The Daughter-in-Law (17 page)

“Let’s move back out to the cottage we had on our honeymoon,” Nicole suggested. “There aren’t any telephones out there and there’s no cell phone coverage.”

Jonathan argued that he still had business on the mainland.

“Then let’s hire our own boat. Like we did last time.”

He could tell that it was important to her, so he went down to the front desk and hired one of the island cottages. When they checked out, he left instructions with the desk clerk that their new address was to be kept confidential, and sealed the bargain with a twenty-dollar tip.

TWENTY-FIVE

“V
ICTOR CAN’T
find them,” Alexandra told her husband over the telephone. “They checked out of their hotel.”

“Victor Crane is a lawyer, for God’s sake, not a detective. He can’t find his own ass with both hands.”

“Then we’ll have to get security people down there. They have to be found.”

Jack sighed in exasperation. “What’s the great rush? They’ll be coming back in a few days. A week at the most. Jonathan will run out of socks and he’ll need you to tell him what he ought to do about it.”

“I doubt it,” Alexandra snapped. “He has his wife to make the difficult decisions for him, and I don’t trust her. She’s already made too many decisions for him.”

“Like what?”

“Like rushing out to get married as soon as she learns we’re investigating her. And then taking him to Belize as soon as I tell her that I know all her dirty secrets. We need to get matters settled before she persuades him to turn over his checkbook.”

The thought of Nicole or even Jonathan writing checks got through to Jack. “Okay, I’ll get someone down there. Tell Victor to stay put and find out where he can be reached. I’ll put Lambert on it.”

Jack sensed that he was losing control, and the downside risk was too big to ignore. His attorneys had taken him through the present state of Jonathan’s funding, and reminded him that unless his son transferred back certain assets that had been hidden at his Cayman Island address, he was worth about thirty percent of the family fortune. Jonathan’s last will, written while he was single, made no specific provision for his wife. Nor had there been any prenuptial agreement. Should he die, his wife would automatically get half of what he legally owned, and she might be able to make a case for the
other half. So, if Jonathan died, Nicole would own somewhere between fifteen and thirty percent of the family’s assets. “That might end up being more than you own outright,” the briefing had concluded.

He had discussed the situation with Alexandra and it wasn’t a chance that she was prepared to take. She had all the corrective papers prepared. A new will that specified a modest bequest to Nicole and a financial settlement that limited her future claims on the fortune. She had them ready for their signatures when she heard that they had left the country and gone to Belize. Now, they had left the resort hotel, and her lawyers couldn’t find them.

It would be worrisome enough if her son’s greatest danger was clogged arteries. But Jonathan swam with the sharks and fell out of airplanes. One little mistake was all that it would take.

TWENTY-SIX

“W
HERE ARE
you?” Pam shouted into her telephone. “Dad has his militia out looking for you.”

“Back on our honeymoon island,” Jonathan laughed, “where their legal eagles and pencil pushers can’t get at us. The only one we want to see is you.”

He had motored across to San Pedro to meet with a realtor who claimed to have the land he was looking for. When he had come into signal range, he had placed the call on his cell phone.

“How do I get there?” Pam asked.

He gave her the name of an airline out of Miami that had a daily flight to Belize City. “I’ll meet the flight tomorrow. Be on it.”

He docked at the dive boat pier, figuring that his father’s detectives would be watching the resorts and the yacht club. Then he slinked into town, wearing sunglasses and a straw hat as a disguise. It was only a matter of time before Greg Lambert would find him. The bribe he had laid on the desk manager to keep his whereabouts secret was nickels and dimes next to the hundreds that Lambert would offer. But still, he was enjoying the thrill of the chase.

When he docked on their island, Nicole was sunning by the cottage. She followed him inside to hear his good news. The real estate was promising, a smaller plot but with a better location. “No quicksand and no snakes,” he told her. Then he mentioned Pam, and she was delighted that her sister-in-law was coming to visit. Jonathan suggested that he could get her a suite at the resort, and that they could use the suite for the inevitable meetings with Alexandra’s lawyers. But Nicole wouldn’t hear of it. “She’ll stay here with us. I can fix up the sofa. Then I’ll have someone to talk with when you’re off meeting with land barons and yacht brokers.”

