Lisa Jackson's the Abandoned Box Set (27 page)

They stood face-to-face, inches apart, the threshold of Marnie's front door a symbol of the rift between them. Adam on one side, Victor on the other, a year of bitterness, lies and mistrust separating them as surely as the threshold itself.

One side of Adam's mouth lifted into a mocking grin. “Well, Victor,” he drawled, as the older man's shock turned to simmering rage. “It's been a long time. I'd invite you in, but I'm just on my way out.”

Victor tilted his aristocratic head, and the nostrils of his patrician nose flared slightly. “Where's Marnie?”

“I'm going to meet her.”

“She's having dinner with me.”

“That's not the way I understand it,” Adam replied, then added, “excuse my manners.” He glanced pointedly at his watch. “I guess I've got a few minutes. Would you like to come in for a drink?”

Victor snorted. “What the hell do you think you're doing hanging around my daughter? I warned you—”

“I figure Marnie's old enough to make her own decisions.”

“Or mistakes,” Victor declared, gazing past Adam to the interior of the apartment, as if he expected Marnie to walk out of the kitchen, fling herself into his arms and
complain that Adam had been holding her hostage against her will. It amused Adam that Victor really expected him to lie at every turn.

“Well, if you're not interested in coming in and shooting the breeze, then I guess I'd better be off. She's waiting for me at the boat. So if you'll excuse me…”

But Victor stood as if rooted to the porch, his gaze narrowing to some spot beyond Adam, his old eyes fixed on the inside of the apartment. “Oh, my God,” he whispered, and his throat worked slightly. His face turned bloodless, as if he'd seen a ghost. “What the devil have you been doing, Drake?” he asked in a voice so low it was nearly lost in the rumble of traffic from the street.

“What do you mean? I told you she's not here…”

Ignoring Adam, Victor pushed past him, strode down the hallway to the table where Adam had been seated, where stacks of computer printouts lay sprawled over the white tabletop. Each heading, in bold inch-high letters, announced that the pages were property of Montgomery Inns.

Adam's stomach tightened. In his fantasies about being alone with Marnie and his exuberance of thinking they were about to solve the mystery with Kate Delany's help, he'd forgotten about the sheaves of paper, damning and incriminating printouts, strewn all over the kitchen.

Victor picked up the first few pages, scanned the print and nearly staggered as he slumped into a chair, dropping his head into his hands, one page of a printout still wadded in his fingers. Hearing Adam approach, he looked up, his eyes suddenly old and tired. “You did it, didn't you? You managed to turn my own daughter against me.”

“No, I—”

“Damn it, Drake, I'm sick of lies! Sick!” With a renewed rush of energy, Victor struck one stack of printouts, and it skidded off the table to pour onto the floor,
sheet after perforated sheet, rolling and folding onto the tile, condemning Marnie in her father's eyes. “She got them from corporate headquarters, didn't she? Hell, yes, she did. She still has access to the files. And then she brought them back to you, like a dog bringing slippers to his master for a pat on the head. God, you're incredible. My own daughter!” His voice trembled perilously, but he didn't break down.

“Marnie was just trying to help me.”

“Or ruin Montgomery Inns!” Victor's face had flushed, and his lips shivered in rage.

“She wouldn't—”

“She already did, Drake, and I'm holding you personally responsible. I know you're trying to put together a deal to open a rival hotel, right here in downtown Seattle, and you've convinced my daughter to become involved in some sort of corporate espionage against her own flesh and blood. Well, I won't hear of it! You can tell Marnie for me that she's fired!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table and scrambling to his feet. “I'm calling my lawyers immediately to press charges against you for stealing company records. And I'm going to change my will. From this moment forward, Marnie's cut off! Understand? Cut off from any more Montgomery money. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a daughter anymore.”

Adam grabbed hold of the older man's lapels as Victor tried to brush past him. “If you just would have talked to me this never would have happened.”

“Talk to you? All you had to do was call for an appointment,” Victor raged, his voice becoming louder.

“I tried! But you left word with Kate Delany that you wouldn't see me.”

