Against All Odds (Arabesque) (31 page)

“Naaah. These here are pecans. Nothing like a hot roasted pecan.” Bill Henry raked a few nuts away from the coals and put them in a wooden bowl that he’d bought in Haiti years earlier.

“Come on in. How’s Mary? She didn’t look so well when I saw her yesterday.”

Adam sat down, stretched out his long legs, and crossed his ankles. “Mother’s fine, B-H. When you saw her, she was probably practicing the technique she’d use to cut down Melissa without my riding herd on her. When she first learned about Melissa and me, she behaved as if I was a grown man, although I knew she hated the idea. But she’s gotten desperate and careless of late, and it’s just as well that I’ll be leaving soon.”

“You’re leaving Melissa here to deal with Rafer and that bunch by herself?”

“Why not? They’re all cut from the same cloth; birds of a feather. It’s over between Melissa and me, B-H, and I expect that within a week we’ll have whoever’s committing those crimes at the factory behind bars. My place is in New York running my own business.” He could appreciate his uncle’s stare of disbelief, because he was still unable to reconcile himself to the reality of not having Melissa in his life.

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing. What happened?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand and tried to figure out where to begin.

“It’s a pretty long story, B-H, and I’m not sure I want to tell it.”

“I want to hear it.” Bill Henry didn’t speak until Adam finished. His uncle listened attentively, nodding occasionally and sometimes frowning. Adam remembered that Bill Henry’s careful attention to his childhood dreams, stories, and complaints and his way of withholding harsh judgment were the traits that had bound the two of them for as long as he could remember. In a rare outward gesture of affection, he reached over and patted his uncle’s hand.

“Adam,” B-H began, as though bearing a heavy weight, “didn’t you and Melissa learn anything from history? Do you think life has been so beautiful for Emily Morris and me that you’d like to walk in our tracks?” Adam didn’t want to talk about Melissa and himself, yet he knew that he’d gone there to give B-H a chance to say what he thought.

“Do you love Melissa? Don’t answer, if you don’t want to. I know you love her.”

Adam reached down for a couple of roasted pecans, cracked them together, and shook them around in his closed fist. Distracted.

“What is love, B-H? If it’s the willingness to let one’s entire life slide by for want of another person, I’m not in love and never will be.” He sat forward at the sound of Bill Henry’s soft, almost pitying laugh.

“You’re a strong man, Adam, but you’re not Goliath enough to rid your soul of Melissa. You’ve got the will to do just about anything you set your mind to. You had that trait at the tender age of five, and I’ve always admired your tenacity. But, son, I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve met your match.” His disbelieving stare must have amused his uncle, for Bill Henry’s lips curved into a smile that flickered across his face.

“What do you mean?” Adam asked him, disliking the turn of conversation.

“I mean love isn’t something you can order around, arrange to suit yourself or just banish. It will greet you at breakfast, glare at you when you’re in a business meeting, and laugh at you in the dead of night. And I’ll tell you something else. What you feel for Melissa will defy you to take another woman to bed no matter how much your head tells you that’s what you want. Yes, sir. You’ve met your match.”

B-H laughed aloud, and Adam knew he’d been caught with a rueful expression on his face. “You think so, do you?” he asked.

“I know so.”

“I’ve got to be going.” He bit into the pecan, savored it, and relaxed. “Cook a few more of these. They’re good. By the way, I had lunch with Emily Grant today.” Bill Henry jerked forward, as though his five senses had just come alive, turned and looked into his nephew’s eyes. He said nothing, and no words were needed. Adam saw in his expression the hopes of a man about to glimpse the light after years in darkness. He dropped his gaze. No man should see another’s naked soul.

“Emily will be a free woman in a matter of days, and she wants to see you. She didn’t call your name, but she left no doubt that seeing you was foremost in her thoughts.” The two of them stood, and Adam wrapped an arm around his uncle.

“I wish you luck, B-H. If you need me, you always know where I am.”

“Thanks, Adam. I can’t hope yet. I won’t believe this is happening until I’ve got her in my arms again.”

* * *

Adam struggled against the wind, stronger now than when he’d left home an hour earlier. He had an urge to get Thunder and ride hell for leather until he and the stallion exhausted themselves. But he didn’t dodge his problems; he faced them. And he’d face this one. He hunched his shoulders when the wind increased in velocity, and dry leaves and small sticks swirled around his feet. The bright moonlight cast his long shadow ahead of him, and as he walked faster, he swore, disliking the implication. An intelligent man did not chase his shadow.