One of Lambert’s people spotted Jonathan the next day at the Belize City airport, and then followed him down to the waterfront. But he lost contact when Jonathan and Pam sped away in the power-
boat. Guessing that they were headed out to one of the cays, Lambert focused his search and soon came up with the location. “I can bring the lawyers out to the island,” he told Alexandra when he made his report, “but they don’t have electricity or communications out there. It’s not much of a location for business discussions.” Alexandra agreed it would be better to have the meeting at one of the mainland hotels. “And are you aware that your daughter has joined them? She flew in this afternoon.”

Pam had immediately made herself at home, ecstatic over the island paradise they had found. She had gone through the house wild with enthusiasm, admiring the decor, the facilities, and even the comfort of the sofa that would be her bed. “It’s the perfect honeymoon hideaway,” she gushed, and promised that when she got married, this was the spot she would choose.

They sat out on the porch, sipped cold beer from their ice chest, and talked until the sun turned the sea into reds and purples. “You’re never going to be able to leave this place,” Pam said when the last trace of fire had spilled into the water.

“We’re not planning to,” Jonathan said, reaching down from the hammock to take Nicole’s hand. “This is home.”

Pam was shocked, even though she knew all about her brother’s scheme for starting up some sort of business. She had just never thought that he would carry through with the idea. In the past, few of his plans had ever made it through a weekend. Nor had she realized that a business in the tropics would mean living in the tropics. She had fully expected that no matter what became of his newest venture, he and Nicole would be coming home. Maybe not to Rock-bottom or Newport—she was aware of the coldness between her mother and her sister-in-law—but certainly to the city. That was where all the family business activity was centered.

Pam smiled and gushed as Jonathan and his wife outlined their still sketchy plans. The charter boat, leading to arrangements with the resort hotels, and finally their own resort for vacationing divers. “I saw the land yesterday,” he said, and described the plot that fronted the water on the east side of Ambergris Cay. “It’s more than I planned to spend,” he allowed. “And it looks as if we’re going to have to design and build the boat we need, so that’s another small fortune. Maybe you’ll want to buy in when you get your trust funds.”

“That’s five more years,” Pam answered. She held up her bottle. “We’ll be out of beer by then!”

They all boated over to San Pedro the next day, and docked at the dive boat pier. Pam needed to shop for scuba gear, and she took their air tanks to be refilled. Nicole and Jonathan went into town for a meeting with a yacht broker who might put them onto a yacht designer and a builder. In the process, they let themselves be seen at the bank where they knew Greg Lambert’s agents were watching, and then found themselves meeting with Greg and Victor Crane for lunch.

Jonathan apologized for the runaround he had given his parents’ agents, but didn’t see why it was so important to have a few papers signed. “We’ll be back up to New York in a few weeks and we can take care of it then. Right now, there are a hundred other things on my mind.”

Patiently, the attorney explained that Jonathan’s marriage to Nicole had thrown the family’s financial structure into disarray. “You can’t marry without making provisions for your wife,” he explained with a deferential nod to Nicole. “A man of your wealth can’t leave these things up in the air.” Then he focused on Nicole and explained delicately that her call on the assets of the Donner family had to be defined. Otherwise she or her heirs could wait years while their inheritance was tied up in court proceedings. “If anything should happen to your husband ...” He tried to continue, but Nicole nodded that she understood. If Jonathan died, a limited amount would be paid over to her immediately. But if she inherited all his claims on the estate, then those claims would be fiercely contested.

“They want me to sign a prenuptial agreement after the wedding,” she said to Jonathan.

He shrugged. “Is that a problem?”

She shrugged. “Not to me.”

Crane produced several documents from his briefcase. He began unscrewing the cap of his fountain pen, but Jonathan didn’t reach for it. Instead he scooped up the documents. “We’ll read these and get back to you,” he said, and he stood and offered his hand.

“Tomorrow?” Crane asked hopefully.

“Not tomorrow,” Nicole interrupted. She looked at Jonathan. “We’re taking Pam out diving tomorrow.”

Jonathan agreed. “We’ll get back to you in a few days. Why don’t you go home and we’ll call you in New York?”

Crane frowned. “Your mother was quite specific—”

“Well then wait down here at the hotel,” Jonathan answered. “But get yourself some shorts and sport shirts. You’ll die in your suit and tie!”

