Roses (63 page)

Matt had his office door open, car keys in hand. “It gives you pause. Thanks, Curt, and… the less said about this the better—to
anyone, understand?”

“I sure do, Chief. I’ve learned never to say nothing to a woman you don’t want discussed on every porch swing in the county.”

“Good man,” Matt said.

He raced out of his office to his car, punching in Amos’s office number as he sped out of the parking lot. “Susan? This is
Matt Warwick. Put me through to Amos, will you?”

Amos had been pulled out of a deposition. “What’s the trouble, Matt?” he asked, his voice sharp with alarm. “Is it Percy?”

“No, Amos. Sorry to scare you. It’s Rachel. I was just informed she’s in town. What kind of car does she drive?”

“Why, a BMW, last time I saw her. Dark green. You mean she’s in town and didn’t let us know?” His voice vibrated with hurt.
“How did you learn she was in Howbutker?”

“Tell you later. Right now I’m on the way into town to find her.”

“Matt—”

“Later, Amos,” he said, cutting him off to make another call. If Dallas was her home base, it could be that Rachel had already
started back. He consulted an index on his console and dialed a number. “I need to speak to Dan,” he said to the dispatcher,
and within seconds the sheriff of Howbutker County was on the line. Matt stated his request.

“A dark green BMW,” the sheriff repeated. “I’ll send some boys along I-20 to see if we can spot her and get back to you.”

“If they find her, tell them to go easy with her when they pull her over,” Matt instructed.

“What will be the charge?”

“I’m sure they’ll think of something, but make sure they’re nice about it.”

Matt considered his next move. It was almost four o’clock. He hoped to high heaven that Rachel realized she was in no condition
to make the drive back to Dallas this late in the day. That would put her in the middle of rush-hour traffic, the craziest
in Texas, except for Houston. He dialed his office. “Nancy, call the Fairfax Hotel, the Holiday Inn, and Best Western and
ask if Rachel Toliver has registered. If you come up empty, leave them my number and tell them that as soon as she registers,
I want to be notified. Then let me know what you find out.”

A thirty-minute zip around town turned up no sight of a dark green BMW, and his secretary called to say that the Toliver girl
was not registered at any of the three numbers she’d called. At a loss what to do next and worried—why would Rachel think
she had a vested interest in the plant?—Matt turned the Range Rover toward Houston Avenue to question his grandfather.

M
att ran up the stairs to the upstairs study, where his grandfather seemed to spend more and more time of late. Since Mary’s
death and the tragic events following, he’d lost his pep. His appetite had fallen off, and he’d given up his routine exercises
at the country club. He made few appearances at the office, had not toured the company’s lumber sites in two months, and no
longer attended the “Old Boys’ Club” kaffeeklatsches every Tuesday morning at the Courthouse Café.

His state of mind and health had become a matter of anxious concern for Matt and Amos, who daily exchanged impressions of
his attitude and behavior.

Percy’s brows lifted in ironic surprise when his grandson strode into his study an unprecedented several hours earlier than
usual, wearing what Percy dubbed his “don’t mess with me” look.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he drawled, stretched out in his recliner before the fireplace with his feet still in house
slippers. Matt saw that a luncheon tray had been brought up, the bowl of chicken noodle soup—his grandfather’s favorite—congealing
alongside a half-eaten ham sandwich.

He helped himself to the sandwich, realizing he’d skipped lunch. “Rachel Toliver is—was—in town,” he said.

Percy lifted his head. “How do you know?”

“Curt’s wife called him from the courthouse, and he passed the word on to me. I’ve been out looking for her car but didn’t
find it.” The sandwich gone in two bites, Matt washed it down with Percy’s glass of melted iced tea, wiped his mouth, and
pulled up a chair to face him. “Marie said that Rachel was checking on a warranty deed to land that Mary DuMont sold you in
1935. Marie said she had a bee up her skirt about it.”

If he’d needed reason to justify his unease, he had it now. Matt watched the color drain from his grandfather’s face. “I never
knew the Sabine site was built on land purchased from Mary,” he said. “Now I’m wondering how Rachel knew and what’s her interest
in it.”

Percy sighed and dropped his head against the high back of his chair. “Oh, Matt…”

“What is it, Granddad? What’s going on?”

