Unwrapping Hope Page 10

  And those men ran.

  SPENCE SAT IN HIS FATHER’S office with his eyes closed. With one finger, he rubbed the area starting at the bridge of his nose up to his hairline and back down. The kneading did nothing to relieve the headache that had persisted since learning of Gil’s embezzlement.

  In the seat across from him, an officer from the Riverport Police Department recounted the outcome of their investigation into Gil Malone’s disappearance two days ago and the blank invoice Roslyn had found.

  “We’ve inquired into the name on the invoice”—the policeman consulted a small notepad—“this R. B. Connors and Company. As far as we can tell, there’s no such business anywhere in the state. We also checked banks within fifty miles of Riverport.”

  Spence sat up. He hadn’t thought about bank accounts. “What did you find?”

  With the expansive grin, the officer’s teeth showed for the first time under his mustache. “We found an account for the company at a Peru bank. I’ve sent a man there with the photo we received from Gilbert Malone’s wife. He’ll be back tonight and will tell us all we need to know about the account holder and any deposits or withdrawals.”

  After scouring the account books and files, the clerks had uncovered four invoices from the wholesaler that totaled $165 in merchandise—small amounts that wouldn’t attract attention.

  None of their records showed any such merchandise sold or in inventory. They were phantom goods that pointed to theft through falsified invoices prepared and approved by Gil. Spence’s friend not only stole from the store, he sat across from Spence and lied through his teeth.

  The Second asked, “You have no leads on Malone’s whereabouts?”

  “No, sir. We’re making inquiries.”

  Losing less than two hundred dollars would not ruin the Newlands, but the ashes of the burned papers bothered Spence. Were they all the same forms, or were there other fraudulent companies set up to steal from the store? Companies they still knew nothing about?

  Worse, how long would it have gone on if Gil hadn’t gotten scared?

  IF IT TURNED OUT PHOEBE was wrong about seeing Gil Malone in the alley, so be it, because if she said nothing, she chanced his getting away.

  While waiting at the elevator, she brushed from her eyes a lock of hair loosened from its pins. The move revealed Mary Alice Davidson walking toward her, flaunting a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Langford.”

  “Good afternoon, Miss Davidson. I prefer Mrs. Crain.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Phoebe tapped her toe on the floor, as though the action would hasten the arrival of the elevator and a quick getaway.

  Mary Alice laid a hand on Phoebe’s arm. “I should have provided you with my condolences the other night.”

  Condolences? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “On the loss of your daughter’s father, of course.”

  The loss of her daughter’s father? An odd way to state it and one that prickled the flesh on Phoebe’s arms. She used the same description for Douglas. “Thank you, but that was a long time ago.”

  “I’ve heard one never gets over such a tragedy. For instance, we know of parents in St. Louis who lost a son, a wife her husband, and children their father. Douglas died almost six years ago, and Mr. Alder says his daughter-in-law, my friend Helen, has never gotten over her husband’s death.”

  Phoebe locked her knees to keep from collapsing. She didn’t dare look away, even though the satisfaction in Mary Alice’s expression affirmed her pleasure over having hit her mark. Jealousy truly had warped the woman’s mind.

  “Does Spence know your daughter is a—”

  “Don’t say it!” Phoebe’s shout used up the rest of the oxygen in her lungs. She drew in a deep and shuddering breath.

  Mary Alice stepped closer. “Did you really think Helen Alder didn’t know about you and her husband?”

  The elevator door opened and Spence stepped out. His arched brows and stiff posture confirmed that he had heard. Everything.

  Phoebe’s muscles ached with the effort to remain where she stood and not run away. She had done more than enough running over the years. It was time to face her past.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Hello, Spence.”

  He ignored Mary Alice and studied Phoebe. The way she stood hunched and partially turned away added credence to what he’d overheard while descending in the cage—to what a number of Newland’s customers had probably heard.

  First, he’d been wrong about Gil. Now he learned Phoebe had a disreputable past. The headache raged on.

  Mary Alice batted sympathetic eyelids at him. “I’m so sorry you heard that, Spence.”

  Right.

  “I should go.” Her task complete, she escaped the devastation she’d wrought.

  Three women paused on the nearby staircase to take in the show. Spence grasped Phoebe’s arm and dragged her toward the back of the store and away from gawkers—witnesses to her shame. He’d expected a fight from her but didn’t get one.

  Once they were outside, he led her at a slower pace down the street and toward the river. Neither of them said a word as they paused on the bank and watched water flow past a thin layer of ice along the edge.

  A train whistle wailed. The sound enhanced the fire in his head but brought Maura to mind. What that child would face through the fiendish actions of her parents and Mary Alice!

  “Why a train?”

  “What?”

  “Why would you tell your daughter a father would arrive on a train?”

  In a voice barely audible, she said, “Maura asked over and over about where fathers came from. I grew impatient with her questions and told her trains were where princes and princesses met. It was the first thing that occurred to me, because it’s how I met her father. It sounds silly, but...”

  “I suppose you think it was a happy memory.” How could a relationship with a married man be happy? It went against everything Spence believed in.

