Stuart Jacobs. Carmen’s father.
She flinched, but with a grim determination she maintained command of her composure.
“You have a new housekeeper,” she said.
Lawrence nodded. “Unfortunately, Ellen died last year,” he said. “Cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So were we.” The older man’s tone sounded more annoyed than regretful. “We’ve had a devil of a time trying to replace her. I believe the current woman is our third in the past six months.”
Griff glanced toward Carmen in time to catch her grimace. Clearly, she was disgusted by the man’s selfish reaction to his servant’s tragic death.
“Is Andrew still here?” she asked.
“Yes, thankfully. He tends to the grounds and acts as our chauffeur when we need him.”
Carmen nodded, pretending to scour her memories. “Didn’t they have a son?”
“Yes.” Lawrence shrugged. “I really don’t know much about him.”
Griff believed him. Lawrence was the sort of man who would consider the housekeeper’s son beneath his notice.
Before Carmen could ask another question, there was the light sound of footsteps. Griff glanced toward the doorway to watch as a thin, waiflike woman wearing one of those designer dresses that looked plain but cost a thousand dollars drifted into the room. Her skin was pale and her dark auburn hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head. Her eyes were unfocused.
A medicated zombie.
“Ah. Here’s Vi,” Lawrence said in bluff tones, moving to wrap an arm around his wife’s narrow shoulders. A warning? “Look who’s come for a visit. Little Carrie.” His gaze returned to Carmen. “Although you’re not so little now, are you?”
Vi didn’t seem particularly joyful at the reunion. Instead, she blinked, looking confused.
“Why on earth are you standing in the kitchen?”
Carmen gave a lift of her hands. “I was just looking around my old home.”
There was another awkward pause, and then Vi managed a quick smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“What a nice surprise. We should have some coffee,” she said, as if she’d just been struck by divine inspiration. “Or tea if you prefer.”
“Not here.” Lawrence forced out a chuckle. “We’ll go into the salon and be served like civilized people.”
Vi nodded. The obedient zombie.
“If you want,” she said, turning to head out of the kitchen. “This way.”
Lawrence remained. “I’ll find the housekeeper and get her started on the coffee,” he said.
Carmen remained in the center of the kitchen, her expression hard with determination. Griff, however, captured her gaze and gave a nod of his head toward the door. Viola Jacobs would be much more likely to speak openly if she was alone with Carmen. Besides, this was a perfect opportunity to force Lawrence to answer his questions.
Carmen hesitated, as if trying to decide if she was going to insist on being the one to interrogate her uncle. She was the journalist, after all. Then she heaved a resigned sigh.
Clearly, she sensed that her uncle was too jumpy in her presence to let down his guard. For now, she’d have to content herself with trying to drill through her aunt’s medicated haze.
Waiting until Carmen disappeared through the door, Griff glanced toward the older man.
“If you don’t mind I’d like a tour around the estate,” he said, the words more a command than a request.
Lawrence frowned. “There’s not much to see. My family didn’t invest in more than a few acres of land. Just enough to keep their private stables.”
Griff spread his hands. “I’m just looking for an excuse to stretch my legs, to be honest,” he said. “You know how it is after a couple days of traveling.”
The man hesitated. He obviously wanted to say no. For whatever reason, he was unnerved by the return of his niece and wanting to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
But he was a businessman. And he wasn’t willing to insult Griffin Archer, famous entrepreneur and current darling of Nasdaq.
“Certainly. I’ll have a word with the housekeeper and grab my coat.” He nodded his square head toward the door. “I’ll meet you on the back terrace.”
Griff exited the house and strolled across the wide veranda. His brows lifted at the magnificent sight that spread before him.
There was the usual sunken garden that was bedded for the winter, as well as a pool and tennis courts, but it was the rolling grounds that captured his attention. A layer of frost coated the pastures and the distant hills, shimmering like diamonds beneath the morning sunlight. It emphasized the quiet peace that surrounded the estate, reminding him of his grandparents’ farm.
Beautiful.
Fifteen minutes passed before Lawrence at last joined him on the terrace. The older man had pulled on a leather coat and managed to compose his expression into a polite mask.
Griff had seen the same expression a hundred times, in a hundred boardrooms.
The professional business face.
“Would you like to see the old stables?” Lawrence led Griff toward the steps without giving him time to answer. “I’ve had them converted into a garage.”
Griff quickly followed the man off the terrace and with long strides was walking at his side.
“This is a lovely estate,” he said.
“Yes.” They used a pathway that circled the edge of the driveway and headed toward the long, white single-story building that was near the old paddocks. His steps were slow and deliberately casual. Just two men strolling together. “Carrie said that she was in the area, but she didn’t say why,” he at last spoke the words that had no doubt been trembling on his lips.
Griff shoved his hands in the pockets of the new trench coat he’d bought at the shop in the hotel. At some point he needed to get home so he could pack a suitcase. He’d rather spend the money for a plane ticket to California than to face the holiday shopping madness trying to buy new clothes.
