Mink Too, All the Riches in the World Can't Buy Love Read online

  Her father was serious about her taking over for him at ODC until he was well enough to come back, so she’d been busy learning about the company. She wished things were back to normal so she could go back to her playful existence before the explosion. These last six days had been sheer torture for her as she ran back and forth between the hospital and her father’s company. She hadn’t taken the time to drop by the flagger’s house to express her condolences to the widow. That was what she was on her way to do before she decided to stop by the hospital to visit the sergeant. It was a bad idea, considering how it turned out.

  She wondered who the handsome man was. She didn’t get the feeling Liz Gilmore was bisexual, so who was he? She shrugged. Nowadays, who could tell about such things? She didn’t think of herself as a lesbian either. She was bisexual, but she never liked labels. She based her orientation on whoever turned her on at the time. So far, they all happened to be women. Humph! It didn’t matter what she was. Most of the men and women in this town were too scared of her father to approach her. That was what made Liz Gilmore’s actions seem all the more remarkable. She had to admit the female sergeant had balls. She wasn’t afraid of the consequences of her actions. If anyone had to rescue her father, she was glad that it was the overbearing sergeant. She was sorry the flagman died. She’d overheard some talk that Liz Gilmore was responsible for getting him the job at the site. If that was true, then the sergeant must feel terribly responsible for his death.

  As it was, Susan had a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something had gone wrong at the site, but she wasn’t sure yet what it was. The one time she visited the site since the explosion, she saw a large, black gaping hole where the foundation used to be. She’d never seen arson damage before, but this didn’t feel like an accident. She just couldn’t prove it yet. That was why she needed to speak with the sergeant and find out what she saw that night.

  She remembered her father telling her the site he was building on the outskirts of town was to become a shopping complex. The news was puzzling because the papers claimed that city council was ready to declare the area a wetland project with federal dollars attached. How had her father convinced the council it made more sense to build a shopping mall than to protect endangered plants and animals? Johnny mentioned how he’d heard the site was for low-income housing. As long as the project was low-income housing, everyone, including the local tree-huggers, as her father referred to the environmentalists, city council, and the residents were happily in sync.

  Both those ideas sounded better than building another boring shopping mall. She found it interesting how her father and his investors tossed out the low-income housing idea at the last minute. At the same time, city council deemed the site for commercial use. Suddenly, the shopping complex that was supposed to bring in a hundred jobs became her father’s new pet project.

  Once the council approved the shopping mall, all hell broke loose in the town. The environmental activists demonstrated at the site daily. The residents were so outraged, they had been conducting a recall campaign for the council members who supported the shopping mall project. In contrast, the council blamed her father, feeling he’d misled them. He’d been the most vocal supporter for the project, convincing the council that building a strip mall would be good for the town. Now, with their backs up against the wall and a recall vote looming, council members feared they’d lose seats. Environmentalists, city council members, proponents of low-income housing, and voters; nearly everyone was backing away from the mall project as fast as they could.

  Susan felt everyone was running away from the investigation into the explosion since it was bound to stir up angry emotions and assign blame. Her father was feeling the pressure too. From his sickbed, he demanded she hire an outside investigator to look at the evidence from the explosion. He’d been in touch with his board of directors and convinced sixty percent of them to go with him in his bid to hire the investigators. ODC required a majority vote of fifty-one percent of the board to release funds to hire an investigator. She was certain they had an easy sixty percent of the board’s vote. Her father insisted she make the rounds since the explosion. So far, the board maintained their support of her father, but the election was several days away and anything could happen to change their minds. It helped her father was an effective CEO, but would it be enough? She’d also have to consider another problem. Hiring an independent investigator threatened the sheriff’s authority. It would probably enrage the police force and turn them against ODC, but her father claimed it was worthwhile to find out the truth.

