Stranger on the Shore Read online

  It also meant Griff needed to be extra careful of Pierce. It was unlikely he was going to be able to get on Pierce’s good side, assuming Pierce had such a thing, but it would be wise to avoid getting on Pierce’s bad side.

  “These are really good,” Griff told Jarrett. He hastily wiped at his chin with a linen napkin. “I’ve been missing out.”

  “Wonderful. Now you have a new favorite.” Jarrett beamed. It was hard not to like him. There was something warm and quizzical and grandfatherly about Jarrett. But Griff reminded himself that in his day Jarrett had also been a ruthless and cutthroat businessman.

  Pierce said abruptly, “Jarrett believes you have some legal questions for me.” He sat on the sofa across from Griff, exuding an almost disconcerting virility. How could someone that groomed—Griff wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Pierce got pedicures or even body waxes—seem so...masculine? Not just masculine. Powerful. It wasn’t the expensive clothes or air of entitlement. It wasn’t even necessarily communicated by the way Pierce held himself or his body language, because at the moment he was hunched over the table trying not to drip au jus on his immaculate crotch. Despite the heavy aftershave and the buffed nails and the handmade shoes, Pierce seemed more intensely male than any guy Griff knew.

  It was distracting.

  Which was annoying.

  Did Pierce know the effect he had on others? Did women routinely throw themselves in his path? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Actually he didn’t wear any rings, and he seemed to Griff like the type who would wear his big showy Harvard law school ring. Maybe he hadn’t gone to Harvard. Maybe he was divorced. Yes, Griff could easily imagine Pierce with a string of beautiful, discarded exes. No one ever being quite good enough for Pierce.

  “No?” Pierce asked, and Griff realized he’d been sitting there scowling across the table.

  He snapped out of his preoccupation. “Did you go to Harvard?”

  Pierce’s brows drew together—his usual expression around Griff. “Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Griff hadn’t meant to ask that, it had just popped out. “I just—”

  “Believe me, any legal questions you’ve got, I can answer,” Pierce said.

  Jarrett smoothly intervened. “Pierce is the son of my oldest and closest friend. Tommy Mather was also my legal advisor and Pierce took over the practice when Tommy retired. We have every confidence in Pierce. You can speak freely, ask him whatever you like.” Jarrett smiled at Pierce and then Griff.

  “I know that as your eldest son, Matthew was your heir,” Griff said to Jarrett. “And I know Brian was Matthew’s heir. Since Matthew did not survive to inherit, does that mean your estate goes to Marcus as the next son?”

  “What do you think this is, Downton Abbey?” Pierce asked.

  This time the glance Jarrett directed at Pierce was not as warm. “It’s a reasonable question.” To Griff he said, “When I made Matthew my heir I was following the precedent set by my father and his father before him, and yes, that precedent was based on English laws of inheritance. Winden House was built in an era when this country’s wealthy aped the English aristocracy. It was very common for the sons and daughters of the wealthy to head for England and try to marry into the nobility. In fact, two of the great ladies of this house were of English ancestry.”

  Jarrett paused to sip his beer. Griff had got that wrong—his assumption that people like the Arlingtons would never deign to drink anything but cocktails in crystal glasses. Jarrett drank his Jever with evident gusto.

  Griff felt Pierce staring at him, but he resisted meeting that challenge. He was too aware of Pierce. It made him feel on defense. It was disturbing to be so acutely conscious of someone he didn’t even like. Maybe it was Pierce’s suit. Griff had never seen a man outside of GQ magazine wear a suit that tight. It wasn’t tacky, but that kind of tailoring accentuated Pierce’s broad shoulders, trim torso, muscular legs, narrow hips. It just seemed more sexy than a lawyer should dress.

