Confessions Bundle

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MARY JANE GOT A PERFECT score on her math test that week. She said it was because the boy in front of her quit chewing gum so loud and she could hear better. Juliet believed that Mary Jane believed this was the reason. To Marcie she dared to express hope that their new plan to give Mary Jane time alone with each of them, and to reinforce the partnership she shared with her mother, was working.

In less than two weeks’ time, Marcie had applied to all the key studios in the San Diego area and had already received calls for half a dozen interviews.

And Juliet was busy systematically questioning every witness on Schuster’s list, looking at year-end business statements, comparing accounts payable with credit card and checking statements and tax category credits. And trying not to think about the tall, athletic and ethically uptight man running on the beach with his new puppy. Eating dinner all alone. And going to bed that way, too.

He was a client. She could help him win his case. And as long as she was his attorney, she couldn’t do anything about any of those other things.

On the last Friday evening in May, just a couple of days before Blake’s pretrial hearing, Marcie and Mary Jane were off to see a traveling dinosaur exhibit that claimed to have one of the world’s most authentic Tyrannosaurus rex specimens.

Juliet was planning to go home, give herself a facial and curl up in a blanket on the back porch with a reading light and a good book. A motivational book for women who wanted to live up to their potential. And if she finished that one, there was another about staying focused when life was in chaos.

And then, just as she was leaving the office, a letter arrived for her by local courier.

“Hi, Jason, how’re the classes coming?” she asked the young law student who supplemented his scholarship by doing runs for a good many of the law offices in town.

“Hard.” The tall, thin twenty-three-year-old grinned as he handed Juliet a clipboard to sign off on the delivery. “And long.”

“You keeping up?”

“Always.” With a nod and one last smile, he was off as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving Juliet in possession of a thick manila envelope from Paul Schuster.

With that almost perpetual knot back in her stomach, she dropped her satchel and keys, sank down to her desk chair and slit the envelope.

AN HOUR LATER, sitting in a quiet out-of-the-way bar not far from Mission Beach, Juliet waited for Blake Ramsden. Meeting for drinks might not have been the best idea, but she wanted Blake to have a glass of whiskey handy when she showed him what Paul Schuster had sent.

Besides, it was Friday night and they would’ve been completely alone if they’d met in either of their offices.

In spite of all of her advice to herself, her heart fluttered the second he walked in the door. He’d said he was coming straight from the office, and while he’d pulled off his tie, undone the top button of his white dress shirt and rolled up his sleeves, he still looked every bit the successful professional that he was.

His dark hair, the exact color of his daughter’s, was rumpled as though he’d either driven with the moon roof open on his Mercedes SUV, or run his hand through it more than a few times.

She hoped he’d driven with the roof open.

“Should we order first?” he asked as he slid opposite her into the back booth of the mostly deserted pub. It was still a bit early for the after-work crowd.

“Probably.”

His eyes, when they met hers in the dim light, were warm. Concerned. “That bad, huh?”

Juliet nodded.

The older female waitress, who’d already been over twice, made a beeline for their table as soon as she saw Blake. She took their drink order, suggested an appetizer platter, and as Juliet and Blake nodded, smiled and said she’d be right back.

“We’re either going to have to stop meeting like this, or start ordering dinner,” Blake said with a half grin. “The carbohydrate count in those appetizers must be sky high. Not to mention the cholesterol.”

“Probably not,” Juliet responded, knowing that, if her stomach didn’t settle soon, she wouldn’t be eating enough of the appetizers for excessive carbs or cholesterol to be an issue. “Not that I pay as much attention to stuff like that as I should,” she added.

“I have only since finding out about my father’s heart condition.”

She frowned, studied features that looked the epitome of health. “Are you at risk for heart problems?” The thought had never occurred to her. Somewhere, in the far recesses of her mind, she’d figured she had an entire lifetime ahead of her to tell him he was Mary Jane’s father. Like maybe after the little girl was married. And he was a grandfather.

Or had she thought that she had a whole lifetime to find out if that magic night nine years before had been anything more than a figment of her imagination, glossed over and made more perfect by the passage of time?

“I’m healthy as a horse,” he said easily. But his expression changed almost as soon as he’d said the words.

