LEGEND Read online

  Kady nodded, as she’d already encountered that secret. “Do I own the clothes on his back, that sort of thing?” she asked earnestly.

  At that Mr. Fowler frowned, and she could tell that he thought her greedy or vengeful or something else equally dreadful. Or maybe he was just concerned about lawsuits involving what he had or had not done.

  She leaned forward on the sofa. “Mr. Fowler,” she said, “you are obviously the attorney representing at least part of the wealth that once belonged to C. T. Jordan, and since that wealth now belongs to me, may I assume that you will now be my attorney? May I speak to you in confidence?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, and she could see that he was relieved as well as curious.

  She held up the letter. “Ruth Jordan has asked me to do something for her. What that is, I can’t reveal, but I believe I am going to have to enlist the help of Tarik, er, ah, C. T. Jordan. You know him, I’ve met him, and I think we are both safe in saying that he’ll refuse to help me. Unless I can blackmail him in some way, that is. I want to know everything I own, especially anything personal, like those swords of his, that I can use to make him help me. And I want you to start drawing up a contract that states that if he helps me to my satisfaction, everything will be returned to him. Every penny. I want nothing.”

  Mr. Fowler smiled indulgently. “I think that’s very noble of you, but I don’t think you have any idea how much you’re giving away. You could keep a few million and he wouldn’t miss it.”

  At that Kady blinked, and her first thought was that she wanted enough to open a nice restaurant, in Seattle maybe, with classrooms attached and lifetime funding so she could teach free cooking classes. It was on the tip of her tongue to say just that, but she didn’t. It wasn’t her money, and she had no right to it. “I will take nothing over what is needed for the job.”

  “I don’t think you realize—”

  “No, Mr. Fowler, I don’t think you realize what this is all about. If Ruth hadn’t asked this of me, I would sign everything over to her descendants this minute, but I can’t. As she says, I’ll need power, and money will give me that power. Now, would you tell me what I need to know?”

  He sat there for a moment, still smiling, and Kady could tell what he was thinking. She might believe she could give away all rights to that money, but when the time came, would she be able to? But what he didn’t know was that Kady had seen firsthand the great evil that money could cause. The shots fired by the people of Legend in an attempt to protect their wealth had caused a hundred years of misery. No, she didn’t want any of Ruth’s money.

  “All right,” he said when Kady said no more. “Shall we start going over the portfolios? It will take a while.”

  “I plan to dedicate every minute of my time to this until it is finished,” she said, and for all the nobility of her words, she could have burst into tears. Would the jobs still be open a few months from now? A year? She might be a star in the cooking world today, but people had short memories. Six months from now it might be, “Kady who?”

  She took a deep breath. “Shall we get started?”

  Chapter 23

  AS SHE TURNED THE WHEEL OF THE HEAVY, POWERFUL RANGE Rover sharply, Kady concentrated on staying out of the center gully in the old dirt road that led straight up the side of the mountain.

  It had been several days since her confrontation with Tarik Jordan in his office, and for all of those days she had cursed herself for ever thinking he would help her. What in the world had made her think he’d do anything to help anyone?

  As the car hit the gulley, sending everything in the back flying upward, Kady swallowed hard. “I will not cry,” she said, holding on to the steering wheel with all her might. “Will not, will not, will not.” But keeping the tears back was almost impossible. With a glance skyward, she wondered if Ruth Jordan was looking down on her in disgust. She had every right to, since Kady had failed at every attempt to help correct the evil that had happened in the past.

  It was amazing to think that during the past days since she had been told she owned all the Jordan money, one person could have made so very many errors, in such a short time. In fact, thinking back on it, had she even done one teeny, tiny thing right? No, now that she looked at it, everything she had tried to do she had screwed up. Not just a little bit but in a great big flashy way.

  First there had been Mr. Fowler. What was it she had told herself early on that first day? It was something grand and noble about how she knew what evil money could do, so she’d not be tempted by the Jordan wealth, no matter how tempting it was.

  How little we know ourselves! she thought with disgust as she turned the wheel hard.

  That day in Fowler’s office had been seductive, oh, so very seductive. Going from being Nobody to Somebody was so very pleasurable. All day she had been wined and dined and feted in a way that was guaranteed to make her forget all her noble thoughts.

  She had to give it to Fowler: he missed nothing. The law firm’s private chef had left his kitchen and come out to meet Kady, then humbly asked her to show him how to make her squab with currant sauce, which he been told of and had never been able to duplicate. While everyone watched and applauded, she had demonstrated that she knew her way around a kitchen, using her own knives, which she happened to have brought with her. As a result of limitless praise, she had done the unthinkable: she had usurped another cook’s kitchen. But the chef must have been well coached (and well paid), because he never made a hint of protest, and Kady had come away walking on clouds, feeling that she was the greatest cook on earth.

  All that day had been like that. She had been asked her advice, listened to, consulted. It seemed that everything she said was wise and worth noting.

  As Mr. Fowler had shown her property that she now owned, he had slowly, and almost as though it were not important, told her about Tarik, or Mr. Jordan, as everyone called him. It seemed that only Kady thought of him as Tarik.

  C. T. Jordan was a very private man. Even with a firm of attorneys that had dealt with his family for two generations, he had been exceptionally closemouthed. “He trusts no one,” Mr. Fowler said in a way that let Kady know he thought the young man ought to get professional help. “Though I first met him when he was nine years old, I know very little about him.”

  Kady didn’t want to ask about a man who had been so very rude to her, but she told herself that if she was going to try to enlist Tarik’s help, she had to know what there was to know about him, didn’t she?

  Tarik Jordan had an apartment in New York that was now owned by Kady and a sprawling farm in Connecticut that was his private property.

  “Married?” she asked, trying to sound as though the answer meant nothing to her.

  “No . . .” Mr. Fowler said hesitantly.

  “Ah,” Kady said in a way that she hoped sounded worldly. “Women.”

  Mr. Fowler smiled. “Actually, no. At least not the way I think you mean. When he was younger, there were a few starlets, but since then it’s been one-at-a-time.”

  When Kady didn’t look back down at the papers, Mr. Fowler continued. “What else can I tell you about him? His only extravagance is those swords of his, and he’s a master at all forms of martial arts. As a boy he won contests in nearly everything he entered.” His voice lowered. “But he does seem to have an unhealthy love of sharp instruments.”

  Kady didn’t comment on that, as a few people had accused her of feeling the same way, but she stopped pretending she wasn’t interested. “What about his family life? What about his mother?”

  “I only met her a few times. She is elegant, beautiful, and as glassily cold as his father. As far as I could tell, after the woman gave birth to a son, she was free to live her own life, as long as she created no scandal. She lives in Europe, and her husband lived in New York, when he wasn’t on his private jet, that is. The child, C.T. the third, was brought up by servants in the house in Connecticut.”

  For a moment, Kady’s heart lurched,