“Enough of your lies! Just give Marnie the message.”

“Don't you think you'd better tell her yourself?” Adam suggested, as he dropped the collar of Victor's coat.

“Why? She wouldn't believe me. It's you she trusts now. You've got her under some sort of spell, and when she wakes up, I hope to God she realizes what an incredible mistake she made—that you're just not worth it.”

“Marnie can make up her own mind,” Adam repeated, his jaw clenched so hard it throbbed.

Victor slammed out of the apartment, and Adam felt a tremendous loss. Not for himself. But for Marnie. Victor was the only family she had in the world, and no matter how angry she became with her father, he was still her own flesh and blood. Adam braced himself for the rift that was to come. He knew she loved the old man and would be devastated when she found out that Victor had branded her a traitor and disowned her. He'd seen how much Victor meant to her when they'd discussed family ties.

Adam had ruined everything for her. He leaned heavily against the wall. How could he tell her that her father considered her no better than dead?

The phone rang again and the answering machine clicked on. Adam hesitated, half expecting Marnie's voice to be on the phone. “Marnie?” a woman asked. The voice was high-pitched and sluggish, as if she were drunk or drugged. “Marnie? Are you there? Oh, God, please be there! Marnie? This is Dolores…”

Dolores Tate?
Adam froze, listening to Dolores's message.

“…look, I, uh, well, Kent knows that you know about the books. He, um, oooh, God! He came over and…and I told him. But somehow—somehow he already knew. I could see it in his eyes.” She was crying now. Her voice faltered. “He flipped out and…he hit me, Marnie,” she whispered, sniffing loudly. “He
hit
me. And I think he's on the way to the boat. I wouldn't mess with him if I were you… He might have a gun. Oh, Lord…”

Adam rushed back to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Dolores, this is Adam Drake,” he said, only to hear the sound of the connection being severed. A second later a dial tone buzzed in his ear.

What was she talking about? What books? What did it have to do with Marnie? A gun? Did she say a
gun!

He didn't waste any time trying to call Dolores back. He didn't bother locking the apartment. Taking the steps to the parking lot two at a time, he raced down the stairs and only hoped that he wasn't too late.

* * *

I
N THE MAIN CABIN
of the boat, Marnie twisted the combination lock for the fifth time, but nothing happened. Not one single tumbler had seemed to fall into place. She wasn't just coming up with numbers at random, she'd taken the time to rifle through Kent's desk, and came up with dates, figures, or series of numbers that held special significance for him.

She tried again using his birthdate, her birthdate, the day he was promoted. Nothing, nothing and nothing.

Racking her brain, she came up with a long shot. The date of their engagement. The tumblers clicked, and the heavy door swung open. Maybe Kent did care for her more than she believed. She reached into the safe and withdrew a small velvet box. Inside was a diamond ring—the engagement ring she'd given back to him. Beneath the box were several stock certificates, and at the very bottom was a ledger book. Marnie opened the book and a computer disk fell out.

She heard brisk footsteps on the deck above. Adam. “Down here,” she called, still reading the entries in the ledgers. They were coded, but she could see that vast amounts of money had been moved around the various
accounts of Montgomery Inns—or at least that's what she suspected.

Adam's footsteps sounded on the stairs. “We've got it!” she yelled, her voice bubbling. She was practically beaming when he walked through the cabin door. “Look, it's all here—” she said, before her words died in her throat and she met Kent's all-knowing gaze.

“Ah, Marnie,” he said, clicking his tongue and sighing. His face was cold and set. A tiny sliver of fear pricked her heart.

“Where's Adam?” she demanded.

“Don't know.” He lifted one shoulder. “You expecting him?”

She knew she had to be careful. If she lied, Kent would see right through her. “I
hoped
you were him.”

Kent winced. “So what am I going to do with you?”

“I think the question is, ‘What are the police going to do to you, Kent?'” she said bravely, though she was cold inside. The glint in his eye was deadly, the determined set of his jaw rock-hard and his mouth was a thin, cruel line.