  “After Matthew...” Jarrett paused infinitesimally before continuing briskly, “Both Muriel and Marcus felt they should be my legitimate heirs, Muriel as my eldest child and Marcus as my remaining son. They both made good cases, but ultimately I decided that the precedent for the entire estate going to the eldest male child was outdated, and that it made sense to divide everything between my three remaining children. With one provision. Pierce can give you the legalese.” He nodded to Pierce.

  Pierce said, “Skipping the legalese for a moment, what the provision amounts to is that if Brian does turn up alive, the new will is null and void. Everything reverts to the original will.”

  “Provided I’m still alive and kicking,” Jarrett put in.

  Pierce assented. “Provided the estate is not already in probate.”

  So much for the precedent of the entire estate going to the eldest male child being outdated. “Is that commonly known?” Griff asked.

  “Commonly known? No,” Jarrett said. “My children know the terms of my will, of course. Is that what you mean?”

  Not exactly, although that was part of the question. He couldn’t forget the theory that Johnson had had a partner, that the kidnapping had been an inside job. As far as Griff could see there had been no motive for anyone within the family to get rid of Brian, because not only could no one predict Matthew’s untimely death, but there was no guarantee that Matthew and Gemma would not have other children.

  Or was there? He made a mental note to pursue that line of inquiry. Also Matthew and Gemma had died in a boating accident. Was there any doubt their deaths had not resulted from an accident? It was an interesting question, but not one he felt he could pose with Jarrett sitting right there.

  He asked instead, “What happens if by some miracle Brian did show up after the will was in probate?”

  “That would be a miracle all right.” That earned Pierce another of those rare frowns from Jarrett. Pierce pushed his empty plate from the edge of the table, flipped his tie back into place, and said, “It depends.” He launched into a dry—deliberately dry, Griff suspected—explanation of inheritance laws and inheritance taxes.

  The gist seemed to be that if Brian showed up once the will was in probate, the estate would be re-divided four ways. If Brian showed up after the estate had been distributed, Brian would receive a cut of whatever assets remained.

  “That’s the basic idea,” Pierce said. “The fundamental principle underlying the revised will is one of fairness. Is it realistic? In practice there would be challenges, appeals, suits and countersuits. The estate would be tied up in court for decades.” The glance he gave Jarrett was apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I’ve seen it happen again and again.”

  “I don’t believe that would be the case here,” Jarrett said. He seemed confident, but Griff sided with Pierce on that one. He too had on-the-job-experience with how the death of a loved one and the subsequent inheritance of property—even when the property amounted to nothing more than a pile of junk with sentimental significance—could turn otherwise fair-minded and sensible people into grasping, avaricious strangers.

  “I hope this doesn’t seem like an inappropriate question, but what do your children live on now?” Griff was pretty sure the answer was Jarrett.

  “They have trust funds from their mother. As you’ve no doubt surmised they all use Winden House as their home base, though Michaela lives primarily at the house in San Francisco.”

  “They don’t have jobs?” Griff asked.

  Pierce made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh.

  “I don’t believe any of my children have what you would consider a real job, my boy,” Jarrett said solemnly, but with a gleam of amusement in his blue eyes. “Muriel has her charity work, Michaela is a painter, or so she informs us. Her husband owns a chain of popula
r eateries in San Francisco. Marcus...”

  Griff waited, but Jarrett didn’t finish the thought. The Arlington riches were Old Money—at least what was now considered Old Money—acquired through the happy fusion of steel and railroads. Steel, railroads and marrying the right women. All but one of the Arlington brides had brought her own fortune, and the family remained among the wealthiest in America, though no longer ranked in the top ten. Not even in the top twenty, but then these days neither were the Vanderbilts or the Rockefellers.

  The exception to the bring-your-own-fortune rule was Gemma Watterson who had been an art student when Matthew Arlington met and fell in love with her.

  “What about your granddaughter Chloe?”

  Jarrett looked at Pierce who said, “Chloe will eventually inherit through her mother. And of course she has a trust fund.”

  Of course. Didn’t everybody?

