Dawn Stewardson (12 page)

And that meant going the whole nine yards was the right approach. They might need every possible advantage, so why not arrive in style? And this certainly was style. The limo that had come for Lauren on Saturday had been a conservative navy town car. This one was a white stretch job that was almost as long as the Van Slyke Building was wide.

Spotting them, the driver quickly shooed the boys away and closed the hood, then hurried to open the back door.

“All right,” Sully said, giving the kids his best stern look as Lauren slid inside. “We won’t be long, and I don’t want any funny business while we’re gone. Everyone stays around the lodge.”

They all nodded, but they were clearly more interested in peering into the limo than in what he was saying.

Freckles forced his eyes off the car long enough to ask, “How come you won’t tell us where you’re goin’?”

“I did tell you. At least twelve times. We’ve got an appointment in town.”

“But you didn’t tell us what
kind
of appointment,” Freckles pressed.

Billy looked as if he was about to put in his two cents worth, then clearly thought better of it. He’d been treading very lightly the past few days.

“I didn’t tell you,” Sully said, “because it’s adult business. Now, remember, you all stay right here until we get back.”

He climbed into the limo and reached to close the door. The driver beat him to it, though, so he just leaned back into the seat and casually glanced around, pretending he’d ridden in a hundred different limos.

The plush seat they were sitting on faced forward, with at least a mile of leg room. Opposite them, beneath the opaque window that separated them from the driver, were a couple of single seats—on either side of a stainless-steel bar fridge. Sitting above that were a miniature television and a stereo system.

The car’s ceiling was the bluish-black of a night sky. And when the driver started the engine, little lights began twinkling above, like dozens of tiny stars. Sully couldn’t help looking at Lauren.

She gave him a wry smile. “If I’d had my choice, we wouldn’t have the top of the line. I think the stars are overkill. But since I only ordered it last night, I had to take what was available.”

Nodding, he looked out at the boys. The dark windows prevented them from seeing in, but they were all waving as the car started off. He watched them through the rear window until the limo reached the curve in the road and they disappeared from sight, then he turned to look at Lauren once more.

She smiled again. This time, he didn’t smile back. He just couldn’t manage it. Earlier, when he’d seen the limo driving into the clearing, he’d felt absurdly happy. And when they’d gotten into the lodge and she’d kissed him, he’d been floating on air. But riding in the limo with her had brought him back to earth with a thud.

Resting his hands on his thighs, he slowly brushed his thumbs across the smooth, worn denim of his jeans. He was jeans and wilderness. Lauren was designer clothes and high society.

He glanced up at those stupid twinkling lights, thinking they were nothing like real stars in the real world—not
his
real world.

Then Lauren said, “Sully? You’re awfully quiet. Is anything wrong?”

“No, nothing.” He covered her hand with his and sat staring out at the passing scenery.

It seemed as if, no matter how many times he reminded himself there were insurmountable obstacles standing between them, a few minutes later he’d have forgotten again. His subconscious was being positively subversive, and that was beginning to worry him more than he could say.

W
HEN THEY REACHED
North Head the driver slid the dividing glass partway open so Sully could give him directions to Ben Ludendorf’s. As he was leaning forward doing that, Lauren watched him uneasily.

It wasn’t a very long drive from the lodge into town, but it had seemed awfully long with Sully lost in stony silence. She was afraid he was being so quiet because he didn’t really want her with him. But if that was it, wouldn’t he have said so last night? Jack Sullivan had never been exactly reluctant to speak his mind.

“It’s the white house ahead on the right,” he told the driver, bringing her attention back to the moment.

They turned into a long gravel drive and stopped beside a sign that indicated Ben’s office was directly ahead of them—down the side of the large house.

Just as their driver was getting out, the office door opened and a man stepped out onto the driveway.

“Ben?” Lauren asked when he stood staring at the limo.

At Sully’s nod, she took a closer look. Unlike any other lawyer she’d ever seen during working hours, Ben Ludendorf was wearing a casual shirt and pants rather than a suit. He was average height, around forty, and about thirty pounds overweight—twenty-nine of which were hanging over the front of his belt. His brown hair was thin, the lenses in his glasses were thick, and his expression was curious.

“So far, so good,” Sully murmured. “He doesn’t know what’s going on.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Ready?”

She barely had time to nod before the driver opened her door. Sully opened his and they got out of the limo at the same moment.

Ben’s expression grew even more curious. “Hey, Sully,” he said. Then his gaze shifted to Lauren and remained there.