Clouds raced over the moon, but none obscured its light, and he thought of his uncle’s warning that no matter what he did, where he went, or whom he met, Melissa would always live inside of him. How could a man love a woman so deeply as
B-H loved Emily Grant? Grant. Bill Henry never acknowledged her married name, he recalled, but referred to her as Emily Morris, discounting Rafer’s importance in her life. And she loved Bill Henry. Her simple declaration of it had moved him, and he wondered what he’d do if Melissa loved him like that.

* * *

Melissa sat in her dining room, checking her Christmas gift list. Several times that evening, she’d walked to a telephone, lifted the receiver, dropped it back into its cradle, and walked away. She sat dispirited among the glistening papers, ribbons, and gift tags.

“I don’t care about any of this,” she declared, wiping her eyes. “Why did I do it? Why did I let Daddy manipulate me like that? I don’t care what Adam did. I want him.” She wrapped her arms across her breasts and walked the floor. Finally she went over to the window and looked up at the thin clouds that whisked past the full moon. Where was he, she wondered, and what was he doing right then? She looked back at her boxes and wrappings, went over to the table, and sat down.

“I’m not going to let this or anything else throw me,” she vowed, and lifted a pair of green and gold tassels and attached them to a box intended for B-H. Her mother had remarked during a rare moment of reminiscence that Bill Henry had a fondness for blue jays, so she’d bought him a book about them and a little house said to encourage them to nest. She’d bought something for everyone on her list except Ilona and Adam. She planned to give her friend a pair of tickets to an American Ballet Theater performance of
Swan Lake.
That left Adam. Maybe he didn’t want anything from her.

* * *

She raced to the phone and picked up the receiver after the first ring, praying that she would hear Adam’s deep voice.

“Hello.” She knew that her voice betrayed her anxiety.

“Hi, sis. What’s the matter?”

“Schyler! Where are you? Is anything wrong?” She clutched her stomach with her left hand, anticipating the worst.

“Nothing’s wrong, at least not with me. I’m in Nairobi. Daddy just phoned me and told me to talk to you. He had a string of complaints a mile long. What’s going on over there? Are you having an affair with Adam Roundtree?” Before she could answer, he continued with a litany of their father’s grievances.

“Slow down, Schyler. Are you Daddy’s advocate? If you are, I’m hanging up right now.” A warm glow spread through her at the sound of her brother’s deep, familiar laugh.

“Are you suggesting that I’ve slid back into ancient times? I understand Daddy better that you ever did, Melissa. Now tell me what this is all about. You and Adam. I’ll be damned!”

She told him only that she loved Adam and that she’d let herself be victimized by their father’s clever machinations.

“I don’t understand. Tell me everything. It’s my dime.”

She told him everything, including Louise’s abuse of Adam as a child, Adam’s revenge, their mother’s love for Bill Henry and his for her. Their parents’ divorce. The problems at the leather factory. Her mistrust of Adam. Everything.

“Well, hell! I’d better go home. I’m starting to understand a few things that always bothered me. Let’s deal with you first. I take it you’ve cleared the sawdust out of your eyes, and you can see that Daddy’s a user. It must have knocked him for a loop when you stopped worshiping him. Melissa, I don’t have anything against Adam Roundtree. He’s doing his thing and I’m doing mine, and I never did give two hoots for that feud. But if that guy hurts you, look for a revival of it.”

“He hasn’t done anything to hurt me, Schyler. I did that to myself—and to him. I’m history with him.”

He disagreed. “Not necessarily. Tuck in your pride and go to him, but don’t wait until some other gal starts easing his pain. Now, what about Mama? You think she’ll make it with Bill Henry Hayes?” Melissa caught the anxiety in his voice and wondered whether he disapproved.

“I don’t know, Schyler. I hope so. At least she’s going to try—I’d bet MTG on that.” She heard the long breath that he expelled and waited.

“I’d better call her and tell her what I think. Thirty-one years! She deserves every bit of happiness she can get. You do, too, sis. Go talk to that guy. And don’t worry about Daddy—he may come out of this a new man. Maybe even a happy man. I hadn’t planned to go home for the holidays, but I think I will.”

