Echoes of Titanic (38 page)

She thought about that, and for a moment she was tempted to invite him along on her B & T break-in tonight. She resisted the urge, however, knowing that when it came down to it, she had every right to go into the building but he did not. He was family, yes, but he wasn't an employee. If anyone was going to get in trouble for this, it needed to be her alone. At least she had a good defense for her actions.

“Actually, there is one thing you could do for me,” she said, thinking of the floor plans Cole had requested. “I need something from Dad's home office,
but my feet hurt so badly right now I'm not sure if I could make it up three flights of stairs.”

“Sure. What am I looking for?”

“It's a rolled-up tube of paper, and I think it's on the floor of one of the closets, propped against the back corner.”

“What is it?”

She shrugged. “Diagrams of the B & T offices. I thought I might look them over and see if they indicate any sort of safe or secret hiding place where Gloria might have stashed the bonds.”

“Good idea,” he said. “Be right back.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem. You're working so hard to save the day, it's the least I can do.”

Once he was gone, his words stayed with her.

But what if she didn't save the day?

What if she couldn't find a way to stop the hostile takeover?

What if she did all of this digging around only to lose the family company in the end, or to learn that Adele had actually been Jocelyn?

Kelsey felt so frustrated, so restless. The problem, she decided, was that she was tired of
talk
. All she had done in the past few days was talk—to Pamela, to Walter, to her parents, to Rhonda, to Rupert, even to Gloria. Now, she was ready for some action. She was ready to get into the offices of Brennan & Tate and do some real out-and-out sleuthing—sore feet and all. Thank goodness for Cole and his team! Suddenly, she was counting the minutes until it would finally be time for their mission.

“Ask and ye shall receive,” Matt said, coming back into the kitchen. In his hand was a tube of rolled-up paper, which he gave her with a flourish. Eagerly, she took it from him, pulled off the rubber band, and opened it out onto the table just to make sure it was what she needed. They both studied it for a moment, but when nothing jumped out at them, she began rolling it back up.

“I need to run for now,” she said, “but I'll take a longer look later when I have the time.”

“Sounds good,” he replied.

“Thanks again. Sometimes it's actually worth having you around, bro.”

Kelsey would have liked to have stayed there with her family all afternoon, but she had other things to do. She needed to get home and get organized for tonight's adventure, including coming up with two different outfits—one for the wake and one for the sleuthing afterward. When she said that she needed
to be going, her mother insisted on calling for a cab. Kelsey did not resist, knowing she wasn't up for the walking that the subway would require anyway.

She went in to visit with her father before she left, and though Doreen had said he wasn't having a good day, he didn't seem all that bad to Kelsey. She stayed with him for a good ten minutes, during which she told him that she'd been working hard to straighten things out at Brennan & Tate. She didn't want to give him many details, and the picture she painted was brighter than the reality, but she saw no need to upset the man with the dismal specifics of all the latest developments.

She did, however, confide in him about her sleuthing plans for tonight. She did so because she needed his permission, so to speak, to open up B & T's private computer network to an outside agency.

“They are just going to poke around a bit and see if they can reconstruct Gloria's activities during the last week or so of her life,” Kelsey told her father. “They will be looking for ‘digital handprints' she may have left behind, not just things like emails but also the times she entered her code to go in and out, any faxes she sent or scans she made or photocopies she ran or whatever. Anything she did that was digital, they can take a look and see if clues or patterns emerge. What do you think?”

He seemed to grasp what she was saying. Fixing his eyes on hers, he said, “You…trust? Trustworthy?”

“Yes,” she replied, nodding emphatically. “Dad, it's Cole Thornton. He has his own company now, and he offered to help me out.”

At the mention of Cole's name, Nolan's eyes seemed to smile. “Trust Cole,” he said, nodding.

“Yes, we can trust Cole. So this is okay with you for me to do this?”

She was surprised when he placed a shaky hand atop hers.

“Fire with fire,” he said.

She thought for a moment and said, “Fight fire with fire? Is that what you're telling me?”

“Fire with fire,” he repeated, nodding. “Trust Cole.”

“Great, Dad, thanks so much. I'll let you know what happens, okay?”

“Okay, but not…” his voice trailed off and she could see he was grasping for the words he needed. “No mushy parts.”

She laughed. “Don't worry. There won't be any mushy parts. Cole and I are just friends now.”

He merely grunted, but she could tell he didn't believe her.

They were interrupted at that moment by the honk of a horn outside, so she hugged him goodbye and left, meeting up with her mother in the hallway.

Doreen walked Kelsey to the door, asking if they could go to Gloria's visitation together. “You don't have to come all the way back up here. We could meet up outside the funeral home if you want.”

Kelsey hesitated, not wanting to tell her mother the truth, that she would be racing in and out of the wake as quickly as possible in order to meet up with a couple of guys to break into her own office. Instead, she just said that she was busy tonight so she was only going to make a brief appearance, right at six o'clock on the dot, and probably wouldn't stay longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.

Doreen's eyebrows lifted a bit, but rather than scolding her daughter for giving short shrift to the woman who had been so important in her life, she said simply that she would have Matt take her instead.

The long cab ride home ended up costing a small fortune, but Kelsey didn't care. It was worth every penny for comfort's sake. The building was quiet when she got there, which wasn't unusual for this time of day. In the lobby, she stopped to grab her mail and then flipped through it as she rode the elevator up to the tenth floor. She spotted the envelope just as the car was slowing to a stop. There, between a bill and a mail-order catalog, was the letter she'd been dreading.

