Deadly Assets Read online

  Alex stabbed a piece of lettuce and held it to the candlelight. He moved his wrist back and forth, examining the leaf, in no rush to respond. “Sometimes I need a break from this house, Simone. I can’t imagine why.” He turned to Allison and said, “But that has nothing to do with my relationships, as my stepmother would have you think. Dom has his own house. Getting away lends…perspective.”

  With the last word, he took a hard look at Francesca. Her face tightened, and then slowly readjusted, taking on the visage of a painted mask. Allison regarded her, curious about the relationship between Francesca and her family. Was this a show meant for Allison’s benefit, or was every gathering this fraught with tension?

  The wind pummeled against original leaded windows, shattering the sudden silence with a slow, steady rumble. The lights flickered once, twice, then went out. Simone gasped. Allison’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light of the centerpiece candles. She saw Jackie, the cook, rushing in with a flashlight and two candelabras. The cook placed the candles on the table, on either side of the centerpiece.

  “Shit,” Maria said. “The horses.”

  “Always with the horses, Maria.” Simone took a sip of wine, hands trembling. “Your father’s dying and that’s all you can think about.” She let out an ugly laugh. “What do you think, Allison? How would you like to add my daughter to your clientele?”

  Allison refused to take the bait. She said instead, “Do you have a generator?”

  It was Alex who answered. “We do. It only handles the most urgent needs—the refrigerators, emergency lighting, air conditioning and the cooling system for the wine cellars.”

  Allison tried to detect irony in his voice—wine cellars over lights?—but if it was there, she couldn’t read it.

  “Allison, are you looking forward to working with my aunt?” Maria asked.

  Before Allison could respond, the stealth-like Jackie was back with another tray. Efficiently, she removed the salad plates and the chargers and replaced them with steaming dinner plates.

  When all of the plates had been served, Jackie said, “Grilled halibut with cilantro garlic butter, sautéed spinach and roasted fingerling potatoes. Finished just in time. Does anyone require anything else?”

  “More wine, please,” Alex replied. “One of our Italian reds.” Turning to Allison, he said, “Back in Calabria, we make a nice Magliocco Canino blend that you might enjoy. I realize that we’re having fish, but your palate will adjust, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  Jackie left to fetch the wine and Allison had a short reprieve while the others ate. She looked around, watching the candles flicker, throwing shadows across the cavernous room. Francesca was quiet. She’d barely touched her food. When Jackie was back with the wine, she poured the jeweled red liquid into each person’s glass.

  When she got to Francesca, Francesca covered her glass with her hand and shook her head. “Not tonight, Jackie. But thank you.”

  “Francesca here has noble roots, you know,” Simone said. “Her great-great-grandfather was the Duke of Calabria. Isn’t that right, Frannie?”

  “You know better than anyone, Simone—it’s not blood that matters. We no longer live in a world that cares about heritage. Today, anyone can get ahead. Through marriage, luck or otherwise.” Francesca aimed her words at the empty wine glass, but her tone made it clear whom she was talking about.

  “Well...at least I haven’t hidden away from the world, so scared of the past that I have no future.”

  “Although that’s all about to change, isn’t it Aunt Francesca?” Alex asked. He spoke quietly and without any bitterness. But Francesca reacted. She looked at Alex with a peculiar mix of loathing and concern. Allison blinked, and when she looked back at Francesca, her client was silently examining her hands, face once again dispassionate, as though the exchange never occurred.

  Between bites, Allison watched her hosts. They were quiet for a spell, but the storm outside continued to rage, and each flash of lightning illuminated faces marred by anger. The stale air smelled of fish and Simone’s cloying floral perfume. Allison felt the beginnings of a headache wrap its talons around her temples.

  Breaking the silence, Simone said, “Paolo never wanted you to run the business. He didn’t think you could do it. Because”—She spoke rapidly, in a shrill voice that rippled with the undercurrents of a Brooklyn accent, her words hurtling over one another in an effort to escape and wound—“because you’re a shut-in, Francesca. How can you possibly lead a corporation?”

