Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

working in sales. About how they fell into a routine: Jim running the company while she entertained clients and volunteered at the hospital and the Women's Club and ran the household. Which was supposed to be a household full of children — that was what she'd hoped for anyway. But it never happened.

And now Sandra May DuMont was just a childless widow…

That was how the people in Pine Creek looked at her. The town widow. They knew that the company would fail, that she'd move into one of those dreadful apartments on Sullivan Street and would just melt away, become part of the wallpaper of smalltown Southern life. They thought no better of her than that.

But that wasn't going to happen to her.

No, ma'am… She could still meet someone and have a family. She was young. She could go to a different place, a big city, maybe — Atlanta, Charleston… hell, why not New York itself?

A Southern woman's got to be a notch stronger than her man. And a notch more resourceful too…

She would get out of this mess.

Ralston could help her get out of it. She knew she'd done the right thing, picking him.

When she woke up the next morning Sandra May found her wrists were cramping; she'd fallen asleep with her hands clenched into fists.

It was two hours later, when she arrived in the office, that Loretta pulled her aside, gazed at her boss with frantic, black-mascaraed eyes and whispered, 'I don't know how to tell you this, Mrs. DuMont, but I think he's going to rob you. Mr. Ralston, I mean.'

* * *

'Tell me.'

Frowning, Sandra May sat slowly in the high-backed leather chair. Looked again out the window.

'All right, see, what happened… what happened…'

'Calm down, Loretta. Tell me.'

'See, after you left last night I started to bring some papers into your office and I heard him on the phone.'

'Who was he talking to?'

'I don't know. But I looked inside and saw that he was using his cell phone, not the office phone, like he usually does. I figured he used that phone so we wouldn't have a record of who he called.'

'Let's not jump to conclusions. What did he say?' Sandra May asked.

'He said he was pretty close to finding everything. But it was going to be a problem to get away with it.'

''Get away with it.' He said that?'

'Yes, ma'am. Right, right, right. Then he said some stock or something was all held by the company, not by 'her personally.' And that could be a problem. Those were his words.'

'Then what?'

'Oh, then I kind of bumped into the door and he heard and hung up real quick. Seemed to me, at any rate.'

'That doesn't mean he's going to rob us,' Sandra May said. ''Get away with it.' Maybe that just means get the money out of the foreign companies. Or maybe he's talking about something else altogether.'

'Sure, maybe it does, Mrs. DuMont. But he was acting like a spooked squirrel when I came into the room.' Then Loretta brushed one of her long, purple nails across her chin. 'How well do you know him?'

'Not well… Are you thinking that he somehow arranged this whole thing?' Sandra May shook her head. 'Couldn't be. I called him to help us out.'

'But how did you find him?'

Sandra May grew quiet. Then she said, 'He met me… Well, he picked me up. Sort of. At the Pine Creek Club.'

'And he told you he was in business.'

She nodded.

'So,' Loretta pointed out, 'he might've heard that you'd inherited the company and went there on purpose to meet you. Or maybe he was one of the people Mr. DuMont was in business with — doing something that wasn't quite right. What you were telling me? — about those foreign companies.'

'I don't believe it,' Sandra May protested. 'No, I can't believe it.'

She looked into her assistant's face, which was pretty and demure, yes, but also savvy. Loretta said, 'Maybe he looks for people who're having trouble running businesses and moves in and, bang, cleans 'em out.'

Sandra May shook her head.

'I'm not saying for sure, Mrs. DuMont. I just worry about you. I don't want anybody to take advantage of you. And we all here… well, we can't hardly afford to lose our jobs.'

'I'm not going to be some timid widow who's afraid of the dark.'

'This might not be just a shadow,' Loretta said.

'I've talked to the man, I've looked into his eyes, honey,' Sandra May said. 'I reckon I'm as good a judge of character as my mama was.'

'I hope you are, ma'am. For all our sakes. I hope you are.'

Sandra May's eyes scanned the office again, the pictures of her husband with the fish and game he'd bagged, the pictures of the company in the early days, the groundbreaking for the new factory, Jim at the Rotary Club, Jim and Sandra May on the company float at the county fair.

Their wedding picture…

Honey, don't you worry your pretty little head about anything I'll take care of it everything'll be fine don't worry don't worry don't worry…

The words her husband had said to her a thousand times echoed in her head. Sandra May sat down in the office chair once more.

* * *

The next day Sandra May found Bill Ralston in the office, hunched over an accounting book.

She set a piece of paper in front of him.

He lifted it, frowning.

'What's this?'

'The power of attorney you were talking about. It gives you the authority to find our money, file suit, vote the company's shares — everything…' She laughed. 'I must say I was having some doubts about you for a bit.'

'Because I'm from New York?' He smiled.

'That War of Northern Aggression, why, it does rear its ugly head sometimes… But, no, I'll tell you why I'm giving it to you. Because a widow can't afford to be afraid of her own shadow. People see that and they sense blood in the water and next thing you know, it's good-bye. No, no, I looked you in the eye and I said to myself, I trust him. So now I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Or, should I say, my husband's money. The hidden variety.' She looked at the document. 'Before Jim's accident I would've run to him with a problem. And before Jim I would've run to my mother. I wouldn't've made any decisions. But I'm on my own now and I have to make my own choices. One of those choices was hiring you and trusting you. This is something I'm doing for me. Now, use that and find the money and get it back.'

He read the power of attorney carefully once more, noted the signature. 'It's irrevocable. You can't withdraw it.'

'The lawyer said a revocable one is useless for tracing money and filing suits if you need to.'

'Good.' He gave her another smile… but it was different from earlier. There was a coldness to his expression. And even a hint of triumph — like you'd see on the face of a redneck Pine Creek High tackle. 'Ah, Sandy, Sandy, Sandy — I'll tell you, I thought it'd take months.'

She frowned. 'Months?'

'Yes'm. To get control of the company, I'm talking about.'

'Get control?' She stared at him. Her breathing was fast. 'What're you… what're you saying?'

'It could've been a nightmare — and the worst part was I'd have to stay in this hellhole of a town for who knew how long… Pine Creek…' He put on a hillbilly accent as he said sarcastically, 'Lord above, how do y 'all keep from going stark, raving mad here?'