held her breath.
But Jack must have realized that he was fighting a losing skirmish. He was too good a strategist not to know when to retreat.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sue,” he said.
“That’s a relief.” She smiled very brightly. “I’m not sure the Aurora Fund’s insurance would cover that kind of lawsuit. You might bankrupt us.”
Jack watched her over the rim of his cup. “Wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Of course not.” She started to slice a plump, red tomato. “The Fund wouldn’t be of much use to you or Merrick if it got wiped out in a lawsuit, would it?”
Jack was silent for a long moment.
“No,” he said eventually. “It wouldn’t.”
Elizabeth saw the drop of blood before she felt the sting. “Damn.”
“What happened?”
“Nicked my finger with the knife.”
He set down his cup and walked around the end of the counter. He turned on the faucet and grasped her wrist.
“I read about a situation like this once,” he said, holding her injured finger under the cold running water.
“What kind of situation?”
“You know, princess pricks finger. Drop of blood appears. She falls under a spell. Gets awakened by a kiss from a frog.”
“A frog? Not a prince?”
“Don’t you know anything about fairy tales?” Jack turned off the faucet. “The frog doesn’t turn into a prince until after she kisses him back.”
* * *
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
“WHAT D’YA MEAN, HE DIED OF NATURALcauses? You murdered the guy, Verna. You shot him down in cold blood.”
“If you knew Joey the way I knew Joey, you’d know that getting himself murdered was the most natural thing in the world that coulda happened to him. Besides, it beat the alternative.”
“Yeah? What was the alternative?”
“I could a married him. But my better nature prevailed.”
“Better nature?”
“I don’t believe in torture. Not even for guys like Joey.”
The black-and-white images faded to black on the screen and the credits for Natural Causes began to roll. Leonard Ledger’s name appeared as director. A smattering of applause broke out in the crowded theater.
Elizabeth leaned toward Jack, who was sitting next to her in the balcony. “It looked like the whole movie was shot in a kitchen. I could swear that section of the tunnel wall where Joey gets it was a refrigerator door.”
“Got to give Ledger credit for being able to work within a limited budget,” Jack said as the lights came up.
Elizabeth’s eye was caught briefly by an elegantly gilded figure that projected outward from a stately column. The Silver Empire Theater was a beautifully restored Victorian treasure. According to the brochure she had read, it had originally been built as an opera house. No expense had been spared. It was adorned with red velvet seats, crimson curtains, chandeliers, and elaborate giltwork.
It had been constructed in the late eighteen hundreds when silver and gold had flowed in bright, shiny rivers out of the Colorado mountains. Newly rich miners had competed to show off their wealth and hastily acquired culture by investing in such emblems of civilization as opera houses, theaters, and spas. Privately, Elizabeth thought that the grand Silver Empire looked a little odd here in the middle of a town that had once been a mining camp and was now a ski resort, but she had to admit that the theater did have a certain charm.
Jack appeared to be oblivious to his ornate surroundings. He shifted forward in his seat and rested
both arms on the balcony railing. She realized that he was studying the crowd streaming out of the seats below, a hunter waiting for prey to break cover. He was searching for Ledger’s face. It had been his idea to try to locate the filmmaker at the screening of Natural Causes and follow him back to his room at the Mirror Springs Resort. His inability to get Ledger on the phone had made Jack increasingly restless all evening.
She was just as eager to find out what Ledger had to say, Elizabeth thought. But for the past two hours, she had been aware of a gathering sense of deep unease that she could not explain away. It was Jack’s fault, she told herself. The dark anticipation in him was indeed affecting her nerves.
She was starting to wonder exactly what he would do if he did find Tyler Page. How could he force the other man to turn over Soft Focus? Threats? Violence? Jack could be intimidating when he chose. He would be quite capable of scaring Dr. Page to death.
“It’s eleven o’clock,” she reminded him quietly. “Only another half hour to go. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see Ledger here. We’ll catch up with him soon enough.”
“I don’t like the way he’s set this up.” Jack continued to scrutinize the crowd down below. “A little too melodramatic for my taste.”
“He’s a filmmaker who makes movies in his kitchen. What do you expect?” Elizabeth got to her feet and collected her coat. “Come on, let’s go. By the time we get the car, drive to the resort, park, and find his room, it will be eleven-thirty.”
“You’re right.” Jack did not take his eyes off the crowd below as he stood. “Let’s get out of here.”
They joined the tide of people on the red-carpeted staircase that led down to the lobby. Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of Vicky Bellamy and Dawson Holland, but neither appeared to notice her or Jack.
A number of filmgoers milled around outside on the sidewalk, waiting for the midnight performance of another festival entry, a low-budget picture titled Truth Kills. Snatches of film-speak floated in the air.
“. . . like, total mastery of the language of film, man, you know?”