  Francesca slammed her hands down on the table, rattling her dishes and causing everyone to stare. “Is that what you think?”

  “Yes, it is. And so does everyone else. But they’re just too goddamned afraid to say anything.” She stared at Francesca, daring her to argue. “Why would you stay all these years? Tell me. And now you want Benini Enterprises?”

  “The ghost,” Maria said. “The martyred Gina.”

  Francesca looked sharply at her niece. “Nonsense. This is all nonsense.”

  “There is a ghost,” Maria insisted. She fixed her stare on Allison, and her eyes held the insatiable gleam of a madwoman. “Gina. My father’s first wife. She haunts this house. My mother doesn’t like to think of her, do you Mother? Because Father still loves her. He loves a ghost.”

  “Stop it, Maria,” Simone hissed, her face now deathly pale.

  Undaunted, Maria continued. “If you listen at night, you’ll hear her. She makes a long, slow, heinous moan. At first you’ll think it’s the wind in the woods, but then you’ll realize it’s coming from inside the house.”

  “Stop it!” Francesca stood and threw her napkin on her plate. “I need some air.” Everyone watched as she disappeared through the pocket doors.

  “Brilliant, Maria,” Alex said. “You can’t get through dinner without behaving like a lunatic?”

  “Gina was your mother, Alex. Maybe if you focused on your family instead of your libido, you could hear her. She’s been driving me crazy for years.”

  “Crazy is right. You need help.”

  Allison stood up from the table. She wanted to find Francesca, although she didn’t even know where to start. She turned to Alex, who seemed the most solid of the group, and said, “Where do you think Francesca went?”

  Alex untangled himself from the chair and walked to the window, clearly in no hurry to retrieve his aunt. He pulled aside the heavy drapes and glanced out into the night. “Typically she would retreat to the grotto. But it’s still raining.” He turned around. “The library, perhaps. I’ll take you there.”

  “It’s true you know,” Maria called out as they were leaving the room. “Don’t let my brother lie to you. Gina is still here.”

  Allison started to turn back toward Maria, but she felt Alex’s gentle restraining hand on her arm. Even as they walked through the threshold back into the hall, Maria’s screams were deafening. “She was murdered, you know. By Francesca. Poisoned!”

  Three

  “What was that about?” Allison touched her face with the back of one clammy hand in an effort to calm herself. She and Alex were walking briskly through the home’s inner corridors, following the path of emergency lighting past the kitchen and walk-in pantry. Allison’s heart beat wildly. She felt caught, trapped in these walls. It wasn’t just the talk of murder and ghosts. It was also the sheer tension, the blanket of gloom that weighed down on this family like a load of cement.

  Alex stopped at a narrow white door at the end of a hallway. Unlike the other doors, which were framed in thick, ornate white trim, this door was a lonely slab of timber, faded white and unadorned, a glass doorknob its only nod to beauty.

  Alex turned, smiled wryly. “I warned you—my sister is difficult.”

  “Does she enjoy upsetting everyone?”

  “I’ve never been able to figure out whether Maria is a devil or an angel
. Since she was a little girl, she’s been different. She claims to hear things, know things. She can be unbelievably cruel, yet I have seen her tend to baby birds and injured deer, devoted to their care. She’s amazing with the horses.” He shrugged. “We’re isolated here, Allison. She, Simone, and Francesca, especially. It can have an effect.”

  Allison could understand that. She hadn’t been in the Benini home for a full day, and she was already gauging how long she could last. She craved sunshine, people. Fresh air. Outside, the wind continued to wail. The emergency lighting didn’t waver, though. For that, Allison was grateful.

  Alex moved closer. In the shadowy light, his striking features drew her eyes. The slope of his nose, the curve of his lips. The bad-boy charm of his laughing, blue-eyed gaze. Even now, in the midst of the abysmal night, he looked amused. Goosebumps prickled Allison’s skin, and she rubbed her bare arms.

