Kitabı oxu: «Family Fortune»

CHAPTER ONE

September 1999

ANOTHER THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS withdrawn from Margaret Lyon’s private bank account! Crystal Jardin scowled at her computer screen. In the past two weeks, there had been identical withdrawals from Margaret’s bank account via an ATM. Always on a Monday. And from an unknown automatic teller. Crystal found that the most worrisome. She wouldn’t be as concerned if she hadn’t just seen a WDIX-TV segment on a computer hackers’ convention. She’d learned that bank officials haunted the convention, hiring the brainy kids who could get into bank systems and putting them to work writing codes to plug this very type of break-in.

The segment stuck in her brain because, in addition to her duties as the business manager for the family-owned, New Orleans-based Lyon Broadcasting Company, she served as personal financial adviser to Margaret, the principal stockholder, and to a few other family members, as well.

Granted, the amount of the withdrawals wasn’t particularly alarming. Margaret was an extremely wealthy woman, and prone to shopping sprees. And Crystal hadn’t been too concerned when Margaret disappeared without informing the family of her whereabouts. Until today. She recalled that the last time they sat down to go over finances, which they did regularly, Margaret hadn’t been herself. Who’d expect her to be? It was just after her beloved husband Paul’s death.

Crystal understood that Margie needed time alone. The woman had loved Paul Lyon for nearly sixty years. Losing him suddenly to a heart attack—after doctors had twice snatched him from the brink of death—had shaken the entire family, and no one more than Margaret. Not only that, the funeral had been overwhelming, with half of New Orleans turning out. The many heartfelt eulogies given by colleagues in the broadcasting business for the man known as the Voice of Dixie must have added to the weight of Margaret’s sorrow.

At the time Margie went missing, everyone in the family assumed she’d gone off alone to grieve. But when she didn’t call or show up at one of the ocean resorts she and Paul had always favored, her son, André, and his wife, Gaby, began to panic. And now, this complete elimination of a paper trail in Margie’s bank transactions was beginning to panic Crystal, too.

At seventy-seven, the family matriarch excelled in anything relating to the TV station she’d brought to life fifty years ago. But the woman Crystal loved like a grandmother didn’t have the skill to hack into a bank computer system.

So she’d enlisted someone’s help. Whose? And why go to such extremes? Crystal racked her brain for other possibilities. She avoided terms like kidnapped. André, Paul and Margaret’s only child and general manager of the business, had tiptoed around the term at breakfast, too—though Crystal knew it was on his mind today when he’d debated whether or not to file a missing-person report with the police.

André. was torn between allowing his mother the independence she’d always demanded and being horribly remiss if anything was wrong. Crystal felt the same pressure now. She wanted to show him the account—except that Margaret insisted on keeping her financial dealings private. Besides, if she’d fallen victim to theft, wouldn’t the criminal clean out her account and be done with it? Crystal thought it more likely that Margaret, always a headstrong woman, had bullied a banker friend into freeing her from a cloying family for a few weeks. The days after Paul’s death and before the funeral, family members had closed ranks, hoping to ease her pain. “Smothered” was how Margaret had described it to Crystal the morning of the service. So after a lengthy internal debate, Crystal decided to respect her client’s wishes—for now.

Just as she finished making her decision, her friend and junior accountant tapped on her open office door. “I’m leaving, boss. Here are the vouchers you asked me to draw up for the news department. All they need is your signature.” The perky redhead zipped into the room.

“Thanks, April.” Crystal accepted the forms, her gaze straying to the clock. “Yikes. When did it get to be five-thirty? I promised to be at the Tulane Medical Center by five-fifteen.”

“Are you playing your saxophone in the children’s ward again?” April asked as Crystal hastily shut down her computer.

“Probably. The boy I told you about—Skipper West? He underwent another spinal operation today. His foster mom has four other kids, three of whom have chicken pox. I promised Beth I’d visit Skip tonight since she can’t.”

“You want a lift? I’m taking the accounting class you recommended. The medical center’s on my way.”