Was he wondering if longevity might not matter if his life was spent behind bars? She ran her finger along a scratch in the scarred maple table.

Blake took a long swig from his whiskey and soda as soon as it arrived. Then he set down the glass and looked over at her. “Shoot.”

Juliet handed him the sheaf of papers she’d had on the table beside her.

“Eaton James’s wife found these while going through his personal things at home. She sent them to Schuster, who’s admitted them as evidence.”

Blake remained calm as he glanced through copies of a checking-account register, paying particular attention to the items that had been marked with a yellow highlighter.

Had Schuster done that? Or Juliet?

There were copies of bank statements that corroborated the check numbers and amounts. Copies of canceled checks, both front and signed-off back, that also matched—numbers, accounts, dates.

It didn’t take an attorney, or even anyone very intelligent, to figure this one out. What he had before him was irrefutable evidence that for at least the year before Blake’s father’s death, Eaton James had been making monthly payments to Walter Ramsden.

“Shit.”

“That was my first response.”

Her first. That meant she’d had a second. Blake’s mind raced. “Is it possible James is a forger on a much larger scale then he admitted? Could he have forged my signature on that bank account in the Islands, forged my father’s signature here, and on the post-office box?”

“It’s possible.” She handed him another cluster of papers. Bank statements from the Cayman Islands account.

With highlighted deposits matching the ones he’d just seen on James’s personal account.

“That’s good, right? It fits the theory. For whatever reason, James was writing himself checks out of his personal account and hiding the money in the account in the Cayman Islands.”

“I’m not sure why he’d do that,” Juliet said. The dim lighting prevented him from seeing the brown flecks in her eyes, but their warmth was evident just the same.

He wasn’t sure he needed to see that warmth, though. It weakened him. Made him want things that weren’t going to happen.

“If he was siphoning money from Terracotta…”

Juliet shook her head. “He wouldn’t run it through his personal bank account.”

“He would if…”

Blake had no idea what followed that “if.” He just couldn’t believe that his father had been blackmailing Eaton James. It didn’t fit.

Juliet slid another statement across to him. He looked to see if there was anything else on the table beside her. There wasn’t.

He glanced at the statement on top of his pile. Took another sip of whiskey. Read the damning words again. Skimmed the highlighted entries.

“My father deposited the money into his own personal account.” There was no forging this one. The bank account had belonged to Walter Ramsden. Blake had turned over the information himself.

Sitting back while the waitress delivered their tray of wings and veggies, stuffed potato skins and nachos, Juliet just watched him, saying nothing.

He wished she’d speak and tell him it was over, that she couldn’t help him. Or better yet, that she’d tell him she had a theory. That the evidence wasn’t admissible. He wished she’d say she’d had a case just like this once before and it had all worked out fine.

The food between them went untouched.

“What now?” he finally asked.

“We keep looking.” She took a sip of the wine she’d ordered, and then another. “While this might appear to substantiate James’s testimony, we’re planning to get that thrown out on Monday. Assuming we do, the onus will be on Schuster to tie all this together—to find witnesses or some other way to explain what all of this means. Based on what Eaton said, I don’t think he’ll be able to do that. The transactions that took place were kept completely private. Between two men who are no longer here to speak for themselves.”

Blake nodded, feeling a little less trapped. “You said we keep looking? For what?”

“Anything that’ll tell us what really took place five or six years ago. I didn’t have time tonight, but over the weekend I intend to go over all of your father’s payables, both personal and through Ramsden. We have a record of deposits into the Cayman Islands account, but no way of proving who made the deposit.”

“Unless my father’s records show something?”

She shrugged and picked up a stalk of celery, but didn’t take a bite. “Even if he did, that doesn’t clear you. Technically, that account is still yours and now that Schuster has evidence that’ll hold up in court on that, we have to find a way to prove you didn’t open the account.”

“You think my father opened that account in my name? That he’s the one guilty of fraud?”

Blake felt her pointed look. “Do you?” she asked.

“No.”

She took a bite of the celery. “And what happens if I find out differently?”

“Then you do.”

He’d be free. At least in a legal sense.

On an emotional level, he wasn’t sure. Had his selfishness of almost four years cost his father not only his physical life, but his soul as well? Had he been forced to compromise the most important thing he’d given Blake—the only thing that sustained Blake at the moment—his sense of integrity?

