Hidden Riches (27 page)

After dropping off Archer, Clayton went out to the Fisher place. He was stunned to see Delcine getting out of her car.

When she saw him, she flushed and then scowled and yanked the strap of her small shoulder bag.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, as she slammed closed her car door.

“I could ask the same of you,” he said, pocketing his keys.

Delcine sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I, well, I had a few more questions for Jeremy.”

No way was she going to admit to her wealthy younger brother that she was here to try to play on Jeremy Fisher's memory of Ana Mae in order to get money from him to cover her financial situation. Delcine's pride wouldn't allow her to take that step. She would rather grovel at a stranger's feet than divulge to her baby brother that she—well, her husband—had completely screwed up her life.

“Funny, so did I,” Clayton said slapping his thigh with a booklet he was holding. “We must be thinking along the same lines.”

I doubt it, Delcine thought.

Indicating the booklet, she asked Clayton, “What's that?”

“The annual report. There's something I want Jeremy to explain,” he said, heading toward the garage. “Come on.”

No Aerosmith or any other rock music blasted the air, and they quickly realized they needed to try the house.

As they made their way to the front door, Delcine, not at all comfortable with Clayton knowing something she didn't, again asked, “So what is it you want to know from Jeremy?”

“Just some questions that came to mind from the annual report of the Zorin Corporation.”

Clayton rang the doorbell as Delcine fanned herself with one hand.

“David Bell's company? The one in Ohio? He already told us about Jeremy.”

“Something doesn't add up,” Clayton said. “I figured going straight to the source could clear up the confusion.”

Other than Ana Mae having so much money, Delcine couldn't think of any confusion.

The door opened, and Nell Fisher beamed up at them. “Clayton, Delcine—I mean Marguerite—how wonderful to see you again. Come in, please. Get out of the heat.”

She backed up in the wheelchair, and the Futrells followed her inside the blessedly cool house. Nell led them into the same great room she'd entertained them in during their last visit.

“Call me Delcine.”

Nell smiled. “Thank you. I know you prefer the other, but Ana Mae always called you Delcine.”

“You just missed Jeremy,” she added. “He had to go to Texas to meet with a supplier. Is there something I can do for you?”

Delcine sighed at the news that Jeremy wasn't home. But Clayton stepped up. He held out the Zorin Corporation's annual report to its shareholders.

“I was reading through this and noticed that Jeremy is on the board of directors. Ana Mae was also affiliated with the company,” he said. “Her picture is even right here on the cover with David Bell, Zorin's CEO.”

Nell beamed. “He's such a nice man. It's a shame about his son, though. But Ana Mae was helping him work through that. They were very close, you know.”

“We know,” Delcine said.

Mano the robot came in then, again bearing a cart. This time it held a pitcher of lemonade.

After refreshments were served, Clayton tried to get Nell Fisher back on point.

“How did Jeremy end up on the board of Zorin?”

Nell waved a manicured hand. “Oh, that was part of the deal,” she said.

“The deal? What deal?” Delcine asked.

For a moment, Nell looked confused. “The deal,” she said. “When Zorin bought out Fisher Innovative Solutions, Jeremy secured two six-year terms on the board and, of course, an equity stake in the company. They offered a one-term board position to me and to Ana Mae as well, but neither one of us wanted that kind of responsibility.”

“Oh, my God,” Delcine said, the pieces finally coming together. And judging from Clayton's expression when he glanced over at her, he got it too.

“How much did Jeremy's company go for?” he asked.

Nell leaned forward in her wheelchair and grinned at Clayton and Delcine. “Can you believe they paid almost twenty million dollars for a little gadget company that started right outside in what used to be our garage?”

Delcine gasped.

“They initially offered twelve million, but Jeremy held firm. He got an M.B.A. at Chapel Hill, you know. And he knew both the value of Fisher Innovative Solutions and what it was worth. So he held out, and they met his number. He got the bulk of it—in cash,” she said. “Since Ana Mae and I were just minority shareholders, we both just got almost five million and some stock options.”

Overwhelmed, Delcine sat back in her chair, her mouth agape. Clayton's guess had been right.

Nell giggled like a teenager. “I say ‘just' as if either of us expected anything like that much money to come out of that mop-and-bucket caddy or any of Jeremy's other little things he made for me and Ana Mae. Neither of us was complaining, though. Ana Mae and I were too busy laughing and crying together.”

It was not until later that night—much later, as she lay in the bunk bed of her youth in the house where Ana Mae had lived her entire life—that it dawned on JoJo. She got up and padded to the kitchen, where she'd left her booklet from Mr. Rollings with all of the quilt blocks reproduced in it. She looked at the picture of the quilt and then flipped to the page with the seventh block on it.

With just the light from the stove to illuminate the room, she saw it, and she smiled. She knew she now possessed the secret of the seventh block on the quilt. The image Ana Mae created in fabric and thread was of Jesus with little children. By embracing the children, the least of them, Ana Mae followed the example he set.

