Chapter 27
For years Cutter had imagined setting foot inside the townhouse on Beacon Hill.
He had imagined what it would look like, and imagined the sense of triumph he would feel.
He hadn’t counted on the sense of disappointment he felt as he followed Christian toward the library.
The townhouse looked well kept and attractive.
It was traditional in decor, although it had recently been redecorated.
It was perfect in the same way as dozens of other houses he’d seen were perfect.
It had no distinctive character whatsoever.
He didn’t have time to dwell on the sadness of that, or on how different things might have looked had Eugene lived there.
Christian opened the double doors and gestured him in with the aristocratic tip of his head.
Feeling a sense of anticipation, Cutter went forward.
The moment had been a long, long time in coming.
Pam was sitting on a leather sofa looking beautiful. The sight of her enhanced the anticipation he felt. Brendan was by her side, looking twenty years older than he had when Cutter had seen him last. He immediately went over and offered his hand.
“Good to see you Brendan,” he said quietly, meaning it. “How are you feeling?”
Brendan gave a dubious shrug with one brow, then relented, smiled, and nodded.
“Cutter, do you remember my mother?” Pam asked.
He heard tension in her voice along with excitement, and tried to encourage her with a look before he turned to the other side of the room, where Patricia sat in a wheelchair.
He had known she would be there. He had also known what she would look like, since Pam had described her to him more than once.
It had been years since he’d seen her himself.
She looked older now, but lovely in a fragile sort of way.
She also looked extremely nervous and vulnerable, both of which he could understand.
She hadn’t been in the townhouse since the day of the accident.
He held out a hand, and, out of gut protectiveness, when she put hers in it, he covered it with his free one. Softly he said, “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. St. George. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m not sure I am,” Patricia whispered.
He smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it to greet thé man standing nearby. “It’s a pleasure, Dr. Grossman.”
“Same here.”
Cutter had never met Bob before, but he liked him on sight. Pam said he was good to Patricia, even in love with her. Aside from that, Cutter was grateful for the support Bob had given Pam over the years.
He hoped some of that gratitude showed in his look, because in the next instant anything remotely relating to pleasure or gratitude vanished from his face. With no one else present in the room to divert him, he turned at last to John.
He had seen the man over the years from time to time, but always from a distance and with people between them. The distance now was no more than ten feet, and there were no people between them, just the venerable mahogany desk behind which John sat.
The last time Cutter had looked directly into John’s eyes was on a cold night in December seventeen years before.
He had been a miner then, poor, uneducated, feeling hatred and pain.
There was no pain now, but the hatred flooded back, and for a split second it was as strong as ever.
In that split second Cutter remembered the threats that had kept him from Pam.
He remembered the big brick house in Timiny Cove that had been sold, the baby that had been aborted, the five rows of metal studs that had torn up his back.
Then the split second was over, and the hatred was muted by the civility of the setting, the presence of Patricia and Pam, and his own hard-earned dignity.
He didn’t greet John. John didn’t greet him. They stared at each other in silent challenge, until John finally announced, “If you’re done with the social niceties, perhaps we could get on with this. I have a meeting across town at eleven.”
That left them an hour, which was more than enough as far as Cutter was concerned. He nodded, but before he could speak the door opened again and Hillary slipped in. She looked slightly breathless and more than a little frazzled. After a quick glance around, her gaze settled on John.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a tone that made Cutter hurt for her.
“I wanted to come.”
“This is business.”
“I know.”
“You haven’t any part in it.”
Pam broke in. “I asked her to come. She has a vested interest in all of us.”
John’s features went even more rigid. “Is she taking notes?”
“No,” Hillary answered for herself. “I’m here as a friend.”
“Whose friend?”
“Yours”
“And Pam’s, and his.” He jutted his chin toward Cutter. “I sense a confrontation here, Hillary. Better decide whose side you’re on.”
Again Pam spoke, less patiently this time. “There’s no need to take sides.” She glanced at her watch. “Since we have limited time, I think we should start.”
