Betting on Grace (15 page)

Grace jumped to her feet. “That’s a lie. My father would never sell out.”

Charles’s snicker sent a chill through her body. “He saw an opportunity to make some sweet money that nobody could ever trace. He even claimed the winnings and paid taxes so the IRS couldn’t come after him if someone did talk. The only problem was part of that money belonged to me.”

“I don’t believe you. How can you prove it?”

His face turned cold. His eyes went dead. “That’s the same thing your father said…right before I pushed him
in the parking garage. He wasn’t too agile. He stumbled and fell. Hit his head on a concrete curb.”

“No,” Grace cried, suddenly seeing the image as if it were a video being played before her eyes. “You said the stroke made him dizzy. That he stumbled before you could catch him. That was how he hit his head.”

“I lied, but…how can you prove it?”

Tears blurred her vision. Horror and impotence choked her. She stood there in shock until Charles grabbed her by the arm. “Listen to me, Grace. I want that money by tomorrow afternoon. For your family’s sake, you can pretend we’re still going into business together. And I’ll continue to play the game as long as you keep your mouth shut about those two…ah, ladies in my suite.”

Grace pushed at his hand. “This was all for show, then? You only agreed to build Too Romantique because it was a way to get your hands on my trust? But what happens when the construction doesn’t take place?”

He dropped his hold and shrugged. “Such are the pitfalls of big business, Grace. Surely you learned that much in college. Building departments reject plans. Architects make mistakes. Water mains break. Any number of problems can slow up production. It’s just part of the gamble one takes to play with the big dogs.”

She tried to think but her mind kept going back to his threat. Her father was dead, but her family would be devastated if this revelation got out. Her mother was just starting to rebuild her life. Nobody could handle a blow like this one.

Charles returned to his desk and sat down. “Go home,
Grace. Deliberate on your options. Not that you actually have any. Your father screwed me out of my share and I’m through waiting.”

N
ICK CALLED
Zeke from the pay phone in the lobby. “Hey, it’s me. I got a promotion. Wanna go somewhere and celebrate?”

“Front door of the Bourbon Street. Five minutes.”

The line went dead.

Nick smiled. His boss wasn’t the most talkative guy he’d ever met, but even Zeke would have to show some excitement over this development. Chuck was getting desperate. Desperate men made mistakes.

The meeting place was closer from the employee’s entrance, so Nick slipped out the back door. His mind was racing with possibilities, but he knew from experience that any number of things could go wrong. He wasn’t the type to get his hopes up.

A nondescript sedan pulled up just as Nick reached the entrance. The passenger door opened. Nick got in.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Zeke said, “So?”

“Chucky’s being blackmailed. Needs a hit. Not sure who the target is, but Harmon seems to think it’s a member of Grace’s family. Might even be one of the princesses.”

“You told him you’d do it?”

“Of course.”

Zeke drove for a few miles without speaking then said, “Well, this should be interesting. Turns out we’ve been invited to the compound.”

“Invited?”

“Okay, summoned. That queen mother is really something.”

Nick agreed. So were her daughters. But what if Charles was right? Could Liz be the blackmailer? What would Yetta have to say about that?

“Utterly ridiculous,” Yetta said twenty minutes later when Nick posed the question to her. The three of them were seated at Yetta’s kitchen table where he’d observed her four daughters sitting earlier that morning. “No one in my family is trying to get money from Charles Harmon. In fact, just the opposite is true. He’s been pressuring Grace to give up the money in her trust for this so-called remodeling project.”

Nick knew that. “Wasn’t that Grace’s idea?”

“Grace is full of ideas. Charles saw his chance and jumped at it. If you’re right about him being blackmailed, then isn’t it obvious why he needs the money?”

Nick wondered if he was the only one who caught the irony of Grace giving Charles money to pay off another Romani.

“I know what you’re thinking, Nikolai,” Yetta said. “And you’re wrong. If any of her sisters needed money, Grace would give it to them without question. We help each other out. That’s our way.”

So everyone said. “Well, that may be, but Charles is convinced someone in this family knows his dirty little secret and he’s willing to kill to keep it from getting aired in public.”

She looked at her folded hands. “It’s time to tell my daughters the truth.”

“No,” Nick said, pushing to his feet. “Not yet.” He had no trouble picturing the look on Grace’s face when she learned not only that he’d deceived her but that he was a cop. However, risking Grace’s wrath was only part of the problem. He couldn’t jeopardize the investigation. “If word leaks, my name moves to the top of Charles’s hit list.”

Yetta looked at Zeke. “You have to give me your word of honor that none of my daughters will be in danger.”

The sound of a car engine in the cul-de-sac prevented Zeke from answering. Yetta rushed to the door. “It’s Grace. She looks upset. I hope she didn’t notice your car in the street.”

