Authors: Fern Michaels

Annie's Rainbow (14 page)

“Just be my sisters and give me the chance to be your brother. There's room on this estate to build a dozen houses. Pick your spot. I'll have the houses built to your specifications.”

“Of course this will all be done legally,” Mahala said.

“Of course. It's not too late for any of you to follow your dreams.”

“Yes, Parker, it's too late. We're willing to forgo our dreams so that our children can follow theirs. My son wants to be a lawyer. It takes a great deal of money to go to law school on the mainland,” Mahala said.

“I should have known that,” Parker muttered.

“Yes, you should have,” Lela said.

“Will you stay?” Parker asked.

“Yes, Parker, we'll stay,” Kiki said. “I'm going to take you up on your offer to work at the plantation. I have some great ideas.”

“I'd like to hear them. First, though, I have something I have to do. If you like, you can watch. Meet me outside by the front door.”

The sisters looked at one another and shrugged as they trekked through the house to the front foyer and then out the door. They squealed in horror when they saw Parker swing the ax at the base of the old banyan tree. “Why are you doing this?” they shouted.

“Because it's a symbol of everything that went wrong with us. No one lives forever. If there were seven right in a row, I'd leave them be. One is no good. George can grind out the stump, and we'll decide what kind of welcoming plant we want by our front door.”

When the giant tree toppled to the ground there were shouts of approval. George and Mattie clapped their hands. “One more thing,” Parker said. “Last one up the monkeypod tree is a horse's patoot!”

High-heeled shoes sailed through the air as the Grayson siblings ran around the house to the side yard. “You remembered!” they shouted in glee.

They were slick and they were fast as they shinnied up the old knurled tree. Parker was the last to straddle the long, twisted branch.

“Merry Christmas!” Parker gasped.

“Merry Christmas!” his sisters shouted.

Annie tore the cellophane from the new calendar. She crossed her fingers that 1982 would be as good a year as the previous one. She sipped at the wine in her glass, her right hand tickling Rosie behind her ears. The shepherd stared at her with adoring eyes. “It's just you and me, girl. I thought he would at least send a Christmas card. I think the hardest thing was going to lunch with Daniel before Christmas and not asking about Parker. I wanted him to say something so bad, and he didn't. So much for destiny and love and all that garbage. When you're right, you're right. When you're wrong, you're wrong. I'm not some dumb female that needs a man in her life. It would be nice, but it's not necessary. I really liked him, Rosie. He's a great kisser, too. The best so far,” she clarified. “He even named a rainbow after me. Then, bam, it was all over. Come on, get your leash and let's go for a long walk along the battery. I'm going to buy a house there someday. I'm going to get us one of those big old houses with a walled-in courtyard where you can romp and play to your heart's content. I'm going to get you a playmate, too.”

The shepherd pranced over to the coatrack and daintily removed her leash.

“You're so beautiful you belong on a calendar. Maybe I'll look into that. After I open the next six stores. That's going to make sixteen stores in total. When we come back after our walk, you and I are going to talk about
that money
because Mr. Peter Newman is still sniffing around. I've reconciled myself to the fact the man is never going to go away.” Annie snapped the leash onto Rosie's harness and left by the back door.

When they turned the corner leading to their street at three o'clock, Rosie strained at her leash. She growled and bared her teeth when she saw the man sitting on the stoop waiting for them. “Easy girl. We can deal with him.”

“I thought I told you to call before you came here. I'm much too busy to talk to you today, and I have nothing new to say to you. What that means is, get off my property or I'm calling the police. I'll get a restraining order if I have to.”

“I have something new to report to you. We finished up our investigation before Christmas. We have successfully eliminated every car owner but you, Miss Abbott, and Elmo Richardson. We're satisfied that there was no third party. We became satisfied when we offered a deal to the young man in jail. He couldn't take advantage of it to cut down on his prison time, because there was no third party. That brought us back to the cars on the street and the campus parking lot. It is my personal belief that the money was tossed into Jane Abbott's car, you covered up for her, and Elmo Richardson took care of the money. Sooner or later, I'll be able to prove it.”

Annie fought the urge to put her fist through Peter Newman's face.

Rosie sensed her owner's fear and lunged at the investigator. It was all Annie could do to hold the huge dog in check. “Get off my property. If you think I'm guilty of something besides leaving my car windows open, charge me or get the hell off my property and don't come back. I don't have anything else to say to you, not now, not ever. Are we clear on that matter?”

Her insides shaking like Jell-O, Annie led Rosie up the steps and into the house. She unhooked the leash, locked and double-bolted the front door. She ran to the back door and did the same thing before she took the steps two at a time to the second floor, where she fell onto the bed gasping for breath. She needed to calm down and call Jane. And Elmo. And Tom. And the police. Another call to the insurance company and one to her lawyer would not be. out of order either. When you were guilty you had to act like you were innocent. No, she couldn't call Tom. Tom would suspect immediately. He'd been as good as his word when she came up with the hundred thousand dollars to pay off his ex-wife for the kids.

The scheme had been elaborate, and it had worked. Mona, so greedy for the money, would have done anything to get it. Tom had told her he borrowed it. There was nothing in writing; the payment had been in cash. Mona had promised never to interfere in the children's lives. A month after she sold the house, keeping all the equity, Mona had disappeared off the face of the earth. The children now lived with Tom and a part-time housekeeper in North Carolina. Everyone was healthy and happy.