  She didn’t agree with Sheriff Reeves’ investigative techniques, but he was the elected authority, not some private investigator controlled by her father, so she’d have to tread gingerly when she asked questions about the “accident.” From the outset, her gut said there was a roomful of suspects, but as she soon discovered, offering to help the sheriff sort them out proved futile. He wasn’t responding to her calls and she suspected he was going to close the investigation shortly. It didn’t help matters that he was up for reelection in six months. He’d publicly stated his wish to retire after one more term. That meant he wanted the investigation over and out of the voters’ minds long before election time.

  Susan sighed as she glanced through the windshield at the setting sun. The explosion at the site solved everything. It halted the shopping complex, which in turn calmed the residents, who didn’t have to worry that their property values might take a nosedive. Environmentalists got their wetland back. With the recall campaign on hold, re-electing council members for another term wouldn’t be a problem. The explosion created a neat bow that tied everything together. Her father was the only one left holding the bag, but his finances were safe. His insurance company would cover the cancellation of the mall project and his investors wouldn’t leave empty-handed. ODC would keep its rep and still make money on the next project it sponsored. However, there was still one major problem. A young man had died at the construction site. No matter how she tried to put a different spin on it, it always came back to that sad fact.

  Susan pulled into the trailer park and stopped. She scanned the address she’d circled on the company printout of employees and then drove slowly down several unpaved streets, checking addresses on the worn-looking trailers she passed. Once she found the correct address, she pulled up and parked, then sat in the car reviewing the speech she’d rehearsed earlier. She strode up the sidewalk, sighing as she rang the doorbell of the weather-beaten trailer. She heard muffled voices inside and then the sound of a baby crying. A big man with the familiar dark eyes came to the door with a fussy baby on his shoulder. The diaper slung over a wide shoulder was wet with saliva. The baby was chewing on his little fist as he drooled.

  Jake’s dark eyes widened, then glowed with recognition. “Ah ha, so we meet again. Hello, Miss Drummond. What are you doing here?” he remarked with a grin.

  Susan frowned in confusion. “Do I have the right address? Mr. Er…Jake. According to company records, I thought a Daniel Hanley lived here.” She peered down at a printout from ODC and ran a manicured finger across the line with Danny’s name and address on it.

  “Who is it, Jake?” a female voice called from inside the trailer. “Ask them to come in, please.”

  “Come in, Miss Drummond.” Jake held the rickety door open for her to enter the trailer.

  Susan squeezed past the big man and the cute little boy.

  A young woman came into the narrow hallway, drying her hands on an apron. “Hello,” she said quietly. “I’m Jennifer Hanley. Danny’s wife … er … widow.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. It’s been hard for me these last few days since...” She cleared her throat. “Please, have a seat.” She directed Susan to the worn-looking but clean couch in the narrow living room next to an end table with an inexpensive lamp on it.

  “I’m Susan Drummond. Your husband worked for my father.”

  “Yes, I know who you are, Miss Drummond.”
/>   “I came by to express my condolences, Mrs. Hanley. I’m so sorry about your husband.”

  Jennifer continued to stare at her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Puzzled hazel eyes looked into brown ones.

  Jake sat down. He watched as Jennifer continued to stare at Susan Drummond as though she could will Susan to remember who she was.

  Susan studied Jennifer’s face and frowned. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t, Mrs. Hanley.”

  Jennifer sighed. “I guess there’s no reason you should. We went to school together a while back. Elementary school, middle school, and part of high school until your daddy decided you should go back east to some private school. Boarding school, I think, wasn’t it?”

  Susan looked stricken and then embarrassed as she nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  Jennifer patted her hand. “It’s okay if you don’t remember. I can’t remember half the people I went to school with either. People change so much. I was just telling Jake, if his sister hadn’t gotten my Danny a job, he might have died a lot sooner. It tore him up inside when he lost his job at the factory. He tried to jump off the bridge almost a year ago. He figured with the life insurance we had, he was worth more dead than alive to our boy and me. Lizzie talked him down and got him a job with your dad’s company.” Jennifer smiled slightly. “He was so proud of that job, Miss Drummond. You woulda thought he owned the company the way he talked about protecting it.”