She grabbed Zeke’s hand and pulled him to the side door. “Go quickly.”

The older man disappeared like a shadow in fog.

Nick returned to his seat while Yetta poured a cup of coffee and put it in the microwave. “She was supposed to meet Charles after lunch. I didn’t expect her back so soon.”

A car door slammed. Grace walked in and stopped short when she spotted him. Even without special cognitive powers, Nick could tell she was upset. “Hi. I got off early. Your mom invited me over for coffee,” he said, ad-libbing.

Grace looked at Yetta, who responded to the
beep-beep-beep
of the microwave. “Would you care to join us, dear? I could make a fresh pot.”

“No. Thank you. I…I’ll be in my house. Headache. Traffic. Gotta go.”

She pivoted on the heel of her low-heeled shoe. Her dressy black slacks ended at midcalf. Beneath her suit jacket, the white shell she was wearing almost matched her skin tone.

Too pale, Nick thought. Something was wrong. Very wrong. “Did you talk to the boss man today?” he asked.

The hand holding her purse shook. She looked over her shoulder. “Y…yes. A quick business discussion.” A telltale blush crept up her neck.

“Alexandra said you planned to tell him that Katherine’s lawyer is looking over the contract,” Yetta said as she delivered Nick’s coffee. “I’m sure he wasn’t happy. Sit down and tell us how it went.”

Grace shook her head. “Later. I have a headache.”

“Grace,” Yetta said sharply. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Nick took a sip of coffee, trying to stay in the background. He watched Grace over the rim of his cup and saw when she gave in. Her eyes filled with tears which she blinked away. “I don’t know what to do, Mom. I went to Charles’s suite because he told me he was going to be working at home this afternoon. He wasn’t there,” she said, swallowing loudly. “But Lydia and Reezira were.”

Nick’s pulse spiked.

“Who?”

“Two young women. Charles says they’re illegal immigrants. He said he’s helping them until they get work permits, but…”

“You don’t believe him,” Nick said. “I heard a rumor about a couple of working girls from Canada. I kind of laughed it off because Chuck comes across as such a cold fish. Who’d have guessed?”

“This isn’t about Charles’s sex life,” Grace said. “I
don’t want to get the women into trouble with the INS, but being here illegally makes them vulnerable, and men take advantage of vulnerable women.”

Somehow he knew that applied to her, too. Now he was worried. Something happened today. Something beyond discovering prostitutes in Charles’s room.

“So call the police,” he said, just to gauge her reaction.

She pressed her hand to her heart. “Are you crazy? The heartless bastards would just throw the poor girls in jail or deport them. Charles would probably talk his way out of everything. No, I could try to find some kind of amnesty group, maybe. But never the cops.”

He shrugged as if her answer didn’t faze him in the least. “Yeah, well, whatever. I guess I’ll go crash. Thanks, Yetta.”

Nick took his time strolling to Claude’s house. His stomach was churning—and not from Yetta’s reheated coffee. Grace had made her feelings about his profession crystal clear. He had no doubt how she’d feel about him once he arrested Charles and took the two prostitutes into custody.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any choice. That was who he was.

“M
OM
? W
HAT’S GOING TO
happen? What should I do?”

Yetta heard the desperation in her youngest daughter’s voice. She also was aware of how the question was phrased. Grace wanted her to look into the future for answers. But how could she when she no longer trusted her visions? What good was second sight when she’d had no warning of her own husband’s stroke?

She walked to Grace and grasped her shoulders
firmly. “I don’t need clairvoyance to know that you’ll do the right thing,” she said. “Listen to your heart.”

“My heart is in worse shape than my head, Mom,” Grace said, sadly. “If I do what I think I should do, the people I love most will be hurt. If I do what Charles wants me to do, everyone will be mad at me.”

Yetta knew that Grace’s agony wasn’t just about two displaced women. Somehow the family was involved.

“Come and sit down, dear. We need to talk.”

Grace tried to back away but bumped into the coat-rack. If Yetta closed her eyes, she could picture Ernst’s jacket hanging on the first hook. His spot. Lord, how she missed that man. She’d loved him completely, despite his flaws.

“Grace,” Yetta said softly, “your father predicted this day would come. In a way, he prepared us both for it.”

Grace’s expression changed from wary to curious. Of all her daughters, Grace had always been the easiest to read.

Once they were seated opposite each other, Yetta took a deep breath. Delving into the past was never easy. Although it was a cliché, times had changed. What Ernst had done back in the late 1980s was not what he would have done today. She was certain of that. But how could she make her daughter—the baby of the family who worshipped her father—understand?