She smiled at him. He smiled back. By that point, Sully had come around to her side of the limo. He lightly rested his hand on the small of her back and they started forward.

“Ben,” Sully said as they reached him, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Lauren Van Slyke.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.” Ben shook her hand, then ushered the two of them into his office. He closed the door and gestured toward the visitors’ chairs. When he sat down behind his desk, he focused on Lauren again.

“And you’re in real estate?” he guessed.

Sully had told her he’d start the ball rolling, so she glanced at him.

“No,” he said to Ben. “Ms. Van Slyke is the director of the Van Slyke Foundation.”

“Oh.”

Ben looked puzzled. The foundation’s name didn’t seem to have rung a bell with him.

Instead of explaining why Lauren was there, which Ben obviously wanted to know, Sully said, “Ben, I’d like you to tell me about Dirk Blackstone.”

That name clearly did ring a bell. Ben’s puzzled expression was replaced by an unsettled one. “How did you find out his name?”

Sully shrugged. “That’s not important. What’s important is that I have to talk to him, so I need his address and phone number.”

“Sorry, Sully, no can do.”

“Look, Ben, if you’re worried about losing your fee for negotiating a sale, don’t be. There’s not going to be a fee, because I’m not selling Eagles Roost. What I want to talk to Blackstone about isn’t related to that.”

“Sorry, but client information is confidential.”

“I understand that,” Lauren said, sensing that Sully was quickly losing patience. “My brother’s a criminal lawyer,” she added. “A partner at Douglas, Algeo and Scrymgeour, in Manhattan. Perhaps you know the firm? Their offices are in the Chrysler Building.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the name. Good firm, I think I’ve heard.”

She nodded. “My brother’s happy there. And as I said, because he’s a lawyer I understand how important confidentiality can be. Especially in criminal matters.”

Ben cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “Criminal matters? I’m afraid I don’t catch your drift.”

Sully shot her a sidelong glance that said
good going.

She did her best not to smile, but his unspoken compliment made her feel inordinately good.

“Her drift,” he explained to Ben, “is that we know you’re holding ten thousand dollars for the kid who robbed the bank back in January.”

“What?” Ben laughed. It was a very forced laugh.

“You’ve got it sitting in a bank account over in Newcomb,” Sully added.

Ben’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, then beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. “Sully, what’s that robbery got to do with you? How about if you just—”

“What it has to do with me,” he snapped, “is that Leroy Korelenko was staying at Eagles Roost when he pulled it off. Do you think that did my program’s reputation any good?”

“Well, I guess it didn’t. But what’s done is done and—”

“Look, Ben, I’ve got no interest in a debate. All I want is Blackstone’s phone number and address.”

“I told you, I can’t—”

“Dammit, Ben, either you tell me how to get hold of him, or when Ms. Van Slyke and I leave here we go straight to the police.”

“Sully, you can’t!”

“Don’t bet on that, Ben. Ready, Lauren?” He glanced at her and started to push himself up from his chair.

“Wait,” Ben said quickly. “Look,” he added as Sully slowly sat back down, “I had nothing to do with the robbery. And I wish I had nothing to do with the money, either.”

“You did, though,” Sully said.

“But I didn’t know what it was for. Not at first, I mean. I swear I didn’t.” Ben picked up a pencil and began fidgeting with it. “And by the time I realized…well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”

“You could have called the police,” Lauren pointed out.

Ben’s pencil snapped in half.

“No, really,” he said. “It wasn’t that simple. The way things would have looked, they’d have figured I’d been involved from the start. But I wasn’t. And I didn’t
knowingly
do one thing wrong.”

“Then how,” Sully said skeptically, “did you end up with the money?”

Ben shook his head, exhaling slowly. “Sully,” he finally said, “here’s what happened. A couple of days before the bank robbery, I got a call telling me a package was going to be delivered. And that I should put it away in a safe place until someone came asking for it.”

“A call from…?” Lauren asked.

He shrugged wearily. “From Dirk Blackstone.”

“And the someone who was going to come asking for it?” Sully said. “Was it Leroy?”

Ben nodded. “But at that stage, the name didn’t mean a thing to me.”

“So the package came,” Lauren prompted when he didn’t continue.

“So the package came. And I locked it in the bottom drawer of my desk. Then, after the robbery, once the cops had picked up the kid and his name was released… That was when I first started worrying I might have been roped into doing something a little dicey. So I opened the package. And when I found there was ten thousand bucks inside, all in used twenties, that’s when I got real worried.”