  Jennifer looked at her son nestled in Jake’s arms and smiled. “He looks just like him,” she said quietly. “Oh Lord, I miss him.” She started crying.

  Jake walked over and sat down on the arm of the chair, holding the baby against his shoulder. He tried to offer comfort by awkwardly stroking Jennifer’s arm. “It’s okay, Jen.”

  Noting his awkwardness with the baby and trying to comfort his mother too, Susan held her arms out. “May I?” Jake handed the baby to her, then took Jennifer into the bedroom. The baby cooed in Susan’s arms, then snuggled against her chest and closed his eyes.

  Jake stayed in the main bedroom for ten minutes, waiting until Jennifer fell asleep. When he returned to the living room, he looked grim. “What’s your company planning on doing for Danny’s widow, Miss Drummond, if anything?” he demanded, studying her face.

  Christ, it was stupid to come here unprepared, Susan thought. She should have reviewed company policy on situations like this. She felt like an idiot. “I don’t, I mean, I’ll look into it and get back to her, Jake.”

  “See that you do, Miss Drummond,” he said sternly. “I’d hate for my sister to find out you did nothing for one of her friends when you had the chance.”

  Susan bristled as she handed the sleeping baby back to the big man. “Is that a threat, Mr. Gilmore? If it is, I’ve had enough of them from the Gilmore family, especially your sister, for one lifetime.”

  “I don’t threaten, Miss Drummond. Consider this just a friendly warning from someone who doesn’t want to see his sister hurt.” Jake stood up. “I’ll show you out, Miss Drummond.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Gilmore!” Hazel eyes glared at him.

  Jake sighed and rubbed the sleeping little boy’s back. “We Gilmores are making you angry tonight, Miss Drummond. Perhaps I could invite you out for a coffee just to show you that we don’t have tails or carry pitchforks.”

  Susan turned around and grinned at him as a thought occurred to her. This time, the smile reached hazel eyes and made them sparkle. “You could tell your sister for me that she owes me more swimming lessons, Jake. Tell her the question I asked before she threw me out deserves an answer too. And I will be back to get it!”

  “I’m disappointed in your choice, but I’ll deliver the message.” Jake grinned again.

  Susan wondered idly if his sister would ever smile at her like that.

  Later that night, Jake visited his sister again. “Jen had an interesting visitor tonight, Lizzie.”

  Liz sat up as her brother plumped up the pillows behind her head. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, your Miss Drummond came by.”

  “What the hell did she want?” Liz folded her arms across her chest.

  “To tell Jen how sorry she was about Danny’s death.”

  “Humph. I’ll just bet she was! Is the company gonna do anything for Jen?”

  “She said she’d look into it and get back to Jen.”

  “Like hell she will!”

  “Christ, Lizzie! The woman isn’t that bad! She’s trying to do more than her father did, don’t you think?”

  “A pretty face makes you get all stupid, doesn’t it?” Lizzie looked at her brother with disgust.

  “She had a message for you too.” Jake stared at his sister’s angry face.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What’s the message, you big bozo?”

  “That’s a dangerous thing to call the man who used to help change your diapers, Kiddo. You never can tell what other little devious bits of information might be whispered into the wrong ears.”

  “And whose ears would those be, Boy?”

  “Hey, Old Man, how’s it going?” Jake walked over and gave his father a hug.

  “How’s my little girl feeling?” An older, shorter, broader version of Jake bent over to hug Liz and sat on her bed. He rubbed her foot without saying anything.

  Liz could see he was holding back tears. “It’s okay, Daddy. I feel fine. The doctors say I’ll be out of here by the day after tomorrow at the latest.”

  “What else did they say, Lizzie?”

  “They said I had to rest for a while.” Liz paused before adding, “I can go back to work next week.”

  “That’s mighty funny, Baby Girl. Your doctors told me two weeks.”

  “Okay, okay, let’s make it ten days.”