She hung up and went back to wrapping her gifts. Abruptly she shoved the boxes, paper, and ribbons haphazardly into a shopping bag and started upstairs, her taste for Christmas gone long before the season began. She didn’t know how she’d stand it if she had to wait thirty years before she could feel Adam’s arms around her again.

Chapter 14

A
dam jumped up at the buzzing sound of his beeper. A glance at the iridescent numbers of the clock on his night table informed him that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning.

“Roundtree.”

“This is your agent. Two cars rendezvoused near that pine grove behind the factory for twelve minutes and left. That was three minutes ago. I’d planted a couple of mikes around, but not out there, so I couldn’t monitor their conversation. We can probably expect somebody to make a move tomorrow night.”

“I take it you didn’t get a license plate number.”

“No, but every time a criminal gets away with something, he gets more daring, a little more careless. I’ll get him. Trust me.”

Adam didn’t try to disguise his furor nor his eagerness to get the crooks behind bars. His heart thudded rapidly at the thought that one of the cars might have belonged to Melissa, but if she were guilty, she would have to pay. He asked for a description of the cars and held his breath until the agent said that one was an old model, but that he couldn’t see the other one clearly.

“Don’t arrive at any conclusions yet though—this may have been a ruse to distract us while action was going on somewhere else. And I have to check out a couple of men here tomorrow. Stay close.”

Adam hung up. An old-model car. Melissa’s car was eight or nine years old. Hell. He got back in bed, but didn’t sleep. He didn’t want it to be hers. He sat up in bed and dropped his head in his hands. Anything but that. He could take anything but that. Before breakfast the next morning, he phoned his brother in Baltimore.

“Can you come home tonight? I may need you.”

At eleven o’clock that morning, the agent had further news. “Your deputy manager just gave one of your men instructions that would have destroyed seven hundred and fifty pounds of hides if the man had done as he was told. Fortunately he just pretended that he’d done it. If the men know this is going on, why haven’t they told you?”

“Probably because a man’s word doesn’t count for much sometimes, unless he has a witness. Find out whether Nelson knows about this.”

“He doesn’t. I’ve made sure of it.”

“Alright. I’ll be out there tonight. Let me know where you’ll be.”

* * *

Wayne joined Adam in the family room after dinner. “Who do you think we’ll get?” Adam leaned against the mantelpiece and ran his hand over his hair.

“Beats me, Wayne. I can see that one of our men might do this out of anger if he had a grudge against us. And what better time to get away with it than when a new manager takes the job and I blame it all on his incompetence? But if a Grant’s in it, that’s more puzzling. I can’t believe Rafer would encourage or shield a crime and lose his license to practice law. He wouldn’t do it—he’s too proud of his standing in the community.”

“How can you be so sure?” Wayne asked. “He covered up Timothy’s accident, and I’ve got a premonition that there’s a connection with us. Otherwise, why did he accuse you of it?”

Adam shrugged first one shoulder and then the other one. “Rafer doesn’t need an excuse to go after one of us. The man wallows in hatred. He’s been consumed by it for so long that he’s forgotten what it means to be charitable, and he’s paying for it.” Adam sensed his brother’s discomfort. He had to repair the breach between them that he’d brought on with his harsh words in support of Melissa. He loved his brother and disliked seeing him feel his way through their conversation, making sure that he didn’t say anything offensive.

“I said some harsh things to you the last time we discussed Melissa, and you’re still smarting over that. I can’t say that I blame you, but neither can I swear I wouldn’t do it again if the circumstances were the same. Don’t let it come between us.” He shrugged off the annoyance he felt when Wayne laughed.

“Let me in on the fun, will you?”

“As far as I know, that’s the closest you’ve ever come to offering an apology. I’d as soon forget that argument, but thanks for mentioning it.” Relief buoyed Adam, but only momentarily. Wayne hadn’t wanted him to become involved with Melissa, and he’d been right.

“We’d better take our bikes out to the factory tonight. If we drive, we might as well send a fax saying we’re coming.”

“Fine with me,” Wayne said, tapping one of the brass andirons with his booted foot. “I guess you’ll be leaving in a few days.” Adam nodded. Wayne looked him in the eye and asked, “What about Melissa, Adam? Are you really going to give her up?”

Adam squashed the irritation that he knew was unreasonable. His brother cared about him, and he had a right to ask. He straightened up, started toward the stairs, and stopped.

