The Black Sheep and the Princess Page 11
“Didn’t look like it.” Donovan pushed away from the bus stop sign he was leaning against and fell into step beside her.
Chapter 7
“I thought we were meeting back at the truck.”
He thought she seemed a little flustered. “I was headed that way and saw you through the window. Thought I’d wait.”
She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and tugged him gently, but firmly down the block.
“What’s going on?” Mac asked, letting her tug him along.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s the problem. But until I do, if you’re going to help me, maybe it’s better that the whole town doesn’t see me with you. In fact—” She dropped his arm and stopped. “Why don’t you go around the block that way and I’ll—”
“Graffiti all over your camp doesn’t faze you, but a cup of coffee with Stan Harris and you’re spooked. What happened in there?”
“Do you know Stan? Why didn’t you tell me that? What can you tell me about him?” She started walking again.
Mac had to step fast to catch up to her. “So Stan did spook you. What the hell did he say?”
She reached the truck and all but flung herself into the driver’s seat. “Hurry up before anyone else comes along. I should have thought this through better.”
“Which part?” he asked, climbing in the passenger side, barely closing the door before she was already backing out of the space. “The part where you storm into town or the part where you storm back out of it?”
“Very funny. Did you want to help me or not?”
She wasn’t looking at him; she was negotiating her way through the only intersection they had to cover and bootlegging it out of town.
“You might want to be careful there, Leadfoot. I know Sheriff Gilby is on the far side of retirement, but I’m guessing that’s just made him more ornery. He loves nothing more than a good speed trap.”
“What do you know about Stan? And you know Gilby?” She slowed momentarily and shot him a wary look of suspicion that he definitely didn’t like.
“I don’t think I like what you’re implying. In fact, I know damn well I don’t.”
“Just answer me. You knew I was coming into town to see Stan, yet you didn’t say anything about knowing him.”
“I don’t know him. Not personally. But I know his family. And I just told you, Gilby has been on the force here since I was a teenager. I can assure you, I sincerely wish he didn’t happen to be sheriff, as it would probably be easier to get the information we need from someone who hadn’t personally arrested me for being drunk in public when I was seventeen. But he was just a beat cop in those days. I doubt he remembers me.”
Kate fell silent and kept her gaze on the road. He wasn’t sure where her thoughts were, but they didn’t seem to be on him any longer. It wasn’t much of a bonus.
He let her have a minute, then calmly asked, “What did Stan say?”
“It’s more what he didn’t say.” She paused a moment, then asked, “What do you know about his family? He’s probably a good twenty years older than we are, so—”
“So, I know his dad was vice president at the bank when I left. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was president now.”
“Wouldn’t he be retired? He’d have to be well into his seventies.”
Mac shook his head. “Jim Harris is just the type to work until he drops dead rather than let anyone else take over. The only reason I know anything about Stan is I remember there being a bit of a to-do when he came back to town.”
“Came back? From where?”
“Stan went to college, which was rare enough from this place, then stayed in the city for a while. But he came back with big plans of running for the county seat, and using that as a springboard to a state political office. His daddy couldn’t have been prouder and let everyone know it.”
“And?”
Mac shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m guessing given the position he currently holds, that that was as far as he made it. You’d think he’d have gotten the hell back out by now.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I passed by his office on the way to Deenie’s. Not exactly burning up the place with his fancy degree, is he?”
“So that’s the only measure of success? Having a degree and using it in some ostentatious way?”
“You know better than that.”
“I thought I did.”
He didn’t like that she was so quick to judge him harshly. “Given my background, I’d hardly be a snob about degrees and such.”
“Did you go to college?”
“No. I bounced around the city for a bit, doing odd jobs, mostly working as a mechanic. Ended up at the police academy.”
“How did that happen?”
Mac shifted in his seat. He’d never been comfortable talking about himself, and now was definitely no different. “I grew up with a lot of injustice, and I guess I decided I could make a bigger difference in the world than just turning wrenches like my old man. And I wasn’t dismissing Stan for being what he is. It just seemed a waste, given his education and his aspirations. I’d think you’d understand. You’re using yours, after all.”
She cut him a sharp glance. “What do you know about my degree?”
He smiled unapologetically. “Everything I could dig up on-line in the twenty minutes I had.”
“On-line? Where can you get on-line in Ralston?”
“Library.” He didn’t bother to tell her he could access the Internet from his sat phone, too. He glanced at the road. They were headed out of town, but in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?”
“The mall.”
“Mall?” he said, mentally adjusting his plans. He should have asked her what her plans were sooner. “How far a hike is that going to be?”
“About ten minutes. They built one out by the interstate exit a few years ago. Bagel needs some food, and they have a pet store there.” She glanced at him again. “You could pick up a few things if you need to.”