  “Lizzie!” the Gilmore men exclaimed in unison.

  “Okay, okay. I know the drill,” Liz muttered as she looked from her father to her brother, then sighed. “Rest and more rest. Can I at least stay in my own place?”

  “Sure, as long as you check in with us every day.”

  “Wear your beeper and answer your cell, Lizzie. If you don’t do it, I have the perfect nurse for you. I bet she’d follow you around all day and get on your nerves.”

  “That bratty witch would probably do it too!”

  Her father looked confused as he stared at both of his children. “Am I missing something here? What nurse?”

  “It’s a private joke, Dad.” Jake shrugged. “You okay here, Lizzie? I wanna check on Jen and Danny again before I turn in for the night.”

  “It’s getting to be a regular thing with you, Son. Is there something I should know about?”

  “Jen needs a little help right now and I can provide it. Don’t make it more than it is, Old Man!” Jake smiled affectionately at his father as he buttoned his jacket, then kissed his sister’s forehead. “See you tomorrow.”

  Father and daughter watched Jake leave.

  “When this mess is all over, Jen wouldn’t be such a bad choice for Jake, would she, Lizzie?”

  “He still has Beth on the brain, Dad. I don’t think he can see past her. Jen would be perfect for Jake, but he’s still in love with Beth or at least he thinks he is. That’s what counts.”

  “Never did like that woman. She was too self-centered for me. Never gonna give me grandchildren either. It would mess up her figure.”

  “I know, Dad.” Liz covered a yawn. “I always thought she was too scrawny,” she murmured as she settled against the pillows. “Sorry, Daddy, but I’m sleepy. It must be the medication.” She drifted off and missed hearing her father’s goodnight as he left. An hour later, she dreamed something that disturbed her, or was it the night nurse who woke her? There was another presence was in the room, but she was too tired to open her eyes. “Is somebody there?” she whispered half asleep, then felt a warm hand stroke hers. A soft voice urged her to sleep. She felt a gentle caress against her cheek. “Mama
?” she murmured and drifted into a peaceful journey into dreamland.

  Three hours later, the bad dream reoccurred. “No, get out!” Liz screamed in terror. “Get out, it’s gonna blow! We gotta go. Come on, Danny, run. Follow me. It’s this way.” She woke up, sweating and shaking. She sat up quickly and looked around the room. She was ready to tear off the electrodes monitoring her vital signs. “Where am I?”

  A nurse hurried into the room when an electrode attached to her chest beeped wildly.

  Liz remembered that she was in the hospital. She raised a hand to stop the nurse. “I’m okay. I was having a bad dream.”

  “I gotta check you anyway, Ms. Gilmore.” The nurse took her pulse and blood pressure, then listened to her heart. She reattached the leads monitoring Liz’s heart, brain, and pressure. “It musta have been some dream, Honey. Your heart’s racing.”

  “I’m okay.” Liz sighed as she adjusted her hospital gown, then settled against the pillows. “Answer a question for me.”

  “Sure, if I can.”

  “Someone was in here earlier. Who was it?”

  The nurse frowned. “Oh, you mean Miss Drummond. Yeah, she’s been stopping by the last couple of nights after she visits her father.”

  “Wasn’t her father released yesterday?”

  “Yep, he was. Guess she got into the habit of coming to your room to look in on you. Habits are hard to break sometimes. Well, you go on back to sleep.” The nurse helped Liz get comfortable, then stayed with her until she drifted off.

  The next time Susan stopped by the sergeant’s hospital room, she heard loud, boisterous laughter spilling into the hallway outside the door. It sounded like a small party of people was having a good time inside. She was hesitant to interrupt the fun, so she tapped on the closed door.

  “Ingrams, go see who that is at the door,” Liz remarked, laughing at her father’s old police stories. Her father, Jake, and the sheriff were trying to top each other with the best stupid criminal story they could tell. She knew that half the time, the three men were exaggerating, but that was part of the fun. Her new police family down here enjoyed the war stories as much as she did.