“We didn’t have any firm plans for Christmas, and Carmen mentioned that she hadn’t been home in years,” he said. “I convinced her that it was time for a visit.”
“Ah.” The fake smile remained firmly in place. “Wonderful.”
“I’ll admit that I was curious when Carmen told me that not one of her father’s relatives have ever made an effort to contact her,” Griff said, covertly watching the man at his side.
Lawrence’s profile tensed, his hands clenching into fists. But with an admirable composure, his steps never faltered.
“She didn’t tell you about Stuart?” Lawrence demanded, his gaze locked on the building just ahead of them.
“I know what happened to her parents.”
“Then you should realize that her grandparents took her away and insisted that we have no contact with her.”
Griff made a mental note to ask Carmen if she’d ever discussed the shooting with her grandparents. Did they have a reason to fear Lawrence might be as violent as his older brother Stuart?
“And you agreed?” he asked.
“Carrie had suffered enough,” Lawrence smoothly pointed out. “The last thing we wanted was to remind her of what she’d lost.”
They left the pathway to crunch over the graveled driveway that ran in front of the old stables.
“Very admirable,” Griff said, his tone deliberately insincere. “But even if you were reluctant to visit her, I would assume that your lawyer would have insisted on a few visits.”
“Lawyer?” Lawrence sent him a wary frown. “What are you talking about?”
Griff arched a brow, as if surprised by the question. “Carmen’s inheritance, of course. She might not know much about business, but I do. She should have received a quarterly account of her share of the family funds.”
The man scowled, trying to look suspicious. Instead, he looked nervous as hell.
“Just what is your interest in my niece?” he asked in gruff tones.
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Griff refused to rise to the bait. He’d long ago earned more money than he could ever reasonably spend. No one in their right mind could accuse him of being a gold digger.
“She’s in my care,” he said. “I’ll do whatever necessary to protect her.”
“In your care?” Lawrence snapped. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I intend to protect her.”
“Against what?”
“Anyone who might think they could hurt her.” His eyes narrowed with a silent warning. “Or take advantage of her.”
Lawrence flattened his lips, quickening his steps as he reached the front of the stables.
“Here we are,” he muttered, punching in a series of numbers on the keypad that was set next to the newly installed steel door.
Griff waited until the man had stepped inside and turned on the lights before he followed him. It wasn’t that he was afraid. Even if Lawrence was responsible for terrorizing Carmen, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill a respected businessman at his own home. Especially not a businessman who also happened to have connections to the top law officials in the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security.
No, he was watching the man’s jerky motions. It revealed an anxiety that was hidden beneath the practiced smile.
At last stepping through the door, Griff allowed his gaze to travel around the stables.
The long, narrow room maintained the original wood plank walls and vaulted ceiling with open beams, but the old stalls had been gutted and the floor covered with a cement slab to accommodate the six Corvettes that were in various stages of being restored.
“Nice,” Griff said, as he walked toward the nearest car, a 1968 Rally Red Corvette convertible. “You work on them?” he asked.
“No.” Lawrence stepped next to him. “My older son Matthew tinkers with them when he’s around.”
Griff sensed the man’s eagerness to change the conversation. Which made him all the more determined to find out what the man was hiding.
“Do your sons work for the family business?” he asked.
Lawrence muttered a curse before turning to face Griff.
“I think you have a misunderstanding about the business, Archer.”
“Do I?” Griff shrugged. “It seems fairly straightforward. One business. Four heirs.”
“Not one business,” the older man denied. “Two.”
“What does that mean?”
Lawrence folded his arms over his chest. In the bright overhead lights, the wrinkles that carved his face were even more apparent.
“You’re an entrepreneur,” the man said.
“I am.”
“Then you realize that the business landscape is constantly shifting and reforming.”
Griff rolled his eyes. It was the sort of mumbo jumbo they taught in business school.
“I assume you have a point?”
The square face reddened. Griff sensed the older man would have given him a tongue-lashing if he had been just a random boyfriend of Carmen’s. Or God forbid, one of his employees.
“As I’m sure you know, my brother and I inherited a lucrative chain of hardware stores.”
“Yes.”
“They’d been started by my grandparents and provided a comfortable life for our family. Unfortunately, by the mid-nineties the big-box home improvement stores had cut into our profits,” he explained. “I could see then that it was only a matter of time before we were driven completely out of business.”
Griff gave a slow nod. Later he would check the financial history of the company; for now he was more interested in what was making Lawrence so jumpy about Carmen’s unexpected arrival.
“And your brother?”
“Stuart was older than me and had been deeply instilled with a sense of family loyalty,” Lawrence said. “He refused to accept that we had to close down at least half of the stores before we went into the red.”
It was all perfectly logical, but the words sounded rehearsed.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Lawrence turned away, strolling toward the yellow Corvette that had the hood up and the engine pulled out and spread across the concrete floor in little pieces. Someone was ambitious to think they could put the thing back together.