He looked down at himself. “What, my sartorial choices not meeting with your social standards?”
She didn’t take offense to his teasing, which he took as a positive sign. She’d calmed down and gotten herself back on track quickly, which was good to note. Not that it had been an entirely bad thing to see her so disturbed back there. It was past time that she took things a bit more seriously. And if he couldn’t shake her up, then he was just glad someone had.
“I really don’t have time for a shopping spree,” he said. “We didn’t talk to Gilby yet, and—”
“Gilby will have to wait.” She kept driving, but looked at him and shook her head a little. He even caught a hint of a smile, which relieved him a little. And that wasn’t entirely a good thing. He needed to take the situation seriously, too. They couldn’t both afford to be distracted.
Then she swallowed something that sounded like a snicker. It wasn’t a sound he’d have associated with the Kate he thought he knew. It sounded good on the Kate she actually was.
Yeah, he was definitely getting distracted. Thirty minutes apart hadn’t been near enough time for him to get his bearings back. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“Nothing, really. I just never figured you for a Taz type.”
He glanced down at the cartoon character stitched above the pocket of his black T-shirt. “Taz and I have a lot in common. I refuse to take full responsibility, though. The little general store I stopped in on my way up was rather limited in their selection of menswear.”
“You stopped on your way up here to go clothes shopping?”
“Well, it was that or live in the same jeans and T-shirt for who knows how long. And trust me, the ones I had on when I left were not something I could wear for any length of time.”
Her smile faded. “What happened to your luggage?”
“Nothing. I didn’t happen to have any on me when Rafe dumped me curbside at JFK.”
“JFK?”
“So…coming here really was Rafe’s idea?”
“Let’s just say he didn’t give me any time to talk myself back out of it.”
She stared at the road again, letting the silence grow, then abruptly said, “What else do you know about Stan? Do you really think his father runs the bank now?”
Back to business. He knew he’d be wise to follow her lead. “Tell me what went on this morning. For that matter, now’s a good time for you to give me a rundown of the whole story.”
“You know pretty much everything. You probably know more than I do, for that matter. You’ve been cruising the Internet, and, I imagine, talking to your cohorts back in Virginia. Why don’t you tell me what you already know?”
He smiled, liking how she always met him head-on. “You know, if we ever expand the business, take on more cohorts, you’d probably fit right in.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said dryly. “So what dirt did you dig up on me?”
“Just that your mother apparently stunned everyone by leaving you, the estranged daughter, everything, while favored son Shelby just got the camp property.”
“Nothing new there. Go on.”
“What caused the estrangement? You said before you hadn’t talked to her since leaving for college.”
“She wanted Shelby and me to jump to her bidding, and only one of us was willing to play that game. Shelby’s always had his eye on the prize, that being the Sutherland-Graham fortune. He was more than willing to sell his soul for it. When I turned eighteen, I wanted to lead my life on my own terms. That didn’t sit too well with her, so she cut me off.”
Mac hadn’t had a lot of time and had barely skimmed the surface of information on Louisa and her dysfunctional family. Kate had briefly mentioned the estrangement earlier, but he didn’t know about the financial reversal. “That must have been tough on you.”
“I was heading off to college at the time. My mother had certain ideas about where I would go and what I would study. I had other ideas. But I had a few partial scholarship offers, so I chose a small in-state school and worked off the rest of my tuition. It wasn’t easy, but it was very likely the best thing that ever happened to me. I became fully independent, it got Shelby off my back, and my mother finally had nothing left to hold over me.” She glanced at him, then right back to the road. “Even rich families aren’t necessarily happy ones.”
Thinking of his partner, Finn, Mac already knew that to be true. “Money doesn’t buy everything, no, but it would have gone a long way toward getting your camp up and running. So, tell me more about this deal you and Shelby struck with the trade. Just how much of a cash settlement did you work out? Seems like no matter how you look at it, Shelby is coming out a giant winner here. If you were willing to settle for so little, what was there to hammer out? I’m surprised he didn’t sign the deed over to you that day and write you a check.”
“It wasn’t just the amount on the bottom net worth line. It was about what was right. And, to Shelby, what was right was inheriting the Sutherland-Graham fortune, lock, stock, and barrel.”
“So, what, he’s doing you a favor by letting you have the campground and a little spending money?”
“You…well, you knew Shelby, at least somewhat, back then. He was around camp all the time in the summer, watching over Louisa’s interests.”
Mac remembered Shelby as being a rat-faced little weasel who’d go running to Louisa the moment he thought he knew something that could get someone else in trouble.
“Nothing much has changed. He felt that since I had abdicated my position in the family, it was, by default, all his. And, to some degree, I can understand his viewpoint. He might not have wanted the camp per se, or even given a thought to the property itself in years; it was the point of the thing. It was his father’s, and now it was his, and I wanted it.”