Grace shifted uneasily in her chair. She didn’t like the resigned look on her mother’s face. She had a feeling she didn’t want to hear what Yetta was about to say. What she really wanted—and had since the minute she walked in the door and spotted Nikolai sitting at the table—was to run to him. The enormity of her need had
left her unnerved and flustered. Was it shelter in his strong muscles and broad shoulders that she sought, or escape of another kind? A chance to lose herself in sexual bliss? Neither option was possible, she told herself sternly.

“Grace?”

The question in Yetta’s tone made Grace’s cheeks heat up. Probably not a good thing to think about sex in the presence of an intuitive mother. “Sorry. I had a bit of a shock this afternoon. My mind is all over the place.”

“A shock. Yes, I suppose finding out that your father was human could be pretty devastating to someone who always believed her daddy could do no wrong.”

“D…Dad? Who said anything—?” She stopped midsentence. Even as a child she’d known it was useless to lie to her mother. The woman
knew
things.
Everything.
“You knew?”

Yetta shook her head. “Not at the time.”

“How is that possible?”

“So many reasons. Excuses, I guess. My father had just passed on. And your grandmother was declining so fast. I had two daughters in high school. You and Kate were involved in so many activities. Dance, karate, soccer. Later, when I found out what Ernst had done, I realized that deep down I’d suspected something wasn’t right but I chose to ignore my fears.”

Her tone was so haunted Grace had no choice but to believe her. Still… “But, Mom, you’re Puri Dye. You know everything.”

Her mother’s silver hair, worn loose today, shifted about her shoulders as she shook her head sadly. “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand. The intensity of
your focus shifts to your children during their formative years. Your husband has to bear the burden of providing shelter, food, safety, as well as planning for the future. Some men—even the most honorable—can become so caught up in the challenge, they make choices they later regret.”

Grace forced herself to ask, “Charles was right, then? Dad took a bribe?”

Yetta’s chin lifted. “Yes. At the time, he said the money was winnings. I knew he’d been gambling more than normal. I wasn’t happy about it because the chances of losing are equally great, but the money seemed to keep pouring in. Ernst always said that when you were on a roll, you didn’t dare turn your back on Lady Luck.”

Grace nodded. She’d heard him say that many times.

“We declared the money as income and paid taxes on it. Ernst hired an estate planner to set up the trusts for you girls. I ignored any niggling hint of doubt by allowing my life to keep me distracted.”

“When did you find out the truth?”

“Just before he died. I knew his time was near and I could tell that he was in great pain—not physical, but emotional. I sang him a song that my mother sang to my father before he passed on. I don’t even know what the words mean, but I believe it conveys forgiveness for one’s sins.”

She hummed the tune softly, then closed her eyes and said, “He only wanted what was best for his family. He never intended to cheat Charles. He planned to make up the difference in time, but Charles was impatient. Ernst’s biggest regret was that we would be inheriting
Charles’s antipathy, and his illness left him unable to do anything about it. He’d failed to protect his family. The humiliation, I believe, was what killed him.”

Grace’s eyes filled with tears. The memory of those months between her father’s stroke and his death came rushing back. So often, she’d sensed his frustration and had attributed it to not being able to walk and talk well. Maybe he’d been agonizing over what he knew his wife and daughters would be facing down the road—Charles, his greedy, pissed-off ex-partner.

No. Charles killed him.

Grace reached across the table and gripped her mother’s hand. Yetta didn’t need to relive the horror of that day. Nor, as Charles said, was there any way to prove that he had caused her father to fall and hit his head.

“Mom, Charles is threatening to make this public if I don’t hand over the money. Dad’s reputation will be ruined. He worked so hard to improve the Romani image. I can’t let that happen.”

Her mother frowned. She didn’t speak for a good minute. “I need to think about this, Grace. So much is happening on other levels…” Her voice trailed off.

Grace felt a shiver of awareness. She studied her mother’s face. “Mom, you’re not telling me something.”

Yetta looked over Grace’s shoulder toward the coat-rack and smiled. “Yes, dear, you’re right. Now, I need to go pick up Maya. She and I are going fish shopping.”

“Fish? Like halibut? Salmon?”

“Goldfish. I’ve decided to buy an aquarium. Maya’s been asking for one ever since she saw
Finding Nemo.
”

Grace wasn’t surprised. Her niece had made her
watch the DVD about a dozen times. “Good. That will make her happy. But, what should I do about Charles?”

Her mother was already halfway out the door. She glanced over her shoulder. “Perhaps you should ask Nikolai for advice. There’s more to him than you think.”

More to him than I think?
I think about him more than I should. I want to know more— She consciously broke off the thought. Turning to Nikolai for advice or anything else was not a good idea. She couldn’t allow him to influence her decisions. Especially when her life was such a mess.

Suddenly feeling light-headed, she stumbled to her feet.
What just happened?
Her mother had confessed knowing a secret that could blow their world to bits, then blithely trotted off to buy fish. “Fish,” she muttered, as she exited the house through the patio door.