“I continued to work with Stuart, but I started investing my money in the larger stores,” Lawrence at last admitted.
It took Griff a second to decipher what the man was telling him.
“You invested in the competition?”
Lawrence’s back stiffened, his tone defensive. “It wasn’t competition. We were the past and they were the future. I had to think of my family.”
Griff ’s lips twitched. Lawrence clearly wasn’t the sort of man to go down with the ship. Instead, he scurried off like a rat and joined the enemy.
“Did your brother know?”
“I can’t be sure.” The older man’s voice was muffled.
“Toward the end he was overwhelmed with the fact we were headed for bankruptcy. I think that might have been part of the reason he . . .” There was a small pause, as if he was searching for the right word. “Snapped. He feared that he’d failed our parents.”
“Hmm.”
Lawrence abruptly turned, glaring at Griff. “There was nothing left of the business after I’d paid for the funerals.”
Griff deliberately glanced toward the window that offered a view of the house, which had to be worth several million dollars.
“And what about this estate?”
Something flared through the pale eyes. A dangerous anger. Like a dog protecting his favorite bone.
“It belongs to the Jacobs family,” he said.
“And Carmen isn’t a Jacobs?”
With an abrupt motion, Lawrence was heading back toward the door. Griff assumed that meant the question-and-answer session was at an end.
“We should get back,” Lawrence announced. “Vi will be wondering what happened to us.”
Griff offered a meaningless smile, strolling along the line of cars until he reached the door at the far end of the stables.
“What’s in here?” he asked, halting in front of a steel door set in the back wall.
“Nothing.”
Shrugging off his mother’s training on good manners, Griff grabbed the knob and shoved open the door.
A dark unease settled in the pit of his stomach as he studied the long, narrow room painted a bright white. Directly across from him was a glass case filled with a dozen different guns. Everything from a Sig Sauer to M16 rifles. At the far end of the space were two targets that were cut out in a human shape.
“A shooting range,” he said, not needing to feign his surprise.
“My sons and I enjoy a little target practice,” Lawrence snapped, at the end of his patience.
“An interesting hobby,” Griff murmured, closing the door and crossing to join Lawrence.
They walked back to the house in silence.
Chapter Twelve
Carmen tapped her fingers on the carved arm of her chair. Frustration bubbled through her as she watched her aunt glance toward the doorway for the hundredth time.
The older woman had barely said more than ten words since they’d taken their seats in the salon. Not that Carmen hadn’t tried.
She’d asked her aunt a dozen questions about the house and what she’d been doing over the past fourteen years. Then when the tea tray had arrived, she’d tried to encourage her aunt to discuss the upcoming holidays and the parties she was attending.
Nothing.
It was as if the woman’s body was in the room, but she’d left her brain upstairs. Maybe in a jar with water, like it was dentures needing a good soak.
A pharmaceutical lobotomy.
Suddenly the words that she’d heard her father whisper when speaking about her aunt Vi made perfect sense.
“I can’t imagine what is keeping Lawrence,” the older woman breathed, aimlessly twisting a lace handkerchief between her heavily jewe
led fingers.
“Griff is probably wanting to look around,” Carmen said, silently hoping Griff was having better luck than she was.
Vi turned back to Carmen. “Why?”
“He’s never been to this area before.”
A slow, disturbing blink. “More tea?”
Carmen hid her shudder. “Not for me, thanks.” She continued to tap her fingers, accepting she was going to have to be more direct. Subtle probing was getting her nowhere. “Tell me about Matthew and Baylor.”
More blinking. “What about them?”
“I haven’t seen my cousins since I was twelve years old. I’m just curious.”
The older woman took a minute to dredge through her brain fuzz.
“They both graduated from college and live in Louisville,” she finally announced.
“How nice.” Carmen smiled. “What are they doing with their lives?”
“Doing?”
Good. God. “Are they working?”
“Oh well, they work for Lawrence.” Vi gave a vague wave of her hand. “I’m not sure exactly what they do.”
“Are they married? Do they have kids?”
“No.”
Carmen grimaced. She wasn’t sure if the woman would have noticed if there’d been a couple weddings and a dozen kids.
“At least they live close enough for you to spend time with them,” she forced herself to say.
“Not really. They’re both very busy,” Vi said. “And they travel a lot.”
Carmen’s fingers tightened on the arm of her chair. “Travel where?”
“All over.”
Vi’s eyes drifted back toward the door and Carmen knew she’d lost her again. She sighed. It was like trying to scoop water out of a bucket with her bare hands.
Rising to her feet, she aimlessly wandered across the room, glancing out the window that offered a view of the side garden. When she was very young, her mother would set up a table in the garden so they could have a tea party with her dolls.
The memory was interrupted as she caught sight of a car pulling past the house to halt in front of the nearby garage. She stepped closer to the window, craning her neck to watch as a man climbed out of the vehicle.