“You’re a lifesaver, April.” Crystal gathered her belongings and flashed her friend a smile. “How’s the class going?” she asked as they walked out together.

“Great. I’m learning as much as you said I would, if not more.”

As Crystal locked her office, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man, at least ten years her senior, stepped out of an office across the hall. He pulled the key from his door before shrugging into a cashmere suit coat. Glancing at the women, he singled out April. “Sucking up to the boss again? Or do you prefer women over men, hmm?”

April’s face erupted in red blotches as she sputtered indignantly.

“Watch it, Raymond,” Crystal warned coldly. “Your name might be Lyon, but that doesn’t exempt you from the company harassment policies.”

Ray, third son of Charles Lyon—Paul Lyon’s brother and the lesser company stockholder—ignored Crystal. He leered at April, instead. “You’ll soon see you’ve aligned yourself with the wrong side of the family, baby doll. If you’re a little nicer to me, I might ask Alain to keep you on when he takes over as general manager.”

“If that ever happens, God forbid,” Crystal said, thrusting her saxophone case between the two of them, “most of the staff, including me, will volunteer to join our competition. What are you and Alain up to now? Don’t you two get it? Nobody cares what went on fifty years ago.” She was aware, too, that her being promoted over Ray no doubt stuck in his craw.

“Grandpa Lyon shafted my dad when he left Uncle Paul controlling interest in WDIX,” Ray said. “That’s fact. You should side with us, considering that he excluded your grandmother altogether. Attitudes like yours, cousin dearest, will make revenge sweeter when Iron Margaret’s dynasty crumbles at her feet.”

He deliberately brushed against her on his way to the men’s room, and Crystal recoiled from his touch. “The sky could fall, and I wouldn’t side with you,” she muttered.

April rallied. “All of Charles Lyon’s sons are creeps, except Scott.”

“Jason’s not so bad, although he’s had his moments. Shall we go? I’d rather not be around when Ray comes out of the john. I may kill him and end up in jail.”

The two women were in April’s car heading toward the university when suddenly April said, “I know I’m fairly new here—but how did I miss hearing that you’re related to the Lyons? Alain isn’t really going to oust André and Gabrielle, is he?”

“That threat is older than dirt. As far as my relationship to the family goes, I’m a second cousin to Ray and his brothers—my grandmother, Justine, was Charles and Paul Lyon’s sister. She never inherited shares in the original radio station. Great-grandpa Alexandre subscribed to the school of thought that women didn’t belong in business. At first she had a generous allowance. But even that reverted to the family after she died giving birth to her only child, my dad. He was whisked out of New Orleans to be raised in Baton Rouge by her husband’s family, the Jar-dins. I was more or less estranged from the Lyons, but the rift between my grandmother’s brothers is legendary. I grew up hearing all the rumors, and the stories intrigued me so much I applied to work here after I graduated from college. Margaret found out and more or less bundled me out of my apartment and into the family home—Lyon-crest. She and Paul and the others have always treated me as more than a second cousin. In any event, I’ve never seen a shred of evidence that the old rumors are valid.”

“Well, I hope they are lies. If Alain took over and moved Raymond into your job, I’d have to quit, no matter how many college loans are hanging over my head. People say that Ray dabbles in the black arts.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Is that true?”

Crystal rolled her eyes as April stopped to let her out at the hospital. “Is Ray smart enough to conjure up a spell? Oh, I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep your distance. He is a creep. For instance, I know he accesses Internet porno sites from his office.” She sighed. “André would love to remove his computer. Unfortunately Paul’s sixty percent of the voting stock isn’t sufficient to dislodge the other branch of the family. Not that Margaret would let that happen. She’s big on family sticking together.”

“How can somebody like Ray, born into that kind of privilege, turn out so rotten? I try never to be alone with him.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve heard he smacks women around.”

“We can only hope one of them will press charges someday. Hey, if I don’t scoot, you’ll be late for class. I appreciate the lift.”

