Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

"Oh, no!" she moaned. "You'll send me soaring straight into a higher tax bracket."

Her husband muffled a laugh against her throat, and Meredith turned into his arms. They spent the next hour sending each other soaring straight into the clouds instead.

Chapter 58

On Sunday night the feature story on the six o'clock news was the arrest of Ellis Ray Sampson who'd been charged with the murder of Stanislaus Spyzhalski. According to St. Clair County officials, Spyzhalski had not been killed by one of his duped clients, as they'd originally believed, but by the outraged husband of a Belleville woman with whom Spyzhalski had been having a fling. Mr. Sampson, who had turned himself in and confessed to having beaten up Spyzhalski, swore that the bogus attorney had been alive when he dumped him in the ditch. Since the coroner's report indicated that Spyzhalski had also had a heart attack that same night, there was a possibility that the legal charges against Sampson might be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

Matt and Meredith watched the newscast together. Matt sarcastically remarked that Sampson should be given a medal for ridding the world of a human parasite.

Meredith, who knew how it felt to be victimized by Spyzhalski, said she hoped the charges against Sampson would be reduced.

Matt sent Pearson and Levinson down to Belleville to make sure of it.

On Tuesday of the following week, Charlotte Bancroft, president of Seaboard Industries, and her son Jason were officially questioned in Palm Beach, Florida, regarding a series of bomb threats and stock manipulations against Bancroft & Company. Both of them heatedly denied any connection to either as well as any desire to take over Bancroft & Company. On Wednesday, Caroline Edwards Bancroft voluntarily appeared before a Florida grand jury and testified that Charlotte Bancroft had indeed been planning to take over Bancroft & Company, and that Charlotte had further hinted at having planned something that would force B & C's stock to drop.

In the Cayman Islands, where he was vacationing with his lover, Joel Bancroft, former treasurer of Seaboard Industries, read about the suspicions being cast upon his mother and brother. He had resigned six months earlier, when they had both instructed him to open dummy accounts under false names with a particular stockbroker who was willing to collaborate, and to begin buying up blocks of B & C stock, which was to then be "parked" in the bogus accounts.

Lying on the beach, looking out at the water, Joel thought about his mother, whose thirty-year plan to avenge herself against Philip Bancroft had been a demented, driving obsession, and about his brother, who— like his mother—had despised Joel for being gay. After several hours he reached a decision and made a phone call.

The following day Charlotte and Jason Bancroft were arrested and charged with several counts of illegal activities on a tip from an anonymous caller who'd told police the names of the fraudulent stock accounts. Charlotte denied any knowledge of those accounts. Jason, who'd opened the accounts and paid off the maker of the bombs at his mother's instructions, soon began to fear that he was about to become his mother's sacrificial lamb. He beat her to the punch by offering to testify against her in return for immunity from prosecution.

The board of directors of Seaboard, seeing an immediate need to salvage their corporate image, and acting on Charlotte's instructions, named Joel Bancroft president and chief operating officer.

In Chicago, Meredith watched it all happening on the television news, and the ache of longing she felt every time someone mentioned Bancroft & Company almost outweighed the shock she had felt at discovering that Charlotte and Jason were responsible for the things she'd believed Matt had done.

Sitting beside her on the sofa, Matt saw the sadness that darkened her eyes whenever her company's name was mentioned, and he reached out for her hand, threading his fingers through hers. "Have you thought about what you want to do next, now that you have so much free time?"

Meredith knew he was referring to a new career to substitute for the one she'd given up when she sided with him, but she had a feeling her answer would upset and alarm him. Deliberately choosing to misunderstand his question about her free time, she looked down at their joined hands and smiled at the 14-carat emerald-cut diamond he'd slid onto her ring finger along with a platinum wedding band. "I might have considered making a career out of going shopping every day," she teased, "but you've already bought me jewels and a luxury car. Anything else I could buy would be an awful anticlimax, don't you think? I mean, what's left?"

"How about a small jet," he said, kissing her nose, "or a large yacht?"

"Don't you dare—" she warned him, but he only laughed at her horrified look.

"There must be something else you want," he said.

Meredith sobered, and decided to tell him the truth. "There is. I want it badly, Matt."

"Name it, and it's yours."

She hesitated, her thumb idly rubbing the new gold wedding band he wore on his finger, then she lifted her eyes to his. "I want to try to have another baby."

His reaction was instantaneous and fierce. "No. Absolutely not. You weren't going to risk it if you married Parker, and you're not going to risk it for me!"

"Parker didn't want children," she countered. "And you did say," she reminded him softly, "anything I want. And I do want that."

Normally the look in her eyes would have melted him, but she'd explained to him in bed one night that the odds were high that she'd miscarry again late in her pregnancy. He already knew she’d almost died the last time, and the thought of risking that was absolutely beyond consideration. "Don't do this to me," he warned, his voice terse and pleading.

"There are obstetricians who specialize in women who have problem pregnancies. I went to the library yesterday, and did a lot of reading about it. There are new drugs and some new techniques they're trying out—"

"No!" he interrupted, his voice taut. "Absolutely not. Ask anything else of me, but not that. I couldn't endure the worry. I mean that."

"We'll talk about it again later," she said with a smile that was both stubborn and serene.

"My answer will be the same," he told her.

He would have said more, but just then the newscaster announced that they had a late-breaking development in the recent Bancroft & Company takeover furor, and Meredith's gaze snapped to the television screen. "Philip A. Bancroft," said the newscaster, "called a news conference late this afternoon to comment on reports that his daughter, Meredith Bancroft, was fired as B and C's acting president as a result of her connection to industrialist Matthew Farrell."