Except for the Boston National Bank, who still hadn't gotten their money back. As soon as the accounting firm gave her a date to take the last quarter's profits, Annie would pay back the bank. Everything was ready to go. The moment she had the remaining money from the hundred thousand dollars, which amounted to thirty-three thousand, she would ship the money back. This time there would be no more delays. Tom was already paying her back and didn't take a year-end bonus even though there was more than enough in their business account.

Annie sighed. Life was never dull.

Rosie watched her mistress until she was certain her breathing was under control. Only then did she lie down, her head between her paws, her eyes bright and alert.

Suddenly, Annie wanted to cry, as her thoughts carried her to a faraway place behind a silvery, shimmering waterfall. She wondered then, as she had a thousand times before, if she'd overreacted. She'd picked up the phone to call Parker at least a hundred times only to replace it at the last second. There was something wrong there. She just didn't know exactly what it was. Then, of course, there was her pride. Pride was a terrible thing.

Time to call Jane and ruin her day. “Hey, Jane,” she said a moment later, “how's my best friend? Wonderful. Happy New Year, Jane! I love this time of year, when the shops are closed for the school breaks. Oh, I'm not doing much. I hang out with Rosie. We just came in from our walk, and guess who was sitting on my front steps. I have bad news, Jane. Mr. Newman has decided through the process of elimination that the money went into your car, I covered up for you, and Elmo kept the money bag. He didn't say so, but I think he thinks we split it among ourselves. He said something new this time around. He said they offered to cut a deal with the kid in prison to lighten his sentence if he would tell who the third person was. The kid said there was no third person. That brought them back to the cars that had open windows. If there was a third person, the boy would have gone for the deal. This is what we're looking at, Jane. I'm calling the police to get a restraining order on him, and I think you should do the same thing. I'm also going to call the insurance company again or have my lawyer do it. I just wanted you to be prepared. They have no proof, Jane. Any lawyer would have us out on bail in five minutes. No prosecutor would take this case. It's now a cat-and-mouse, wait-and-see game he's playing with us. My books are in order. Every shop we opened was opened the same way as the first one. I pay my taxes, salaries, and the rest is mine. You can't argue with the numbers and numbers are proof. I suppose he thinks we stashed the money somewhere and will spend it sooner .or later. He isn't going to give up. I want you to know that. Statute of limitations? I don't know anything about stuff like that. I'll ask the lawyer when I speak to him.

“Mom's fine. Tom is fine, too. The kids are getting big. Mona found herself some young hunk who wants to party like she does. Tom hasn't heard from her. Tom's a great father. I don't want to talk about Parker Grayson, Jane. There's nothing to tell. I hoped he would send a Christmas card, but he didn't. I didn't send one, either. I had lunch with Daniel Christmas week and he didn't bring up Parker's name. I didn't either. We buy our coffee from him, though. Tom handles that end of it. He says I'm too emotional when it comes to Parker. I almost thought he was the one, Jane. I really did. Something didn't, I don't know, jell, I guess for want of a better word. Then I blew it out of the water, and now I'm going to be an old maid. I hear the baby. I have to hang up anyway. Take care, say hello to Bob for me. Bye, Jane.”

On March 1, the day after four bombs rocked Wall Street in New York City, Annie walked downstairs to the basement, where. she'd secured the Boston National Bank's money, dressed in her plastic raincoat that zipped up the front, her hair wrapped in Saran wrap and her hands in latex gloves. No hairs or fibers were going to get anywhere near the money she was about to package up and return to the bank. All the money had gone through the washing machine not once, not -twice, but three times. She now sported a brand new General Electric washer and dryer and had switched her brand of soap just in case there was some residue left over in the machine from the money.

The box was huge, but then so was the pile of money in the three dark green trash bags. She'd worked diligently with her calculator trying to figure out, to the penny, the interest the bank lost while the money was in her possession. The biggest problem facing her now was how and where to mail the box of money once she packaged it up. If she was smart, which she wasn't, she would drive to Boston and leave the box on the bank's doorstep. She could leave now and drive through the night, turn around, and drive back. If she swilled coffee all day and night she could probably pull it off. Or she could drive to a distant city and take the box to the nearest post office or UPS with money taped to the box for shipping costs.

Postal authorities would probably think it was a bomb. That would call in the FBI. Damn, why was it so hard to return money? Maybe what she needed to do was make smaller boxes, boxes similar to shirt boxes that would fit into a mailbox on any street corner. If she had the right postage on each package, it would work.

Annie headed for the attic and the empty boxes she'd saved from Christmas. She panicked then. Everyone's fingerprints were on the boxes. Tom's, hers, the kids', Elmo's, her mother's. Rosie's pawprints were sure to be on some of them as she'd trampled through the papers and empty boxes. She was back to square one.

At ten-thirty, Annie loaded three green double-bagged lawn bags containing half of the bank's money into the trunk of her car. She wanted to return all of it, but something perverse inside her warned her to keep the other half. For the time being. Her destinationâAtlanta, Georgia. On a plain white envelope tied to the string on each bag was the message: PLEASE RETURN TO BOSTON NATIONAL BANK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. In smaller letters, she pasted the address of the bank.

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