Judgement By Fire (11 page)

            “So, I do hope that
urgent matter you had to attend to was nothing too distressing?” he asked in the
kindly, old-friend-of-the-family voice that instantly alerted Jon that he was
less than sincere.

            “Just a minor problem
and it’s all cleared up now,” he replied shortly in a voice that brooked no
further comment, even from old friends of the family. That didn’t stop Wilkie
giving a knowing wink and smirk as he clapped Jon on the back and left the
room.

            Jon returned to his
own office and tried to get on with some of the more urgent work that had piled
up on his desk while he’d been at the meeting. Nonetheless, he found himself,
time and time again, staring morosely out of the window into leaden, snow-laden
clouds over which his mind’s eye insisted on superimposing a pretty face, full
of character, framed by unruly auburn hair. And deep green eyes filled with
hurt that he had placed there.

            When Cathy, his
secretary, came in late that afternoon with a welcome cup of coffee, Jon told
her to pass any important messages that came in for him onto his service and
promised he’d pick them up later. He signed the most urgent of the letters
she’d prepared from earlier dictation, and decided everything else could wait.

            Ten minutes later, he
was fighting late afternoon traffic along University Avenue and Queen Street
West, heading out towards the eastbound Gardiner Expressway, Highway 401, and
West River. 

* * *

It had been
a tiring day, but somehow satisfying, although as he drove along Highway 401,
the powerfully built blond man had to admit that he’d felt a pang or two at the
pain he knew his actions would cause. But she deserved it, lying to him,
cheating, and treating him like a nobody while pursuing her own selfish ends.

She was
just like the other one, the one he had to deal with later this evening.

It was fully
dark and beginning to snow again when Lauren pulled into the parking space beside
her own cottage, tired and stiff from the long day and the hours of driving. It
was a relief to be home and she sat in the car for a few moments with the
window open, breathing in the fresh, chill air redolent of the pine forests,
and letting the country silence seep into her mind.

            Lauren had called in
at the village store on her way home, and she hefted the paper sack of
groceries on one hip as she did a juggling act with purse, briefcase,
newspapers, and key ring. She picked her way carefully over the icy patches and
the newly fallen snow, already looking forward to lighting a log fire, drinking
hot coffee, and returning to her easel.

It was
evidence of how tired she was that she didn’t realize the cottage door was
slightly ajar until it began to swing inwards as she pressed the key into the
lock.

            Suddenly shivers ran
down her spine. She’d heard people talk about being so nervous that the hair
stood up on the back of their necks, but never understood the meaning until
this moment. While it wasn’t unusual for friends and neighbors to drop by, the
ones who were welcome to come in would invariably use the back door, getting
the key from under the big plant pot on the step. They would never, ever leave
the front door open like this.

            Her heart pounding,
Lauren slowly pushed the heavy door further open, reaching in to flick on the
light switch as she did so. Time seemed to stand still as she surveyed the ruin
of her home. Destruction was everywhere.

Her beautiful
Afghans and the hand-quilted cushions lay shredded on the floor. Paints
squirted from their tubes in long worms around the golden pine floor, the
walls, even the ceiling, and in some places were mixed with cereals, sugar, and
coffee, apparently the entire contents of her kitchen cupboards.

The bed settee
and her favorite armchair leaned towards each other at crazy angles; their legs
smashed, stuffing hanging like internal organs from their mutilated bodies.

            Lauren suddenly
realized she was holding her breath, hoping that between this heartbeat and the
next the world would right itself. That her cottage would return to its usual
slightly unkempt but comfortable state, and the terrible vision she was having
would recede to being just an illusion brought on by tiredness, by too many
headlights flashing in her eyes as she drove home from Toronto.

            She let out a deep
breath, breathed in again. Nothing changed. With unnatural calm, she carefully
placed the sack of groceries and her briefcase and purse down near the door,
and walked slowly into the large studio-cum-living room. Everything was broken,
smashed, defiled. Pictures torn from the walls, smashed or slashed, even - and
she sobbed a little as she picked this up from the debris - the tiny picture of
her parents’ wedding that she’d had framed.

