A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

“So, what happened today?” he asked.

I told him everything that had
happened.
 
And as I told him, his
eyes widened and he just looked at me.
 

“You went to see a psychic?
 
What happened to the Kate that I used to
know?
 
The logical, pragmatic woman
who never would have done such a thing?
 
She would have mocked it.”

“Just so you know, the Kate that you used to
know is sitting right here.
 
I only
went because my best friend Laura urged me to go with her.
 
She thought it would be a fun girl’s day
out.
 
Turns out it wasn’t so fun at
all.”

“Do you believe any of it?”

“How can I dismiss the fact that this Rhoda
woman knew that I’d been born prematurely and that my uncle had killed
himself—two things I had never shared with Laura?
 
I did tell Michael about my uncle, but I
never told him that I was a preemie.
 
Why would I?
 
It’s a
non-issue.
 
It wouldn’t have come up
in conversation.”

“Even I didn't know that,” he said.
 
“But Kate, you’re a well-known
woman.
 
Reporters have been digging
into your life for years.
 
Maybe
something was written about you somewhere that exposed both of those details,
and this woman knew about them.”

“I know exactly what’s been written about
me, Ben.”

“How?”

“I have a team that looks into it.
 
If a tabloid goes too far, I sue
them—particularly if they write anything untrue about Michael, which I
won’t have.
 
That’s also what my
life has become.
 
So I’d know if
either of those issues had been discussed in the press.
 
They haven’t.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, here’s what it comes down to.
 
After that experience, how can I explain
away what Rhoda said to me?
 
Tell me
that.”

“I’m not sure that I can.”

“Then what am I to do with it?”

“Do you have any reason to believe that
Michael could have been murdered?”

“I’ve only had a few hours to process this,
but I have considered two possibilities.”

“What are they?”

“The day before he died, Michael pulled out
of a deal to sell StoneTech to a group of investors for an ungodly sum of
money—which pissed off plenty.
 
He dropped the deal at the very last minute, which might have infuriated
someone enough to make them seek out some sort of revenge.
 
His decision to keep his company to
himself affected two of his best friends—Mark Dodd and Tom Smart.
 
Michael went to university with
them.
 
But as well as they did on
their own, neither ever did as well as Michael, and whenever I was around them,
I always sensed a bit of jealousy when they ribbed Michael for his
success.
 
When Mark and Tom
approached Michael to purchase StoneTech with a group of investors they’d
assembled, Michael agreed.
 
I knew
that he was itching to do something else.
 
Something new.
 
He thought
that maybe he’d start a different kind of company, even though he wasn’t sure
what that was at that point.
 
In the
end, he decided to pull out, cancel the deal, and keep his company for
himself.”

“Do you have any evidence that someone might
have been seriously pissed off?
 
After all, Michael died the day after he ended the deal.
 
Did you keep in touch with Mark or Tom
after Michael’s death?
 
Did they
ever reach out to you when he died?
 
Say anything to you?”

“I never heard from Tom Smart again, but I
did hear from Mark Dodd after Michael died.
 
It was when I put StoneTech on the
market.”

“And?”

“He wanted the company.
 
He pleaded with me to sell it to him and
his new group of investors.
 
But he
never was as bright as Michael was, and since I didn’t think he had the insight
to build upon Michael’s vision, I turned him down and sold StoneTech to someone
else.”

“Bet that made him happy.”

“It didn’t—but that was four years
ago, and he never came after me for it, did he?
 
That’s one of the reasons I don’t
believe he’s behind this.
 
Because
if he killed Michael for turning him down, wouldn’t he have done the same to
me?”

“Not necessarily.
 
Maybe getting away with one murder was
enough for him.”

“What you should also know is that neither
he nor Tom showed up at Michael’s funeral, which took place two weeks after his
death—certainly enough time for them to calm down and come to their
former best-friend’s funeral.
 
That
might mean nothing to you, but it happened—and I’m just putting it out
there for you.”

“Did they give you a reason?
 
Send flowers?”

“No and no.
 
They just chose not to show.”

“Why did it take so long to bury Michael?”

“Because his siblings and his friends are spread
out all over the world—they needed time to plan and to get here.
 
Two of his sisters live abroad and have
young families.
 
For them, it was a
logistical nightmare.
 
As it was for
some of Michael’s closest friends, who also live abroad.
 
So, I decided to postpone his burial so
that as many of his family and friends as possible could be there to attend
it.
 
It was the right thing to
do—they deserved the chance to say goodbye to him.”

“Tell me about Michael’s decision to take over
MicroCom.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know much about
that.
 
That was all on him and his
board.
 
They wanted to take over
MicroCom because they were becoming a rising star in the lucrative encryption
software market.
 
They saw the
company as a threat, and they wanted to shut them down.
 
I know that for a fact because Michael
and I talked about it often.
 