After closing the car door and giving April a wave, Crystal jogged up the hospital steps. Ray was bilgewater, Alain a jerk. Her own dad wasn’t so hot, either. He’d let her down, and so had the only man she’d ever been serious about. Luckily she’d found out before the wedding that Ben Parker’s real interest had been her contacts in the jazz community—and that while they were engaged he’d slept his way through all the groupies at the club where he played.

Maybe it was because of the hormonal change that occurred at puberty. Little boys were cute and charming. Then they grew up.

Crystal hated to think of that happening to the boys she was on her way to visit. She’d volunteered to entertain in the long-term orthopedic ward because she’d spent time in one. At twelve, a skateboarding accident had left her hospitalized for most of one school year. She’d lost her mother three years before the accident. Her dad, the busy oil executive, never visited her. Nor did his stern aunt, who considered Crystal’s confinement a reprieve from her forced guardianship duties. The only good that came of it was that Aunt Anita had insisted Roger Jardin pay for music lessons to keep his motherless daughter occupied. Music had eased Crystal’s loneliness, which was why she made time to bring music into the lives of kids like Skipper West.

That last thing she’d set out to do was lose her heart to this tough but lovable nine-year-old ward of the court. It had just happened. Skip had suffered a sports-related injury, as had the other boys in his unit. If Crystal had any clout, she’d force communities to scrap football and soccer; she considered them dangerous and she loathed the values they taught—the focus on celebrity and the concentration on physical rather than mental skills. She’d love to see them all banned, especially football and soccer. “Ha. Fat chance,” she muttered, peering into the six-bed room. Maybe she would never let a child of hers get involved in team sports, but most parents, coaches and kids only clamored for more, not fewer.

Crystal didn’t blame Skip’s coach. The man, like many coaches of kids’ teams, was just a dad seeking an opportunity for his own son to play. As usual, more kids showed up than there were teams. So Sam Bingham had let himself be talked into attending a short course on coaching provided by the league—and that was apparently all the qualification he needed.

Skipper looked so small. Encased from chest to knees in a new plaster cast, he lay in the large bed, clinging to his favorite toy. A football. Crystal’s heart twisted. Amazing that after everything he’d been through, he still ate, slept and breathed football. He had to be in pain, yet he listened raptly as Randy, in the next bed, described a game Skip must have missed.

Crystal masked her feelings before she walked in. Skip’s coach had brought him the football. She didn’t begrudge the boy his talisman. Kids in foster care had darned few possessions to call their own. Yet it was football that had landed him here. Crystal couldn’t help feeling ambivalent.

Skip’s gaze left Randy as Crystal walked into the room. In spite of looking pale, he sent her a wide gap-toothed smile. “Crystal, guess what?” he said excitedly.

“What?” She leaned her sax in a corner and approached his bed. Her heart leaped. Did his joy mean the surgery had been successful? Would he soon be able to walk?

“My new doctor said Caleb Tanner is down the hall in the adult wing. Isn’t that cool?”

“Who?” The name meant nothing to her.

The boys in all six beds stared at her. “He’s practically the best quarterback the Sinners ever had,” one of them informed her.

“Ah. A ball player.” She lifted a shoulder negligently and let it fall.

Skip tried unsuccessfully to sit up. Pain clouded his eyes, and his fingers clenched the football. He gave up, flopping back against his pillow.

“What do you want, honey? A drink? Some ice chips?” She tried to read the chart that sat on his night-stand. “Is it time for your pain medication?”

He thrust the football toward her. “Would... would you go ask Cale to sign my ball? Nurse Pam said if you stop at the desk, she’ll give you a permanent marker. Cale might not have one. You know what? I think he’s had more surgeries than me.”

“More? Oh, Skipper, I don’t think so. I can’t barge in on a sick man.”

“He’s not sick. Three guys hit him in a preseason game. Cale ain’t gonna let a little knee injury sideline him for long.” Skip gingerly touched his cast. “Dr. Snyder said me and Cale might have the same physical therapist.”