            In the kitchen, the
destruction was absolute. A monstrous hand had torn open cupboard doors,
smashed glass inserts, and swept dishes, cups, bowls, tins, pans, jars,
everything out of cupboards and onto the countertops and floor. The coffee
maker hung drunkenly from its electrical cord; the broad pine planks beneath it
sprinkled with a mishmash of coffee grounds and shards of glass from the
smashed decanter.

            Lauren raised her
eyes towards the stairs. She wasn’t sure she was ready to go up and view
whatever horrors waited for her there. Blood was roaring in her ears as she
walked numbly over to her easel and tears began to fall as she saw the great
slash marks across the face and body of the bobcat she’d worked so hard to
portray.

Then it felt
as though the beating in her chest came to a walloping stop.

Pinned to the
ear of the painted bobcat was one of Jon Rush’s business cards. Lauren felt the
room spin around her. She’d have credited him with more intelligence. Surely
even he wasn’t so angry after that last interview that he would do this? What
kind of cold-blooded, vengeful monster would that make him?

A rustling
sound and the swish of the cottage door being pushed open made Lauren’s already
overstretched nerves jump. She’d never even thought to check: what if the
animal that’d created all this destruction was still here, still in the
cottage, waiting for his opportunity to wreak the same havoc on her defenseless
body?

She scanned
the floor by the easel, where her heavy worktable had been tipped over
scattering all her paints, brushes, cleaning solvents, and the set of sharp
craft knives she used for scraping paint.

In a swift
movement, she snatched up the biggest of the knives and turned to face whoever
was intruding into the cottage.

            Jon Rush stood on the
doorstep, his face pale and shocked as he surveyed the devastation. In a few
strides he was across the room, his arms reaching to comfort her. Then he saw
the knife in her raised fist and his eyes went wide.

            “Lauren?” he asked
the question quiet in the heavy silence of the cottage.

That was when
Lauren realized her antique grandfather clock, probably her most prized
possession, no longer filled the room with its comforting measurement of
passing time. Looking beyond Jon’s tall figure to the spot beside the door
where the clock normally stood, Lauren let out a small gasp of sorrow as she
saw its beauty smashed, the mahogany case and etched glass door little more
than shards, the brass pendulum and chain hanging out in a knot.

            Suddenly, it was all
just too much. Lauren simply didn’t want to know any more about this, her mind
refused to accept it and screamed for release. The world began to fade and her
knees gave way; strong arms caught her, swung her up and carried her towards
the door. She laid her head on his solid chest, breathing in reassurance from
his strength and no longer caring that she might be surrendering her life to a
madman who had destroyed her home.

            However, someone else
did care.

“What the hell
is going on here? What have you done?” Paul stood in the doorway, his face
blanched with shock at the sight of the devastation before him.

Nevertheless,
his wits were still about him and he concluded that he’d just caught company
CEO Jon Rush in the process of ransacking his friend’s cottage and kidnapping
her. Without a thought to his own safety, he blocked the doorway with his body,
his fingers already pressing the 911 on the mobile cell phone in his hand.

            Lauren was vaguely
aware that Paul, though tall and wiry, was over seventy and no match at all for
Jon’s youthful vitality and strength. She was surprised, then, that she didn’t
feel anxiety for her friend’s safety as Jon plowed on with her in his arms
through the doorway, swiping Paul out of his way as if he had little substance
at all.

            “I’m warning you; put
her down!” Paul’s stentorian voice commanded and Lauren decided he was right.
Struggling in the iron clasp of Jon’s arms, she, too, demanded to be put down.

            “Right away,” he
conceded, swinging open the passenger door and depositing her gently on the
leather seat in the warm cab of his Jeep.