“I think we may be in trouble. I believe Rachel found the papers that Mary meant to destroy the day she died.”

The knot in Matt’s midsection tightened. “What papers?”

“The papers that were in the trunk Mary sent Henry to open. Remember Sassie telling us that her last words were that she had
to get to the attic? Sassie must have told Rachel, too, and she figured out that something important was up there and went
after it. Amos said that when he took Rachel to her room the night of the accident, he saw papers scattered on her bed… papers
that had been in a green leather box that I remember belonging to Mary….”

“What was in them that would have sent Rachel to the courthouse?”

Percy held up a hand to say not to rush him. “Amos recognized one of them as the will of Vernon Toliver. In that will, Vernon
left one section of land along the Sabine to his son, Miles….”

Matt scowled in confusion. “Wait a minute. You said that nothing went to Miles—that Mary inherited everything.”

“I never said any such thing. Mary and I
allowed
that to be the assumption. Not that there’s much distinction between the two.”

Matt pulled within closer conversing distance. “So… let me get this straight. William never knew his father had inherited
that section?”

“That’s true.”

“The information was deliberately kept from him?”

“That’s true.”

“By Mary?”

“Yes.”

Matt felt the return of the ham sandwich. “And Rachel now knows the truth about the lie that helped to tear her family apart?”

“It appears so.”

“And our plant is located on the section that Miles inherited?”

“Yes.”

“How’d Mary get hold of it to sell to you?”

Percy wiped a liver-spotted hand across his face, looking his ninety years. “Well, I’m afraid the other papers in the box
explain that. Amos said that he saw two letters… one in my handwriting and another he couldn’t make out before Rachel whisked
everything back into the box, but I can guess who it was from….”

Matt felt his stomach heave as his grandfather reached shakily for a glass of water. After a couple of long swallows, he said,
“It was a letter from Miles instructing Mary to hold that land in trust for William until he reached twenty-one.”

“Good God—” Matt drew back, aghast. “Are you saying that Mary went against her brother’s wishes and sold the land anyway?”

Percy nodded. “That’s right,” he said quietly.

“She must not have shown you the letter.”

“Of course she did. That’s how I know its contents.”

Matt stared at him, speechless. His neck grew hot. “Granddad, you and Miss Mary
knowingly
committed
fraud
?”

“It looks like that on the surface,” Percy said, “but it was the only way out for all concerned—Ollie, William, me, the town,
and… Matthew. The DuMonts were in dire financial straits, and Ollie was about to lose his stores. The sweet bastard would
never have borrowed money from me, and Mary was broke. I was in the market for waterfront property to build the pulp mill
on, so she deeded Miles’s land over to me. It appeared to be a perfectly legal transaction. Mary’s name was on the deed as
the new owner. But for Miles’s letter, she was entitled to do anything with it she chose. The nefarious part comes in by the
boy never knowing he’d inherited from his father.”

Matt stood up, too appalled to remain seated. Now he knew what had been eating his grandfather alive these past months. He’d
figured out Rachel’s discovery and had been waiting for the boom to go off. “Do you have any idea what withholding that information
did to Rachel’s relationship with her mother—how it affected her family?”

“Not until you mentioned it a few months ago, and I regret it deeply. I’m sure Mary did, too, but she was powerless to correct
the misperception after it became a problem. By the time Alice saw Rachel as a threat to William’s inheritance, I’d built
the nucleus of Warwick Industries on that section, and Mary had more to consider than the truth to her nephew, especially
when she considered the type of woman he married.”

Mortified, Matt asked, “Why couldn’t Mary have sold her precious Somerset to save Ollie’s store?”

“Mary couldn’t have given Somerset away in those days. Land wasn’t worth a plug nickel, and I would have done anything to
help Ollie. Besides being the best man I’ve ever known, he saved my life in France. He pushed me out of the way of a grenade.
That’s what cost him his leg.”

Matt raked a hand through his hair and fell into his chair again. God, the things he didn’t know about his family. “What did
your
letter say?”

