Leigh Michaels - The Playboy Assignment

The Dearborn Museum, named for the frontier fort which occupied what later became the city of Chicago, had been one of Tryad’s first clients. In fact, the tiny public relations firm and the struggling art museum had come to life at about the same time, both bravely taking on the challenge of competing with far larger and more established organizations.

Perhaps that similarity was the reason Susannah had so quickly taken the Dearborn to her heart. At any rate, Kit and Alison had been as delighted to leave the museum to her as Susannah was to take it on.

For three years now, she’d worked with the staff—which actually meant, of course, that she worked with Pierce Reynolds, the director. And she’d been as thrilled as anyone when Pierce had first made contact with Cyrus Albrecht and learned that the old man was considering the future of the collection he’d so painstakingly built.

Susannah paid the cabbie and walked around the warehouse to the unmarked back entrance. She pressed the intercom button and gave her name, and a moment later a buzzer sounded and the lock released. She frowned a little as she climbed the narrow steps to the museum floor, wondering if Pierce had considered the need for additional security. Though the Dearborn’s present collection wasn’t shabby, it also wasn’t the sort to draw the attention of thieves. But the Albrecht pieces would be different...if, of course, the Dearborn ever got them.

Pierce was in his office, a small, shabby, industrial-green room to one side of the stairwell, and the moment Susannah saw him she knew she didn’t have to be the one to break the news. His blond hair, normally so neat it almost looked as if it had been painted on, was wildly disarranged. Even more unusual, his tie was at an angle, and the collar of his shirt curled up at the back.

“You look almost like one of your artist friends.” She dropped into the rickety chair beside his desk. “The Bohemian kind who think that even owning a mirror is narcissistic.”

Pierce’s hand went automatically to his hair, even as he said, “That’s not funny, Susannah.”

“I know. I saw the newspaper.” She hesitated. “It was a shock to you, too, obviously.”

“Shock is hardly the word. Nuclear attack is more like it.” Pierce sank into his chair and rubbed his temples.

Susannah’s heart had dropped to her toes. “He hadn’t finished the will?”

Pierce shook his head. “If I’d only pushed a little harder! He was talking about the details last week when I saw him, and if I’d urged him to stop talking and get on with it—”

“If you’d pressed, he might have backed out altogether.”

“I suppose so. But if I could have just made him see that the fine points could be adjusted anytime—”

Susannah had stopped listening. The fact that they had lost the collection was settling cold and hard in the pit of her stomach. Only now that the prize had been snatched away did she realize how much she had come to count on it. For months she’d been tentatively making her plans around the Albrecht collection. The announcement would be a boost to public recognition of the museum. The visitor list would increase dramatically, and fund-raising would be a snap.

Of course, she admitted, not all of her motives were so entirely selfless as those. The renown would make her job instantly easier. And part of the glory of the museum’s success would reflect on Tryad, and therefore on Susannah...

She sighed. Back to the drawing board, she thought.

“It was odd,” Pierce said. “The way Cyrus was behaving last week, I mean. I didn’t realize it at the time, but—”

“Maybe he was already feeling ill?”

“No, that’s not it at all. It was like he was teasing me, holding something back.”

Possible, Susannah thought. And it was equally possible that Pierce’s perceptions were being colored by twenty-twenty hindsight. “Cyrus was a world-class wheeler and dealer. Perhaps he wanted you to offer him something else, something extra, in return for the collection.”

“Then why didn’t he just ask? Anyway, what else could he have wanted?”

Susannah shrugged. “More power to influence the museum’s future, perhaps.”

“We’d already offered him a seat on the board.”

“I know. Or maybe he was just playing out the game, for the fun of it and the attention it got him. He certainly liked having everybody dancing attendance on him.”

“And he waited just a little too long to get down to business?” Suddenly Pierce’s face brightened. “You don’t suppose Cyrus made that will anyway, do you? Maybe he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want the attention to stop.”

Susannah had her doubts, but this was the first positive note Pierce had expressed, and she thought it was hardly the time to discourage him. At any rate, before she’d gathered her thoughts, he’d picked up the telephone and was fumbling through his wallet. “Cyrus’s attorney—what was his name? I’ve got his card in here somewhere...”

The business card he eventually produced had once been crisp and elegant, Susannah was certain. Now it was dog-eared, the edges frayed and the type rubbed and blurred—but not so damaged that Pierce couldn’t read the phone number.

“I don’t think he can tell you anything,” she said as he dialed. “What a client puts in his will is a confidential matter.”

“I’m not going to ask what’s in the will, just whether Cyrus made any changes recently.” He spoke into the phone. “Pierce Reynolds calling for Mr. Joseph Brewster, please.”

The way Pierce’s voice deepened whenever he wanted to impress someone had never failed to amuse Susannah, and even now a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She wondered if Pierce knew what he was doing. Probably not, she decided; the habit could well be so ingrained he was no longer aware of it.

As Pierce asked his question, he began to tap a pencil on his desk blotter at even intervals, and by the time he put the telephone down the steady rhythm had almost driven Susannah mad. She took one look at his glum face and forgot the tapping. “I told you he wouldn’t answer the question.”

“Oh, he answered.” Pierce tossed the pencil aside. “Cyrus hasn’t changed his will in years.”

Susannah sighed. “I guess that’s that.”

“Unless he went to some other attorney, of course.”

“Come on, Pierce—how likely is that? Maybe we should look on the positive side of this whole thing.” Susannah tried to laugh, with little success. “With all those valuable paintings, and the publicity we expected to get, security would have become a massive problem. We’d have been begging for handouts in the street just to pay guards.”

Pierce didn’t hesitate. “We wouldn’t have any trouble fund-raising for security.”

Didn’t the man have any sense of humor? “Okay, so it was a bad joke. But you may as well accept the facts.”

“And if things had gone right we wouldn’t have had to worry about securing this place at all.”

Susannah frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Pierce looked a bit shamefaced. “But—oh, what difference does it make now? I’d hoped that Cyrus would give his house to the museum, too.”

Susannah had never seen Cyrus’s home, but Pierce had told her about the huge old Queen Anne house, featuring all the grandeur of the high Victorian style, furnished with solid old walnut and located on a half-block square lot in one of Chicago’s oldest and finest suburbs.

“And move the present collection there?” She shook her head. “It certainly makes our current troubles with access for the handicapped look like peanuts.”

Pierce dismissed the problem with a wave of the hand. “Cyrus installed an elevator just last year.”