Heart Of Gold (3 page)

He rose
from his leather chair and went to the bank of windows that overlooked the
lake. He could feel a migraine coming on, his back was stiff from flying in
from Japan the night before, and he had the nagging sense he'd forgotten
something important. Trying to ward off six hours of pain and nausea from the
headache, he put a couple of pills under his tongue and rubbed the back of his
neck while they dissolved.

A soft
knock sounded behind him.

“Come
in,” he said, without turning.

Immediately,
Nick knew who'd entered his study. He could smell her perfume, an expensive
French concoction he hated. It was sickly sweet and clung to the insides of his
nostrils, egging on the migraine.

Pivoting
around, Nick watched as Candace Hanson, his girlfriend of six months, walked
across the study. She had a placid smile pinned on her lovely face, and her
shoulder-length blond hair was styled in a breezy, I’m-at-the-lake kind of
look. The white linen shorts and polo shirt she was wearing were perfect for a
tennis game they would never see, and her athletic shoes were sparkling fresh,
right out of the box.

Flawless
as always, he thought, feeling nothing as he looked at her.

Their
relationship was strictly a social convenience, with little intimacy other than
sex. It was just what he wanted, all he had time for and, up until recently,
she'd played by the rules. She'd never pushed him for more, had always been
available when he wanted her, and was good at playing hostess at his parties.
There was trouble on the horizon, however. The m-word had crept into her vocabulary, and that meant her days were numbered.

Candace
sat down in the chair opposite his desk, crossing her legs modestly and folding
her hands together on her knee.

Nick
groaned. Whenever she took a seat, he knew it was going to be more than a
five-minute review of the social calendar.

“I
want to reassure you,” she said in her prim way, “that everything is
all set for tomorrow evening.”

This
pronouncement was followed by a wide smile that didn't add life to her eyes.
Even though her teeth glimmered a cheerful white and her lips were arranged
with the appropriate lift in the corners, there was something vacant in the
arrangement of features. In fact, there was something fundamentally expressionless
about her face. At first this had intrigued him, making him wonder what was
behind the mask. But, As he'd gotten to know her better he'd
begun to suspect that her best assets were the exterior ones.

“What
about tomorrow night?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Our
party, darling,” she murmured. “For the opera house.”

Nick
blinked. The migraine was really gearing up now, poking holes in his vision
until Candace was lost in the sea of black spots.

“We
have fifty coming for dinner,” she prompted gently.

So that
was what he was forgetting.

The phone
rang on his desk.

Annoyed,
he wondered whether there was anyone else who wanted to chime in and thought
they'd better do it quick. In another ten minutes, he was going to be out of
commission.

“Excuse
me,” he said, knowing she would wait.

Nick
picked up the phone and when he heard who was calling, he put it against his
shoulder and turned back toward Candace. “We'll talk more later.”

She stood
up and smiled serenely. “That would be lovely, but don't worry,
everything's taken care of.”

“I’ll bet
it is."

The door
closed behind her with barely a sound.

She was a
ghost, he thought. Someone who just floated through life, not really touching
anything or anyone.

“Mr.
Farrell?” The voice on the line repeated.

“I'm
here,” he clipped, trying to see his watch. Moving it into the part of his
vision that was still working, he decided he was down to about five minutes
before the pain would hammer him flat.

“Mr.
Wessex is now on the line.”

“Nick,
how are you?” the man said.

“Fine,”
he replied, falling into his chair. “But I'm a little busy.”

He was
going to have to start throwing up soon.

“I
understand completely.” Wessex's voice had the polished resonance of
money, power, and the man's blue-blood lineage. “I'm just calling to check
in on our little transaction.”

“Our
little transaction” was the business deal Nick had been poring over when
the latest squall with Cort had blown into the room. The negotiation involved
close to a billion dollars and was a joint assault against an enemy Nick was
determined to crush.

