Hope's Discovery (THE MATCHMAKER TRILOGY) (22 page)

“Well she knew me. As she put it, I was the ‘first one Mandy Marlow sunk her claws into.’”

The knot in Trevor’s stomach moved into his chest. His breath caught in his lungs and his mouth went dry.

“Delores Buchanan.” He let out a loud breath, and all eyes turned toward him. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until Hope’s hand touched his arm and David’s eyes grew narrow.

“Run that by me one more time,” David said, his words slow and drawn out. Trevor suddenly feared the man he knew to be so calm.

“Delores Buchanan,” Trevor repeated slowly.

“Donald Buchanan’s wife?”

Trevor nodded.

“Why is Donald Buchanan’s wife looking for my daughter?” David asked, but Trevor didn’t have to answer. David’s narrow stare changed, and his eyes opened wide as he backed himself to the chair behind him. He mashed his fist against his mouth and stared at Hope.

“What’s going on? What am I missing?” Hope looked at her father and then at Trevor. “Who are Delores and Donald Buchanan?”

Trevor was unsure if he should speak. He could see David processing the information and scanning his eyes over Hope. David looked at him, and Trevor knew what he was silently asking. Trevor nodded, and David blew out a breath.

“I’m guessing that Donald Buchanan is your birth father,” David answered.

“You know who my biological father is?” Her eyes were bright and hopeful, but he was sure that was going to change rather quickly.

“He had to be a good twenty years older than she was,” David said. “Why would she have…” He stopped and looked up at Trevor. “Her father’s company. She was after the money from her father’s company.”

“What does this Buchanan have to do with Mandy?” Carissa finally asked her father.

“Donald Buchanan was the partner of Curtis Marlow. They owned a medical supply company. They used the charter airline company that I worked for when I first started flying. We did flights for them six and seven times a week.”

“If they were flying chartered jets they had to be making some pretty good money,” Carissa added.

“They were. As far as I knew. I didn’t work for the company very long, but long enough to know who the Marlows and Buchanans were.”

“So what happened to Curtis Marlow?”

“He died twenty-four years ago,” Trevor said. “Ruth said that Donald was at his funeral, but Delores didn’t attend. She did mention that she thought, after finding out he was your father, that maybe Mandy had sought out Donald to get Curtis’s share of the company.”

“What about the stocks?” Carissa asked.

“What stocks?” David turned to his older daughter. A crease formed between his brows.

Carissa shot glances at Hope and then to Trevor before standing and looking at her father. “Mandy had a safe-deposit box key on her key chain. Hope and I went to the bank in Jefferson City to see if she had a box there and she did.”

“I thought you closed out everything when you turned eighteen.” Anger filled his voice and Trevor’s instinct was to pull Hope behind him to protect her, but he knew better.

Carissa shook her head. “I thought I did. I didn’t know about the box. Hope found the key when she pulled out the box of things she had that belonged to Mandy.”

David nodded. “What are the stocks?”

“They were in the box.” Carissa shrugged.

Figuring most of the information had already been presented, Trevor added what he knew. “Ruth Marlow said that after her husband died, Donald Buchanan bought her shares of the company from her. It was the last she’d thought about it, but about a month ago, Delores Buchanan approached her about them.”

Carissa shook her head. “Wait. Twenty-four years after Curtis Marlow dies and Donald Buchanan buys his partner’s widow’s shares of the company, the wife comes looking for them?”

Trevor nodded.

“So where is Buchanan through all of this?” Carissa asked.

Trevor couldn’t help his instinct to look at Hope when he said, “He’s recovering from a massive heart attack and bypass surgery.”

Her reaction was what he’d feared. She bit her lip when it started to quiver and her eyes welled up with tears. She turned her head so that David didn’t see, but Trevor saw.

“What doesn’t make sense to me is if he’s lying in a hospital recovering from massive surgery, what is she doing here looking for Hope?”

Carissa sighed. “There was a letter.”

“A letter? What letter?” David watched as Hope opened her purse and pulled out the letter they had found in the box. She handed it to David and watched him scan the envelope before pulling out the contents.

David read over it, took a deep breath, and handed it to Trevor. “Did you know about this?” he asked him and Trevor shook his head. “So Mandy has an affair with Donald Buchanan. He gives her her father’s part of the company in stocks. She doesn’t tell him she’s pregnant, and the wife pays her off to disappear.”

Carissa nodded. “Sounds like it.”

“Where’s the money?”

Carissa closed her eyes and winced. “It was there.” She stood to face her father. “When you gave me power of attorney I closed out the account. Dad, she had over a hundred grand in there.”

“Excuse me?” His eyebrows rose and his mouth hung open.

Carissa nodded. “I took it. I was mad. I figured she owed it to me.”

“And exactly what did you do with that kind of money?” His jaw tensed and the vein on the side of his neck pulsed.

This time she smiled. “I put myself through college. Something
she
never would have done for me.”

“You said you wouldn’t let us help you with that. You said you’d work for it.”

“I lied,” Carissa stated it simply. “Mandy covered the bills. I took the rest when I bought the building for the school and used it as the down payment.”

“Your mother signed on that building with you.”

“Yes. But she didn’t know where the down payment came from. She only knew I’d been saving.”

David continued to shake his head. “Well, at least you got something out of it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“There was ten thousand more in cash in the box,” Carissa added. “My guess is that Delores Buchanan only recently found out that Mandy Marlow has been dead for twenty-three years and wants her money back.”

Hope looked from person to person and she obviously struggled to put all the pieces together. “If she’s after the stocks because she knows Mandy’s gone and her husband is lying in some hospital bed, why did she start with Trevor?”

