Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

Meredith drew a shattered breath. "I can't hate you," she said, her smile wobbling. "I love you too, and, besides, I don't have any other sisters—" With a choked laugh Lisa flung herself into Meredith's arms, and as they had that long-ago day when they'd worn eighth-grade uniforms, instead of chic designer fashions, they hugged each other and laughed and tried not to cry. "Does it seem a little—incestuous—to you though?" Lisa asked with a sheepish grin when they were standing apart again. "My being with Parker?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact it did—the morning I called you, and you were both obviously in bed. Together."

Lisa started to laugh, then she sobered abruptly. "Actually, I didn't come up here to talk about Parker. I came to ask you about the police questioning Matt yesterday. I saw it in the morning paper and I"—she looked away, her gaze shifting about the room—"and I, well, I guess I came up here looking for reassurance. I mean—do the police think he killed Spyzhalski?"

Fighting down a surge of angry loyalty, Meredith said calmly, "Why should they? More important, why should you?"

"I don't," Lisa protested miserably. "It's just that I keep remembering the morning of your press conference, when he was talking to his attorney on the speaker phone. Matt was furious with Spyzhalski, anyone could see that, and desperately determined to protect you from scandal. And then he said something that seemed sort of ... odd and ... threatening even then."

"What are you talking about?" Meredith demanded, more impatient than upset now.

"I'm talking about what Matt said when his attorney warned him that Spyzhalski was a crank who wanted to put on a big show in the courtroom. Matt told his attorney to change Spyzhalski's mind and get him out of town. And then Matt said that he'd 'take care of him' after that. You don't think," Lisa finished, her apprehensive gaze searching Meredith's face, "that Matt's way of 'taking care of him' might have been to have him beaten up and dumped in a ditch, dead, do you?"

"That is the most absurd, the most outrageous thing I've ever heard!" Meredith said in a low, explosive voice, but her father's words brought them both whirling around.

"I don't think the police will find a remark like that absurd," he announced from the connecting doorway of the conference room. "Furthermore, it's your duty to inform them of it."

"No," Meredith said, starting to panic at how the police might construe Matt's remark, and then inspiration struck. She was so relieved, she smiled. "I'm Matt's wife, I have no duty to repeat that, not even in a courtroom."

Philip looked at Lisa. "You heard it, and you're not married to the bastard."

Lisa looked at Meredith and saw the pleading in her eyes. Without further hesitation she took her side. "Actually, Mr. Bancroft," she lied with an apologetic smile, "I don't think that's what Matt said after all. No, I'm sure it wasn't. You know how imaginative I am," she added, backing out of the office, "that's why I'm such a brilliant designer here—a very vivid imagination."

When her father transferred his frustrated glower to her, Meredith pointed out something to him that had just occurred to her. "You know," she told him quietly, "in your desperation to blame Matt for everything, you're tripping on your own faulty logic. On the one hand, you're accusing him of having no feelings for me, and of using me merely to get revenge against you. If that's true, how can you possibly believe he'd actually have Spyzhalski murdered to protect me from scandal?" She scored a point with that one, she knew, because her father swore under his breath and walked out, but an instant later Meredith's heart missed a beat as something else Matt said came back to haunt her. The same night Spyzhalski's body was found, she'd been teasing him about his offer to divert the reporters while she drove into his apartment garage. You'd do that? Just for me? she'd joked, but his reply hadn't been joking, it had been said with deadly earnestness. You have no idea, he'd answered, how much I'd do—just for you.

Meredith walked over to her desk and shook her head, shoving the thought aside. "Stop it!" she warned herself aloud. "You're letting everyone else's suspicions get to you!"

At six o clock, however, it became almost impossible not to do exactly that. "Here are your first two pieces of evidence, Meredith," her father announced, walking in with Mark Braden, and furiously tossing two reports onto her desk.

Filled with sudden foreboding, Meredith slowly shoved the advertising budget she'd been reviewing aside, glanced at the grim faces of both men, and pulled the reports over in front of her. The first report was a lengthy background check that Mark had run on Matt. On it, Mark had put red circles around the names of every company Matt owned, every legitimate business enterprise he was involved in, and there were dozens of them. Eight of the names had large red X's beside them. She looked at the other report, which contained the names of the people, institutions, and companies that had recently acquired more than a 1,000-share block of stock in Bancroft's, and her heart began to thud with dread: Those eight names with the red X's on the investigative report about Matt also appeared on the list of new shareholders. Combined, Matt had already acquired a gigantic block of stock in B & C, all of it purchased in names other than his own or Intercorp's.

"That's only the beginning," her father said. "That shareholder list isn't up-to-date, and the investigative report on Farrell is incomplete. God knows how many additional shares he's bought or in what names. When our stock prices went up, Farrell obviously decided to put a few bombs in our stores to drive them down, so he could buy them cheaper. Now," he said, leaning his flattened palms on her desk, "will you admit that he's behind what's happening to us?"

"No!" Meredith said stonily, but God help her, she wasn't certain whether she was denying that he was right or denying her ability to admit it. "All this proves is that he—he decided to acquire shares of our stock. There could be several reasons for that. Perhaps he realized we're a good long-term investment and it—it amused him to make money on your own company!" She stood up, her knees shaking, and looked at both men. "That's a far cry from having bombs planted in our stores or having people murdered!"

"Why did I ever think you had sense!" Philip said in frustrated fury. "That bastard already owns the property we want in Houston, and God knows how much he owns of us! He's already got enough shares to vote himself a seat on our board right now—"