Envy(127)

Unbeknownst to the self-assured and insufferably smug Mr. Reed, his head was on the chopping block and the axe was about to fall.

In a symbolic gesture, Daniel dusted bread crumbs off his hands and put his plate and empty brandy snifter in the sink. Contrary to his weather predictions, the storm had intensified. Flashes of lightning were closer, the thunder louder. One clap of thunder shook the house, causing Rosemary’s china plates to jingle in their cabinet.

Dear Rosemary. Twenty years she’d been gone, and he still missed her. This house made him particularly homesick for her. They’d spent such happy times here.

Switching off the kitchen light, he made his way through the dark house. As he climbed the staircase, he favored his arthritic joints by leaning heavily upon the balustrade. Damn, he hated getting old!

No sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than a voice came out of the darkness at the top of the stairs. “You forgot your cane.”

“Jesus!” Daniel raised his hand to his lurching heart. In a brief glare of blue-white lightning, he saw Noah on the landing. “You startled me.”

“It’s careless of you not to use your cane, Daniel.”

“I’m all right.” He continued up the stairs, having to put both feet on each tread before progressing to the next one. “Did the storm wake you?”

“I never went to sleep.”

Noah’s remote tone of voice gave Daniel pause, but he smiled up at his son-in-law with affected congeniality. “I was having trouble sleeping myself, so I took advantage of being away from Sergeant Maxine to eat a snack.”

By now he was only two steps below the landing, but Noah appeared to have taken root there. He made no attempt either to assist Daniel or to step aside. Indeed, he seemed to be blocking his path.

He disliked having Noah looming over him, but he tried to act casually as he indicated the sheets of paper Noah was holding at his side. “Reviewing the document I signed earlier?”

Let him, Daniel thought. Let him memorize it, for all the good it will do him. The document wasn’t worth spit except in Noah’s devious and disillusioned mind.

“No,” Noah replied calmly. “This is the report on me from your private investigator, Mr. William Sutherland.”

More than being shocked or alarmed, Daniel was angry that his privacy had been invaded. His lips narrowed into the firm thin line that anyone who had been subject to his stern disapproval would recognize. “That was locked in a drawer in my desk at home.”

“Yes, I know. It took some rifling, but eventually I found it. Interesting reading.”

“I thought so, too,” Daniel said stiffly.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know I was being investigated?” Noah asked, laughing lightly. “Your bloodhound is good, Daniel. The best that money can buy, I’m sure. Secret Service training and all that. But he asked questions of one friend too many.”

“According to the report, you don’t have any friends.”

“Call my doubles tennis partner an acquaintance, then. Smart fellow. Smart enough to see through Sutherland’s lame reason for the inquiries.” His smile, which had been in place up to this point, vanished. “I’m curious to know only when the surveillance began.”

There was no reason now to play dumb or to equivocate. “I’d been deliberating it for months. It commenced shortly after your premature anniversary party.”

“Why then?”

“Because that was the night I became convinced that you are a seasoned deceiver and liar.”

Noah kept every urbane feature schooled, except one eyebrow. He raised it in query. “Really?”

“I don’t know if you’ve been deceiving us all along or if you’ve been walking the straight and narrow until only the last several months when Morris Blume approached you about selling my publishing company out from under me. I prefer to think the latter, because that would make me less of a fool for being taken in by you. But I fear that one could not acquire and perfect your skills for duplicity in such a short period of time. They’ve been cultivated, honed—”

“You’re becoming redundant, Daniel. You’ve already said I was a seasoned liar.”

“Quite right. The night of the party at the Chelsea apartment, I caught you in several lies. And while some could be explained as necessary for surprising Maris, others bothered me. It was also unlike you to think so far ahead and plan a celebration, when ordinarily you rely on your secretary to buy Maris’s gifts for every special occasion. So I began observing you carefully, looking beyond the obvious, beyond the man you show to the world. That’s when I began seeing you for who you really are.”

“How clever of you, Daniel.”

“No. If I’d been clever I wouldn’t have been duped at the start. You’re very good at the masquerade, Noah. Exceptional. You’ve also proved your mettle as a businessman and publisher. I had admired your abilities long before you came to Matherly Press. Like Maris, I was impressed by The Vanquished, and wrongly assumed that only a person with integrity could author a book of matching integrity.”

Noah folded his arms across his chest and smiled as he enunciated, “It’s fiction, Daniel. It wasn’t by accident that I wrote The Vanquished from that humble, hillbilly-righteous point of view. I created characters with high-minded ideals, not because I adhere to them, or even believe in them, but because I know that’s what sells books. The average Joe and Judy want to believe that valorous people do exist, that evil can be overcome by good, that virtue is a reward unto itself. They get off on that kind of bullshit.