Loe raamatut: «Discovering Duncan»

Chapter One

“It’s nothing personal. This is business.”

Duncan Bishop stared down at his father who sat behind the huge wood-and-marble desk in the private office of the CEO of Bishop International. The room was dead silent as the old man’s words faded into nothingness.

Duncan Ross Bishop, or D.R. as he liked to be called, stared right back at his son, a look on his face that Duncan had seen many times in the years he’d been part of the Bishop business dealings. The “I’m doing it my way, so get out of my way” look. Before it had been annoying, maybe even frustrating, but now it was sickening.

“Gary Tellgare is a friend.”

D. R. Bishop, a giant of a man, was as fit and hard physically as he was in the business world. With a full head of snow-white hair, a neatly trimmed beard to match, a deeply tanned complexion and a penchant for dark suits that emphasized his size, he knew how to intimidate. With the wave of a hand, he lopped off heads in business and never flinched.

Now he waved his large hand dismissively at Duncan on the other side of the desk. “Damn it, that doesn’t have any bearing on this. There are no friends in business. We need his routing division, and Tellgare runs a half-baked company that doesn’t need it. So, we get it…any way we can.”

Although Duncan never wore a beard, and his hair was dark brown with gold highlights, he matched his father physically with a solid, six-foot-three-inch frame, tanned skin, dark brown eyes and a penchant for dark, three-piece business suits. But other than DNA, right now they had nothing in common. “You’ve crossed the line if you try to ruin Tellgare.”

D.R. rocked his leather chair back, tented his fingers and studied his son with eyes as dark as night. “Crossed the line?”

Duncan leaned forward, pressing both palms down on the reflective surface of the cold desk. “Damn straight.”

“Oh, come on,” D.R. said with an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t have time for this bleeding-heart garbage. Just get it done.”

Duncan had heard those words before, and he was incredibly tired of them. He felt numb from watching his father destroy anything in his path. “I don’t have time for this, either,” he finally said as he straightened.

“Then get on with it.” D.R. pushed a folder on his desk over to Duncan. “Get to Legal and tell them to change this.”

He ignored the file. “No. If you’re going after Tellgare, count me out.”

The folder sat between them as D.R. drilled Duncan with a ferocious glare. “What?” he demanded.

“Are you going after Tellgare?”

“To use your words, damn straight.” The older man sat back and crossed his arms on his chest. “Damn straight.”

Dark eyes held dark eyes without blinking. For one week, Duncan had known this move was coming. He’d known there was no hope of stopping D.R. this time. “Unless you let me take over now and you step down, I’m out of here.”

D.R. uttered a profanity that rocked the room around them. “Fat chance of me stepping down and handing you all of this.”

“It’s your company and your decision. Live with both of them,” Duncan said. “I’ve had it.”

“You’ve had it?” D.R. stood to his full size. “News flash, Duncan, so have I. I’ve put up with your arguments and your flawed reasoning more than I should have because you’re my son. But no more. It’s my company, and I’ll do things my way. So get over it, and get on with this business with Tellgare.”

Now that he’d made the decision to quit, Duncan was shocked he had no second thoughts. “That’s it?”

D.R. exhaled. “And I quote, ‘Damn straight.’”

Duncan turned for the door, but D.R. wasn’t finished.

“Don’t you walk out on me like this!” the man thundered.

Duncan reached for the brass door handle.

“Don’t you think you’re going to use anything I taught you to go up against this company,” D.R. said, enraged. “If you walk out the door, you’re dead in this town. You’re done.”

Duncan twisted the cold handle.

“What in the hell do you think Adrianna is going to say about this idiocy?” D.R. demanded.

Duncan stopped, but didn’t turn. Adrianna? Tall, blond and no stranger to the business world, Adrianna Barr was the only child of one of the most powerful bankers on the West Coast. They’d dated, had fun, and they understood each other. “She’ll understand.”

D.R.’s boom of laughter filled the office. “God, you’re deluded. She’ll drop you like a bad habit.”

Maybe D.R. was right, and maybe he was wrong. It didn’t matter right then. Maybe it would later, but not then. Duncan was used to being alone. He’d always been alone. “Whatever.” Duncan jerked the door open.

“Where are you going?” his father asked, closer now, almost behind him.

Duncan turned and stood eye to eye, toe to toe with his father. “Anywhere but here.”

D.R. exhaled, raking his fingers through his thick white hair, then waved a hand vaguely. “Oh, just go home, get drunk, get Adrianna and take a break. I can handle things on this end.”