“Physical therapy? That’s wonderful news! Starting when?”

“Dunno. Soon, I think.”

“Then you’ll be able to get Mr. Tanner’s autograph yourself.”

“Randy says Caleb’s got the bucks to go to a private sports-medicine clinic for therapy. Maybe I won’t see him. Please, Crystal.” He extended the ball.

Crystal ruffled the boy’s sandy red hair. His mischievous green eyes and freckled cheeks went with his missing front tooth. “Oh, all right. Give me that thing. If he’s trussed up like you, the guy can’t very well tackle me and toss me out.”

The boys’ glee chased her to the nursing desk, where Pam Mason, an overworked floor nurse, rummaged through her desk for a pen. “Follow this hall. At the end, turn left and go to room 306. Good luck, Crystal. I heard Tanner’s on a rampage. Hope you get Skip’s ball autographed.” She dropped her voice. “Skip’s operation today didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. His spinal ganglion didn’t regenerate the way his doctors had expected.”

“No!” Crystal said in a stricken voice. “But I thought Skip was going to be starting physical therapy....”

The nurse nodded. “They can’t allow his muscles to atrophy, even if he’s confined to a wheelchair. It’s past time we weaned him off pain meds, too.”

A light on the board flashed. “Omigosh! I left Eddie Trumble on the bedpan. Maybe we can chat before you leave. Will you be playing some tunes for the kids?”

Crystal barely managed an affirmative response. Clasping the football tight against her shaky middle, she fled down the hall so Pam wouldn’t see her tears. What would Skip’s fate be if he never walked again? Could his foster family manage that?

IN ROOM 306, Caleb Tanner, Cale to football buddies and fans, reeled from the latest shock. A set of X rays revealed that a compound break at the intertrochanteric line of his left thigh bone hadn’t knit, despite weeks of traction. Worse, ligaments ripped from his left kneecap hadn’t healed, either.

Dr. Forsythe, chief of Caleb’s surgical team, tucked the film back into its envelope. “So that’s why you’re still in pain, even with strong medication,” he said matter-of-factly.

Caleb gripped his agent’s arm. “Dammit, Leland! I want a second opinion.”

Two other surgeons standing at the foot of Tanner’s bed exchanged glances. Forsythe pursed his lips. “We’ll talk again, Caleb.” He motioned to his colleagues. “He needs time to get used to the fact that his football career is over.”

The veins in Caleb’s neck bulged. His mind went on fast forward. Just like it did when he zinged a football through the air to a player who hadn’t even appeared yet in the spot he’d selected.

My career is not over.

Then why was his stomach pitching worse than when a defensive lineman twice his size sacked him? He had to think. I will get well. Unfortunately Leland was in the middle of negotiating a new contract. If the press got wind of this...

“Everyone but Leland, out!” he demanded. “And don’t forget I’m protected under patient-doctor privilege until I consult someone else.”

“See here, Tanner. I stand on our collective credentials,” Forsythe gestured to his pals.

Caleb wished they’d all shut up. He needed a plan. With rent on his posh apartment due, his sister Patsy getting married soon and Jenny’s last-semester college fees fast approaching—to say nothing of having moved his oldest sister, Gracie, into an Austin apartment—he couldn’t afford to take a season off. Truth be known, he was damned near broke. Again. Rationally he knew no amount of the material things he provided for the girls made up for the loss of their parents. But it eased his guilt about not being home for them more.

He wanted them to have the best—not to scrimp or do without. But the expenses just kept mounting. Weddings, college fees, allowances and rent.

Gracie, at twenty-two, had graduated from the University of Texas and had an offer of a good entry-level job, but that meant she needed a nice wardrobe. She wouldn’t be paying her own bills for a while. Caleb was suddenly forced to admit that monthly expenses for keeping the Tanner clan solvent took every penny he made. And according to the team manager, Caleb made a pretty penny, indeed. That was why negotiations had hit a snag.

