Legacy (Anna Strong Chronicles #4)

TRISH LINKS HER ARM WITH MINE AND PULLS ME along and up the front stairs. Mom still hasn't said anything, but at the door, Dad plants a kiss on my cheek and gives my arm a squeeze.

"We're glad to see you, honey."

I know he means it but I'm feeling so disoriented by the realization that they've started going back to church that I find myself blurting, "How long have you and Mom-?" I point to the bag.

He looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles. "How long have we been going to church? I don't know, Anna, a long time."

Mom finds her tongue. "Since about the time you moved out," she says.

It's ridiculous, I know, but I feel betrayed. "You never mentioned it."

"Should we have?" Mom asks.

I find myself sputtering. "Well . . . yes."

She looks at me with a small, puzzled frown. "What difference does it make if we started back to church? You were off to college, living in your grandmother's cottage at the beach. We hardly saw you. In fact, we've seen you more in the last few months than we had in the five years before that."

It's true, I know. Becoming a vampire changes your priorities pretty quickly. Especially priorities involving a family you know you're going to lose.

We've moved inside and into the living room. Mom goes to the kitchen without another word and Trish goes to her bedroom to change. Dad and I are left by ourselves. I'm still smarting from my mother's rebuke but this seems the perfect opportunity to ask him about O'Sullivan.

"Dad, can I speak to you a minute?"

He gives me a sympathetic smile and says, "Don't let your mother get to you, honey. You know how she is. If she had her way, you'd have never left the nest."

I return the smile. "I know, but it's not about that. It's a business thing."

He nods. "Then let's go to my den."

Dad leads the way to the back of the house and one of my favorite rooms. It's small and intimate and such a reflection of his personality that when Steve and I were children, and Dad was off on one of his business trips, we'd sneak in here to play. Breathing "his" air made him seem closer.

The room hasn't changed much since I was small. The smell of leather and aftershave, the nautical pictures on the wall, the desk piled with books and magazines. The furniture has been updated, and there's a computer now, but it's still my father's room.

He shuts the door and takes a seat behind his desk, motioning me into one of the seats in front of it. "What's going on?"

I fill him in on what I'm doing for Gloria and my interview with Jason this morning. I finish with Jason's charge that his father was in trouble, maybe with the law, and ask if he'd heard any rumors to that effect.

Before he answers, he narrows his eyes. "Kind of out of your range of expertise, isn't it? Are you and David-"

"Not David," I interject quickly. "I'm on my own in this."

He frowns. "I don't understand. Isn't David Gloria's boyfriend?"

I sigh. "It's complicated, Dad. No one is more surprised than I am to have gotten involved in Gloria's drama. The truth is, I don't believe she killed O'Sullivan. After what Jason told me this morning, I think there may be someone else that has far better motive to want him dead."

His frown deepens. "That may be true, but why didn't he go to the police? Why did he come to you?"

"He's fourteen, Dad. He's accusing his stepmother. Why do you think he didn't go to the police?"

Dad nods and shrugs. "I can see how he would be reluctant to make an accusation without proof. I take it that's where you come in?"

My turn to nod. "Can you tell me anything about O'Sullivan's business dealings? Anything that's happened lately that seems off?"

Dad takes a moment, his eyes on me. "You're not putting yourself in harm's way over this, are you?"

His solemn expression makes me smile. "No, Dad. This is purely a fact-finding expedition. If I find anything, I'll turn it over to the police. I won't take any unnecessary risks; I promise."

Not a lie. Jason, after all, is leaving the door open for me this afternoon. No risk there.

Dad nods, accepting what I say to be true. "Something strange did happen a few months ago. Involved O'Sullivan and a company called Benton Pharmaceuticals."

"I don't know the name."

"Not many people do. I only know of it because a prospectus came across my desk when O'Sullivan was preparing to take the company public. He was the primary investor in a research lab working on one product. A cure for HIV. They claimed they found one."

A cure for HIV? That gets my attention. I sit up straighter. "Wow. That'd be big news. Why haven't I heard about it?"

Dad rises and comes around the desk. He perches himself on the corner and folds his arms. "The FDA was scheduled to begin running trials, a process that could take years and millions of dollars. The reason for taking the company public was to raise that capital. The prospectus sounded promising. It appeared as if Benton might have discovered a treatment that not only managed HIV, but cured it."

"They must have had investors lining up around the block."

"Indeed. It would have been the medical find of the decade."

"Would have been?"

"The company never went ahead with the clinical trials. The offering was pulled. The company, at least as far as I can determine, went belly-up."

"Why, do you think? Was the preliminary data skewed in some way? Was it a hoax?"

Dad shakes his head. "Can't answer that. I can only tell you when our pharmaceutical-industry analysts looked at it, they were excited by what they saw. We were ready to give the investment a stamp of approval. Hell, I was ready to buy the stock myself."

That's an impressive endorsement. In Dad's business, he sees hundreds of potential investments a year. He doesn't consider investing his own money in many. "How much money do you think O'Sullivan had invested before pulling the plug?"

Dad shrugs. "To fund research like that? Would have been millions."

"In the tens of millions?"

"Try hundreds of millions."

"God. So O'Sullivan lost a shitload of money on Benton. Who else might have gotten hurt when the company went under?"

Dad thinks about it a minute. "Well, O'Sullivan was the primary moneyman. But the research director and his staff would most likely have taken part of their compensation as equity in the company."

"Like the Microsoft people in the eighties?" I ask. "When the company went public, secretaries retired in their thirties as millionaires."

"Good analogy. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. When Benton went under, the equity became worthless."

"But it doesn't sound like O'Sullivan did anything illegal, does it? Why would he get in trouble over something like that?"

He shakes his head. "That I can't answer. As far as I know, O'Sullivan, apart from losing a hell of a lot of his own money, did nothing wrong."

There's a timid knock on the door, and Trish peeks in. "Mom says breakfast is ready."

Dad smiles at her. "We'll be right there, honey."

He stands away from the desk and waits for me to lead the way out of the den. "You know," he says, "this Benton thing may not have anything at all to do with whatever trouble O'Sullivan had gotten himself into. I only mentioned it because it was odd. He was too good a businessman to take a company as far as he had only to dump the thing at the last minute. Something was off."

I acknowledge his last remark with a nod, filing the information away. My mind, however, has already moved on. To a more immediate problem. One that awaits me in the kitchen. How am I going to get out of here without insulting my mother yet again by refusing food?