style="font-size:15px;"> Not that Brandon had ever told Wyatt he’d loved his older brother, missed him, felt hurt and betrayed because he’d abandoned him for Frannie Beaudine. But if he knew nothing else about his family, Wyatt knew that love was never enough for a Sinclair. That was their abyss. It was impossible to fill with money or adventures. No matter how many lions they shot or mountains they climbed or discoveries they made, the abyss remained unfilled.
He wondered when his father had realized his only son was that way, too. Another Sinclair destined for notoriety and adventure.
But no more. After the disaster in Tasmania, Wyatt had opted for the safe path. A desk, a suit, a job putting his MBA to use. He’d already thrown his trust fund in his father’s face, so there wasn’t that. But there was plenty of money. Even a disinherited Sinclair was good at making money.
The cat jumped up on his lap and started pawing, and Wyatt shut off the television and listened to Manhattan awaken on a dreary March morning. Garbage trucks, cabs, dog walkers, hospital workers, a siren off in the distance. He patted Pill, although he didn’t much like cats, and he told himself that Penelope Chestnut and her discovery in the woods above Lake Winnipesaukee weren’t his problem. His only problem was scrounging up enough energy and interest to get to work for nine o’clock.
By nine-fifteen Jack Dunning was standing in front of Wyatt’s office window high above New York harbor. Jack was a tall, rangy, sandy-haired man dressed in cowboy boots and jeans. Wyatt regarded him without comment. A Brooklyn native gone Texan. He’d worked as a private investigator in Dallas for years, apparently wore out his welcome and was back in New York. His chief client was Brandon Sinclair, a man not only very rich but also very suspicious, determined to protect himself, his wife, his two ex-wives, his son and his two young daughters from scoundrels, kidnappers, con men and lunatics. Jack seemed perfectly willing to oblige. As soon as he made enough money, he always said, he planned to buy a ranch in west Texas and retire. New York made him itch, and the women wore too damned much black.
He glanced at Wyatt. “Nice view.”
Wyatt smiled. “The Statue of Liberty reminds me of the virtues of tolerance.”
“Reminds me of the dangers of being a sucker.”
Wyatt couldn’t tell if he was serious. In his eighteen months back in New York, he’d come to believe Jack Dunning was a man not nearly as uncomplicated as he liked to pretend. His angular features and dead gray eyes made him difficult to read. He could be fifty—he could be sixty. It was impossible to tell. And Wyatt had no real desire to know. Jack worked for his father. If he was here, it was because Brandon Sinclair wanted him to be here.
“You heard about your uncle’s plane?” Jack asked.
“I caught it on the morning news.” Wyatt didn’t say how early that morning. Dunning would regard a sleepless night as a weakness and file it away as something he had on his employer’s eldest child.
“Then you haven’t heard the latest. The woman who said she found the plane—this Penelope Chestnut—she’s changed her mind. Says it was a mistake. She was hypoglycemic and on edge because she was lost.”
“Lost?”
“That’s how she found the site in the first place—she was out hiking on Sunday afternoon and got lost. Her folks were organizing a search party when she found her way out on her own. Claims she went back yesterday afternoon and saw it wasn’t a plane but just an old dump site, probably from the turn of the century.”
Wyatt rolled that one around in his mind. A mistake. Not what he’d expected from Penelope Chestnut, although he had no reason to expect anything. “So no Colt and Frannie, after all.”
“That’s what she says. Here’s the thing.” Jack turned from the window. There was no indication he felt out of place in the elegant wood-paneled Wall Street office, which Wyatt had leased furnished, down to the brass lamps and slate blotter. If he were to play the venture capitalist, he needed a robber baron office.
Dunning stayed focused on his reason for being there—Penelope Chestnut. “Now she’s also claiming she can’t find the dump site again,” he said.
That tweaked Wyatt’s interest. “How’s that possible?”
“She says she was able to follow her tracks in the snow yesterday, but it was tough even then because of all the daytime melting. Says she planned to take people up today to prove it, but it snowed last night and covered what was left of her tracks. She got up at the crack of dawn this morning and says she can’t find the site. Says she wandered around and just can’t find her trail or figure out how to get back there. Maybe she can find it in the spring.”
Wyatt tilted in his buttery leather chair and considered this twist. At first blush it sounded like bullshit. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s hogwash. This girl’s lived her whole life in those woods. She can find her way back, snow or no snow. I’d bet my molars on it.”
“What does my father say?”
Jack gave a small grin. He was a striking man, but not handsome. Wyatt sensed he liked his employer, despite the vast difference in their manner and sensibilities. “Your daddy’s more diplomatic than I am. He asked me to go up there and check out this girl’s story. New Hampshire in March. Just where I want to be. But I’ll do it and see what’s what.”
“And why tell me?” Wyatt asked.
The grin turned to a smirk. “Because your daddy asked me to.”
As Wyatt had expected. “Okay. Thanks for the report. If you need my help for anything, let me know. You have my number.”
Jack winked. “I have all your numbers, Sinclair. See you around.”
Thirty minutes later, Wyatt was still staring at the same printout. He’d had his secretary hold his calls. He got up from his desk and walked to the window, the Statue of Liberty shrouded in a sudden fog. He agreed with Jack. Penelope Chestnut’s story didn’t wash.
He called his father, knowing already he was making a futile effort. His father would tell him nothing, possibly less than he’d told his personal private detective. Jack was a professional. He could be controlled.
“Wyatt—good to hear from you. How’s the weather in New York?”
“Foggy. Jack Dunning was just here. He told me you’ve sent him to New Hampshire to check out this woman’s story about Colt’s plane. Anything I need to know?”
“It’s just a precaution. If she made a mistake and is doing what she can to save face, so be it. But if she’s lying, I want to know why. And, of course, if she’s lying, I want to find my brother’s plane.” He paused, no chink in his self-control. They might still have been discussing the weather. “After all these years, I’d like to know what happened to him.”
“You trust Dunning?”
“I’m paying him well enough.”
Wyatt didn’t comment. As far as he was concerned, money and trust had nothing to do with each other. “I guess that’s your call. Anything else?”
His father was silent for half a beat. “What else would there be?”
“I
