Family Fortune

“Only if André says I have to,” she said reluctantly. “But I’ll go after work. I’m summarizing a report for the board. Besides, I promised Skipper I’d visit him this evening. I’m not making two trips to the hospital in one day.”

Nate straightened away from the door. “I hate to drag our heels in case somebody else gets wind of this. Let’s see what André and Mike want to do.”

“Deal.” She stuck out her hand and they shook. “It’ll frost in the French Quarter before André gives sports precedence over company finances.”

CRYSTAL HAD A PENCIL stuck in her hair, one between her teeth, and reports strewn all over her desk when her door swung open. Looking up, she saw Nate, André and his son-in-law, Michael, bearing purposefully down on her. “Hey, you guys are causing a draft,” she shrieked, grabbing for a couple of pages that had skittered to the floor.

“Sorry.” Nate closed the door while André and Michael collected the spreadsheets that had landed beside her desk.

“Nate brought us up to snuff on the Tanner deal. Thanks for calling this to Nate’s attention, Crystal.” André tucked the loose papers under her elbow. “Did Cale indicate what salary he’d accept? Can he be had for eighty-five thou?”

Crystal’s chin almost hit the desk. “Eighty-five thousand, as in dollars?”

André tugged at his lower lip. “Probably peanuts to him, all right. But he must have a fortune socked away. We’ll go with eighty-five. If he scoffs or claims to have another deal pending, angle for his bottom line. We’ll try to match it.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” André pursed his lips; Michael merely shook his head.

Nate grinned at Crystal. “I think it just frosted in the French Quarter, kid.”

She stuck out her tongue at Nate, but appealed to André and Mike. “Tanner has no experience. That salary puts him on a par with our managers.”

“We can afford it, can’t we?” Michael asked.

“Yes, but—”

“His name alone will raise our ratings. That’s our offer.” André dug a sealed envelope from his suit jacket and pressed it into Crystal’s hand. “The three of us are going to K-Paul’s for lunch and to organize some plans. Michael has an idea for sending Tanner into the community—chanty stuff, you know, to enhance the station’s image. I’m taking my cellular. Phone us with his answer.”

Crystal watched them walk out, talking animatedly. It was Caleb this and Caleb that. She felt like throwing up. André used to be so levelheaded. Having a son late in life must have affected his brain. Andy-Paul was barely six, but Crystal should have remembered seeing André racing around the yard at Lyoncrest, tossing various balls to the kid. Footballs. Soccer. Softballs. And where was Gaby during all this? Right out there with them, Crystal recalled. Gaby claimed Andy-Paul, a change-of-life child, was a miracle that had given her a new lease on life. That new lease on life had turned André and Gabrielle into sports nuts.

Crystal glared at the envelope. Why should she recruit a person whose profession she didn’t respect for a television station she loved? Because André asked you to.

Well, maybe Caleb Tanner had other plans. She could always hope.

Sticking the envelope in her purse, Crystal retrieved her sax. She left the stack of reports on her desk. “After this, I deserve the rest of the day off,” she muttered.

“I’m running an errand for André,” she announced to the bookkeepers working in the next room. “Field my calls, please, April. If Margaret phones, tell her to use my cellular number. It’s listed in the office directory in case she doesn’t have it with her.”

Ray Lyon burst out of his office across the hall. “What errand are you running for André?” He appeared agitated, more agitated than usual. “Did you mention something about a call from Aunt Margaret? André hasn’t heard from her, has he?”

“If you spent as much time phoning clients with delinquent accounts as you do with your ear glued to the door, profits would double.” Crystal wasn’t in any mood for Ray’s habit of butting into conversations that didn’t concern him. Nor did she care to discuss André.

“Don’t take my head off. Everybody’s talking about the old lady’s disappearance. If you ask me, it just proves she’s short a few dots on her dominoes.”

“Oh, right. Like you came from the deep end of the gene pool. Get a life, Raymond.”

He hitched up his pants. His too-pointed incisors were all that showed when he smiled. “You’ve grown awful big for your britches, missy. I’m gonna love watching the seams split when the balance of power shifts our way.”

Crystal honed in on his size-fifty-two waist. She did nothing more than arch one brow to send him skulking back into his office.