  Griff said to Jarrett, “Were you surprised when Odell Johnson was arrested?”

  “Yes.” Jarrett added, “But I would have been surprised whoever had been arrested. It’s still unbelievable to me that anyone could do such a terrible, terrible thing. Brian was a child. He was a delight. Every day of his little life was a gift.” Jarrett’s face quivered with quickly repressed emotion. “Of course being his grandfather I was bound to think he was an extraordinary child, but he was truly...irreplaceable.”

  All children were, weren’t they? At least to their own families. Griff almost missed Jarrett’s next words.

  “He was a friendly, outgoing child. Completely trusting. Much like Gemma. I think that’s part of why she couldn’t stop blaming herself. I think she felt she should have taught him to be more cautious, more wary.”

  “So Brian might not have struggled or screamed when Johnson carried him out of his room that night? Assuming Brian was awake when he was taken?”

  “He knew Johnson, so he might have gone with him willingly. Brian loved cars, which is normal enough at that age, and Johnson used to let Brian sit in the front seat of the Rolls when he washed it. I think Johnson could have lured Brian away very easily, but what I don’t understand, what I will never understand is why Johnson would...would not return Brian to us after he received the ransom. He was not a cruel man. I think he was even fond of Brian.”

  “That could have been an act,” Pierce said. “Johnson could have planned the kidnapping from the beginning. His whole purpose in taking a job as chauffeur might have been to familiarize himself with the house and grounds, and build up some kind of rapport with Brian.”

  “Yes,” Jarrett agreed quietly. “I suppose so.”

  “That’s true,” Griff said, “but it would have been to his advantage to return Brian alive. The manhunt would have been a lot less intense.”

  Pierce said, “Maybe he didn’t have a choice.”

  “It contradicts Johnson’s claim that he only came up with the idea of asking for ransom because he was bitter about being fired a week earlier.”

  “His entire defense was a lie,” Pierce said. “Of course he wouldn’t admit he’d planned Brian’s kidnapping from the start. He was still hoping he could convince the jury that he’d only taken advantage of the existing situation when he made the demand for ransom.”

  “For the sake of argument—” Griff began.

  Pierce cut across. “If Johnson was telling the truth, then where was the ransom demand from the actual kidnapper?”

  “There were other ransom demands,” Jarrett said.

  Pierce shook his head. “All discredited. All long after the fact and not one of them credible. Attempts at extortion, nothing more.”

  That answered that. Pierce was correct. If Johnson had not been the kidnapper, if he had simply taken advantage of the family’s fear and confusion, then what had happened to the kidnapper? Why had there been no demand for ransom? And if there had been no kidnapper, what had happened to Brian?

  Griff considered this objectively. Was it possible Brian could have been taken with a more sinister motive? If ransom had never been the goal, was it possible the plan had always been to murder Brian?

  Chapter Seven

  So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

  That was the final line of The Great Gatsby, and it seemed only too appropriate to Griff as he sat in the library going through photo album after photo album of Arlingtons. Corrupted dreams, decadence, a lost generation...well, okay, maybe that was harsh. But certainly people who were preoccupied, even devoted, to all the wrong things.

  They did like their boats, that was for sure. They liked all their toys. And they liked themselves too. A lot.

  And maybe that wasn’t completely fair either.

  As he studied their smiling, satisfied faces, he had to concede it was highly unlikely anyone had dispatched little Brian in a convoluted scheme to secure a share of inheritance. Such a plan would require a guarantee that Matthew would have no other offspring—ever. Meaning, even if someone knew for sure Gemma couldn’t have more children, the plot would have to somehow take into account the potential for Matthew remarrying and still not having more children. Further, the plot would have to guarantee Matthew’s early death as well, and if Matthew’s death was not an accident, why wait ten years to get rid of him? How would this mastermind ensure that Jarrett didn’t die first?