They walked back to the boat where Pam was loading the newly filled air bottles. Jonathan took over the loading, bringing aboard the provisions he had ordered, while Pam showed Nicole the wet jacket and diving gear. “All set for tomorrow,” she announced happily. Jonathan threw off the lines and headed back to their island.

TWENTY-SEVEN

T
HEY SPENT
the evening sitting on the edge of their dock, their feet dangling into the water. Pam recounted her dives in the Cayman Islands, the Florida Keys, and off the Blue Coast of Turkey. She was clearly proficient, and looking forward to trying the Belize barrier reef. Nicole admitted she was still a bit timid about going deep, but it didn’t matter because there were so many shallow areas that she could enjoy. Jonathan praised his wife’s progress and assured her that she was ready for anything.

The subject strayed back to the family problems. Nicole wondered if Alexandra had softened a bit in her opinion of her new daughter-in-law.

“Mother? Soften?” Pam looked at her brother and they both broke out laughing. “Don’t get me wrong,” Pam finally managed. “Mom’s great. But not soft. She’s a driver and a motivator. But if she has a tender side, she never shows it.”

“Alexandra will get to love you,” Jonathan added. “But don’t expect flowers. She’ll say something like, ‘For a scheming little guttersnipe, you certainly have developed some remarkable qualities.’ That will be your cue that she’s crazy about you.”

“One of my boyfriends used to call her the drill sergeant,” Pam said through her laughter. “Every time she saw him she’d order him to ‘stand up straight,’ and ‘walk as if you know where you’re going.’ And he was the one she really liked.”

But then they put the joking aside, and Pam agreed that Nicole was in for a long and difficult battle. “Once she gets an idea in her head she protects it as if her brain were a vault.” She told about her own efforts to pursue her interest in art. Her father regarded artists as “flakes,” who could do more good by painting some of the houses they lived in. Her mother thought that real art was hanging in the museums she sponsored, and that all genuine artists were already dead. So Pam had taken the business and financial courses that her
father selected, gone to the schools her mother chose, and taken a job as a financial manager for one of Alexandra’s orchestras. She wouldn’t be able to make her own decisions until she got her hands on her trust fund. “I’ve talked with Ben about ways that I might be able to start a gallery. Any scheme that gives me enough money involves having Jack as a partner, or at least as a backer. I’d hate to see the kind of art that he’d hang on the walls!”

They were all a bit tipsy from the margaritas they had been sloshing and the conversations began to lag.

“Guess you two want to get to bed,” Pam said so that her brother and sister-in-law could make their getaway.

“We usually go for a swim first,” Nicole answered.

“Skinny-dip?” Pam was enthused.

“Well, when we’re alone—” Jonathan started, but Pam was already up on her feet and pulling her T-shirt over her head. She stripped off her shorts, stepped out of her clogs, and dove off the edge.

Jonathan and Nicole waited until her face broke through the surface. “C’mon. . . it’s fabulous.” They looked at one another, shrugged, and then stripped to the skin. A second later, the three of them were bobbing in a circle, talking enthusiastically about their plans for the next day.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
HEY LEFT
very early, ghosting over the flat water at near idle speed so that they wouldn’t shatter the morning. As the sky brightened, Jonathan pushed the throttle until the boat was just skimming the surface. It was a ten-mile ride out to Lighthouse Reef, and they made it half an hour. Nicole pulled out their matching blue wet jackets, and Pam began untying the red-and-black jacket she had just bought.

He steered away from the coral to the sandy bottom inside the reef where he could anchor. They all put on tanks, adjusted their masks, and tried breathing through the mouthpieces. Then, one by one, they dropped off the swim platform into fifteen feet of water, alive with stingrays that were rippling across the bottom. Jonathan paused an instant to check the anchor line and then pointed to the reef, its wildly colored life clearly visible in the distance. The water was warm and crystal clear with enough sunlight slanting through so that they could see their shadows on the bottom. When they neared the reef they were greeted with dense schools of ridiculous looking fish. As they flew among the coral spires, sea turtles scattered, and barracuda eyed them uneasily. The divers were ecstatic. They kept poking one another and pointing out the underwater sights, then swimming crazily from one point to another in order to see it all and take everything in.