Lisa Jackson's the Abandoned Box Set (2 page)

The other men nodded in silent agreement. Adam didn't blame them. If he were in their shoes he wouldn't trust a man who'd nearly been indicted for embezzling, a man still proclaimed a thief by one of the largest hotel chains on the west coast. Trouble was, Adam was sick of being a scapegoat.

Pushing himself upright, Adam pulled together a grim smile and shook each man's outstretched hand. He watched as Brodie shepherded the small group from the room. Only when the door slammed shut behind the Californians did he let out a series of invectives that would have made a sailor blush. He yanked off his tie and threw it over the back of a chair, then loosened the top buttons of his stiff white shirt. What had he expected? This meeting had been no different than the two others he'd put together.

Face it, Drake,
he told himself,
you were convicted even though you were never tried.
With leashed fury, he knew that the black stain on his reputation wouldn't disappear with time. No, he had to find out who had set him up and why. Otherwise, he was finished.

He had his suspicions, of course. There were several people with whom he'd worked at Montgomery Inns who had been jealous of his rapid rise in the corporation, a few who were desperate, and still others who were just plain
greedy. Any one of those people could have set him up to take the fall. And fall he had. Once one of Victor Montgomery's golden boys, he was now the black sheep. The Judas.

Until he could prove himself completely blameless, he would never be able to set himself up in business. As he saw it, he had no choice. He had to do some digging and find out just who had hated him enough to frame him for embezzling money he'd never seen. For the past year he'd tried to put the damned incident behind him, but it kept rising like a phoenix from the ashes of his career at Montgomery Inns, to torment and thwart him. Fortunately, he'd already started an investigation to prove his innocence once and for all.

* * *

“Q
UITTING
?” V
ICTOR'S EYEBROWS
shot up, and he stared at his only child in disbelief. He'd just walked into the office and found Marnie sitting, waiting, in one of the client chairs. Then she'd lowered the bomb. “Have you gone out of your mind?”

Marnie dropped her letter of resignation on his desk. This scene with her father was going to be worse than she'd imagined. Her father was shocked. Pain showed from his blue eyes, pain at the thought of her betrayal.

“Why for God's sake? And just what do you think you're going to do?” he demanded, slamming his golf bag into a corner closet, then ripping off his plaid cap and sailing it across the office in frustration.

Marnie opened her mouth to answer, but her father wasn't finished raving. “You can't quit! You're my daughter, for crying out loud!” He mopped the sweat from his brow and stuffed his handkerchief into the pocket of his golf slacks.

Marnie had been waiting for him for half the day. She wasn't about to back down now. She'd spent too many
hours arguing with herself and gathering her courage to give in.

“I'm serious, Dad,” she said quietly, her voice firm. “This is just something I need to do.”

“Bull!” Her father crossed the thick expanse of putty-colored carpet and glanced at the calendar lying open on his huge mahogany desk. He flipped through the pages while Marnie surveyed his office with jaded eyes.

Opulent, befitting the reigning monarch of a hotel empire, the suite boasted inlaid cherrywood walls. Brass lamps, etchings, sculptures and buttery leather furniture added to the effect. Behind the office, a private bath with a Jacuzzi, a walk-in wardrobe and king-size bedroom, were available whenever Victor was too busy to drive home.

Grabbing the receiver in one hand, Victor punched a series of buttons on the phone. “Kate?” he barked, still flipping through his appointment book. “Cancel my two o'clock with Ferguson—no, on second thought—just stall him. Ask him to meet me at the site tomorrow at—” he ran his finger down a page “—ten-thirty.” Scowling across the room at Marnie, he added, “Just tell him that something important came up, something to do with the opening of the Puget West hotel.”

Marnie refused to meet the anger in his eyes and stared instead through the bank of windows in his office. Glimpses of the rolling gray waters of Puget Sound were barely visible through the tall spires of Seattle's skyline. Thick pewter-colored clouds blocked the sun and threatened rain. A jet, headed north, was nearly invisible through the low-hanging clouds.