“Nothing new. That ought to please you.” He heard Wayne’s chuckle and cocked his ear for the wisdom that their father used to say always followed.

“Please me? Oh, I don’t know. If I were in your place, I’d tell the family to butt out.”

“Make sense, Wayne,” Adam said more sharply than he intended. “The family was never in this. You know very well my personal life is my own business. This was between Melissa and me. Now it’s over.”

“If you say so, brother. Don’t ever tell me I didn’t warn you that you’re making a mistake. I always envied your clear sight and your ability to make the right moves. But I never thought I’d see you make an error of such gargantuan proportions, and I do not envy you the consequences.”

“Wayne—”

“Alright. Alright. Those are my last words on the subject.” Wayne scrutinized him as though puzzled. “At least for now, Adam. Well, let’s get ready. You got an extra helmet?”

Adam pressed the switch on his beeper. “Roundtree. Yeah. The tanning room, you think? Alright, but station yourself somewhere nearby. I’m after an arrest. Tonight.” He switched off and said to Wayne, “That was our agent. He’s fingered two of them. We’d better hurry.”

“Right on. Adam, does it ever occur to you to say which Roundtree is speaking? I don’t mind getting credit for your brilliance, but—well, you get the idea.”

Adam didn’t pause. “It’s an office habit, but not to worry. I don’t criminally implicate you, because I usually stay out of trouble.”

Wayne touched his brother’s shoulder as he passed on the way to his own room. “But like you said, that’s in the past. Man, you won’t know what trouble is until you head out of here and leave Melissa behind.”

“How would you know?”

“The voice of experience.”

* * *

An hour later Adam worked the combination lock on the iron grill securing a window that overlooked a marshy pond and was sheltered by a clump of high pine groves. He and Wayne slipped into the factory through the window and made their way to the basement. Armed with a powerful walkie-talkie, Adam waited alone in the darkened “finishing” room where the tanned leather was polished, while Wayne leaned against the doorjamb of an adjoining packing room, closing a potential escape route. A surge of anger gripped Adam as the smell of chromium sulfate wafted closer and closer, alerting him to the criminals’ steady approach. The men set the heavy drum on its bottom and started to attack each other.

“You’re going too far, now, Mack. If nobody’s mentioned any of these accidents to you, it’s because you’re a suspect. After all, you’re the assistant manager and you’re supposed to know what goes on here. Man, if you burn holes in these hides, the jig’ll be up. I don’t want to risk any further involvement in this thing.”

Adam couldn’t place the voice. He waited for the other man’s words, knowing now who would utter them.

“You getting cold feet again? You’re repeating yourself, buddy. I’m reminding you for the last time that this was your idea, and that makes you as guilty as the one who does the job. You sold me on it, and I paid you for it. Of course, like I said, you can bail out anytime you give me the twelve thousand dollars you owe me.”

Adam struggled to control his anger. So Mack was the one. He’d passed over him in favor of Cal, because Mack never got to work on time. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that this one man had a reason for wanting revenge? Mack had been in his family’s employ for a quarter of a century. He’d been right in not promoting him to manager. They began stacking the hides.

“Instead of whining all the time,” Mack went on, groaning as he heaved the drum to its side, “you ought to be thanking me. If I drop you, who’ll save your neck from that gang in Baltimore?”

Adam shook off the tension clawing his insides as he folded and unfolded his fists and finally rested his elbows on his knees, ready to spring. Patience, he told himself. In a minute, you’ll know it all.

“They could have killed you,” Mack said. “That shot in your arm was just a warning. If you ask me, you ought to get into therapy. One of these days, your gambling habit is going to be the death of you.”

Adam didn’t need to hear more. He reached over and clicked the light switch, flooding the room and stunning the two men. Mack started to lunge toward Adam, but Timothy, the bigger man, restrained him.

“Do you want to make things worse, man? Adam Roundtree didn’t come in here by himself. Unarmed.”

“Smart thinking, Coston,” Adam told Timothy as Wayne and the agent rushed into the room.

“If you book them here in Frederick, the sheriff will release them in minutes,” Adam told the agent.

“Why?”

Adam could appreciate the agent’s obvious annoyance as he rocked back on his heels, and a scowl transformed his face.

“This is a small town,” Adam said. “The deputy sheriff is this man’s father.” He pointed to Timothy.