  Even after Matthew’s death, there had been the likelihood, or at least the precedent that Jarrett would name Marcus, the surviving son, as his heir.

  So it was either a really bad plan on the part of Marcus, a really, really bad plan on the part of someone else, or one of Griff’s flights of fancy. In all probability, the latter. Granted, he had not had much chance to study Marcus, but Jarrett’s second son just did not seem like the homicidal maniac type, and you’d have to be pretty damned psychotic to cold-bloodedly murder a toddler on the off-chance they might one day stand between you and a fortune.

  Griff studied a photo of what appeared to be a slightly drunk Marcus dandling a giggling Brian. Marcus’s expression was one of fond foolishness. Griff relinquished his theory. No. In all likelihood, the situation was the one described by Pierce. Johnson had entered the Arlingtons’ employ with the ultimate aim of kidnapping Brian.

  But there Griff differed from Pierce because he did not believe Brian had been deliberately killed. Something had gone wrong. The child had panicked or struggled or something. And Johnson couldn’t admit the truth without giving up any chance of parole, however slim that chance might be. It wasn’t hard to see how someone who maybe didn’t have a lot of empathy would reason it out. After all, telling the truth wouldn’t bring Brian back to life.

  The chair across the library table was noisily dragged out. Chloe sat down. She folded her arms and smiled at him. Griff didn’t trust that smile.

  “Are you dining with us tonight?”

  Griff shook his head. He hoped she wasn’t planning to stay. The afternoon had been blessedly free of Muriel and all other distractions. He wanted it to stay that way.

  “Oh you have to!” she protested, still smiling that funny smile. “I think Pierce is staying just to keep an eye on you.”

  “Doesn’t he have a wife and a home to go to?”

  Chloe laughed. “He’s not married. Yet. Anyway, you have to stay. I want to see your expression when you meet Loki.”

  “Loki?” Griff had a pleasant if unlikely vision of Tom Hiddleston.

  “My stepfather.”

  “Your stepfather is named Loki?”

  “His name is Ring, actually, but he’s a Viking. He looks like one anyway. He’s actually a biker. A former Hell’s Angel, he claims. And he’s a killer.”

  “He’s...”

  Chloe laughed. “I knew that would get your attention. I’m not joking either. He really is a killer. Well, technically it was se
lf-defense, but it was a bar fight so right there.” She shrugged her skinny shoulders. Case closed.

  “Your mother is married to a biker who killed someone in a bar fight?” She had to be pulling his leg because he’d never read anything about it when he first began researching the family. In fact, he hadn’t realized Michaela had remarried yet again until that morning.

  “You got it.”

  “I thought your stepfather owned a chain of restaurants?”

  “I don’t know about a chain. He owns the Hell’s Kitchen restaurants in San Francisco. There’s one on Geary Boulevard and one in Petaluma, wherever that is.”

  “And people say Chef Ramsay’s tough.”

  Chloe laughed. “So? What do you think?”

  He thought Michaela had a taste for bad boys. He said cautiously, “About what?”

  “About coming to dinner. Don’t you want to meet the rest of the suspects?”

  “You think your mom is a suspect in Brian’s disappearance?”

  “She could have been, right?”

  And Griff thought his relationship with his mother had been difficult? “That idea doesn’t bother you?”

  “Sure.” But she shrugged.

  “How long have your mom and your stepfather been together?”

  “Awhile. A few years. He came to one of her art shows when he got out of prison. Isn’t that romantic?” Chloe’s smile was sarcastic. “Admit it. You’re dying of curiosity, aren’t you? Are you staying for dinner?”

  Family gossip was always interesting, but in this case Michaela had not known Ring Shelton until many years after Brian’s disappearance. Interesting didn’t necessarily equal germane. “I really can’t. I’ve got a lot to do tonight to get ready for tomorrow’s interviews.”

  Chloe wiggled her brows in what was likely supposed to be salacious interest. What she said was, “Beets with quinoa and arugula salad.”