Veiled Threats Read Free Page A

hips, with heavy waves of dark hair and fine olive skin. Just now she was close to tears, biting her lip and picking nervously at the spectacular double strand of baroque pearls at her throat.
    “It's Grace. She's back from Chicago. But I haven't told her about the dress yet. I'm … I'm kind of scared to.”
    I was a little worried about the dress myself. Nickie's original wedding gown had recently arrived, two weeks late and two sizes too small. The couturier couldn't produce a replacement in time, and Nickie's stepmother Grace was out of town, soNickie and I had gone shopping. A chance detour into my favorite vintage clothing store turned up an Edwardian gown, a timeworn but lovely concoction of cream-colored lace. We both loved it, so I bought it, dispensing a hefty sum from the household checking account, which Douglas Parry had put at my disposal. But perhaps we'd been a wee bit impulsive. I hadn't met Grace yet, but I hoped to hell she was open-minded.
    “And besides,” Nickie rushed on, the tears overflowing, “Ray's family is all upset because of this new publicity about Daddy and King County Savings. They're so conservative and proper, and I never know what to say to them anyway—I keep thinking they don't like me because I'm not Japanese. But Ray thought I was criticizing them, and I thought he was criticizing Daddy, and now there are these anonymous letters, and then we had a fight on the t-telephone. That's why he's not here tonight, so I drove myself and brought Michelle and Sean.”
    “That must have been a pleasure,” I said dryly.
    She laughed, damply. “It was awful! She kept wanting to drive the Mustang, but I don't let anybody drive it, not even Ray.” The tears overflowed again. “And now he's mad at me. Why does everything get so complicated? I just love Ray and I want everybody to l-leave us alone!”
    Juliet, at bay between the Montagues and Capulets, might have been more eloquent, but no more sincere. I hugged her to me, letting her cry for as long as she needed, and hiding my own rueful smile. Youngsters keep falling in love and wanting the world to go away, and the world never does.
    Then I frowned at myself for this remarkably middle-aged sentiment. Who was I, Juliet's old hag of a nurse while still in my thirties? Always a bridal consultant, never a bride. I had a sudden image of those sea-green eyes, and a sudden desire tostar in my own romance. I set it firmly aside and pressed on to more serious matters.
    “Nickie, I'm sure you and Ray will sort this out. Just give it time. But what's all this about your father? What letters?”
    More tears. “Someone's sending him threats in the mail, and I think they're calling him, too! He didn't want me and Grace to know about it, but I saw one of the letters by accident. It called him a—it called him names, and said he stole people's life savings. It said if he didn't confess to the grand jury, that he'd be sorry for the rest of his life! Carnegie, he wouldn't do anything wrong, ever.”
    “Of course he wouldn't,” I told her, thinking just the opposite. Douglas Parry didn't look like a crook to me, but then again I'd once been stiffed for nine hundred dollars by a baker who looked like Mother Teresa with a rolling pin. And the whole savings-and-loan debacle seemed so Machiavellian, so many deals within deals. How many of those wealthy, well-connected bankers were completely above reproach?
    I knew only the outlines of this case. Douglas Parry had chaired the board of King County Savings, which went into receivership after heavy losses and allegations of securities fraud. During a seemingly endless federal investigation, the CEO, Keith Guthridge, had tried to shift the blame to Parry, but Parry claimed that Guthridge had misled him every step of the way. What made it really ugly was that the two men had once been close friends. Keith Guthridge was Nickie's godfather.
    “The grand jury will sort it all out,” I said, trying to sound brisk