Matchmakers Box Set: Matchmakers, Encore, Finding Hope (63 page)

“Oh yeah? What could you have told her she didn’t already know?” Carissa’s tone was crass and Hope didn’t like the way she was talking to him. She didn’t like the fact that he knew more than she did either. And she didn’t like that they had their own secret. She was growing very tired of all the secrets.

Trevor took a defensive step toward Carissa. “I told her that her daughter was dead,” he said, and Carissa’s shoulders dropped from their defensive position.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “She didn’t even know her own daughter was dead?”

“She said she remembered you calling. She knew she was nasty to you and she’d meant to be. She figured Mandy had put you up to calling and that she was after something. Then when Mandy died, she received a vague letter. It said she’d had another baby and died. Again, she figured someone was just trying to get money from her and that they’d been put up to it by Mandy.”

Carissa shook her head. “It’s sad that she could be so cold.”

“I hate to tell you. She’s really not that bad. She was a very warm woman.”

It wouldn’t have been what Hope would have expected someone to say about the woman who gave birth to Mandy Marlow. She had assumed Mandy’s callous ways came from the people who raised her.

“She’s the one who sent me the box for you both,” Trevor offered.

“Mandy’s mother?” Hope finally spoke. Trevor nodded. “Can we see it now?”

“We should probably wait until the police get here.”

Hope didn’t want to wait. She’d waited long enough, and the sincere pout on her face must have hit the right chord with Trevor. He picked up the box he’d brought with him from New York and set it on the kitchen table. Both Hope and Carissa picked up chairs, sat down at the table, and stared at the box.

They exchanged uneasy glances before Carissa finally lifted the lid and looked inside.

Her eyes were misty and open wide as she looked inside. “You must have done a lot of talking to her.”

“I did. That’s why she gave you the box.” He leaned forward. “She didn’t want you to know only the woman you have in your mind. She wanted you to know the daughter she once had. The girl who sat on her daddy’s lap and swam in lakes. The girl who was an artist and won ribbons for her work.”

Hope smiled. She felt as though a piece of her that had been missing was replaced.

“Does she want to meet us?” she asked.

Trevor shook his head. “No.”

“Oh,” Hope said and her shoulders dropped. “I thought…”

“Things might change,” he added. “For now she’s afraid that Mandy caused you enough harm that knowing her would only be a bad thing. She knows you grew up in a loving home, and for that she’s happy. She’s not willing to step on the toes of your family.”

“Well it seems she’s not the witch I thought she was,” Carissa said, lifting out the ribbon that lay in the box. “I guess you know where you got your art talent from.” She handed the ribbon to Hope.

“First place.” She turned the ribbon over. “Presented to Mandy Marlow for her portrait of a sunset.” She swallowed hard and looked up at Trevor. “Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome.”

The girls continued through the box and Trevor made a pot of coffee, careful not to disturb the mess around them or any evidence the intruder might have left behind. As it brewed, the doorbell rang. He hurried to the door assuming the police had finally arrived, but he was surprised to find David there, his brow furrowed.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, passing by him, Trevor felt a knot in his stomach. He was already battling with the guilt of hiding information from Hope and sharing too much information with Carissa. Now David Kendal wanted to talk to him, and he wasn’t feeling good about it.

David walked toward the kitchen and saw his daughters poring over the box of memorabilia. He looked around the room. “Jesus Christ! What happened?”

Hope stood from the table. “Dad, someone broke in. No one is hurt. Nothing is missing. We’re waiting for the police.”

“Waiting for the police? You shouldn’t be in here!” His temple twitched and Trevor wished Hope would let him take her away before the police arrived. David turned to face him and Trevor straightened his shoulders. “You let her stay here? What are you thinking?”

“She wanted to stay.”

“She’s not thinking clearly, obviously.”

“Dad.” Hope stepped between her father and Trevor. “He offered. I wanted to stay.”

David let out a long breath and then nodded toward the table. “What is that?”

Carissa sat up taller and focused her eyes on her father’s. “It’s a box of pictures and items from Mandy’s childhood.”

David turned his disapproving glare back toward Trevor, and the knot in his stomach tightened, almost forcing him to take a seat, but he stood where he was and tried to keep his eyes steady.

“Hope said your hotel room was broken into.”

“It was.”

“And your home and your office?”

Trevor swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“And now this.” He let his eyes settle on the mess surrounding them. “Do you have any idea who’s behind this?”

“I have some ideas, but no. I don’t know who exactly.”

Carissa laid down the pictures, opening her mouth, but David turned his stare toward Hope. “Who is the woman who came into your store today? She came looking for you. Red lipstick, black purse, and looking mean as hell.”

“I don’t know.” Hope walked to stand by Trevor. He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, hoping to ease the pain he could see in her eyes, brought on by his angering her father. “She came in a few days ago and looked around. She said she was going to come back. She gave me the creeps.”

“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. “Oh—my—God!” 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 and 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.