Children of Dynasty (28 page)

Seeing herself at the front door in her bathrobe, Mariah knew how celebrities must feel when they saw their face in grainy newsprint that made them look their worst. Rory tried to force the locked screen.

“Is nothing too low for these people?” she said.

Neither Tom nor April answered. She had the feeling they were thinking, like Arnold, that she had betrayed the company.

The final scene was of Rory after she closed the door. He leaned his head against the screen door and rolled it from side to side like a wounded animal. Mariah gasped and heard it come out as a sob.

April pointed the remote to rewind the tape. Tom kept staring at the TV as though the show still played. It was time Mariah needed to compose her face and choke back the hard ache in her throat.

At last, Tom looked at her. “You told me it was nothing.”

With an effort, she met his disappointed blue eyes. “You saw the tape. It’s over.”

He shook his big head. “You probably even believe that.” At the conference room door, he turned back. “Why don’t we skip the meeting this week?”

Trying to maintain a shred of dignity, Mariah nodded. There was only one thing that mattered any longer, to sell properties and prevent foreclosure. Failing that, Grant Development would need no more meetings.

April’s eyes were on her. In the older woman’s expression lay fierce loyalty to John and censure for the wayward daughter she’d never met before this spring. “Your father doesn’t know about the show?”

“Not unless one of you, maybe Arnold who loves to carry tales, called him after I left for work.”

Feeling the weight of the chore ahead of her this evening, that of showing the footage to her father, Mariah went to the VCR and extracted the tape. “I’d like for this to come from me.”

April nodded, her arms crossed over her chest.

Mariah went on, “Since the meeting’s been tabled, does Ramsey have anything new from the metallurgy lab?”

“Chatsworth’s project should wrap soon,” April assured her. “Then they’ll start running our samples.”

Four blocks down Market Street, Rory stood outside the closed door of his father’s office.

The secretary was not in sight. After sleeping on it, Rory had wakened determined to have it out. His father could no longer match-make for profit, or keep him from Mariah if she’d have him.

He took a deep breath and, without bothering to knock, walked in.

Thaddeus Walker of First California sat opposite Davis, who was behind his lacquered desk. The banker turned with a furtive look on his narrow face, reinforcing the distrust Rory had instinctively felt upon meeting the man years ago.

Davis shot up with the air of a king interrupted by a serf. “Don’t you know better than to walk in when my door is closed?”

Rory flushed.

Walker checked his watch and rose. “I need to go anyway. I’ll let you know about that line of credit.”

“Do that.” Davis sounded as though he was doing the bank a favor.

Rory went to the window while the guest was escorted to the door.

“I’ll make the offer as soon as I hear from you,” his father said in parting to the banker.

A moment later, a heavy hand clamped his shoulder. Rory jumped, for he’d not heard footsteps in the thick carpet.

“You see Grant Plaza out there?” Davis asked with a pleasantness that rang false. The forty-story edifice dominated the area near the convention center. The glazing was almost all in place, making it look close to completion.

“What about it?” After hearing the byplay with the banker, Rory was afraid he knew what was coming.

“It’s going to be mine.”

Even with advance warning, it felt like a blow. “I’m not surprised a man as small as Walker fits in your pocket.”

“For God’s sake, learn to run with the big dogs,” Davis sneered. “Thaddeus is looking after the best interests of First California by calling Grant’s loans. After the accident, there’s the safety issue.”

“An accident can happen on any site in town. You’re the one playing it up with anybody who’ll listen.”

“You take advantage of opportunity where you find it,” Davis instructed.

“And of course, First California fronts DCI when you try and buy Grant out.”

“You learn fast.”

“I have a good teacher,” Rory said bitterly.

His father’s handsome face twisted. “Then, why haven’t you learned a damned thing? You looked like a fool on television. When Larry Chatsworth called me he was livid.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your prospects are limitless here.” His father waved his arm to include the city skyline. “I don’t understand why you seem determined to sabotage them.”

Rory saw the ugliness: the scheming with the bank, the senator, and God only knew what else. In contrast, there was the clean beauty of Mariah. And there was John Grant, a good man whose greatest sin had been to fall in love.

He glared at his father. “I don’t suppose you’d understand.”

Leaving the office, he moved automatically through the halls of DCI. Men and women smiled with the deference given the owner’s son. He left the building and walked the city streets.

If Catharine Grant had lived to develop a thick waist and a crop of lines around her eyes, would Davis still be obsessed with vengeance? Rory had always known his father as hard driving and competitive, in sailing and hunting as well as business, but this was beyond the pale. The premeditated destruction of Grant Development, John, and Mariah sickened him.