She heard her father slam down the phone. “Okay, let's get out of here,” he said, and dropped the letter of resignation she'd worked so hard to write into his wastebasket.

“Can't we talk here?”

Grabbing his keys, Victor shook his head. “Not a good idea.”

Then she understood. Shoving her arms through the sleeves of her coat, she asked, “Do you still really think you've got some spies in the company?”

“Don't know.”

“I thought all that was taken care of when you fired Adam Drake.”

Her father jammed a hat onto his head. “And I thought you were convinced he was innocent.”

“He was,” she said flatly. “He got off, remember?”

“He just had a damned good attorney,” Victor grumbled, snagging his jacket from the back of his chair. “But that's over and done with.”

“Then why're you still paranoid?”

“I'm
not
paranoid,” he snapped. “Just careful. Come on, I've got to check things out at the marina, see that the repairs on the
Vanessa
are up to snuff. We can talk on the way.”

“Okay,” she muttered, barely holding on to her temper. “But you can't just toss my resignation into the trash and expect me to forget all about it. I'm serious, Dad.”

“You don't know what you want.”

“That's where you're wrong,” she said quietly.

The firmness in her tone must have caught his attention. His head snapped up and for the first time since he'd entered the office, he seemed to see her as she really was. His lips pursed tightly and beneath his tan his skin took on a paler hue. “Let's go,” he said, his voice much lower.

He didn't even bother changing from his casual pants and sports coat.

In tense silence they strode abreast through the corridors to the elevator. Marnie barely kept herself from quaking at his anger. He was a handsome man, a man who accepted authority easily. His features were
over-sized, his hair thick and white with only a few remaining dark strands, his eyes intense blue, his nose aristocratic. For a man pushing sixty he was in good shape, with only the trace of a paunch near his waistline. And right now he was beginning to seethe.

“I don't know what's gotten into you,” he said when the elevator doors had whispered shut and with a lurch the car sped down sixteen floors only to jerk to a stop at the subterranean parking lot.

“I just think it's time I stood on my own.”

“All of a sudden?”

She slid a glance in his direction. “It's been coming on a long time.”

“Ever since that business with Drake,” he surmised with disgust.

“Before that,” she insisted, though it was true that nothing had been the same since Adam Drake had been fired. There had been a change in attitude in the offices of Montgomery Inns. Nothing tangible. Just a loss of company spirit and confidence. Everyone felt it—including Victor, though, of course, he was loathe to admit it.

“And then you decided to break up with Kent,” her father went on, shaking his head as he searched the pocket of his jacket for his pipe. “And now you want to leave the corporation, just walk away from a fortune. When I was your age, I was—”

“—working ten-hour days and still going to night school, I know,” Marnie cut in. Her heels clicked loudly against the concrete. Low-hanging pipes overhead dripped condensation, and she had to duck to escape the steady drops as she hurried to keep up with her father's swift strides.

She stopped at the fender of Victor's Jaguar. He unlocked the doors and they both slid into the cushy interior.

“You should be grateful…”

Marnie closed her eyes. How could she explain the feeling that she was trapped? That she needed a life of her own? That she had to prove herself by standing on her own two feet? “I
am
grateful, Dad. Really.” Turning to face him, she forced a wan smile. “This is just something I have to do—”

“Right now? Can't it wait?” he asked, as if sensing her beginning to weaken.

“No.”

“But the new hotel is opening next week. I need you there. You're in charge of public relations, for God's sake.”

“And I have a capable assistant. You remember Todd Byers—blond, wears glasses—”

Victor waved off her explanation.

“Well, if he's not good enough I have a whole department to cover for me.” That was what bothered her most. She didn't feel needed. If she walked away from Montgomery Inns, no one, save Victor, would notice. Even Kent would get by without her.

Her father fired up the engine and shoved the Jag into reverse. “I don't understand you anymore.” With a flip of the steering wheel, he headed for the exit. “What is it you really want?”

“A life of my own.”

“You have one. A life most women would envy.”

