Chapter Eight: Marco's Alibi
Twisted trees threw snakelike shadows in the moonlight. An owl hooted in the far-off gloom. Such a lonely sound! Closer to hand, there was an ominous rustling. A twig crackled. Suddenly there was the sound of hoarse, heavy breathing, the panting noises of a beast in pursuit. The frightened girl in the frilly white lace bed gown ran and ran, yet no matter how she exerted herself the dark, hulking figure was right behind her. He seemed to come closer . . . and closer . . .
"Oh!" Mary opened her eyes, startled to find herself sitting behind the massive desk in her private office. Just after lunch, she had sat down in her luxurious chrome and leather swivel chair to read the daily financial reports. Somehow she must have dozed off.
"Do you have a minute, cousin Mary?" Elizabeth O'Hara's sharp gray eyes flicked up and down as she entered the office, taking in golden-haired Mary's flushed face and droopy green eyes.
"I'm afraid . . . it's not . . . I mean, my calendar is full for the rest of the afternoon. And can't you knock before you enter? After all, I am now CEO of our family's vast corporate empire!" Mary felt defensive, as if her flame-haired cousin had caught her doing something faintly shameful. It was just a quick snooze after a rather heavy lunch. What of it? Powerful men did it all the time!
"Yes, well, the family empire has been expanding lately." Without asking permission, Elizabeth came around to Mary's side of the desk, making her computer flicker away from the company web page and onto a news site. "There, you see, Gascony Farms is ours now. Thanks to your Robin Hood publicity stunt, we have a whole string of useless dairy farms in the upstate region. But look over here. Violence in the neighboring county. Biker gangs and the meth dealers, battling for control. Not far from the highway into Canada, too. The side that wins stands to make millions of dollars."
Mary stretched in her chair, blinking and yawning as she struggled to gather her wits together. "Why do you care what happens in the underworld, Elizabeth? We're a legitimate corporation now - not like in your grandfather's time."
Elizabeth ignored the taunt. She leaned against Mary's desk, cool and alert, her long-legged figure looking trim and almost military in dark blue Chanel. "My feeling is that someone wanted you to take down those meth labs. Someone in the next county. And I wonder if your good friend Marco might not have had a stake in helping to get rid of the Gascony Gang as a way of improving his own business . . . or that of his friends."
"Honestly, Elizabeth, I don't know how you come up with such ridiculous notions." Mary frowned at the computer screen, reading the new story. "It says here that there was a lot of shooting at the meth lab but that when the police arrived they found no drugs at all. Just dead bodies." Mary shuddered. "That's not something Marco would do, I'm certain of it! And how on earth could he have been all the way upstate last night, when he . . ."
"When he what, Mary?" Elizabeth's eyes were like gray laser beams, probing and searching.
"When he nothing." Mary jerked free from those searching gray eyes, her own distracted gaze falling on the gold-plated clock nearby. "Good heavens, it's after two o'clock! I must go, Elizabeth . . . I'm slated to meet with the charity committee and talk about the school lunch program." Mary made to rise from her desk, wondering how she could have slept for over an hour at her desk. Images came back to her of the night before, of Marco disciplining her and binding her and then making love to her. The rough play had lasted hour after hour, exhausting her. Quite an alibi for Marco, at any rate.
Elizabeth grabbed her arm, showing no regard for Mary's rank as CEO. "What's going on between you and Marco, Mary? If you trust me, I can help."
Mary glared accusingly at her cousin. "You've been against him from the beginning - just like you were against me taking over here! I know what you want, Elizabeth, you want to bring me down and turn this corporation into a mirror of your own personality, cruel and greedy and suspicious! Now please take your hands off me. I love you as a sister and I really don't want to call security."
"We're cousins," Elizabeth said coolly, stepping back and looking her over as if Mary were somehow dirty from head to toe. "I owed it to our grandfather to offer you my help. But only once. I'll see you at the big board meeting next week."
"You bet you will!" Mary nearly stuck her tongue out at Elizabeth's retreating figure. She hated arguments, they always brought out the very worst in her and she always felt so exhausted afterwards. Sitting down behind her desk, she began rubbing her slender arm. Elizabeth's firm grip had raised a faint, angry red mark on her flesh that was almost like a bruise. It made her think of Marco, and not in a way she could control.