  “There is little happiness in that memory. I wish I had never boarded that train. I wish I’d never met Douglas.” She covered her face and her shoulders heaved several times, as though she tried to contain her emotions. Then she dropped her arms to her sides. “That isn’t true. If I had never met him, I wouldn’t have Maura, and she’s the joy of my life.”

  Spence had walked out of the store without an overcoat, and the cold penetrated his suit. As much as he wanted to go back inside, he wanted more to hear her account of what had happened. He wanted to believe he hadn’t been as wrong about her as he had Gil.

  “It won’t be long before Mary Alice’s story will be common knowledge, and your daughter will suffer. What will you tell her?”

  Phoebe glared at him. “Don’t you really want me to tell you Mary Alice lied?”

  “I know she didn’t lie. I saw it on your face.” He fought to control his frustration. “I’m concerned about Maura. What will you tell her about her father?”

  “I will tell her the truth.” Her gaze bore into him. “I was never married to Douglas.”

  Her eyes expanded like a fist opening after it punched him in the gut.

  Spence knew it was coming, pushed her into admitting it, but yes, he had wished he was mistaken in what he’d heard or that Mary Alice had lied.

  Apparently not.

  PHOEBE HAD LONGED TO keep her sin—though unintentional—forever between herself, her mother, and God.

  She waited for Spence’s condemnation, but he only stared at her. She whispered, “Don’t look at me that way.”

  He turned his head and watched the river again, his profile bold, chin strong. “What you said... It caught me by surprise.”

  Phoebe set her jaw. She had asked forgiveness for her part. Why should she continue to go through life ashamed when her fault was in trusting that a man had integrity? Why should she let Spence think the worst of her without explanation?

  “When I was sev
enteen, I traveled by train for a performance. With few unoccupied seats in the car, Douglas asked to sit next me. We talked the entire trip.” Despite the desire to remain detached from the memories of a first love, her voice drifted into a mellow, wistful tone. “He was charming, funny, handsome. We continued to see one another, and after two months, we said our vows before a judge.”

  “But you said...”

  “He tricked me into believing we were married.”

  A low moan escaped Spence’s throat.

  “We moved into a comfortable house a few miles outside of St. Louis. Even though he was gone quite often, I was a happy bride. The day I learned about Maura, I couldn’t wait to tell him.” Phoebe wiped hot tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “He was furious and called me names I never dreamed a man would say to me. That’s when he told me we weren’t legally married. ‘How can we be,’ he said, ‘when I’m already married?’”

  She waited for Spence to say something. Anything. When he didn’t, she swallowed as if a block of ice had lodged in her throat. “After he stomped out the door, I didn’t know what to do, so I followed him into the city. That’s when I learned he spoke the truth. I saw his wife. I saw two small children.”

  Spence still stood rigid, not responding. Could he not accept her innocence? Could he not see the pain she had experienced?

  “I was young and thought he was the sun, moon, and stars rolled up in one glorious person.” Then the clouds rolled in and obscured her view of romantic love. “In my inexperience with men, I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

  He turned cold eyes on her. Gone was the smile she’d become accustomed to seeing. “After the way he treated you, you continue to call yourself Mrs. Crain.”

  She rubbed her arms. “Crain was the name on our marriage certificate—as false as everything else. What was I supposed to do to protect my child?”

  “You never confronted him? Publicly shamed him?”

  “And forever brand my daughter with a contemptible label?”

  With that, he lost the hostility and hung his head. “You’re right. Maura doesn’t deserve the shame.”

  And she did?

  “Is he really dead?”

  Phoebe nodded. “A riding accident three weeks before Maura was born. I read it in the newspaper.”

  He stood in silence for a moment before asking, “Why didn’t you return to performing?”

  “I did the other night, remember? Look what happened.” She scoffed at her foolishness in thinking she could go back to her career. “I’ve scraped by all this time terrified of someone discovering the truth. Because I thought I could resume my old life, my daughter will suffer. My mother will suffer.”

  Spence had called her as frosty as a windowpane, and with good reason. She felt no less frosty now. “How could someone like you understand what it’s like to lose everything to a young man with the resources and willingness to break a woman’s heart as a prank? Douglas wasn’t the only one of his friends who found it amusing to turn a woman’s world upside down and inside out. It was a game they played.”

  Spence stepped back as if she had slapped him. “That’s why you were cold toward me. Even after these past weeks, you saw no difference in us?”

  “Douglas treated me like a princess...until he’d finished with me.”

  “One of the things drummed into me from an early age is that all women are worthy of respect and courteous treatment. I’ve taken that teaching to heart. I am nothing”—his hand cut through the air—“like the man who deceived you.”

  Long, powerful strides carried him away.

  Phoebe remained at the river, December’s cold chilling the dampness on her face. Visions of all Spence had done for her rolled through her mind: driving her to the orphanage, building the dollhouse, providing her with a job, speaking with sensitivity to Maura. Douglas wouldn’t have hesitated to do those things if he thought it was to his advantage.

  What made Spencer Newland the Third different?