“And then?” Sully asked.

“And then? Nothing. I mean, all I did after that was wait, hoping somebody named Leroy would come asking for the package. Hoping the kid in custody was a different Leroy.”

“But nobody came,” Lauren said.

“No. So after a few weeks I got in touch with Blackstone and told him that. I mean, I didn’t tell him I’d opened the package, only that nobody’d come for it. And he told me to hang on to it indefinitely, that sooner or later Leroy would pick it up. That’s when I knew for sure what was going on. And I knew nobody’d show until after that kid was released.”

“And you knew,” Sully said, “that I’d been set up. That Blackstone had paid Leroy to rob the bank to make my program look bad—hoping I’d lose my funding and be forced to sell Eagles Roost.”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “No, Sully, I didn’t know any of that. I’ve never known a thing about your funding. And I never knew why Blackstone did what he did. All I knew was that I had ten thousand bucks I shouldn’t have and didn’t want. And I particularly didn’t want it sitting in my office. So I took it over to Newcomb, where the tellers wouldn’t know me, and stuck it in the bank there.”

“Why didn’t you send it back to Blackstone?” Lauren said.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Sully demanded.

Ben shook his head. “You’re not going to like this, but I don’t have an address, a phone number or email for Dirk Blackstone.”

A modicum of success

F
OR THE FIRST FEW SECONDS
after Ben’s statement, Sully simply looked stunned. Then he glared darkly at the other man and said, “That’s bull.”

“No, it’s not,” Ben said so quickly the words ran together. “Sully, it’s the honest truth.”

Lauren eyed Sully anxiously. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know he was thinking about climbing across the desk and choking North Head’s resident lawyer with his bare hands.

Deciding she’d better do something before that could happen, she cleared her throat. When Sully turned his glare in her direction, she gave him a look that said she could handle the situation.

“Ben?” she began.

The man shifted his nervous gaze to her.

“Ben, you just finished telling us you got in touch with Blackstone to tell him no one had picked up the package. So you must have his phone number.”

“No, I don’t.” Ben began rubbing his neck with one hand, as if he figured that would make Sully keep
his
hands off it. “All I’ve got is a fax number. When I want to talk to him, I send a fax asking him to call. And he gets back to me. Sometimes it takes a few days, but eventually I hear from him.”

“That’s certainly an unusual arrangement.”

Ben shrugged. “Blackstone’s an unusual guy. He’s the only client I’ve ever had that I’ve never actually met. He just phoned me up one day last year and asked me if I’d talk to Sully about selling Eagles Roost. Then he sent me a money order with a note saying it was to retain my services—which also makes him the only client I’ve ever had who gave me money I hadn’t even asked for.”

“Ahh…well, this fax number you’ve got for him. May I have it, please?”

The lawyer hesitated. Sully leaned forward in his chair, intensifying his industrial-strength glare.

Ben quickly grabbed his Rolodex, flipped through it, then copied a number onto a sheet of paper and handed it to Lauren.

“The area code’s 212,” she told Sully. “So he’s in Manhattan.”

She dug through her purse for the number she wanted, too excited to even think about waiting to make the call later. When she came up with the number, she looked at Ben again. “I left home in a hurry this morning and forgot my cell, so would you mind if I used your phone for a minute? It’s long distance, but I’ll charge it.”

Ben wordlessly pushed the phone toward her.

“And would you mind terribly,” she added, “giving us a couple of minutes of privacy?”

Ben didn’t look happy about that, but he shoved back his chair.

“Can I assume,” he said to Sully as he rose, “since I’ve given you that number, you won’t be talking to the police?”

“I won’t unless they talk to me first,” Sully told him. “But I don’t think you should count on not hearing from them. I’ve got a feeling Leroy Korelenko might decide to give them your name.”

When Ben’s expression paled from unhappy to downright stricken, Lauren said, “We believe you, Ben. I mean, we believe you didn’t knowingly do anything wrong. So if the police come to talk to you, I’m sure you’ll convince them, too.”

“Yeah?” he said, looking a little hopeful.

“I think she’s right,” Sully told him.

“Well I sure hope so.” With that, he wheeled and walked out of the office.

“Do you really think I was right?” Lauren said after he’d closed the door.

“Uh-huh, Ben will be okay. All the local cops know him, so even if they aren’t completely convinced, they’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

She thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Why couldn’t he have told them in the beginning? Why did he say they’d have figured he was involved?”