Had the old man died a thief and a criminal?

AS THE BAR slowly filled with Friday-night traffic, Blake and Juliet talked about other possibilities. Juliet was going to subpoena the records for the other businesses closely associated with Terracotta—the ones Schuster had claimed were false fronts behind which James hid Terracotta losses. She already had a private investigator in the Cayman Islands, questioning bank employees, showing pictures of James and Blake and Walter Ramsden to see if he could get any takers. The government was not required to cooperate. The banks weren’t likely to either, since much of their business was based on the assurance that whatever happened there would go no further.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked just after the waitress delivered their second round of drinks. They’d made a very small dent in the appetizers.

“I didn’t know I was.” It was the truth. He grabbed a bean-and-cheese-filled chip.

“Well, you were.”

“Hmm.” Dipping the chip in sour cream, he took a bite, and then finished it off.

“Why? What were you thinking?”

Damn, the woman was persistent.

“About you.”

“What about me?”

He always told the truth. So he could tell her the truth—that he didn’t wish to answer her question.

Instead, he murmured, “That no matter how bad things appear, being with you makes them seem more manageable.”

Face down, she ran a finger along the edge of her wineglass. Then she looked up. “Thank you.”

“And I was wondering if it’s something about you, something you bring to all of your…clients. Or if it’s more than that.”

“What more would it be?”

He took another chip. Broke it in half. Ate one half. “I don’t know,” he told her. “Something more personal.”

“I don’t get personal with my clients.” The words were said with total confidence. And just a bit too quickly.

“I didn’t think you did.”

“It’s completely unethical. I could be disbarred.”

“I know.”

He ate a wing. And then another. She toyed with a potato skin. He took a sip of whiskey.

“So, is this extra…nurturing or whatever it is something you offer everyone?”

She frowned and looked away, following the progress of an older couple as they left the bar.

“No.”

She replied so softly, he wasn’t sure she had, until that completely open gaze settled firmly on him. He read the truth there and was satisfied. He should leave it at that. Needed to leave it at that.

Wanted to leave it at that.

“When this is all over, will we be friends?” He blamed the question on the whiskey, and a residual fear of being thrown in jail for the rest of his life that was making him needy in ways he didn’t understand.

“As opposed to enemies?” She’d pretty much mutilated the potato, eating only a couple of bites and smashing the rest with her fork.

“As opposed to not seeing each other for another five or ten years, at which time we casually say hello when we bump into each other on the street.”

Assuming he was on the street by then.

She peered over at him, eyes narrowed. “Do you want to be friends?”

“I think so.”

Her eyes closed, her lips not quite steady.

“I…”

Reaching across the table, he touched her lips, barely, with one finger. And even that was a mistake. He wanted so much more.

“I’m not asking for a future, or even a relationship,” he said. “I’m just asking if you’d like to keep in touch.”

He waited a long time for her answer and was forced to realize how much it mattered.

“Yes.” The relief was palpable when her response finally came. “I would like to be friends.”

He chose to ignore the “but” he suspected he heard at the end of that sentence.

BLAKE’S PRETRIAL HEARING went exactly as Juliet had predicted. James’s testimony was disallowed. The Cayman bank statements stood as evidence. The trial was confirmed to start on the morning of July twenty-third and expected to last a minimum of two weeks. She and Blake met a few more times over drinks. Now that Marcie was around, Juliet could get away in the evenings and things just seemed more relaxed for both of them in a bar than in either of their offices.

As the weeks wore on and Blake’s tension grew, she was eager to relieve any of it that she could.

Marcie finally landed a job in one of the larger San Diego studios, which lessened one of Juliet’s worries, freeing her up to focus more completely as she studied tax records, company records and bank records, and followed check trails, invoices, inventory, payables and receivables. She talked to every person on Schuster’s list—and Blake’s. Slowly, systematically, she was building a picture of the lives of Eaton James and Walter Ramsden. And to a lesser extent, Blake.

All she could really do for him was build the world’s best character reference. There simply wasn’t any evidence of fraudulent activity between him and his father or Eaton James. He’d been working in Honduras—and a couple of other countries—rebuilding villages. She’d be flying a couple of key witnesses in for the trial and had taken teleconference depositions with many more who would testify to Blake’s activities.