“And Tellgare?” he asked in a low voice.

“Leave it to me. I’ll do it if you don’t have the stomach for it.” There was no backing down when it came to his father. None at all. There never had been. “Branch or Gills can take over for you this time.”

D.R. still didn’t get it. “There won’t be a next time.”

D.R. flushed red and he rocked forward on the balls of his feet, bringing his face inches from his son’s. “Listen to me. You’re a Bishop, born and bred. You are my son, and the only Bishop left once I’m gone. Walking out won’t change that.”

Duncan shook his head. “No, nothing can change that, but I’ll learn to live with it.”

Then he turned and walked away. D.R. yelled from the door of his private office, but not at Duncan. He yelled at his secretary, a middle-aged woman who had been with D.R. for ten years. “Helen, call security. Mr. Bishop is leaving. He’s to take nothing with him, have no access to his office or anything to do with this company.”

Helen chanced a furtive glance at Duncan, and he could see the look of commiseration on her face. She knew what it was like to be browbeaten by the CEO. As he strode out the main office door, the last thing he heard was Helen saying, “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

Duncan didn’t go anywhere near his office. He went straight down to the parking garage, got in his car and took nothing with him when he went through the security gates for the last time. He didn’t look back as he pulled out onto the congested streets of downtown Los Angeles bathed in the late afternoon sun of a clear May day. He drove to his apartment, packed his bags, told the superintendent he’d be in contact and left.

When he met with Adrianna, he found out the old man had been right about at least one thing. Adrianna wasn’t having any part of his explanations. She didn’t get it, either. Finally, he gave up and left her, too. When he drove away from Los Angeles, he drove away from his old life and everything in it. And he didn’t look back.

Los Angeles,

Six Months Later:

“I’M A MAN OF PATIENCE,” D. R. Bishop said as his secretary left, closing the door securely behind her. “But even I have my limits.”

Lauren Carter never took her eyes off the large man across the impressive wood-and-marble desk. D. R. Bishop was dressed all in black. He was a huge, imposing man, and definitely, despite what he said, a man with little patience. He looked tightly wound and ready to spring.

Lauren sat very still in a terribly uncomfortable chair, her hands in her lap while she let D. R. Bishop do all the talking. She simply nodded from time to time. The longer he talked, she got the impression he was the type who drove his life by the sheer force of his will, the same way he did business.

“My son walked out on everything six months ago,” he said.

She finally spoke. “Why?”

He tented his fingers thoughtfully with his elbows resting on the polished desktop as if he were considering her single-word question. But she knew he was considering just how much to tell her. His eyes were dark as night, a contrast to his snow-white hair and meticulously trimmed beard. “Ah, that’s a good question,” he said, hedging for some reason.

“Mr. Bishop, you’ve dealt with the Sutton Agency enough to know that privacy and discretion are part and parcel of our service. Nothing you tell me will go any further.”

He shrugged his massive shoulders and sank back in his chair. “Of course. I expect no less,” he said.

“Why did your son leave?”

“I thought it was a middle-age crisis of some sort.” He smiled slightly, a strained expression. “Not that thirty-eight is middle aged. Then I thought he might be having a breakdown. Maybe gone over the edge.” The man stood abruptly, rising to his full, imposing height, and she could have sworn she felt the air ripple around her from his movement. “But he’s not crazy, Ms. Carter, he’s just damn stubborn. Too damn stubborn.”

She waited as he walked to the windows behind him and faced the city twenty floors below. When he didn’t speak again, she finally said, “You don’t know why he left?”

The shoulders shrugged again sharply. “A difference of opinion on how to do business. Nothing new for us.” He spoke without turning. “We’ve always clashed, but in the end, we’ve always managed to make our business relationship work.”

The two of them had made Bishop International a force to be reckoned with in the financial world. When he didn’t speak again for several minutes, she knew she wasn’t going to get more on the “whys” of his son leaving. Even though she’d been working as a private investigator for less than a year, Lauren knew when she was hitting a concrete wall, when the client wasn’t about to disclose personal information.

She took a notebook and pen out of her purse and got to the point of the meeting. “What do you want from the Sutton Agency exactly, Mr. Bishop?”

“Find him.”

“That’s it?”

He turned back to her, studying her intently for several moments before he said, “No.”

“Then what else do you want us to do?”

“As an employee of Sutton, I want you to find my son, and I want him to come back here, willingly.”

“Okay,” she said.

He gripped the back of his chair, pressing his long fingers into the plush leather. “I’m going to offer you something that’s just between the two of us, and no one else. Agreed?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, so I can hardly agree to it.”