John sat back in his chair and leveled Cutter an icy stare. “I assume you’re here because you own company stock. That’s the only reason I’d allow you in my home. Do you understand that?”
“It is not your home,” came Patricia’s frail voice, drawing every eye in the room her way. “It’s mine. It was left to me as part of my husband’s estate. You live here because I let you. When I decide that you leave, you leave.”
The swell of triumph in the air was nearly tangible. It came from everyone present but John. Incredibly, he maintained his poise. He didn’t even blink. Ignoring Patricia, he said to Cutter, “If you have something to say, spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
If Cutter had been holding a gun to John’s head—a regular fantasy of his—and John had told him to shoot, he would have done just that. In the absence of a gun, he said in a clear voice, “We’re taking you over.”
John nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s true,” Pam assured him, but Cutter held up a hand to still her before she said more. This was his baby. It had been years in the planning and years in the carrying out. He wanted the pleasure all to himself.
“A while back, I started an investment banking firm. My partners and I have done well. Our client list has quadrupled in the last few years, and in that time, many of those clients have picked up St. George Company common stock. We have enough now to take you over.”
“That’s impossible,” John said. He was still sitting back in his chair with his fingers laced over his middle and would have looked complacent had his knuckles not been white.
“You’d need a majority for that, but I can personally account for better than fifty-five percent of the company stock.
Forty-five percent is held by the family, another ten percent by close friends. ”
“Forty-five percent may be held by family,” Cutter informed him, “but thirty of that forty-five percent agree with this takeover.”
John’s reaction was subtle. Cutter had to hand it to the man; his self-control was like iron. Other than the faint paling of his skin, there was nothing.
“Thirty percent? How do you figure that?”
“Pam will vote for a change in company leadership. So will Patricia.”
“Patricia doesn’t control her stock,” John replied. “I do.”
“Not for long,” Patricia put in. Her voice was shaky, but her words were clear. “I’ve already asked my lawyer to see about returning control to me.”
Unable to ignore her a second time, John gave a negligent shake of his head. “He won’t succeed. You’ve been in a mental hospital for more than twenty years. No judge is going to suddenly decide that you’re competent.”
Bob Grossman straightened and said more forcefully than Patricia, “She’s competent. I’ll testify to it. She’s been competent for years.”
“Then why has she been hospitalized?”
“Because she chose to live in a defined environment.”
“If that isn’t crazy,” John tossed off, “I don’t know what is.”
Pam had stiffened and was about to come to her mother’s defense when Bob beat her to it.
“It’s not crazy. Most people have the need to build walls around themselves.
Some do it in the form of a close group of friends, others in the form of a business, others in the form of where they live.
No, there’s nothing crazy about Patricia, and believe me, I know what crazy is. ”
“That’s right. You’re a psychiatrist. You’ve been treating her all these years, yet you claim she’s competent. Quite frankly, that sounds like fraud.”
Bob was unfazed. “The majority of people in therapy are competent. One has little to do with the other. And as for Patricia, she’ll be leaving the hospital soon. We’re getting married.”
Cutter hadn’t known that. He was happy for Patricia, and glancing at Pam, he read the same on her face. John, too, looked pleased, but in an ugly way.
“Ahhh,” he said. “Now it makes sense. You were taken with the woman, so you kept her at the hospital all this time. You accepted the hefty fees she paid for room and board, and the even heftier fees she paid for your services. Suddenly, when you sense fresh money in the pot, you say that she’s competent, that she should be discharged, that she can marry you.
I’d think the medical board would like to hear this story. ”
Pam flew to her feet. “Oh no you don’t, no-oo you don’t. You’ve pulled that trick one too many times. Threatening to blackmail Bob won’t work. He hasn’t done a thing wrong.”
“He took advantage of a helpless woman who depended on him.”
“I’m not helpless,” Patricia said in a huff. “I let myself be helpless when I was younger. That was when you took advantage of me. Bob has never done that.”