Kelsey waited until she was safely inside her own apartment before she opened it up and took a look. Hands trembling, she unfolded the single page slowly, noting the elegant, gold-embossed header across the top. She skimmed through the words once and then read them again more slowly.

It was official. As a stockholder of the firm Brennan & Tate, she was being given the opportunity to sell her shares of stock to Queen's Fleet Management Group. There would be a meeting of the stockholders on April thirteenth—exactly one week—at which time a vote would be taken and the majority would rule as to whether or not the company would be sold.

Worse than that was the dollar amount being offered per share. Surely, even a character assassination against Adele Tate and the in-office death of one of the company's top executives could not have driven the price this low. How
dare
Pamela and her cronies do this? Kelsey was so furious, she tried to throw the letter across the room. It fell to the floor without drama, so she kicked at the coffee table next, gratified by the crash and clink as it tipped over onto the ground.

Heart pounding, Kelsey stomped down the hall to the bedroom to get ready for tonight. With the amount of adrenaline rushing through her veins at the moment, she felt there was nothing she couldn't do.

If they were able to find a hidden safe, she told herself as she flung open the closet and began choosing her clothes, even if they had no combination for it, she had no doubt she would be able to rip it open with her bare hands.

K
elsey arrived at the funeral home at six o'clock on the dot. Fortunately, not many people were there yet, which meant a faster in and out for her. The fewer the people, the fewer the conversations she would be obligated to have.

It wasn't until she walked into the lobby and saw a placard with an arrow and the words “Visitation for Poole” that it struck her what she was really doing there. This was a
wake
, of all things, for one of the most important people in her life. This was goodbye to a woman who had guided her, advised her, and cared about her for years. This was the final send-off for a person Kelsey had thought she'd known intimately, one of her nearest and dearest friends.

Or so she'd thought.

Now she knew differently. Given the many disturbing truths that had come to light in the past few days, what was she to make of this event? How was she to process this tragedy?

Hovering in the entryway, she thought about Wednesday morning, when her mother had talked about the shell of a person she had allowed herself to become. Though Kelsey had been sincere in her desire to change, she decided that tonight that hardness would serve her well. Once she had some answers, once she knew the whole truth, maybe then she would permit herself to mourn. For now, she dared not try to process the fact that Gloria was dead. There was still too much to do, too many facts to unearth, too many questions to answer.

Steeling herself with resolve, Kelsey smoothed her hair away from her face and followed the arrow to the large room on the left. A young woman in a conservative black suit, an employee of the funeral home, was standing near the doorway to receive guests. With a practiced nod, she welcomed Kelsey in a soft voice and gestured toward the guestbook lying open on a nearby podium.

Using the pen provided, she signed her name on the sixth line, taking note of the first five guests who had already arrived. As most of them had the last name of Poole, she realized that family members must have been allowed to come a little early. Setting down the pen, Kelsey turned her attention to the other end of the room, where those five people—plus Vern—were congregating a few feet away from the open casket.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she started up the aisle. Let others give Gloria her goodbye. Kelsey refused to do that until she understood exactly who she was saying goodbye to.

As she neared the front of the room, Kelsey got a quick glimpse of Gloria's body, laid out in a mahogany casket with burnished silver-tone accents, surrounded by a riot of colorful floral arrangements. Ignoring all of that, she stepped forward to take Vern's hand.

His eyes swam with tears, and his charcoal gray suit and silver tie made his skin look colorless. At least he was impeccably groomed, as always.

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “How are you doing, Vern?”

“Hanging in there. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.”

They made small talk for a moment, but half of Kelsey's mind was on her feet. Despite being in high heels, she was grateful she was no longer feeling much pain. Between a foot soak, some numbing cream, and a handful of well-placed Band-Aids, she'd managed to get the problem under control, thank goodness.

Kelsey heard soft voices behind her, and she realized that more people had arrived and were coming up the aisle. As Vern turned his attention toward them, she stepped closer to the casket, trying to look everywhere but at the dead body of her friend.

A spray of pink roses and white lilies spread over the lower half of the casket lid and flower arrangements of all kinds flanked each side. Walking along to take a closer look, Kelsey realized there had to be at least thirty arrangements. She glanced at a couple of the cards. Of course. Business contacts.
Many of the companies Gloria had financed probably sent flowers. They had most likely sent representatives out tonight too.

She found her family's arrangement near the end of the row, a gorgeous pastel-colored display of gladiolas and carnations and at least two dozen roses. Doreen had outdone herself, Kelsey thought proudly. The card read,
Forever in our hearts, Nolan, Doreen, Kelsey, and Matthew Tate
. Very nice.

Even if it turned out not to be true.

Finally, Kelsey forced herself to return to the casket. As she went, she tried to concentrate on the good times she and Gloria had shared, but her mind simply wouldn't go there. It was stuck on all she had learned about this woman in the past few days.

She stood and gazed down at Gloria's lovely face, which was no longer purple and red as it had been the last time Kelsey had seen her, thank goodness. Even at fifty-four, with wrinkles beginning to show, Gloria had been a striking woman, and they had done a pretty good job with her. Her hair was perfectly coifed as always, and they had done a nice job with the application of subtle brown eye shadow and mascara. Something didn't look quite right, however, and after a moment Kelsey realized that there were two problems. The lipstick had obviously been chosen to coordinate with the purples in the scarf at her neck, but that lipstick was definitely not Gloria's shade. More importantly, the woman had never, ever, in Kelsey's memory, worn a scarf.