“I know,” she admitted, her spine stiffening a bit. How could she reach a man who had worked all his life creating an empire? A man who had raised her alone, a man who loved her as much as he possibly could? “This is just something I have to do.”

He waved to the lot's attendant, then nosed the Jag into the busy streets of downtown Seattle. “A few weeks ago you were planning to marry Kent,” he pointed out as he joined the traffic easing toward the waterfront. Marnie felt a familiar stab of pain. “But now, all of a sudden, Kent's
not good enough. It doesn't matter that he's practically my right-hand man—”

“No, it doesn't,” she said swiftly. Surprisingly, her voice was still steady.

“Why don't you tell me what happened between you two?” he suggested. “It's all tied up with this whole new independence kick, isn't it?”

Marnie didn't answer. She didn't want to think about Kent, nor the fact that she'd found him with Dolores Tate, his secretary. Rather than dwell on Kent's betrayal, Marnie stared at the car ahead of them. Two fluffy Persian cats slept on the back window ledge and a bright red bumper sticker near the back plates asked, Have You Hugged Your Cat Today?

Funny, she thought sarcastically, she hadn't hugged anyone in a long, long while. And no one had hugged her. At that thought a lump settled in her throat, and she wrapped her arms around herself, determined not to cry. Not today. Not on this, the very first step toward her new life.

Victor switched lanes, jockeying for position as traffic clogged. “While we're on the subject of Kent—”

“We're not.”

“He loves you.”

Marnie knew better. “Let's just leave Kent out of this, okay?”

For once, her father didn't argue. Rubbing the back of his neck he shook his head, as if he could release some of the tension tightening his shoulder blades. He slid her a sidelong glance as they turned into the marina. Fishing boats, sloops, yachts and cabin cruisers were tied to the piers. Whitecaps dotted the surface of the restless sound, and only a few sailing vessels braved the overcast day. Lumbering tankers moved slowly inland, while ferries
churned frothy wakes, cutting through the dark water as they crossed the water.

Her father parked the Jag near the pier and cut the engine. “I can see I'm not going to change your mind,” he said, slanting her a glance that took in the thrust of her jaw and the determination in her gaze. As if finally accepting the fact that she was serious, he snorted, “God knows I don't understand it, but if you think you've got to leave the company for a while, I'll try to muddle through without you.”

“For a while?” she countered. “I resigned, remember?”

He held up his hands, as if in surrender. “One step at a time, okay? Let's just call this…sabbatical…of yours, a leave of absence.”

She wanted to argue, but didn't. Maybe he needed time to adjust. Her leaving, after all, was as hard on him as it was on her.

Her expression softened, and she touched his arm. “You and Montgomery Inns will survive.”

“Lord, I hope so,” he murmured. “But I'm not accepting anything official like a resignation. And I want you to wait just a couple of weeks, until Puget West opens. That's not too much to ask, is it?” he queried, pocketing his keys as they both climbed out of the car.

Together, hands shoved in the pockets of their coats, they walked quickly along the time-weathered planks of the waterfront. Marnie breathed in the scents of the marina. She'd grown up around boats, and the odors of salt and seaweed, brine and diesel brought back happy childhood memories of when her father had taken as much interest in her as he had in his company. Things had changed, of course. She'd gone to college, hadn't needed him so much, and Montgomery Inns had developed into a large corporation with hotels stretched as far away as L.A. and Houston.

A stiff breeze snapped the flags on the moored vessels. High overhead sea gulls wheeled, their desolate cries barely audible over the sounds of throbbing engines.
Free,
she thought, smiling at the birds,
they're free. And lonely.

Her father grumbled, “Next thing I know you'll be trading in your Beemer for a '69 Volkswagen.”

She smothered a sad smile. He didn't know that she'd sold the BMW just last week, though she wasn't in the market for a VW bug—well, at least not yet.

“So it's settled, right?” he said, as if grateful to have finished a drawn-out negotiation. “When you get back, we'll talk.”

“And if I still want to quit?”