free to take on cases, Josh, but my boss is the senior partner in the firm. I’d have to discuss it with him.”
“But you can help us?”
“You can be helped. Understand that. I’d like to be the one. Where are you staying?”
“With a friend,” Josh replied. “You wouldn’t know him. We boarded with him at school. He’s a good bloke. His parents are graziers on the Darling Downs. They have an apartment for when they come to town. Dex lives there—it’s close to the university. Dex is a real bright guy. He’s studying medicine.”
“Listen, why don’t I take you both out tonight?” Jewel suggested. “I’ll have spoken to my boss by then. We can really catch up. You like Italian? Thai? Indian? Chinese? Don’t for the love of God say McDonald’s.”
“Italian is great.” Harry grinned, looking as though he wanted to embrace her. “That’s very nice of you, Jewel.”
“Hey, aren’t you guys forgetting how nice your mother always was to me?” Jewel answered quickly, shaking her head as she considered what the boys had told her.
“You wouldn’t know her now, Jewel,” Josh said again, bitterness in his tanned face. “Everett has taken her over. She’s his now, the stinkin’ fraud.”
AFTER THE BOYS HAD GONE, Jewel got feverishly down to work, refreshing her memory of the Omega deal by speed-reading through the file. At the end, she still came to the conclusion, as had Skinner, that the deal was airtight. Omega ex-executives would be ill-advised to go to litigation, but it seemed that was their intent. Bad advice from their lawyers, who would nevertheless line their pockets. It wasn’t until after lunch that she had the opportunity to speak to Skinner about the Hungerford boys’ situation. She expected—and received—an irritated-sounding response.
“I would’ve thought you had one hell of a job on your hands already,” he said when she was finished.
“I can’t walk away from this, Blair. I feel indebted to these boys. To their mother. She was very kind to me when I was a girl. She was directly responsible for a number of fund-raisers to send me off to university. Mr. Hungerford was alive at the time, and the boys were just kids. Really nice kids.”
“Then, she’s well and truly let them down, hasn’t she. If what you tell me is true,” Skinner said, his eyes narrowed. “Have you taken the time to check?”
“Of course. I’m thorough, Blair. You know that. Besides, there’s money in it for the firm.” Which, of course, was Skinner’s bottom line. “The land I’ve been told would fetch around six million in today’s market. The boys have a solid case. Their mother, apparently under the influence of her second husband, George Everett, was in breach of trust. She acted wrongly, and so did the bank.”
“How could she be so stupid as to get in so deep?” Skinner asked. “It was just a time bomb waiting to go off.”
“I intend to speak to her, with your permission, Blair.”
“Ah, no.” He shook his head. “You’re not haring off to North Queensland.”
“I can do it on my own time. This weekend. Maybe you’d be good enough to grant me Monday, as well. I’ll be on the job. And it’ll be wonderful to see my mother.”
Skinner eyes sharpened. “Of course. She’s still up there with your aunt?”
Jewel nodded, keeping her expression cool and calm. “I wanted her to live with me, but she doesn’t like change.”
“Oh, all right, then,” Skinner lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “It’s a helluva distraction, but it has the smell of easy bucks.”
“Thank you, Blair.” Jewel stood up, preparing to leave.
“I noticed a small error in your preparation of the Mayne Goddard brief.” Skinner fixed her with such a steely glance that she sat down again.
“Really? A misplaced comma, perhaps?”
“Don’t be too clever, my dear. No, it’s…” Skinner slipped his gold-rimmed glasses onto his nose. “Ah, here it is. Good thing I picked it up. It might have cost us. You said Shipton Technologies funded the initial deal.”
Jewel breathed an inner sigh of relief. “They did.”
“But surely it was Goddard on their own?” Skinner gave her a steady frown.
“Let me refresh your memory.” Jewel spoke pleasantly. “It was supposed to be, but things changed. A man called Elliot stepped in to handle the negotiation, remember?”
Light dawned in Skinner’s eyes. “Ah yes, now I do. You’re off the hook, Eugenie, when I was so looking forward to catching you out. Shipton Technologies, of course.” He gazed across at her, considered a minute. “By the way, if you were to pop in with some papers at around three-twenty this afternoon, I could introduce you to Lady Copeland and Keefe Connellan. They’ll be here.”
“My goodness. I assure you I’m appreciative of the honor.”
“It’s a gesture of my confidence in you, dear girl. So for God’s sake, be on your best behavior. That sardonic tone might go over well enough with me, but these people are used to a lot of respect.”
“I’ll be so respectful they’ll never know what hit them,” she promised with a straight face.
“You might keep in mind that Keefe is a past master at gobbling up small fry,” Skinner said acidly.
Like you hung heavily in the air.
CHAPTER TWO
BLAIR SKINNER WAS ALL SMILES, as he shook hands with his favorite clients, then waited until they’d seated themselves—he had special chairs brought in for such occasions—before he returned to his revolving leather armchair behind the desk. Lady Copeland had asked for this meeting, bringing along not her son, Travis, as might under normal circumstances have been expected, but Keefe Connellan. Keefe would provide company, support and advice. And few better, Skinner thought, scanning Connellan’s handsome familiar face. Keefe had hair that was almost jet-black, and his eyes were equally dark. They were remarkable eyes, ablaze with intelligence and a shrewd intensity that a lot of people, including Skinner, found daunting, but they also had a marvelous capacity to light up with humor and an irresistible charm. Men as well as women felt it. Skinner, the clotheshorse, approved of Connellan’s unmistakable sense of style—the dark-gray suit, beautifully tailored to fit his tall, athletic body, the very pale lilac shirt worn with an olive silk tie patterned with lilac, silver and midnight blue. Keefe Connellan looked what he was: a rich, highly successful young man from a powerful and influential family.
Lady Copeland, as usual, was lovely, but getting very fragile. Skinner knew she was seventy-five but she didn’t look anywhere near that age. She always dressed beautifully, today in one of her exclusive little suits, in a shade of indigo that was particularly effective with her wonderful eyes. She wore glorious triple-stranded South Sea Island pearls around her neck, chin-length pearl-white hair classically framing a face whose bone structure would probably look good forever. Her skin was extraordinarily unlined. Granted, she had the money for the most expensive skin treatments in the world, but so did other clients of the