He let go of the chair and came around to where she was and sat on the edge of his desk. She had no doubt every move he made was well thought out for maximum effect on the person he was facing. She was tall for a woman at five-nine, but still shorter than he was by half a foot, and he outweighed her hundred and twenty-five pounds by a lot. Now he was looking down at her intently, and it was all she could do to stay seated and not stand to minimize his advantage.

“He’s a barracuda.” That’s what Vern Sutton, her boss at the Sutton Agency, had told her when she’d been assigned to this job. “The man is tough as nails and gets what he wants. He doesn’t care how he does it, either.” The agency had done a number of background checks for D. R. Bishop over the years, on employees, business associates and even personal acquaintances. But they had never handled a missing person’s case for them.

D.R. had personally called the agency this time, said he needed to locate a missing person, and he’d asked for her specifically to be on the case. He hadn’t given Vern a reason, and Vern hadn’t asked. He also hadn’t told Vern the missing person was his own son.

“Why don’t you just explain things to me, and then I can make a decision? No matter how this turns out, it will be kept confidential,” she finally said when she couldn’t stand the silence between them any longer. “But I can’t make any decision until I know what’s involved.”

“That sounds doable,” he said. “I want you to find Duncan. See where he’s gone, and what he’s doing. Meet him, interact with him and figure out a way to get him back here of his own accord. Then we’ll have a deal between the two of us, an incentive if you’d like.”

She wasn’t going to play a guessing game with him. “Why don’t you just tell me what you’re talking about?”

He nodded faintly as if she’d passed some test. “If you can get my son to come back here willingly, I’ll of course pay the agency’s bill, but I’ll make another payment that will go directly to you. A bonus. From me, to you.”

“Just for getting him back here?”

“Yes, and how you do it is up to you. Just do it.”

“And the payment?” she asked, cutting to the chase.

He named a figure that was not only outrageous, but, incredibly, it was the sum total of the tuition payments she’d need to finish law school, almost to the penny. She simply sat and stared at D. R. Bishop as she realized that he’d obviously had her investigated before he ever approached Vern about her services. He knew what she needed and why she was working at the agency. He’d looked over the operatives and found the most needy one.

“So, could you use the money?” he asked evenly.

She wanted to say, “You know I can,” but settled for, “Of course, who couldn’t?”

“Then it’s yours, if you deliver.”

“Mr. Bishop, what happens if your son won’t come back?”

The older man actually frowned, as though he’d never considered that option. “Then I pay your boss and you get your usual cut. End of deal,” he said abruptly.

God, she hated people like him. People who had to be in control, who had to have power, and people who wielded that power as easily as they breathed. His son was probably the mirror image of the man, brought up in his likeness. Duncan Bishop had probably walked out because they couldn’t agree on how to destroy someone or something. Knife, gun or poison. She just bet the father chose a knife so he could destroy “up close and personal,” while the son wanted the gun to get things over with quickly.

She finally stood to face him. “Just get him to come back to L.A.?”

“He comes back and you can get your law degree.”

He didn’t care that she knew he’d had her investigated. “That’s an interesting offer,” she said.

“If you do this successfully, maybe when you pass the California bar exam, there’ll be a place for you around here.”

She didn’t try to stop the smile that came at his words. He’d obviously just looked into her financial needs and didn’t know what she was going to law school for. “That sounds enticing, sir, and I appreciate the thought, but I’m going to specialize in criminal law.”

The old man burst into a guffaw of laughter. “Damn, maybe we could use you anyway,” he said.

“You never know,” she murmured.

He turned from her to go around and drop back down onto his leather chair. He reached for a box that had been on the desk since she arrived. “Here’s everything you’ll need to know about Duncan. His connections, relationships, interests, his business background, pictures.”

“How about credit cards?”

“Helen made a list for you and it’s in there.”

“Money?”

“I don’t know what he took, but he has access through his accounts. Helen put that information in there, too.”

“Has he made any business connections since he left?”

“No.”

“Where did he live when he was in L.A.?”

“He was in the Edge Water Towers off of Wilshire.”

A moneyed area. “Owned or rented?”

“Owned, but he leased it out when he left for a year.”

“Through whom?”

“The agent who deals with those units.” He gave her the name, and she wrote it down in her notebook.

“Did he live there alone?”

“When he wanted to. But he’s seldom wanted to.” His eyes narrowed. “Ms. Carter, my son likes women. He’s seldom without a woman, and if he is, it’s his choice.” He deliberately let his eyes flicker over her, then back to meet her gaze. “As I said, do anything you need to do to get his attention and get him back here.” He smiled slightly and it had the power to unnerve her. “Do we understand each other?”