“And you had Louisa’s entire empire, which he wanted. Come on.”
“And he could have kept me and the will in probate for the rest of my natural life, too, and would have, over something essentially that stupid. But that’s Shelby, and also something I couldn’t afford. But I know how to handle Shelby, and that’s to make him think he’s getting the better of me, while making him think it’s also his idea to be the benevolent dictator. He learned well at my mother’s knee, but so did I.”
“And?”
“And so we spent an inordinate amount of time hammering out all the details, but far less time than we would have otherwise. We recently came to a final agreement, which is that I get the campground, as well as a few of the stocks, specifically ones that had been in my mother’s name prior to her marriage to George Sutherland, when she’d been married to my biological father. That was enough, or will be, to secure a loan from the bank to finance the rehab and reconstruction of the property and get the camp started. It’s more than I’d hoped for when I contacted them again to look into leasing the property in the first place. And it’s all I feel comfortable taking, to be perfectly honest with you.”
She’d inherited millions in assets and was going to rely on a bank loan to finance her camp? “I still say you should have held on to a hell of a lot more than that.”
“I did what was right for me.”
Mac didn’t say anything to that, knowing she had a point. “So, she knew you were interested in leasing the property before she died?”
Kate nodded. “I’d approached her with a lease agreement proposal before she died. Well, I approached her attorney. She took ill before we could set anything up.”
“But she knew you wanted it.”
She nodded. “If I had any doubts, the inheritance sort of cemented that.”
“Which begs the question of why you’d go back and willingly tie yourself to her in any way again. Why give her that hold over you again after so many years? If she knew you really wanted it, wouldn’t she have taken advantage of that? Obviously she would have, seeing what she did with her will.”
“I’m sure she would have, but I felt I could handle it now, as an adult. And I guess a part of me thought maybe we’d all grown up enough that it was time to make some inroads into at least being civil with one another. I’d long since come to accept my family situation, but that doesn’t mean I was content with it. The lake property was perfect for what I wanted to do. I didn’t have the kind of resources I needed to lease any other property. It seemed like a good olive branch and a wise business decision.”
“And if you hadn’t made contact, would Shelby have notified you of her illness?”
“Hard to say, but I’m guessing I’d have likely read about it in the papers, same as you. Or from a family attorney when the will was slated to be read.”
Ouch. She was speaking matter-of-factly, much the same way he did when talking about his past. Which he made a point never to do. And for her this was far more recent. He knew firsthand that it was likely costing her more than she was letting on. Who’d have thought he’d have so much in common with Kate Sutherland after all?
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” she said, sounding a little surprised by his sentiment, but then, so was he. “Like I said, though, I made peace with my less than lovely circumstances with my family a long time ago. Does that suck in a lot of ways? Yes. But you know better than anyone that family life can suck for a lot of people. I have no room to complain, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a career that I’m very passionate about, and the drive to make a particular dream of mine come true. All I needed was the resources, and although that didn’t happen quite the way I expected, it looks like it will come to pass. My mother is gone, and this won’t bring Shelby and I any closer, but I realize now that nothing will ever do that. At least I tried, and I have whatever peace of mind there is to be gained out of knowing he has what he wanted so badly. A
ll in all, not much to complain about from where I sit.”
“Except someone still doesn’t want you to have your camp. We’re just not sure who.”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then finally let out a reluctant sigh. “No. It’s not all going according to plan. Not exactly. I need to talk to Shelby. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for things with him. Then we’ll talk to Gilby and see what we can get from him. I guess I just have a hard time buying into any deep conspiracy theory here. I know there are a lot of things going on simultaneously that make it appear to be fishy, but you know, there could be simple explanations for all of it.”
“There could,” he agreed.
She glanced at him, eyebrow raised, but he merely said, “You were in the city yesterday. Why not talk to Shelby then?”
“We were supposed to. We had an appointment to finalize the paperwork, transferring the inheritances. He didn’t show.”
“And you don’t find that a little suspicious?”
She slowed and turned into the vast parking lot of the shopping mall. “Not really. Shelby is a major pain in the ass about almost everything. For all I know, it conflicted with his biweekly spa treatment. You never know with him. But until I talk to him myself, I’m not going to jump to any nefarious assumptions.”
“Were there any hang-ups with the contract?”
“Oh, there were dozens. It’s taken us months to hammer this out, with almost constant communication, but we’re both satisfied with the result. In fact, up until yesterday, I’d have said the rest was a mere formality. I mean, he knows I’ve moved in up here and that I’m doing the preliminary work on starting the restoration. If he had any real beef with the settlement, he’d have never let me take physical hold of the property.”
“You’ve already taken out the loan, then?”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t have the stock collateral until the papers are signed. What little I’ve done so far, mostly to make my cabin habitable, has come from my own pocket.”