“I wrote Mary that I agreed to the sale, but of course after fifty years, I can’t remember exactly how I phrased it. But the
only way Rachel could have learned the approximate date of the deed’s transfer and that I was the buyer had to come from my
note. By the time you’d arrived the night of the accident, she’d read the papers and put two and two together. It explains
her attitude to you and further paints Mary and me as a couple of shits.”

Matt hunched forward. “You mean Rachel now has letters in her possession that put the Sabine site in jeopardy? Granddad, how
could you build a lumber operation now worth one hundred million dollars on land that did not have a clear title?”

Percy waved a feeble hand. “Oh, Matt, for all intents and purposes, that section was Mary’s to sell and mine to buy free and
clear. No muss, no fuss. How could we know the legality of the sale would be challenged? If only Mary hadn’t kept those letters…”

“Why did she?” Matt demanded.

“Probably because she could not bear to part with her brother’s last letter, and maybe she kept mine for… the comfort of knowing
she had not acted alone in a breach of trust.”

Matt felt as if his blood had pooled in his feet. “Or maybe to blackmail you later.”

Percy looked at him, appalled. “Of course not! How can you think Mary capable of such a thing?”

“Why did Mary show you the letter from her brother?” Matt countered. “Why didn’t she keep it to herself, rather than involve
you in her deceit?”

“Because she wasn’t that kind of woman!” Percy retorted, his cheekbones aflame with indignation. “She didn’t want me to go
into anything without my knowing what I was getting into.”

“Well, wasn’t that decent of her!” Matt said, matching his fury. “That way she didn’t have to carry the burden of her duplicity
alone.”

Percy slammed down the footrest. “Hold your tongue, boy! Don’t judge until you know what you’re talking about. Mary showed
me that letter in order to give me a chance to say no. I agreed because I didn’t see I had much choice. William would have
reached twenty-one with nothing left to inherit but a section of waterlogged land. He was seven at the time. As it was, the
store survived, Somerset flourished, the county enjoyed jobs that I’d have had to take elsewhere, and, as Mary promised, William
became her heir.” He paused to take another hasty swallow of water. “I’m not saying what we did wasn’t
wrong
, but at the time doing
right
didn’t seem the answer either.”

Matt digested all this in shocked silence. Finally, he said, “So you and Mary struck a deal, and that’s why she promised William
that he’d be her heir. Then why in hell did she lead Rachel on?”

Percy let out a soulful sigh. “Because at the time of her promise to William, she didn’t expect Rachel.”

Matt shook his head in disbelief. “Damn, Granddad,” he said softly. “Did Ollie know about Miles’s letter?”

Percy glared at him. “Of course not. He’d never have gone along with the sale.”

Matt said dryly, “That sounds like the man I knew. Okay, let’s calm down and discuss what we think might be Rachel’s intentions.
If those letters do prove fraud, do you think she’ll sue to get her father’s land back?”

“Oh, no,” Percy said quickly. “This isn’t about greed. She wants returned what she believes belongs to her, and she’s determined
to get it, just like her great-aunt would have been. Rachel will want to trade. The Sabine site for Somerset. That’s what
Mary would have done.”

“Well then,” Matt said, drawing a relieved breath, “that solves the problem. Simply give the place back to her.”

A look filtered into his eyes, and Matt—recognizing it—recoiled as if he’d caught a whiff of body odor. He bent forward. “Under
these
circumstances, you
will
give it back, won’t you?”

Percy made a sound in his throat. “It won’t ever come to that question when Rachel hears what I have to say. I’m convinced
of it, Matthew. That’s why it’s important that you find her. She
must
hear the full story.”

Matthew
. He never called him by his namesake. A strange pain moved under his solar plexus. “Well, just for the record, if it does
come to that and you refuse to meet Rachel’s terms, what will you do if she decides to go after the plant?”

“That depends on whether her case is strong enough to win.”

“Suppose it is?”

Percy adjusted one hip and then another in the recliner. “Don’t box me in, Matt. I will do what I believe to be right, that’s
all I can tell you.”

“I’m sure you will.” Hurt seared his throat. “But I wouldn’t count on Rachel forgiving and forgetting when she hears this
tale of yours, Granddad. I don’t believe I’d be able to forgive my birthright given away to someone else. And I could never
forgive the shafting of my father—no matter what story was behind it.”