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“Well, you can always ask our Ace to come back on the board,” Ainsley told her father.
“People.” Selina raised her voice to get their attention. “You are forgetting about the bylaws. You can’t just go against them like that because it suits you to do so,” she informed the others sitting around the conference table.
Payne looked as if a gathering storm was about to break. “I can if I want to,” he informed his ex-wife angrily.
“Payne,” Selina countered, looking at him squarely. There was a warning note in her voice as she told him, “I beg to differ.”
Marlowe saw the expression on her father’s face. He was struggling to get himself under control. That wasn’t his style. He was a volcano that blew on a regular basis.
There was something else going on here, Marlowe thought, not for the first time.
Because it was what she thought he wanted, she decided to try to buy her father a little time. “Why don’t we hire a very good, very discreet private investigator to try to locate the so-called real Ace? And while he’s at it, maybe the detective can also locate our Ace, who as far as I know seems to have taken off. He’s not at home, and he’s not at any of his regular haunts.” Nor was he answering her calls when she tried to check up on him. She had left a total of five messages and received no answers. She hoped that he wasn’t doing anything drastic, just giving himself a little space and taking a breather from all of this for now.
Rather than talk over them, Rafe raised his hand to get the others’ attention. “Why don’t I look into that for us?” Of all of them, he, as an adopted son, surely knew better than any of them what Ace had to be going through at the moment. “I’ve got a couple of ideas on how to follow up on this,” he told the others.
Selina looked as if her interest had been suddenly piqued. “Just how do you plan to proceed?” she asked.
Rafe looked at the woman, unmoved by her question. “I’ll let you know when and if I find something,” he said her.
Miffed, for once Selina turned toward her ex. “You know, I get the feeling that your children don’t trust me, Payne.”
Payne’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman who had been a thorn in his side for years now.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” he replied cryptically.
That was not what she was expecting. Selina shot her ex a very cold, dark look. Caught in the cross fire, Marlowe could hardly keep from shivering.
Payne drew himself up, looking even more formidable than he usually did. “Well, if there’s nothing else, this meeting’s adjourned,” he declared. “I’ve got a meeting to get to with some possible investors.” He glanced toward Rafe and Marlowe. “Keep me apprised of any progress you make. And de
finitely call me if you locate Ace—our Ace,” he specified. “Tell him he and I need to talk.” He took a breath, then added, “I feel bad about the way we left things.”
Well, this was new. Marlowe exchanged looks with her siblings.
“Dad?” she said hesitantly. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Why?” Payne challenged gruffly.
On the spot, she knew she had to push on even though she wasn’t up to a shouting match. “Because you don’t usually feel the need to, well, apologize,” she told him.
Payne’s complexion went through several changes in color. “Yeah, well, sometimes things need to be shaken up,” was all Payne seemed willing to say. “I’ve got to go,” he repeated, removing his all-but-overwhelming presence from the boardroom.
Marlowe exchanged looks with her siblings. “Who was that man?” she quipped, only half in jest.
Rafe raised his broad shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “Beats me.”
Turning to pick up the notepad she’d brought in with her, Marlowe suddenly became aware of another empty seat at the table. She looked around the room to no avail. “Where’s Selina?”
Turning to answer Marlowe, Ainsley said, “She’s—gone.” It was obvious that was not what she thought she was going to say when she’d started her sentence. “I didn’t see her leave, did you?” she asked Rafe.
Annoyed with herself for not noticing the woman slipping away, Marlowe said, “No, but she probably just slithered out. You know how vipers are.”
Marlowe’s mind was racing ahead, weighing several possible answers to that question. Possibly Selina had just gone back to her office to lick her wounds. Or perhaps she had slipped out to meet with someone. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that her father’s ex-wife was somehow involved in sending that anonymous mass email that had started all of this turmoil. For that matter, she could be even further involved in all this. Maybe she had even known about the switched infants and had helped with the switch—but Selina would have been a child herself when Ace was born.
Her head began to hurt.
She needed help with this, she thought. Impartial help. That ruled out her siblings for now. They all viewed Selina in the same light that she did. If her intent was to be fair, she needed someone outside the circle so that she could be sure she wasn’t allowing her own intense dislike of the woman to color her outlook or taint her conclusions.
She left the boardroom quickly.