Hell. Money always slipped through his hands like water through a sieve. Sure, he wore tailormade threads. Sure, he owned a collection of gas hogs and was guilty of giving his dates expensive trinkets. He was a high-profile quarterback. That kind of thing went with the territory. But he should have saved a few bucks. No one knew better than a farmer about saving for droughts or rainy days.

The whole sports world was aware that he’d emerged from dirt-poor fanning roots to end up a star in the NFL. “A melon jockey with magic hands,” was how rural Texas reporters had described his feats with a football at the consolidated high school he’d gone to. There was enough truth to it that his dad had gone out on a limb and mortgaged the farm to ensure his son got a chance to play college ball at & M. The old man enjoyed a one-year return on his sacrifice. Hell of a note.

After college, the Dallas Cowboys had snapped Cale up as relief quarterback. He sent half of his generous salary home. Then, at the peak of his second season, his folks died when their farm truck rolled. That same week, the coach tapped him to lead the team into the playoffs, replacing the regular quarterback, who’d suffered a minor injury. It was a hollow victory, but he’d buried his grief and gotten the job done.

He sat now, twisting the winner’s ring that proved it. He twisted the ring around and around on his finger as he sank under morose memories.

It wasn’t until after the final playoff game—nine years ago now—that he learned county social workers intended to split up his kid sisters and ship them to foster homes. The powers-that-be made it plain they didn’t consider him an appropriate guardian. The court claimed the right to decide, because his parents hadn’t left a will. He damned sure wasn’t going to let strangers take his sisters. He did what had to be done, which included forking over every penny he had to wage a legal battle to keep his family together. It took ten months, but the court finally let his mother’s cousin and her husband move from Illinois to work the farm and raise the three Tanner girls, ages twelve, eleven and ten. Of course he’d covered all the expenses incurred in the move from Illinois.

Settling his family problems cost him more than money. It cost him time. Too much time. Once their regular quarterback recovered, the Cowboys dumped him. After months of running the farm on promises, he finally signed with the New Orleans Sinners.

Until this accident, anyone who knew squat about football agreed that Caleb Tanner was at the top of his game. Sportscasters compared him to Montana and Elway. So no mealymouthed quacks were going to say his career was kaput.

“Just because you graduated from Harvard and Yale,” he bellowed at the departing doctors, “doesn’t make y’all God!” Fighting the fear that gnawed at his gut, Caleb grabbed an empty plastic water pitcher and heaved it across the room.

“Take it easy, Cale.” His agent placed a restraining hand on Caleb’s forearm while the last doctor ducked out.

Caleb shook Leland off. “And you...” He scowled at his agent. “What’s the holdup on my contract? I started the season in good faith.”

“Now, Cale. The money man’s dragging his feet. He wants some kind of assurance he’s not buying a pig in a poke.”

“Then assure him. You tell him I’m starting physical therapy in a couple of days. I’ll be stronger than moonshine before we play Detroit. Tell him that.” Caleb poked a forefinger into the agent’s skinny chest, forcing him to take flight, too.

His hand on the doorknob, Leland ran a skeptical eye over Caleb’s collection of wires and pulleys. “We’ve been associates a long time. I’m telling you, Cale, the chance of signing while you’re in this shape...well, it stinks. I can’t...won’t lie to the man.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Cale’s green eyes fired. “I’m gonna lick this thing.”

“Yeah. For a minute there, I thought... Hell, Cale. A lot of guys retire at thirty-one. You must have a sizable nest egg by now.”

Caleb clenched his hands. The thought of quitting the only work he knew set his heart beating so furiously he was afraid it’d fly clean out of his body. Football and farming were all he’d ever done. If he hadn’t signed the farm over to his uncle and aunt last year...

But he had. He’d deeded them the land. They deserved more for putting their lives on hold to take care of the girls. Gritting his teeth, Cale forced a smile. “Emmitt Smith knows a doc who’s first-rate at getting old bones shipshape. Have Medical Records overnight my X rays. I’m not washed up, Lee. That’s God’s honest truth.”