That was the secret of the quilt block. It may even be the secret of the whole thing, JoJo thought. The treasure she was already getting was that she got to know her big sister better, even though Ana Mae was gone now. And she'd had some time to get to know Clayton and Delcine. The three of them had never been particularly close, but now, as adults, they were discovering plenty of shared memories that made their growing-up years in Drapersville seem not quite as bad as remembered.

There had been good times and good moments.

Lester thought they were looking for a hidden or buried treasure. JoJo now realized that her sister . . . it was Ana Mae who was the treasure.

JoJo smiled.

Closing the booklet, she placed it on the kitchen table and made her way back to bed humming a Sunday school song she recalled from her youth: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”

And so did Ana Mae.

In Ana Mae's bedroom, Delcine held a heated but whispered mobile phone conversation with Winslow.

“It's not that easy,” she hissed. “And since you have failed to in any way come up with a plan to get us out of this mess, staying here to get the money is the only way I see out of the problem.”

She listened to her husband for a moment, and then grunted.

“That's easy enough for you to say, Win. What do you think is going to happen to all of those memberships when your face is plastered on the six o'clock news, huh? Did you think of that? I already cannot bear the thought of what's being said behind my back at my women's club. We're probably laughingstocks already.”

She was silent for a moment as Winslow countered. Then, “Fine!” she yelled. “Fine. Do whatever the hell you want to do.”

She threw the cell phone across the room and heard a clunk as it hit the dresser. A moment later, a soft knock came at the door.

“Great,” Delcine muttered. “Just great.” Then, louder, “I'm fine, JoJo.”

But Delcine was anything but fine, and the tears she had refused to shed all of these months came gushing down like water from a levee breached in a hurricane.

“Delcine?”

JoJo pushed the door open a bit. She saw the state her older sister was in and went into the bathroom. She returned with a length of toilet paper that she handed to Delcine.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she waited for the tears to subside.

“I'm okay,” Delcine sniffled. “You can leave now.”

“No, I won't. And no, you're not okay.”

Delcine sighed heavily, then wiped at her eyes and blew her nose. “When did you get so bossy?”

“I took lessons from you.”

The words could have been harsh, uttered with the disdain and condescension Delcine usually meted out on others. But there was a note of compassion in JoJo's voice, and fresh tears fell from the woman who, as Marguerite, was cultured, wealthy, confident, assured, and more than a bit bitchy. Delcine was a skinny and poor black girl from the country. In less than a week, Marguerite had disappeared, and Delcine had taken over the life she once knew . . . and cherished.

“My life is a lie,” Delcine said.

JoJo tucked one leg under the other at the end of the bed.

Without her makeup and the power suits and designer dresses, Delcine looked vulnerable, like the sister JoJo remembered her being before they became virtual strangers.

Sensing that this was a time to listen rather than a time to talk, she, for once, just waited. Whatever Delcine decided to share, she would in her own time and way.

The wait did not take long.

“Winslow and I are broke,” Delcine said.

Of all the things she had expected to hear, that was not among them. JoJo anticipated news of an affair—on Win's part, since she didn't think Delcine had any passion in her at all. Broke was something else entirely. Something that JoJo could relate to. But before JoJo could respond, Delcine continued.

“And when I say, broke, I don't mean we just can't afford to go on one of our elaborate or extended vacations to Europe or send Cedric and Latrice to private school. We're bankrupt, JoJo. Literally. The house is being foreclosed on next week.”

JoJo gasped.

That mansion in their super-fancy neighborhood? The one JoJo had never been invited to but had found pictures of online?

Wow. Double wow.

“What happened?”

The question came out before she could stop herself.

But Delcine either didn't hear or more likely deigned not to answer and instead just fiddled with a piece of the toilet paper, twisting it around her finger.

“And if that's not bad enough, or embarrassing enough, Winslow is about to be indicted.”

“Indicted? Oh, my God. What did he do?”

Delcine snorted, a most unladylike sound that under different circumstances might have amused JoJo. “What didn't he do is the better question.”

She stared at the wall for a moment, her lips quivering, and a moment later the tears were falling again.

JoJo, at a loss for how to relate to this Delcine, sat there for a moment. Then she did what her instincts prompted her to do. She gathered her sister in her arms and let her cry.

The two sat like that for a while, JoJo rocking and holding Delcine, while the older of the two alternated between wails and sniffles.

“What the hell is going on in here? What's all this noise?”

Lester appeared in the doorway, wearing a white T-shirt and boxers.

“Go away, Lester.”

The nearly identical command from both women made him frown and the sisters look at each other.

A moment later, they both fell backward on the bed laughing as the years between them rolled away.

“Too much damn estrogen in this house,” Lester muttered as he walked away.