But none of that meant he hadn’t also been in communication with his father. She just couldn’t prove that he hadn’t been.

Schuster couldn’t prove that he had been, either, she assured Blake one Thursday night in late June. They had bank statements but no matching check numbers—no way to prove where the money in the Cayman account had come from. However, as Blake quickly pointed out, with those bank statements hanging over him, complete with matching payments from Eaton James to Blake’s father, Schuster might not have to prove anything else.

So far, nothing had turned up in any records anywhere to show monies leaving for the Cayman Islands. However, ironically, Juliet had found Ramsden contributions to a charity for homeless children in Honduras in amounts that perfectly matched the amounts of money—and pretty nearly the timing—of all the payments from Eaton James to Walter Ramsden.

Also ironic, and not lost on Blake when she told him, was the fact that the money was doing exactly what the Eaton Estates investment was meant to do—feeding poor and disadvantaged children in Honduras.

Blake had to cancel an appointment for drinks the last Tuesday in June. There’d been a fall at one of his sites and while the fault had clearly been a subcontractor’s not working to safety code, Blake had gone immediately to the hospital to sit with the young man’s pregnant wife.

Arriving home a couple of hours earlier than planned to find what she’d expected to be an empty house blazing with lights, Juliet pulled the BMW into the carport and hurried inside. Other than Marcie’s morning sickness, life had been pretty glorious at the McNeil cottage now that school and Brownies were done, and Mary Jane could spend her days at home, at the studio with her aunt, at the office doing odd jobs for her mother and Duane Wilson, or with Donna Wilson.

There were still moments when Mary Jane worried about her mother spending time with Blake Ramsden. Whenever the little girl knew Juliet had been with Blake, she’d crawled into bed with her mother that night. And Marcie had had some fairly alarming—to Juliet—moments of doubts about her decision to leave Maple Grove. Usually after a bad bout of throwing up. And Juliet—well, she was getting used to waiting out her own moments of doubt and guilt and secret longings, of which she was ashamed every time she came home to her single pregnant sister and sweet insecure daughter.

But all things considered, the McNeil women living together was a successful arrangement.

Mary Jane was sitting at the kitchen table, arms folded across her chest. She was still wearing the white shorts and yellow butterfly top she’d had on when Juliet left for work that morning and her curls were completely dry, which meant she hadn’t gone swimming with Marcie as they’d planned.

Frowning, looking around for Marcie, Juliet set her satchel on the counter. “Hi, imp, what’s up? I thought you and Aunt Marcie were going to the pool.”

Since Marcie’s schedule allowed her to be home fairly often during the afternoon, Juliet had bought a family membership to a community center with an outdoor pool.

“We were.” Juliet couldn’t tell if Mary Jane was hurt or angry, but something was obviously wrong.

“So what happened?”

“I didn’t want to go.”

Heart sinking, Juliet sat down opposite her daughter, reaching over to brush the curls behind her ears and watching as they sprang right back. Would Blake’s hair be as curly if he allowed it to grow?

“How come?” she asked gently. “You love to swim.”

“Because.”

Mary Jane stared glumly at the table.

“Where’s Aunt Marcie?”

“In her room.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to see her ever again.”

Juliet drew in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. She’d made it through almost a whole month without the constant panic and tension that had been riding her since Mary Jane had begged not to return to school number two after the Christmas holidays.

She’d complained that the school had had too many dumb rules. And Juliet had had to agree with her. But still…

“Why are you mad at Aunt Marcie?”

Please let this be something simple. Like Marcie eating the last chocolate snack cake.

Not that Mary Jane had ever let something like that upset her.

“She lied.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

OKAY, SO IT WAS a miscommunication. That was relatively easy to fix. As soon as her daughter told her the whole story, she could bridge the gap in her understanding.

“To you?” Juliet waited for the nod.

Mary Jane looked up, her eyes filled with anger. “To you.”

“Sweetie, Marcie didn’t lie to me. We made a pact when we were young that we’d never lie to each other and we never have. Even when telling the truth has been hard and we’ve hurt each other’s feelings.”