  “Are you cold?” Alex asked softly.

  Allison shook her head. She tore her eyes away from the searching concern reflected in his. “Can we please find your aunt?”

  After a long moment, a moment in which time seemed to stand at attention, Alex grabbed the glass doorknob and pulled open the tiny Alice in Wonderland door. A dark and narrow set of steps greeted them.

  Allison looked up, amazed. “I would have never known this was here.”

  “You’d be surprised. There are many nooks and crannies in and around an old house like this. These steps lead to the library. When I was a child, Francesca brought me up here often. We would read for hours.” He motioned with his chin brusquely. “Wait here. Let me grab a flashlight.”

  Alex disappeared into another room, and Allison stood still in the threshold of the library stairs. She thought of Francesca, a prisoner in this house for decades. Or a willing inhabitant, a ghost-like presence herself, walking these gloomy halls without the benefit of nurturing company or laughter? And what about Maria’s allegations. Had her client killed someone?

  Oh Allison, this place is getting to you, she thought. How could you believe Maria? You’re letting your own imagination take a fantasy vacation.

  But was she? Ghosts, shut-ins, a charming, mysterious man…this place had the makings of a Gothic novel.

  “Sorry.”

  Alex’s baritone interrupted her thought. He returned with the flashlight and shone the beam up the wooden steps. “You’ll have to trust me a little.” He held out a hand. With reluctance, Allison accepted it. His skin was warm and smooth.

  He started up the stairs. Allison followed closely. The walls were close—too close—and she had trouble breathing. She closed her eyes for a second to regain her composure, not stopping for fear Alex would stop. She didn’t trust herself to be stuck for long in such a tight space. Not with her anxiety level as high as a Russian satellite.

  When they were finally at the top of the two-floor flight, they entered an octagon-shaped room lined with bookshelves on seven sides. Allison let out a sigh of relief, both because they had made it, and because Francesca was sitting at the far side of the room, huddled in an old arm chair, a book in her lap.

  Francesca had placed a battery-powered lantern on a shelf behind her, a lantern powerful enough to light all but the farthest recesses of the room. Allison looked up in awe. The bookshelves reached at least ten feet high along the walls. In them, every size and shade of book binding imaginable faced her, a collage of color. Above the shelves was a bank of divided light windows, each about a foot tall. Two armchairs had been placed in the center, atop the worn wooden floor. A small, round, and weathered Oriental rug, its colors long since faded, warmed the floor between them. The effect was a cozy reading nook, oddly-shaped, reeking of age, and filled with a rainbow of literature.

  If Allison had grown up here, she had no doubt she would have escaped to this retreat, too. Even with the rain pounding on the roof and the other-worldly flashes of lightning, it beckoned.

  “Aunt Francesca?” Alex said.

  Francesca looked up from her book and smiled. “Ah, Allison. Welcome to the library.” She closed the book—a large leather-bound volume—and regarded Allison with guarded warmth. “I’m so sorry you had to witness that little tirade downstairs. Alessandro will tell you, I’m not usually so sensitive. But, well, the prospect of leaving, I suppose, has me a little off balance.”

  “Aunt Francesca, you don’t have to do this, you know.”

  Francesca held up a hand. “Oh, I’m not afraid to go, Alessandro. I just have a lot on my mind.” She stood up from the chair—a wide, slip-covered armchair that had certainly seen better days—and walked over to where Allison and Alex were standing. “Leave us, Alessandro. Check on Simone. She’s the one you should be worried about.” With a glance at Allison, Francesca said, “Simone is…easily shaken.”

  When Alex didn’t move, Francesca said with a tsk, tsk, “Go on now. We’ll be fine. I’ll see Allison to her room.”

  Alex looked reluctant to leave. He said, “Do you need anything else from me, Allison?”

  Allison shook her head. “Thank you for helping me. I’ll be fine.”