“Sure, buddy. But I expect we’ll have to wait for the new doc’s report before we go back to the bargaining table. ’Cause the way it stands now, unless they see their money’s buying a sound man, the bastards are saying hasta la vista.”

Stunned by the finality of the notion, Caleb watched the door close. Despair warred with terror. Then a blinding rage welled up from his sandbagged toes. He swept a hand across the surface of his table. Paperbacks, a box of tissues, magazines and a water glass flew, hitting the floor with a satisfying crash.

He regarded the mess. It hadn’t even begun to abolish his gut-deep panic.

Someone rapped on his door. Caleb chose to ignore the intrusion. Leland had probably told a nurse he was in a foul mood. Well, he was. How in hell did they expect a man to feel when he’d just been told his career was over? Dammit, it wasn’t over until he said it was over. And he didn’t think it was asking too much to keep the news of his progress—or lack thereof—quiet. At least until he’d recovered enough to prove he was sound.

The knock sounded again. Louder.

“What do you want?” he thundered when the door opened slightly and a woman, a stranger with a pale face and huge blue eyes, peeked in. She was a bitty thing. If Caleb stood, the top of her shiny dark hair wouldn’t hit him midchest. He ground his teeth. “You’ve landed in the wrong room, Pocahontas.” As the woman eased through the opening, she flipped an ebony braid as thick as his wrist over a slim shoulder, facing him head-on, keeping both hands out of sight behind her back. Hiding a needle, probably. Forsythe must have ordered a shot to calm him.

“You can take that syringe and stab it into some other poor slob’s backside.”

As she noted the debris scattered on the floor, Crystal thought at least he hadn’t disappointed her expectations. It was a shame Skipper couldn’t see his idol in the throes of a tantrum.

“I’m not a nurse.” She met the man’s stormy eyes.

“No? Then who in hell are you?”

“I’m, ah, Crystal Jardin. From WDIX-TV,” she said on a flash of brilliance. After all, what football jock didn’t roll over and salivate at the prospect of gaining a little media attention? Crystal suspected he’d offer his autograph more readily if he figured he’d get something in return. Something he’d consider more substantial than the adulation of an ailing child. But if Tanner didn’t act too arrogant, she might ask the WDIX sports director to send a reporter and a cameraman. That should make the man happy.

Busy congratulating herself on her cleverness, she was slow to realize Tanner wasn’t reacting as she’d anticipated. Instead, his brows drew together over smoking eyes and he bellowed, “Vultures. Bloodsuckers! Do I have to climb off this bed and throw you out, too?”

Then he lunged. Pulleys spun wildly, unexpectedly snapping a cord. The flying hook knocked over an infusion stand that held an empty N-drip container. The monitor mounted above his headboard flashed like a pinball machine. As he all but fell out of bed, a noisy alarm began to bleat in the entryway..

“Please stop!” she begged. “Lie still.” Football forgotten, she charged forward. The sound of crunching glass-and the strangled epitaphs coming from the man who now dangled precariously—sent her into full retreat again. “Help!” she called, with her head stuck out into the corridor. “We need a nurse!”

Two nurses tore down the hall at a dead run. Crystal’s last look at Skip’s hero, after one nurse thrust her aside, was of a man writhing in pain.

Shaken, Crystal felt partially. to blame, although she’d done nothing to warrant his outburst. He’d obviously been confused, thinking she was a nurse. Hurrying back to the children’s ward, she caught a glimpse of herself in a window. He could have mistaken her summery white pants and loose-fitting blue tunic for a uniform.

Suddenly she smiled. So big tough Caleb Tanner was scared of a needle? He’d seen her white pants, thought nurse-with-a-needle and gone ballistic. It did make him more human, she decided, gazing at the football she still gripped.

The problem was, how did she tell the boys that she’d come back empty-handed? At least Tanner’s fear of needles was safe with her. She’d never tarnish his image with boys who’d already been let down by too many male role models.