“Then Baltimore it is,” the agent said, walking off with the two in handcuffs. “I’ll call a cop from Hagerstown and take them in.”

* * *

Adam stood by his bedroom window, his foot resting on the rung of a dining chair that had been in the first house Jacob Hayes built. He’d kept the chair in his room since boyhood, but he couldn’t remember ever having sat in it. Yet it had a special place in his life. Would it be that way with Melissa? He knew he wouldn’t forget her. How could he? Shudders ricocheted within him at the thought that he’d never know what she might have been to him. He looked at his left wrist and remembered that he’d pulled off the expensive watch before leaving home earlier that evening to go to the leather factory. Anyway, he knew it was too late to call her.

“You can talk to her now,” an inner voice counseled. “You’ve got the perfect excuse.” Tomorrow. He promised himself.

* * *

Just before noon the next day, Melissa glanced up from the mound of papers demanding her attention and saw Banks standing in the door. Nothing unusual about Banks standing in her office door, she thought, but it alarmed her to see Banks wearing a troubled expression on her face.

“Come in. What’s the matter?” Melissa got up and closed the door. She couldn’t imagine what had precipitated such an obvious difference in Banks. “What happened?” Melissa noticed that Banks didn’t cross her knee, nor did she light a cigarette, but sat forward in the chair with her palms pressing her kneecaps.

“Janie just picked up Adam’s plane ticket. He’s dropping his car off at the rental agency in Baltimore, and taking the seven forty flight to New York Saturday night.” Banks drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly, her expression pitying. “You didn’t make it up with him, did you? You still have time, Melissa. If you let him go, you’ll regret it forever.”

“Thanks for being my friend, Banks, but it’s already too late. If he can leave without telling me goodbye, I doubt I’d accomplish anything by going to him. It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Since when did you become a fatalist?” Banks snorted in disgust, more in keeping with her normal demeanor. “By the way, I was hoping you’d introduce me to Wayne. I get a funny sensation, like stars exploding all through me, every time I see that man.”

Melissa’s lower lip dropped. “Are you serious?”

“I wish I wasn’t, ’cause I don’t think he’s noticed me. But, hey, we’re talking about you. Get with it, girl.”

She doesn’t have her usual saunter nor her crusty self-possession, Melissa thought as she watched Banks leave her office. She shoved aside a feeling of depression, turned on her computer, and got to work. If she had to live without Adam, she might as well start.

* * *

Melissa clipped a metal bookmark on page 192 of Sandra Kitt’s book
Sincerely
and turned out the light. Joanna Mitchell would get her man by the end of the book, but as much as she enjoyed the story, she couldn’t bear the thought of anybody else’s happy ending. She felt ashamed at the tears that cascaded down her cheeks, mortified that she’d let herself love a man who could walk out of her life without a word of goodbye. Yet she admitted that it was she who bore responsibility for their breakup. She’d known that Adam would not beg, that he’d state his case...maybe a second time, and you could take it or else. She’d turned him away, and he wouldn’t give her a chance to do it again.

Excitement gripped her at the sound of the telephone.
“H-Hello.”

“Melissa, this is Adam. I’m calling to let you know that last night we caught Timothy Coston and Andrew MacKnight destroying cowhides in the leather factory. They’re both in a Baltimore jail. That finishes my work here.” Melissa later asked herself why she responded as she did when she hadn’t cared about the answer.

“Who arrested them?” She wanted to bite her tongue, for she knew that with those words she’d completed what she started the afternoon that he cleared the snow from her walk and doorsteps.

“An agent of the FBI. You don’t think I’d hand them over to your uncle Booker, do you?”

“Adam, I—”

“I wish you the best, Melissa. I’m leaving in a few days for New York.”

“Aren’t you staying for the dedication of the Gardens for the Physically and Mentally Challenged?” Anything to keep him there, to postpone hearing the sound of that dial tone.

“That’s set for noon on Friday, and I’m leaving Saturday night. Incidentally my mother has renamed the gardens for my father. She’s calling them the John Roundtree Gardens. We already have over a hundred applicants, some from as far away as Baltimore and Washington.”

“I see,” she stammered, feeling powerless to curb what she saw as the inevitable. With each passing second, the gap between them broadened, and he didn’t give her an opening. She couldn’t have begged her case if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t. She’d give up a lot for him, but not her pride.