Sully shrugged. “I doubt that’s really why he kept quiet. If he’d volunteered the story, he’d have been telling them that Dirk Blackstone was behind the robbery. And that would have meant losing the only client he’s ever had who gave him money he hadn’t asked for.”

“Ahh,” Lauren murmured, deciding she hoped the police gave Ben a bit of a hard time before they gave him the benefit of any doubt.

When she reached for the phone, Sully said, “Who are you calling?”

“Chester, the man Elliot put me on to. The one who can find out almost anything. I’ll bet if I give him Dirk Blackstone’s fax number he can get us a phone number and address to go with it. You
would
like to have them, wouldn’t you?”

Sully grinned at her. “Yeah, I’d like to have them. Blackstone wants Eagles Roost so badly he forked over twenty thousand bucks to make me lose my funding. Even if he
hadn’t
succeeded, I’d have wanted to know what the story is.”

Lauren dialed Chester’s number, spoke briefly with him, then hung up, saying, “Mission accomplished. He says he should have something for us in a day or two.”

Sully gave her another one of his
good going
looks.

Again, she tried not to smile. She wasn’t used to a man acknowledging she had a brain, but it was something she could grow awfully fond of.

T
HINGS HAD GONE SO WELL
that Lauren felt like dancing her way down Ben’s driveway. Resisting the urge, she managed to maintain a serious expression until she and Sully were safely inside the limo. Then she looked at him and they both began to laugh. They didn’t stop until they were well on their way back to Eagles Roost.

“I can’t believe we actually pulled that off,” she said at last. “He told us everything he knew, and getting him to do it was so easy I’m thinking about changing careers.”

Sully grinned at her. “Didn’t I tell you you’d make a good detective? But what I can’t believe is that your father doesn’t figure you’re one of the most competent women on earth. You were terrific in there.”

“Oh, Sully, I was hardly terrific.”

“Sure you were, and it’s a good thing, too. I got so mad I stopped thinking straight, so we probably wouldn’t have gotten that fax number at all if you hadn’t stayed cool.”

She shrugged, trying not to look as if she was incredibly pleased with herself. But the fact she couldn’t stop smiling had to be a dead giveaway.

“Yeah,” Sully went on, “I really do like your style, Van Slyke. You were smooth as silk.”

“Well, Sullivan, I just thought it made sense to try the good-cop-bad-cop routine. And I guess we make a pretty fair team.”

“Pretty fair? We make a great team.” Sully reached across the space between them to rest his fingers against her cheek. Then he eased closer, close enough that she could smell his subtle scent. It was a combination of the fresh outdoors and an essence that was his alone—an essence that made her feel decidedly light-headed.

Gently holding the sides of her face in his hands, he began kissing her. Lovely kisses she wished would go on forever. Kisses that made her think of gentle rain on a summer’s day. Kisses that started her thinking of her future…with Sully.

Eventually he drew away. Then he smiled, his dark eyes so full of warmth it took her breath away.

She could no longer deny she was on the verge of falling in love with him. Or maybe she already had.

The realization was half exhilarating, half terrifying, and it started her thoughts racing. Not wanting to just walk away from him had been one thing. Falling in love with him was something else entirely.

It was happening, though, and now she had to decide what to do about it. Either she took a risk or she didn’t.

If she did, there was no way of predicting what would happen. If she didn’t, she felt certain she’d always wonder
what if?
and she suspected she’d always regret not finding out.

She focused on Sully again, and looked into the dark depths of his eyes. As she did, a little voice inside her began reassuring her, calming her, reminding her that sometimes people beat incredible odds. Telling her that maybe she and Sully could be two of those people. Telling her that she knew she had to chance finding out whether they were.

Suddenly, she felt better than she had in days.

“Lauren?” Sully said. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh…” She invented rapidly. “Just that Chester said he’d get back to me in a day or two. Which means I’ll have heard from him by Saturday.”

“Great. Then we should be able to track down Blackstone and have a talk with him.”

She merely nodded, not really wanting Sully to know how much that
we
meant to her. If he was content to let her tag along to the end of this mystery with him, it meant he hadn’t merely been teasing her. He really did think she’d been a help with Ben.

Then she recalled his exact words and smiled to herself. He didn’t just think she’d been a help. He thought she was terrific.

“We’re almost home,” he said, glancing out the window, then at her again. “Can you stay for a while, or do you have to head right back?”

“I can stay.” She only wished she could stay for a lot longer than a while.