“Tell
you what,” he said, his mouth growing dry as the pain arrived, “we're
having a get-together tomorrow night. Why don't you come up? You can fly into Albany, take a limo from there. We've invited a good number, but you and I can find a
quiet corner and cover the issues then.”

“That's
a lovely invitation. Tell me, when are you and that beautiful Candace going to
tie the knot?”

Nick had
two words come to mind. Snowball and hell.

“Are
you free tomorrow?” he asked, dodging the bullet.

“Unfortunately,
no. I'm going to spend the rest of this month in South America, and I need to
get everything settled here in the city before I go. My lawyers will know where
I am at all times, of course, but I'm assuming we won't be ready to stage the
ambush until I get back.”

Nick
started breaking out in a cold sweat.

“I
think that's right,” he mumbled, out of time. “Have a safe
trip.”

Somehow,
he managed to hang up the phone and limp over to his couch, dragging a
wastepaper basket with him. Lying flat on his back, he put his forearm over his
eyes to block out all the sunlight in the room.

Why
couldn't his ancestors have built their summer retreat in a cave?

The pain
was white hot, shooting through his head like fire, pulsing with the beat of
his heart. Images swirled in his mind, hallucinations from the headache and the
medication. He was trying to make sense of the collage when someone lifted his
arm and put an ice pack on his forehead.

“Gertie,”
he groaned. “How come you always know?”

The older
woman laughed quietly and he heard her going around and shutting all the
drapes. “I just do.”

When she
came back to him, Nick opened his eyes a crack, seeing the coarse, wrinkled,
and beautiful face of the woman who'd raised him. Gertie McNutt had been with
the Farrells all her life as had her mother before her and her grandmother
before that. There'd been members of her family working on the Farrell land as
long as there had been Farrells owning it.

She
reached down and stroked his hair.

“I
hate this,” he said, his deep voice uncharacteristically thin in the still
air.

“I
know, cbou-chou” Gertie murmured. “But it'll be over
soon.”

“Yeah,
but it's getting from here to there that's going to hurt.”

She
stayed a while longer and then left him to the darkness and the agony. There
was nothing more she could offer him in the way of relief. The tempest was his,
and only his, to endure.

Good
thing he was tough, Nick thought as another wave of pain crashed over him.

His
stomach lurched and he rolled over, grabbing blindly for the wastepaper basket.
The last thing he did before he passed out was throw up the lunch Gertie had
made for him.

The next
day, Carter took the ferry across Lake Champlain to New York State. She was first going to visit a colleague's excavation on the grounds of Fort Sagamore and then she was going to talk Nick Farrell into letting her dig holes in his
mountain. After spending a couple of hours on the fort's grounds, she followed
Grace's directions and headed a few miles south until she saw two stone pillars
at the side of the road. Pulling her Jeep in between them, she went up a gravel
drive marked by an alley of chestnut trees.

When the
mansion was revealed in all its glory, her breath caught. Perched on a bluff,
the estate was framed by the lake and the towering peak of Farrell Mountain. She wasn't sure what was most impressive—the house, the shimmering water, or
the looming presence of the mountain.

She
pulled over and slid out of the driver's seat, intent on taking a look around.
The gravel drive she'd come in on formed a circle in front of the mansion and
had an offshoot that headed over to what she imagined was the service entrance.

Farrell's
vacation home was a sublime example of the Federal style, a white palace with
black shutters that had a gracious, formal facade. The center torso of the
place was balanced by two wings, which meant a small army could probably sleep
under its roof. As she lost count of the windows and porches, she imagined that
a person would be able to hear the sound of water lapping against the shore and
catch the whisper of a summer breeze in every room.

Turning
toward the lake, she smiled at the sight of a six-sided gazebo, an invitation
to spend a lazy afternoon reading if she'd ever seen one. It was also painted
white but had a red asphalt roof and intricate, curvaceous details around its
eaves. Down farther, there was a matching, gingerbread boathouse at the water's
edge and, just off the dock, she saw a sailboat bobbing on soft waves. Over to
the left was a tennis court tucked against the woods and a croquet set was
marking the side lawn, just waiting for a game.