  Somehow, he had broken through her barrier of distrust. Somehow, he was different. She believed it, yet she couldn’t find the voice to assure him of her change of heart until he was gone.

  “I know you’re nothing like Douglas.” The whispered response drifted away on the water’s current.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Spence rubbed the ache in his forehead and dropped the newspaper onto his desk. “There will be no new stores.”

  His father sat in the chair across from Spence’s desk, one leg over the other, his calm expression a contrast to Spence’s inner turmoil. “Whether or not Mrs. Crain actually saw Malone, the police know he opened the bank account in Peru. They’ll track him down, along with his partner.”

  “That means an arrest, a trial, and more notoriety. It was bad enough to read of the embezzlement this morning.”

  “You’re making too much of this.”

  “Father, I haven’t given up on Clifton Lark, but if the Chicago papers pick up this story, what chance do we have at a partnership with him or anyone else?”

  “Spence—”

  “Between Gil and Phoebe, I’ve made mistakes and endangered the reputation of Newland’s. How can you trust me not to lose everything you and Grandfather worked so hard to attain?” He muttered, “All this does is prove Grandfather right.”

  His father’s graying eyebrows punctuated his bewilderment. “Prove him right about what?”

  Spence had gone a dozen years keeping the frustration to himself and shouldn’t have said anything. Then again, it might be time to get it out in the open. “Years ago, I overheard him talking to you about my future. He said you should find someone else to run our businesses. He doubted I’d be strong enough.”

  What if his sister married Pittman? Spence liked Wallace but couldn’t see the young man in charge of Newland’s interests.

  His father sat deep in thought before his shoulders surged with a drawn-out sigh. “It’s true that the long-term future of our assets concerned my father, but the danger to you worried him more. He was afraid the responsibility would put an additional strain on your health as an adult.

  “What you overheard was a suggestion that we prepare for the possibility of a day when someone outside the family would have control. Later, he regretted reacting on emotion, and the idea that you might never be at the helm broke his heart.”

  Spence couldn’t count how often, as a lonely child lying in bed with a fever, headache, or other malady, his family had prayed over his health. He shut his eyes and conjured scene after scene. One man occupied those images more than anyone else—the man who entertained him, prayed with him and for him, laughed with him.

  “Son, he often talked about your intelligence, your intuitiveness, and your compassion for the suffering of others. He found those to be gifts far more commendable than your ability to run a business. I wish he had lived to see the strong and dependable man you’ve become.”

  It was though his grandfather’s voice broke through a wad of cotton stuffing Spence’s ears. Had he overreacted all these years? Had his young mind blown up the little bit he’d heard and let it govern his present thoughts and actions?

  Spence leaned back in his chair, seeing his grandfather sitting in his room, joking and praying, cheering up a miserable little boy. Why had he allowed his mind to take one memory as truth and distort the rest? How had he come to resent the man as much as he loved him? “I should have known better. I spent years believing we’d let each other down on the basis of one overheard fragment of conversation.”

  “You have never been a disappointment to any of us.”

  A slight smile brightened Spence’s dreary deliberations...for a few seconds. “None of what’s been said changes the fact that I’ve made mistakes that could cost us dearly.”

  His father frowned. “Is this still about Gil Malone, or does it have more to do with Mrs. Crain?”

  “Both, I suppose. Do you think Lark will want to have his name associated with two s
candals?”

  “You told me Mrs. Crain wasn’t at fault. That she’d been duped into thinking her marriage was real. I thought you accepted her story.”

  “I did. For what that man did to Phoebe and Maura, if he weren’t dead already, Father, I’d be tempted to pummel him until he wished he were.”

  “It sounds as if there’s more to your feelings in the matter than anxiety over the store. For what it’s worth, our receipts are up by eight percent on the days she’s here. I’d like to see her continue to play on a regular basis.”

  “That was before Mary Alice slashed her reputation. Aren’t you afraid of the impact of Phoebe’s story on our customers?”

  His father leaned forward in his seat. “What’s really bothering you?”

  Spence ran the palm of his hand down his mustache. The bristly stubble under his fingertips reminded him he hadn’t shaved this morning and of how little sleep he’d gotten after what happened with Phoebe. “She should have told me.”

  “Put yourself in her place, son. Why would she tell you her deepest and darkest secret? You’re not courting. You’re not engaged.”

  “I’ve tried to be her friend, but she sees me as another spoiled son of a wealthy man. As far she’s concerned, I’m not someone to be trusted with her emotions.” He sank back in the chair and mumbled, “Lately, nothing has gone as I’ve planned it.”

  “Listen to yourself. Your plans. Your efforts. Your failure. If you were to ask me, Spence, there’s been a greater miscommunication in your life than getting the wrong impression from your grandfather’s words.” The Second rose from his seat and paused at the door. “The First wasn’t any more perfect than you or the rest of us, but do you remember what he said kept him humble, kept him going? Whenever he felt as though everything good in his life had resulted from his own efforts, he would read Second Corinthians twelve.”

  How well Spence remembered hearing that chapter from his grandfather.

  “When was the last time you read those verses?”