As the limo turned off the road and into Eagles Roost, she remembered about the champagne and moved over to one of the seats beside the fridge.

“I was hoping,” she said, pulling out the chilled bottle and handing it to Sully, “we’d feel like celebrating. And these three other bottles,” she added, taking them out as well, “are imitation stuff for the boys. The man at my deli swore they’d love it.”

“Well, we won’t have to wait long to find out.” He gestured through the window to where all five kids, plus Roxy and two of the three cats, were sitting on the porch. As the limo pulled to a stop, the boys and Roxy charged down the steps.

“So?” Freckles was asking before they even had a chance to get out of the limo. “Did you guys have a good appointment?”

“It was fine,” Sully said.

“Is that champagne?” Hoops asked, staring at the bottles they were holding.

“One is,” Sully told him. “The others are kids’ champagne. Lauren thought we might want to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Billy demanded.

When Sully glanced at her, Lauren gave him a little shrug, hoping he didn’t think the champagne had been a mistake. She hadn’t considered that he might not want to confide in the boys.

“Celebrate,” he said, turning back to them, “that our appointment had to do with the funding for Eagles Roost. And that it went pretty well.”

“So we got our money back?” Billy said. “Everythin’s fine now? We can stay here? For sure?”

“Well, things aren’t quite all worked out yet. But they’re looking better.”

“All right!” Billy hooted. Then the boys began giving each other high fives and grinning like Cheshire cats.

It made Lauren smile. If her board members had known how happy these kids were at Eagles Roost they’d have doubled the program’s funding instead of chopping it. But the fact remained that they’d chopped it. She could feel her smile fading, because she knew Sully wasn’t out of the woods yet.

The boys obviously figured that things being not quite worked out meant they were
almost
worked out. Which was undoubtedly what he wanted them to think so they’d stop worrying. In reality, though, things weren’t worked out at all. Not for the short term, at least.

The long term would be all right. She was certain that once she explained the true story about the bank robbery, the board members would decide to reinstate Sully’s funding for the next fiscal year.

As for the short term, though, every last cent of the foundation’s money had been allocated to other programs by now. So Sully was definitely going to have to find another source to keep Eagles Roost going for the next year.

He caught her gaze and motioned that they should go inside. The moment he started toward the lodge, the boys all fell into step after him…making him look like a champagne-toting Pied Piper.

She stood, following the six of them with her eyes for a moment, thinking that one way or another she was going to ensure this program didn’t run short of money.

L
AUREN WAS GLAD
she’d thought about bringing the kids’ champagne because it proved a hit. By the time the bottles were empty, the boys were all pretending to be tipsy. And even though they were acting incredibly silly, she couldn’t help laughing with them.

It was awfully hard to believe that each of these kids had come from an impossible home situation. Or that, as Sully had told her, they’d all arrived here with low self-esteem and a whole lot of other problems. Obviously, their chief eagle was a miracle worker.

She watched him horsing around with them for another minute, then reluctantly glanced at her watch again. The limo driver had an evening booking, so she really couldn’t stay much longer.

“Sully?” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve got to get going.”

“You could sleep over again,” Billy said quickly. “The Yankees are in Toronto tonight. You could watch with us.”

“You must be forgetting,” Sully said to him, “there’s no TV-watching these days. That,” he added to Lauren, “has to do with their caper at Ben’s.”

“Well,” Billy suggested, “how ’bout Monopoly, Lauren? We sometimes play that.”

“I’d like to, Billy. I’m sure it would be a lot of fun. But I really do have to get home.”

“I’ll walk with you to the limo,” Terry offered.

“We’ll all walk with her,” Tony told him.

“No,” Sully said firmly. “You’ll all stay in the lodge. I want to talk to her alone for a minute.”

The boys reverted to their tipsy routines while they were saying goodbye. Then they stood inside the screen door, giggling and calling more drunken-sounding farewells across the clearing to her, until Sully turned and ordered them to knock it off.

“Now, about Saturday,” he said, looking back at her. “The kids are getting picked up around ten, so I’ll leave as soon as they’re gone. That should get me into Manhattan about two or so. And assuming you’ve got Blackstone’s address by then…” He paused, rubbing his jaw.

“Look,” he went on at last, “I’d like to simply show up at the guy’s place and surprise him. But it would be best if I went on my own. As soon as I tell him who I am, he’ll know Ben blew his cover. And he sure isn’t going to be happy to see me, so—”