She understood and it made her vaguely sick. No wonder he’d asked for a woman. The man thought that seduction was all part of the package. It wasn’t. “Of course,” she said. “I understand. Is he married, divorced, involved?”

“No, no and no. He had a girlfriend, Adrianna Barr, but that’s a thing of the past. She took a walk when he did.”

She’d heard of the woman, a society brat from all that she’d read about her, the daughter of a wealthy banker. She’d even seen pictures of the socialite out and about at society parties. Very blond, very pretty, very pale, very thin and very rich. And he thought she, Lauren, could seduce his son into coming back here? Wrong again.

She wasn’t any Adrianna Barr. If D. R. Bishop had bothered to really look at her, he’d see that even though she was tall enough, she wasn’t pale, she wasn’t skinny and she didn’t have long blond hair. And she sure as heck wasn’t rich.

Lauren was tanned, always was, winter or summer, with a generous amount of freckles. She had curves that refused to give her that popular boyish look in stylish clothes, and her hair was deep auburn, bordering on red, cut short and feathered around her face. On top of that, she had no society connections and her bank balance was laughable.

“Okay,” she murmured, making a show of writing something in her notebook. He wouldn’t know she was writing “Fat chance” in cursive, then underlining it. She closed the book and looked back at the man, barely able to hide her distaste. But she managed to. “Anything else you can think of?”

“No,” D.R. said as he held the box out to her.

She pushed her notebook into her purse, then put the strap over her shoulder and took the box, a bit surprised at how heavy it was. “Is there any family he’d go visit?”

D.R. shook his head. “None. He’s an only child and his mother’s been gone ten years.”

She held the box to her middle. “Any gut feelings about where he’d go, what he’d do?”

He shook his head again. “No.”

“In the entire six months there’s been no contact?”

“Not directly.”

“What does that mean?”

He motioned to the box. “It’s all in there. My people found him in Dallas and he took off.”

“They can’t find him again?”

“They could, but he’d just leave again. That’s why I need you. He won’t know a thing, until you work your magic.” He smiled at her, as if to ingratiate himself with her. “And my instincts tell me you can do it.”

She made herself nod and say, “I’ll do my best,” then ask, “How do you want the updates? Daily, weekly…?”

“Once.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just call me when he’s on his way home.”

“That’s it?”

“Unless you blow it, then file your report, let your boss bill me and that’s that.”

She paused. “Sir, one more thing?”

“Of course.”

“He ran away, like some teenager. I don’t get it.”

“He didn’t. He left. He cut off everything, and he left. He told me he’d never be back, and I won’t accept that. This is where he belongs. He’s my only heir, the person who takes over when I’m gone. I need him back here.”

She had the feeling that his last sentence was his most truthful. He needed his son back with him. Not only for professional reasons but because he missed him. “Okay, Mr. Bishop,” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”

She carried the box down to the parking garage level and got into her car, an unmemorable blue compact. She put the box on the passenger seat, opened it and reached for the papers on top—newspaper clippings, a copy of a birth certificate, several photos.

Duncan Bishop was the spitting image of his father, only younger. He had the intense dark eyes. Every photo of the man had him looking right into the camera, as if he met the world head on and didn’t flinch. His features weren’t perfect, but the strong jaw and high cheekbones combined to make the man “interesting.” His hair was short enough, styled back from his face, a dark brown shot with gold highlights, and every photo had him in a business suit or tuxedo. In one picture she found the Barr woman with him, his arm around her, the woman smiling at someone nearby, the man looking at the camera, appearing faintly bored.

She sorted through, got to the newspaper clippings and wasn’t surprised to see they were all about the business, all about the father and son making a deadly team. All about the victories of the Bishops. She put them back in the box, then looked at the birth certificate. Duncan Ross Bishop. Son of Ellen Gayle O’Hara and Duncan Ross Bishop. His birthday was a month away, two weeks before Christmas. She glanced at the birthplace. Silver Creek, Nevada. She’d heard of the place, but only because of a posh ski resort located there, a very expensive, very in-demand and very private place. A place a Bishop could afford, and, coincidentally, Duncan Bishop’s home.

A lot of people went home when they “disappeared,” and she wondered if Duncan Bishop was that predictable. Would she find him at the fancy resort there, The Inn at Silver Creek? Maybe he was there partying. Or hiding.

Whatever the case, she’d find him. Her future depended on it.