            “I’ve already alerted
the police. There’s no way you can get away with this,” Paul stated, holding
Jon’s eyes with his own. “Just let Lauren go and we’ll talk, maybe sort out
something.”

            “There’s nothing to
sort. She can’t stay here.”

            “She can’t go with
you.”

            “She’s in no
condition to deal with this…”

            “And she’s the cat’s
mother,” Lauren interjected, knowing she probably sounded ridiculous, but tired
of hearing the two men fighting about her as if she was a bone.

            “Lauren, I’ve called
the police. We’ll see how he can explain this to Chief Ohmer,” Paul told her,
his eyes never leaving Jon’s face. At that moment, as though they had conjured
him up, they heard a blast of the police siren as Ohmer himself turned into the
Haverford Castle driveway.

*
* *

Moments later,
he’d surveyed the wreckage of Lauren’s home, checked that she herself was
uninjured, called for scene-of-crime backup, and fixed a cold eye on Jon Rush.

            “So, Mr. Rush, how do
you explain yourself?”

            “I don’t have
anything to explain.” Rush’s voice was flat, authoritative.

            “Then who trashed
Lauren’s place?” Ohmer asked.

“Who else
would want to, except some corporate scum?” Paul interjected, drawing a
daggers-glance from the police chief.

            “Easy now…” Ohmer
warned, but Lauren interjected.

            “No, Paul, finish
what you were going to say. I liked the sound of it.” Lauren knew shock was
making her giddy, but an attack of the giggles seemed preferable to howling at
the moon and tearing her hair, which was her only other apparent option. All
three men swiveled to look at her.

            “Hysterical,” Paul
judged.

            “Overwrought,” Jon
agreed.

            “Getting madder by
the minute,” Lauren chimed in.

            “So who could hate
her enough to do this?” Jon asked Paul.

            “I wouldn’t think
she’s got that many enemies,” Paul replied.

            “No, but she does
have an attitude,” Jon commented sagely.

            Paul burst out
laughing.

            “Now, just you wait a
minute. One moment you’re calling him out for ravaging my home and kidnapping
me, the next you’re making jokes at my expense? What is this, the Men’s Club
routine?” Lauren demanded, and both men shamefacedly lost their amusement.

Chief Ohmer
turned away to greet another police car with the backup personnel he’d
requested.

            “Lauren, I don’t know
what you believe, but I certainly did not, would not, do something like this.”
Jon’s eyes held hers, but Lauren’s slid away.

            “Go and look at the
painting on my easel—what there is left of it,” she told the two men.

As they left,
she leaned her head forwards against the chilled glass of the windscreen,
fighting back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. It had been okay to
keep up the slapstick while Jon and Paul were there. Somehow it had defused the
situation. Besides, she couldn’t really take seriously the concept of Jon Rush
trashing her home.

           
But if not him,
who?

            “My business card.
Pinned to the painting,” Jon said dully when he and Paul returned.

            “So you can see how I
might have thought?”

            “And what do you
think now?” His look raked her face, searching for some kind of sign, something
to suggest that she believed in him.

            A sign she found hard
to give, she was simply too shaken by all the events, and she couldn’t hold his
gaze.

            “I stopped off in Toronto,
visited a friend to…to get some legal advice on that business with the
photographs. You could easily have come straight out here and done all this,
then pretended to arrive after me.” She steeled herself to look at him, then.
His face was white beneath its outdoor tan. Only the deeper whiteness around
his mouth and the taut parallel lines between his eyes gave away his feelings.

            “I was in a
meeting—the one you interrupted—until mid-afternoon. Then I had some work to do
in the office. I have witnesses who can tell you I didn’t leave the city until
less than four hours ago.”

            “I’ll want the names
of those witnesses, Mr. Rush,” Ohmer had returned to join the three as they
stood beside Jon’s vehicle.

            “Am I under suspicion
of something?” Jon asked.

            “Right now, everyone
and his brother is under suspicion as far as I’m concerned. Seems there’s been
some nasty things going on around here since your company started to get
involved.”