People on the crowded sidewalk must think him mad, a tall man striding fast to outrun his demons. What twisted the knife of pain was the memory of a hard hand covering his on the tiller of his first small sailboat. Riding on tall shoulders, Rory had visited construction sites where workers crowded around and called him Davis’s little man.

His mouth pressed into a line. If Rory stood by and watched Grant Development go down, he would indeed be a little man.

At three o’clock Rory presented himself in Grant’s outer office. The receptionist behind an impressive circular desk looked like a pro football cheerleader, with round breasts beneath a snug knit.

“Mariah Grant, please,” he asked, more intent on his mission than the girl.

“Sir, did you have an appointment?”

“Look, tell her it’s Rory Campbell …” He cast about for something business-like. “On a matter of extreme importance to Grant Development.” Boy, that was special.

She murmured into her headset, and then listened for a minute. “Please be seated.”

He folded his long frame down onto a couch and looked around the lobby. Whereas Davis had called in the decorators and given them a blank check, Grant’s waiting room looked like a moderately successful doctor’s office. Dark green carpet accented soothing, color-coordinated landscapes on the walls. The exception was the fine trophy case in gleaming mahogany. It held a collection of the awards the city’s developers regularly passed among themselves. John Grant had won Developer of the Year for three of the past seven. Rory knew that DCI had won twice, as had Golden Builders.

He wondered if there would be a Grant company to compete this time next year.

The door to the inner workings opened to reveal a woman whose red tailored suit complemented her hair. Rory recognized her as the public relations director who’d been on TV in the days following the accident.

“Mr. Campbell,” she said coolly. “May I help you?”

He rose and tried to look professional. Anybody in PR would have seen “On The Spot” by now. “I asked to see Miss Grant.”

“She’s not here. I came out because of the … ah … importance to the company? Won’t you come back to my office?”

He felt like a double agent on enemy turf, but once past reception, he’d have a better chance of finding out if Mariah really was here and avoiding him.

The farther they walked down the hallway, the more he wanted to turn around and leave. In one office, a bland man with thinning hair looked up from his desk. His jaw dropped in apparent recognition. Next door, Tom Barrett, whose son had died at Grant Plaza, was coming into the hall.

“Campbell,” he said coldly. “What are you doing here?”

From behind Rory, he heard another man say, “I was wondering that, myself.” Turning, he saw the fellow who’d apparently recognized him and gotten up to check him out, someone he was certain he’d never met. No doubt, he had “On The Spot” to thank for that.

April led the way into her corner office and the two men followed. Everyone stood as if waiting for Rory to conjure a rabbit.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” he said. “I came to see Mariah.”

“She’s not here,” Tom replied.

“So April tells me.”

The public relations manager gave a tight smile. “Mr. Campbell told reception he wanted to see Mariah on a matter of grave importance to the company. I thought someone should see him.”

A knowing look broke out on the bland guy’s face. “More like a matter of personal importance.”

“Hold on, Arnold.” Tom turned to Rory. “You know I helped John found this company over twenty-five years ago. Suppose you tell me what you’ve got.”

His soft words were persuasive, but it wasn’t even tempting. If Rory were going to blow the whistle on his own father and on the company he owed loyalty to …

“I really need to talk with Mariah. It’s a follow-up to a discussion she had with my father in Pacific Grove over the weekend.”

Tom raised a brow. “About property sales?”

“Have you come to make an offer on something?” April pressed.

Surrounded by people certain that he bore them ill will, he shook his head. If he told of his father’s treachery, they would think it some kind of Trojan horse trick.

Without waiting for escort, he walked.

Bayview Townhomes overlooked the west shore of San Francisco Bay. Though the smooth curve of the San Mateo Bridge arched gracefully nearby, the highway noise did not sound excessive to Mariah. Jets on the southeast approach to San Francisco International were still high enough not to disturb the peace. Waves lapped at the newly built bulkhead.

Skirting a patch of mud, she dropped her laptop case, purse, and cell phone into the back seat of her sedan. There had been no good reason to visit the site this afternoon, but after watching “On The Spot” with Tom and April, she hadn’t been able to stay in the office. How could any of Grant’s senior managers ever take her seriously again? No one would be able to meet her without seeing her in a rumpled bathrobe.

She wasn’t sure if the Bayview construction manager had seen the show, for he had maintained a dignified demeanor, answering her questions. The men were another story, jostling each other with elbows, grinning, and making commentary in Spanish too rapid for her to catch.

When there had been nothing more to do outside, she’d spent time in the model unit writing memos on her laptop, putting off going home. In her purse, she carried the “On The Spot” episode on tape. To say she dreaded showing it to her father was too mild, even though he’d no doubt heard most of what she and Rory had said at the door yesterday morning. Even so, seeing his daughter dragged publicly through the muck would be tough. Especially with him recovering so slowly she wondered if he would ever be back to work full time.