Софи Райан - No Escape Claws

I nodded. I knew what that meant.

Liz never did show up. “Do you need a ride?” I asked Avery at the end of the day.

“No,” she said as she pulled the vacuum out from under the stairs.

“Is your grandmother coming to get you?”

“No,” she said again.

Okay. I needed to stop asking yes-or-no questions. “How are you planning on getting home, then?” I asked, grabbing the attachment for the vacuum.

“I’m not going home.”

At the rate the conversation was happening, neither was I. Then I realized she had her earbuds in. I reached over and pulled one out of her ear.

She frowned.

“Where are you going and how are you getting there?” I wrapped my fingers around the wireless earpiece so she couldn’t snatch it back.

Avery sighed. “I’m going to the library for the Jonathan Demme film festival. Greg is meeting me here and we’re walking. We’re going to McNamara’s for supper.” She made a point of enunciating each word like I was very young or very old.

I handed her back the earbud and started for the stairs.

“Sarah,” she said.

I turned around. “Thank you for what you did for Greg and his family.”

“I’m glad you’re his friend,” I said.

She smiled then. “Yeah, me, too.”

Liz called after supper. I brought her up to date on what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“Michael deserves a happy ending,” she said. “He’s a quality person. In fact, I told him that.”

“Wait a minute. You talked to him?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s why I was gone all day. I went to the prison to talk to him. There were a couple of questions I wanted to ask him about the summer he worked for the foundation.”

“Did you get the answers you were looking for?” I asked.

“Yes I did,” she said. “And I have a favor to ask you.”

“Anything,” I said. I propped my feet on the edge of the coffee table. Elvis jumped onto my lap. I started to stroke his fur.

“I’m going to see Wilson tomorrow to tell him what I’ve learned about Marie. Will you come with me?”

“Of course I will. We make a pretty good team, you know.”

“That we do, pretty girl,” she said.

We agreed to meet at nine thirty the next morning at the foundation’s offices and said good night.

I got to Liz’s office about twenty-five minutes after nine. I was surprised to find Jane Evans there as well. She looked just as surprised to see me. “You’re going to Liz’s meeting with Wilson?” she said.

“I am,” I said. Liz was at her desk, looking through some papers.

“I hope he’ll find a little more enthusiasm for this book project.”

So Liz hadn’t told Jane what we’d learned. She’d be finding out soon enough.

I saw Liz glance at the gold watch on her left arm. She turned and looked at me. “Let’s get this show on the road, toots,” she said.

I followed her down the hall. The door to the end office was partly open. Liz knocked and didn’t wait to be invited in.

Wilson Emmerson’s office was full of rich colors and dark wood. The walls were painted a buttery yellow. An oriental rug in burgundy, cream and gold covered the center of the floor. Gleaming walnut bookshelves filled the end wall. To the right were his framed diplomas and a round, wooden wall clock. Underneath them was a small cabinet flanked by two armless chairs upholstered in a houndstooth fabric. The open desk was set slightly left of center. Everything about the room said money, which I suspected was the intended message. I thought how different Wilson was from Liz. He did have that crown prince entitled attitude about him.

Wilson was seated in a chocolate-brown leather chair behind the desk and talking to someone on the phone. He glanced up at his sister but didn’t end the conversation.

I stood just at the edge of the carpet while she walked over to the desk. I knew what was coming. Liz reached over and took the phone right out of his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said sweetly to whomever he’d been talking to. “Wilson’s going to have to call you back.” She ended the call and set the phone on the edge of the desk.

“Why did you do that?” he said.

“Because we have a meeting at nine thirty and it’s nine thirty,” she said.

Wilson leaned sideways and gave me a tight smile. “Hello, Sarah,” he said.

I smiled back. “Good morning.”

He turned back to Liz. “If this is about this book project of yours, I haven’t changed my mind. I just don’t see the point.”

I noticed he hadn’t offered either of us a seat.

Liz looked over her shoulder at me. “Sarah, would you get me a chair, please?” she said, indicating the two under the clock.

I picked one up and set it in front of Wilson’s desk.

“Those chairs are there for a reason,” he said, his voice laced with annoyance.

“I don’t doubt that they are.” Liz smoothed her skirt and sat down. I stood just behind her. She was in full Warrior Princess mode, which meant I was her trusty sidekick. She folded her hands in her lap. “There is no book, Wilson,” she said.

“Well, I’m glad you listened to me for once,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He wore a fog gray sweater over a white shirt. His clothes were no more expensive than anything Liz wore, I was guessing, so why did he seem so pretentious?

“You’re giving yourself too much credit,” she said. “There never was a book.”

A frown creased his forehead. “What are you talking about? You’ve been working on the damn thing for weeks.”

Liz crossed one leg over the other. She was wearing a pair of red peep-toe slingbacks that had to be at least three inches high. “No, I just told you that was what I was doing. What I was really doing was trying to figure out who framed Rob Andrews.”

For a moment Wilson didn’t so much as blink. He just stared across the desk at Liz. “Rob Andrews?” he finally sputtered. “He stole money from the foundation. No one framed him.”

“Did you know Marie kept two sets of minutes from the board meetings?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand.

“You know how exacting she was, how meticulous. She couldn’t just throw away the original minutes or her notes. That’s not who she was. No matter what you told her to do.”

My heart began to pound in my chest so loudly I wasn’t sure I’d heard Liz’s last words correctly.

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” Wilson said.

Liz adjusted the scarf at her neck. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m just stating the facts. Marie was working under your instructions. You stole money from the foundation. You’re the embezzler. You set up Rob Andrews but you got Marie to do your dirty work just in case. I know you were having an affair.” Her tone was conversational, unemotional, as though she were discussing the weather or asking for a refill for her tea.

“You’re getting old and senile, sister dear,” he said.

“And you didn’t cover your trail nearly as well as you think.” She looked at him for a moment. “Mama should have made you wash a few dishes,” she said. It was the first spark of anger I’d seen from her. She shifted in her seat. “Sarah would you open the door, please?”

I nodded, crossed the rug and opened the office door. Two police officers and the prosecuting attorney were waiting there. Michelle was standing off to one side in the hallway.

“The police have a lot of questions for you,” Liz said. She got to her feet and walked out of the office. I followed. We stood next to Michelle as Wilson Emmerson was led away. Unshed tears shone in Michelle’s eyes.

Liz turned to her. “I am profoundly sorry. I know it doesn’t fix things, but I will use every resource at my disposal to make sure everyone knows that Rob Andrews was not a thief.”