MicroCom was becoming a serious player, which was the reason for the
takeover—and MicroCom wanted nothing to do with.
 
Unfortunately for them, they were a
publicly traded company.
 
They were
free for the taking, so long as Michael came in with a bid that could seduce
investors to go along with him, which I knew he was planning to make happen at
any cost..
 
And I think that,
because of Michael’s stellar reputation and because investors knew that that
kind of merger would make them a hell of a lot of money, the board at MicroCom
knew that he’d probably win that vote. They knew that Michael would and could
steal their company away from them if he wanted to—and believe me, he
wanted to.”

“After Michael’s death, did StoneTech go
through with the takeover?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because at that point, it was up to me to
run a company I knew little about.
 
I cancelled the takeover.
 
When Michael died, I felt that StoneTech had died with him.
 
No one in the company had his
vision—least of all me.
 
So I
sold it.”

“To whom?”

“QuantumCo.”

“Who are they?”

“At that point, they were StoneTech’s major
competitor.”

“Did you know any of the players?”

“No—well, at least not
personally.
 
When I met with them,
they were just several faces sitting around a boardroom table telling me why they
were the one I should go with.
 
Still, I knew that I needed to make sure that StoneTech fell into the
right hands, and Michael’s team guided me.
 
They told me that QuantumCo was a great company, second only to
StoneTech when it came to the development of encryption software.
 
At that point, the heat to buy StoneTech
was competitive as hell—dozens of companies were eager to buy
it—but I was repeatedly told to go with QuantumCo.
 
And after I met with them, I could see
why.
 
They were impressive.
 
They came armed with a whole host of
ideas and energy, so I decided to sell it to them.
 
And from what I see today?
 
I did the right thing.
 
Because of that merger, QuantumCo is now
the world leader in encryption technology.
 
Michael’s legacy is a big reason for that, and that means everything to
me.”
 

“Who was on QuantumCo’s board?”

“It’s been so long, I have no idea.
 
These weren’t people I knew on a
personal level.
 
At that point, I
was listening to Michael’s team and trusting them to guide me.
 
When I met with them, I just went with
my gut.”

“No worries,” he said.
 
“It’s easy enough to find out who was on
the board.
 
Tell me about Lydia.”

“I loved her.
 
She was wonderful.”

“She’s since passed?”

“She has.”

“How old was she when she died?”

“That’s what’s tragic.
 
She was only forty-five.”

He furrowed his brow at me.
 
“What happened for her to die so young?”

“Heart failure.”

“At her age?”

“It happens.”

“Maybe if there’s a family history involved,
but it otherwise doesn’t happen often in someone so young.
 
Where did she die?”

“I can’t remember the specifics.
 
I do know that she was cleaning a
client’s house, but Lydia had many clients, all of them high-end.
 
The medical examiner’s office said she
died of a heart attack there.”

“How long after Michael died was this?”

“Six months?”

He just looked at me, and then he took a sip
of his water.
 
“How far do you want
to take this, Kate?”

“I want to know if what I heard today is
true.
 
And just talking it out with
you now, a part of me is starting to think that it could be.
 
I know it sounds crazy, but if you’d
been with me and Laura today and heard what Rhoda had to say to me—how
specific she was in the details—you’d be second-guessing all of this
yourself, just as I am.”

“Would you like me to look into this for
you?”

“I would.”

“If I do, you need to know that I’ll only do
so pro-bono.”

“No,” I said.
 
“I plan on paying you your going
rate.
 
And just so you know—just
in case you try to fool me about that—I can find out what that rate
is.
 
But before we go there, I need
to know whether you think that there is something here.”

“It’s possible, but I’ll need to check into
a few things first.”

“Like what?”

“The police report is a good place to start.”

“I expect a bill for your efforts.”

“Kate, I want to do this for you.”

“That’s off the table.
 
I’m glad that you’re here, Ben—I
really am.
 
I’m happy to see you
again.
 
But this relationship is
professional.
 
Bill me, or I’ll go
elsewhere.”

“All right,” he said.
 
“I get it.
 
I understand where you’re coming from.”

“What matters is Michael.
 
If he was murdered, I will spend my last
dime to bring his murderer to justice.
 
That’s how much I loved him.
 
And that’s how far I’ll go for him.
 
Because, even five years out, I miss him to this day.”
 
I shrugged at him.
 
“None of this is easy.
 
When you love someone as completely as I
loved Michael, sometimes moving on seems like an impossibility.
 
I’m ready to do that, but today raised
his ghost, and now I need to deal with those emotions.”

“I’m glad to hear that you’re willing to try
to move forward.”

“Michael wouldn’t have wanted it any other
way.
 
He wouldn’t have wanted me to
go through the rest of my life without children or a good man by my side.
 
It’s taken me a long time to come to
that conclusion, but I have.
 
And
I’ve accepted it.”