“That does pose a problem,” he admitted, and for a fleeting second his iciness seemed to thaw and he looked again like the man she'd almost married. “I never wanted to hurt you.” He glanced down at the books, still lying open in Marnie's hands. “But I got caught up in all this… well, it's over and done with,” he said, his regret giving way to harsh reality. “Now, we've got to figure out where we go from here.”

“You have to tell my father the truth. You have to give yourself up.”

Kent snorted, as if she were a fool. “And spend the next twenty years in jail? I don't think so.”

“If you don't tell him, I will.”

“Oh, Marnie,” he said, shaking his head again. “I don't think you're in a position to bargain.” With that, he
reached into his pocket and pulled out a small but deadly pistol. Marnie's heart stopped.

“You couldn't—”

“Maybe not. But I don't have many choices left, do I? If only Drake had butted out, this all would've worked.”

“You mean if he'd taken the fall.”

He motioned with his gun to the door. “Hand me the books, then climb on deck. I think we should take a little cruise until I figure out what I've got to do.”

“You're going to kidnap me?” she cried, fear giving way to stark terror. Alone on the open sea with Kent. But it was better than having Adam show up here and innocently walk into the barrel of Kent's gun.

“No, Marnie,” he said as surely as if he could read her mind, “I'm not going to kidnap you. You're going to come with me willingly. Otherwise, I might have to find a way to kill your boyfriend and plant some evidence on him that proves without a doubt that he was the man who embezzled from your father.”

“I'd never go along with that story,” she said, her throat squeezing together so that it was hard to speak.

“Hopefully you won't have to. Maybe I'll bargain with Drake. If he cares anything for you, he might be willing to confess in order to spare your life and his.”

Marnie could barely believe her ears. Did Kent actually think that Adam would claim responsibility for a crime he didn't commit, just to save her? Though Kent's pistol worried her, she couldn't accept the fact that he would actually shoot her. Embezzling was one kind of crime; murder was an entirely different story. Though cold fear crawled up her spine, she didn't really believe that Kent was capable of murder. This was all a bluff; it had to be.

Aware of Kent right behind her, she climbed the stairs to the deck, where the wind had picked up speed and
sails were snapping loudly. “This is crazy, Kent. You're no killer. You couldn't hurt anyone.”

“Tell that to your friend, Ed.”

“Ed?” she repeated, her dread and adrenaline causing her heart to beat triple-time. “You didn't—”

“He never knew what hit him, but, no, he's not dead. Just sleeping for a while.”

Only then did she realize just how desperate Kent had become. “What did you do to him?” she demanded, turning to face him, though her hair swept in front of her eyes. She thought she caught a movement of something on the bridge, another person, and her heart plummeted. Kent had brought along his accomplice.

“Don't worry about Ed. He'll survive,” Kent assured her again. “Now, come on. You're so good at stealing this boat and sailing off into the sunset, why don't you do the honors and man the helm?”

A smug smile toyed at his lips, and Marnie never wanted to strike a person so much as she did just then. Her hand drew back to slap him.

“Don't even think about it,” he warned.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement. She turned and discovered Adam hurling himself from the bridge, flying through the air and straight at Kent.

“What—” Kent whirled, aimed his pistol, but Marnie, already poised to strike, hit his hand and the gun, flashing fire, spun out of his hand. Adam landed on Kent and sent them both sprawling along the smooth planks of the deck.

The accounting books were knocked from Kent's grasp. They fluttered upward and caught on the wind before dropping and sliding across the deck to drop into the sea. The computer disk followed, and Marnie raced to the rail, trying vainly to capture the evidence before it settled into
the cold, dark waters. But the disk settled quickly beneath the surface. Devastated, she dared one look over her shoulder and grinned inwardly.

Adam was on top of Kent, one fist clenched around the front of Kent's expensive shirt, the other poised over his face, ready to pummel Kent's perfect features to a bloody mass.

Marnie didn't hesitate. Kicking off her shoes, she climbed onto the rail, poised for half a second, then dived neatly between the
Marnie Lee
and the boat tethered next to her.