Summer
camp for the wealthy, she thought wryly. You get reserve cellar Burgundy instead of bug juice at dinner and everyone has their own bathroom.

Turning
back to the house, she noticed a wild-flower meadow behind it filled with Queen
Anne's lace, goldenrod, and long grass. The two-acre expanse stretched back to
a forest of pines, birches, and poplars that carpeted the foot of the mountain.

Carter
guessed the field would probably be filled with fireflies at night. Just like
hers was.

Suddenly,
the peacefulness of the place was shattered. With a roaring noise and sprinkle of
gravel, a van came down the drive and almost mowed her down.

In the
split second before she leapt out of the way, she saw the name of a caterer she
remembered from her society days in New York City. As she choked on dust, she
wondered what it was doing upstate and watched as it joined others that were
huddled around the service entrance of the house. In contrast to the rest of
the estate, which exuded serenity, people were frantically running around,
carrying heavy loads. She was surprised she hadn't noticed the commotion
sooner.

All the
activity galvanized her, and she marched over to the mansion, leaping up glossy
black stairs to the front door. There, she was confronted by a brass knocker
the size of a football. She Lifted the lion's head and let it fall. The
resulting sound was like thunder and she winced.

Noise
like that could wake the dead. It made her wonder if Farrell had a butler like
Lurch to answer it.

While
waiting, she inspected two white, ceramic dogs that were parked on either side
of the doorway. Their amber eyes were fixed ahead on some distant, timeless
fascination, and they were in perfect condition, just like the rest of the
estate. Antiques, she guessed they had been bought new by one of Farrell's ancestors.

Hearing
something approach from above, Carter glanced up just as a magnificent
red-tailed hawk swept down out of the blue sky and landed on one of the tree
limbs just over her head. The bird reordered its wings with a minimum of fuss
and looked down at her, as if it were waiting for her to go into the house.

How odd,
she thought, feeling a chill.

Carter
was debating whether to tackle the lion's head again when the door opened.
Lurch wasn't on the other side but he might have been an improvement over what
answered the door.

She'd
seen more welcoming expressions in a dark alley.

The blond
woman staring back at Carter was a patrician beauty queen. Standing at the
threshold of the mansion, she was exhibiting the kind of elegant inhospitality
that only the very privileged could pull off.

Carter
knew the type.

“I'm
here to see Mr. Farrell.” Her voice was deep and full of command and the
woman on the other side looked surprised.

“I
beg your pardon?”

It was
interesting how the right tone of voice could turn even polite words into an
insult, Carter reflected.

“Mr.
Farrell,” she repeated slowly. “I'm here to see him.”

Disapproving
eyes passed over her, from her hair which was pulled back into a ponytail, to
her bare arms, to her form-fitting shorts and her tattered running shoes. When
the blue chips swung upwards again, they were even more frosty.

“I
can't imagine he is expecting you.”

As if the
man would no sooner be waiting on a truckload of manure.

“If
you could just let him—”

“I'm
glad you're finally here,” came another voice. An older woman appeared,
wiping her hands on a gingham apron. Her hair was white and pulled back with
combs, her face lined and tanned. Although she was addressing Carter, her eyes
were focused elsewhere, beyond the doorway. Curious, Carter turned and saw the
red-tailed hawk leap from its perch, its great wings punching the air as it
flew away.

As the
chill went through her again, Carter mulled over the legends of Red Hawk's
visits to the mountain. Trying to shake a feeling of premonition, she turned
back.

“I
thought I told you to have the waitresses come to the back door,” the
blond was saying with haughty authority.

“Yes,
you did.”

The reply
was an offhand remark and with it, Carter knew exactly who was in charge. It
sure as hell wasn't the woman who'd opened the door.

“If
you'd move your car?” The older woman asked Carter politely. “Meet me
around back at the service entrance.”