Hope’s question made Trevor’s throat close up. He nearly lost his balance, blindsided by her innocence.

He tried to keep his composure. He felt as if he was on a cliff and the edge was slipping out from under his feet. Hope needed to know Donald had hired him. There wasn’t time for confidential client relations now that she’d been
attacked.

As he took a breath to say whatever was going to come out, there was a tap at the open door. A police officer stood just beyond the doorway, another behind him.

“We’re responding to a breaking-and-entering call.”

An hour after the police officers arrived, they left with their notes. It was quite a coincidence that Trevor’s hotel had been hit and so had Hope’s apartment, the police had decided. They thought it would be best if Carissa and her family found a place to stay for a few days. There seemed to be a pattern and it could possibly be that they’d hit her home next. The officers promised that they would have a car pass by the house on an hourly basis.

David shut the door as the officers left. “Carissa, you call Thomas and have him pack up things for you and the kids. You and Hope head over to our house. Trevor and I are going to try and reassemble some of this.”

Trevor felt the sickening effect of panic take over again. He kept reminding himself of what a sincere and gentle man he knew David Kendal to be, but as he watched Hope gather some clothes and toiletries, he began to wonder if he should just run for the door and not turn back. Did he really want to be alone with her father in such a situation?

No, he didn’t.

Hope was the one who brought up the subject that they’d broken into his place. He’d almost had to answer for his actions, and now he’d be alone with her father, whom he also noted was very bright. Surely David hadn’t missed the fact that they had hit him first, second, and third before going after Hope.

Trevor carried Hope’s bag out to Carissa’s car and set it in the backseat.

“I guess I’ll see you in just a little bit,” Hope said rising up on her toes and kissing him.

“Did they happen to steal your kitchen knives? I wouldn’t want any weapons in the house if I’m alone with your father.”

She shook her head and smiled. “You forget who you’re dealing with. David Kendal is the nicest, softest, and calmest man you’ll ever meet.”

“Right. I’m going to keep repeating those words to myself as I go back inside and hope that I come back out alive.”

“I love you. That’s reason enough for him to love you too.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think your family shares your view. But I welcome the optimism.”

Hope kissed him again. “Just be you. Everything is going to be okay.”

He watched Carissa drive away. Hope waved. Then he turned his attention back to the apartment and slowly climbed the steps.

David picked up the turned-over furniture and stacked items he found on the floor on the coffee table.

“They did a fine job on this.” He held up a broken picture frame, studied it, and then added it to a pile. “Maybe tomorrow you can help her sort through all this. I think half of it will have to be thrown away.”

Trevor moved farther into the room and picked up a few items himself. He’d taken the word
tomorrow
to mean he’d be alive and with Hope the next day.

“I’ll help her get this all put together and get the locks changed. It wouldn’t hurt to have some security added to the windows too. I know a lot of people…” he stopped when he realized David was ready to speak.

“You know who did this and you know what they’re looking for.” It wasn’t a question, Trevor quickly realized, and he had to hand it to David Kendal, he was straightforward.

He blew out a breath and gathered his courage. He laid the book he’d picked up from the floor on the end table. “I think I know who.”

“Delores Buchanan?”

“I don’t think she did this personally, but I’m sure she has people.”

David nodded, considering. “She knew who I was. I had no idea who she was. I don’t remember her at all. But then again I was twenty-two years old. I wasn’t paying attention to executive’s wives.” David picked up another frame and added it to the pile. “Isn’t it funny. I don’t think I ever thought to ask Mandy who Hope’s father was.”

“You’re her father,” he reminded him.

David smiled. “Yes, I am. That was the hardest and best decision I ever made. I was sure I would lose Sophia over it, but I could never have turned away Carissa’s blood.” He cleared a place and sat on the sofa. With weary eyes, he looked around and then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped together.

“Did Donald send you to find Hope?”

Trevor moved and sat in the chair closest to him. If it had been that obvious, why hadn’t Hope asked him the same question?

Trevor cleared his throat. “A month ago he walked into my office. He set down half my fee on my desk, in cash, for finding a missing person. He was looking for Mandy Marlow and he hadn’t the first idea how to find her. It was just a case to me.”

He leaned back in the chair and raked his fingers through his hair. Though David was looking at his own hands, Trevor took solace in the fact that he was calm so he continued. “Ruth Marlow wasn’t any help. No one in New York seemed to know who she was. It took me two weeks to track down something solid. The solid lead was you.”

“Me?”

Trevor nodded. “Any records I could find of her were attached to you. You’re on Carissa’s birth certificate. Her last known address is your address. That’s when I began to look into Mandy Kendal.”

David sat back and scrubbed his hands over his face. “She always knew how to get to me.”

“It’s not really that hard to change your name anymore. Legally or illegally,” he assured him.

“So you know I never married her?”

“I know.” Trevor thought he looked grateful that someone believed him.

“After all these years, why did he want to find Mandy?”

“It seems he came into the knowledge that there was a child.”

“He didn’t know? For twenty-three years he had no idea?”

“That’s what I understand. So my job was to find Mandy Marlow and see if she had a child about twenty-three years old.”

“He must not have been too interested in meeting her.”

“I think he was in shock when he found out that Mandy was dead.”

“He didn’t know that?”

“No. He’s only ever asked me Hope’s first name. But he sent me more money and asked me to get to know her. The time wasn’t right for him to meet her and he was afraid of his wife. She wasn’t to know about Hope or about me looking for Mandy.”