  With a nod to Allison and a fleeting kiss on his aunt’s cheek, Alex disappeared down the stairs, his flashlight bobbing in the darkness. When she heard the door at the bottom of the steps close, Allison said, “Are you sure you’re alright, Francesca?”

  “I’m as well as I can be right now.” Francesca made her way back to the armchair and sank down into its softness. “Sit. You may as well get comfortable.”

  “What happened down there?”

  “Just Maria spouting off. She has a way of getting under everyone’s skin. It’s not always a bad trait.” She picked the heavy book up and placed it back on her lap. “In a house like this, where dust collects in every crevice, you need someone who will scare the spiders out from their hiding spots.”

  “And Maria is that person?”

  “She not only scares the spiders out from their hiding spots, she crushes them with her candor.”

  “Does your family have a lot of spiders, Francesca?”

  “What family doesn’t?” Francesca picked at the hem of her blouse, rolling the fabric between stubby fingers. “I’ve just been here too long. I recognize them all. I know their favorite niches.”

  “Why have you stayed?”

  Francesca contemplated her hands, the cover of her heavy book, the seam that ran along the arm of her chair. “I’ll give you some materials to read when you leave. They may or may not shed light on this family.”

  “That’s a very enigmatic response.”

  Francesca burst out with a hearty and unexpected laugh. “You can scare a few spiders yourself, I bet. Although with more finesse than our Maria.” She sighed, all traces of humor again gone. “Some might say I’m being dramatic. Perhaps. But once we get started, I’ll share more of my story. And then you’ll understand.” She shrugged. “Or you won’t. But I read your book, and while you portray yourself as a lady who helps cultivate image, I sense the reason you do so well is because you understand what’s beneath.”

  “I try.”

  Francesca regarded Allison with a look, weighing how much she wanted to say. Finally, she tilted the cover of the book she’d been reading so that Allison could see it was a Bible, its red leather cover well worn.

  “I wonder, do all people find religion when they age?” Francesca’s face tightened. “Don’t answer that. The ramblings of a woman who’s had no wine but who’s drunk on the romance of thunderstorms.”

  “A lovely sentiment, Francesca. And I imagine many people feel closer to God as they age. Wisdom, mortality, openness to the possibilities…who knows. Does it really matter why?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  Warming to the intimate setting, Allison asked, “Who’s Gina?”—although she knew the answer.

  “My sister-in-law. Paolo’s first wife.”
r />   “Is what Maria said true? Did Gina die here?”

  Francesca nodded. Allison watched Francesca’s hands claw against the Bible. “She took her own life when the boys were young.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s in the past,” Francesca said stoically, but the quiver in her voice betrayed her. “Let’s talk about the reason you’re here. Benini Enterprises. We can start with my brother.” When Allison nodded for her to continue, she said, “Paolo is a good man, but no genius. I’ve had his ear over the years and have helped him where I could, when Simone or Dom or someone else was not interfering.” Francesca gave a crooked smile. “No business school for me, I’m self-taught. I have read every treatise on business management and finance imaginable. If allowed, I could run this business. If allowed.”

  “By Dom?”

  Francesca sighed. “By all of them.”

  “But surely you have some allies?”

  Francesca appeared thoughtful. After a few seconds, she said, “No. As a matter of fact, I don’t have a single one.” She looked up, brightening. “But you will be my ally, Allison. That is, if you’ll have me.”

  Allison looked at the walls of books, at Francesca’s earnest expression and the Bible gripped in her hands. She mustered a smile. “I’ll have you.”

  Francesca nodded. The Bible now clutched to her chest, she rose and grabbed the lantern. “Let’s go. I’ll fill you in on some practical details about Benini Enterprises when we head back downstairs. And then I’ll lead you to your suite. You have a long drive tomorrow.”

  Indeed, she did, although Allison was too caught up in Francesca’s family to worry about the next morning’s drive. “Tell me, Francesca,” she said as they headed back down the narrow steps, “do you still come up here often?”

  Without even a backwards glance, Francesca said, “No, actually. I haven’t been to the library in years.”