He sat back down, resting his head on his hands. The same fear he’d felt last night standing in her apartment was twisting his gut again, only more tightly, more viciously than before.
Had he lost her?
An image floated in his head, a vision of how she’d looked the day before, her face pale, her eyes wide and dark with hurt.
He squeezed his tired, burning eyes shut, trying to banish the picture. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He never should have given her that prenuptial agreement. He was an idiot. If she would just come back, he would apologize, tell her what a fool he’d been. He would make it up to her…
If he ever got the chance.
Why didn’t she call?
Maybe something had happened to her. What if she’d been in an accident? What if she’d been mugged and her purse snatched? She was a fool for going around the city in that damn train at all hours of the day and night. What if she was in the hospital right now, critically injured, with no identification, unable to speak—
He jumped to his feet, picked up the phone and buzzed Mrs. Grist.
“Mr. Wisnewski!” her voice came on the line. “I was just about to ring you—”
“Has she called?” Hope flared in his chest.
“No, but Mr. Larson wants to talk to you—”
Hope turned to ashes. “Tell Larry to go to hell,” he growled. “I want you to call the local hospitals. See if anyone answering to Ellie’s description has been admitted in the last twenty-four hours—”
“Yes, Mr. Wisnewski, but—”
“No buts. Call the police, too. See if there’ve been any accidents—”
“Bu
t Mr. Larson said it was about Ellie—”
“And have security see what they…Ellie? What about Ellie?”
“I don’t know exactly. He just said you need to come down to the conference room. He said it’s important.”
Garek frowned. Had Larry found out something? Was Ellie here?
He hurried down to the second floor, but when he entered the conference room, there was no sign of Ellie—just a phalanx of gray-suited, black-briefcased businessmen. They looked like robots—except for the short, red-faced man in a green plaid suit at one end of the table.
The man looked familiar, although it took Garek a moment to place him—Calvin G. Hibbert, financier and wealthy scion of the blue-blooded Hibbert family. One of his companies had been competing with Wisnewski Industries for the Lachland Company. What the hell was he doing here?
“Ah, Garek, there you are!” Larry’s usually neatly combed hair was disheveled, the bald spot in plain view. In an undertone, he added, “You are not going to believe what’s happening—”
“Mr. Garek Wisnewski?” One of the robotic clones spoke when he heard Garek’s name. “I am Rex Rath-skeller, senior partner of the firm Rathskeller, Broad and Campbell. These gentlemen are Mr. Broad, Mr. Campbell and our associates, Mr. Pesner, Mr. White and Mr. Kiphuth.”
Garek frowned. He’d heard of the firm. Headquartered in Philadelphia, it was considered one of the best in the nation. “If this has something to do with Lachland—”
“Lachland?” The lawyer appeared confused until one of his colleagues whispered in his ear. His forehead cleared. “Ah, I see. No, Mr. Wisnewski, this has nothing to do with your company’s business. No, we’ve been hired by our client to discuss a prenuptial agreement—”
A ringing sounded in Garek’s ears, obscuring the rest of the man’s sentence. He’d spent the last twenty-four hours rushing all over the city looking for Ellie, half out of his mind with fear and worry—and she’d been off hiring a pack of lawyers? And not just any lawyers. She’d hired the most experienced, most cutthroat, most expensive lawyers in the business. She’d certainly changed her tune—
Larry’s frantic voice penetrated the haze. “Mr. Rath-skeller claims that Ellie isn’t penniless. He claims that she has money of her own. He claims that—”
“He doesn’t claim anything,” the old man in green announced coldly. “He states facts. I am Calvin G. Hibbert, and Eleanor Graciela Hibbert Hernandez is my granddaughter. And she possesses a trust fund in excess of two hundred million dollars—”
Larry’s eyes bugged out. “Two…hundred…million…!” he gasped, sinking into a chair.
For a moment, no one spoke, the silence broken only by Larry’s choking noises.