April left her desk and came to the door. “He’s worse than swamp crud, boss. But everyone’s worried about Margaret. Especially the old-timers.”

“Has anyone suggested where she might have gone?”

“No. All the guessing is what’s keeping the pot stirred.”

“I see.” But she didn’t really. She’d been telling herself that Margaret’s jaunt to...wherever was nothing to worry about. That it was her prerogative as a woman of stature and means. Crystal gnawed her lower lip. It just wasn’t like Margaret to worry her family—even if she’d been feeling smothered by their concern. “Has André or Gaby said anything in particular to put employees on edge?”

“Only that if Margaret calls, to let them know at once. You’ve got to admit it’s odd. People You’ve known her a long time say she dotes on André and his kids. Why would she go off without telling him?”

“She may dote on her son and grandkids, but Paul was the other half of her. Losing him dealt her a real blow. She said it was like having her heart tom in two.”

“I can’t imagine loving any man that much, can you, Crystal?”

“It’s possible. For instance—Andre and Gaby, Leslie and Michael, Nate and Jill, Sharlee and Dev. They’re all crazy in love.” She got a distant look in her eyes.

April screwed up her face. “Well, maybe they’ve found true love. My family, on the other hand, believes in supporting their local divorce courts.”

Crystal thought of her father and her ex-fiancé. They’d left footprints on her heart, her dad’s departure leaving the deepest depressions. “I’m not looking for love, April.”

“I hear that love strikes when you’re not looking. Hey, boss, weren’t you going somewhere?” April checked her watch. “We’ve been gabbing for ten minutes. I don’t know where you’re headed, but unless it’s a command performance with the IRS, I could be keeping you from meeting the love of your life.”

Crystal remembered her destination. Caleb Tanner. “I have a greater chance of being abducted by aliens,” she replied.

“Hey, if your love life sucks as much as mine does, I wouldn’t be so hasty to write those guys off. The little suckers are kinda cute, with their big eyes and all.”

Crystal walked away laughing. If April only knew how far off target Tanner was from her ideal lover. No one could be farther from it.

THE WEATHER HAD deteriorated. The sky was dark and with clouds. The monsoons were late, but it looked as if they’d finally struck. Crystal opened her umbrella at the first rumble of thunder. Sure enough, rain began to spatter from those ominous clouds. She debated returning to the office and charging a cab to André’s expense account. But before she could retrace her route, a streetcar arrived.

Laughter spewed from the car as the slanting rain chased her inside. Crystal vaulted aboard quickly and wedged herself in beside a group of German-speaking tourists. They also spoke French, so Crystal pointed out sights until it was time to disembark.

She waved goodbye. If she could have, she would have joined their tour of the Beauregard-Keyes House. Not that she hadn’t visited the historic cottage with its captivating gardens many times. It was more that she wanted to delay the inevitable.

“We’ll come hear you play at the jazz pub on Bourbon Street,” one of her new acquaintances promised just before she hopped out. “Friday night!”

Crystal waggled her saxophone case to let them know she’d heard. It doubled as a shield against the rain, which was falling in earnest now. Her red twill suit was wet through by the time she reached the lobby. She felt the soggy flop of her braid with every step she took. Outside Tanner’s room, Crystal spared the time to unbind the heavy strands. She almost never wore her hair loose. But she wasn’t here to impress Tanner. If André and Nate had hoped to do that, they should have come, instead.

She did, however, run a comb through her frizzy locks. Otherwise he’d take one look and head for the hills from whence he’d come. Are there hills in Texas? Skipper said Tanner had come to the Sinners from Dallas. That accounted for the difference in his drawl. His voice was rich and rough and slightly twangy.

Taking a deep breath, Crystal unearthed the envelope with the station’s offer. Then before she lost her nerve, she knocked.

“Stay out,” called the voice she’d been analyzing. It soared above a background murmur of several people talking.

Now what? Crystal weighed the order. If he had family visiting, she’d return another time. But if he was talking to his agent, she might slip inside and leave André and Nate’s offer with them.

The door gave easily under her hand. As she’d done yesterday, she tried to peer through the crack. No luck. She leaned around the door to see more clearly. Her hair slithered forward, obscuring her face.