“What’s Cedar International?”
Lexi assumed a look of studied blankness. “What?”
David Tennant wasn’t buying the innocent routine.
“Cedar International. What is it? Or how about DH Holdings? Does that ring any bells?”
Lexi tried to brazen it out. “Of course. They’re both offshore investment vehicles. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” David Tennant smiled wryly. “I suppose I was just curious as to why you’ve been siphoning off Templeton assets into them like a South American dictator about to go on the lam.”
Lexi smiled. Perhaps charm would work where brazenness had failed?
“Relax, David. I’m not going anywhere. I set those companies up to make investments outside of Templeton’s core portfolio.”
“I’ll say they’re outside of our portfolio! We’re a real-estate company, Lexi. Cedar International owns two paper mills, a failing diamond mine in the Congo, and a chain of European waste-disposal companies. DH Holdings owns an Internet bank and”-he consulted his notes-“a coffee-processing plant in Brazil. Have you gone quite mad?”
How typical of David to be so observant. And how irritating.
Forget charm. I’ll try the angry-boss card.
“Templeton Estates is my company, David. I don’t need you to remind me of our business plan.”
“Don’t you? Then would you mind telling me what all these acquisitions are for ? And why the dodgy shell companies?”
Damn. She’d forgotten it was impossible to bully David Tennant. That must be why he was her closest adviser and why she’d allowed him to buy a 10 percent stake in her company.
He’s entitled to an explanation. I just have to think of one that will appease him without revealing the truth.
“Look, perhaps I should have told you. But not all of these trades worked out as well as I’d hoped. I didn’t want to appear, well, foolish.”
Silence.
“I knew they were risky deals, so I stripped them out of our balance sheet.”
More silence. Lexi plowed on.
“If it looks as if there’s no rhyme or reason to the portfolio, that’s because there isn’t. I set up Cedar years and years ago to buy up any wacky, failing business I thought looked interesting. It’s been around almost as long as Templeton.”
“I know. You registered it in the Caymans in 2010.”
“Right.” How the hell did he know that?
Lexi ensured she left a trail so complex and convoluted, no one should have been able to trace the company to her, still less link it with Templeton Estates.
I must have gotten careless. That can’t happen again.
“I also noticed that two of the companies, the mine and the coffee plant, belonged to Kruger-Brent.”
Actually, they all belonged to Kruger-Brent…once. With the others, I bought shares in the acquirers, then sold them on to my shell companies after a suitably discreet interval. I guess you didn’t get that far, Sherlock Holmes.
Lexi kept her voice casual. “Yes. Purely coincidence.”
David Tennant looked skeptical. Lexi had been becoming more and more secretive and reclusive recently. She’d been furious when a recent Vanity Fair article drew comparisons between her and Eve Blackwell, her agoraphobic aunt. Maybe the truth hurt?
“I should have told you, David. I’m sorry.”
He softened slightly.
“As you say, Lexi, this is your company. Just don’t bleed us completely dry, eh? Too many transfers of the size you’ve been making recently and our cash flow…well, I don’t need to tell you of the risks.”
After he’d gone, Lexi sat at her desk for a long time, thinking.
Her Jenga strategy wasn’t working. She’d thought she could chip away at Kruger-Brent discreetly, making strategic acquisitions here and there without anyone connecting them to her. But David Tennant had already made the connection. More important, Kruger-Brent was showing no signs of imminent collapse.
I need a new strategy. Something bigger, bolder. I need to think.
It was time to face facts. Gabe’s disappearance had shaken her deeply. She wasn’t sleeping. She often found herself crying for no reason. Worse still, it was starting to affect her judgment at work. She had appeased David Tennant, for now. But she knew David. The man was a rottweiler. He never let go. Next time…
No. There mustn’t be a next time.
She wrote an e-mail to her brother:
I’ve changed my mind. If it’s still open, I’d like to take you up on your offer. I’ve been working too hard recently. I need a break.
Three weeks at Robbie and Paolo’s farmhouse in the South African wine country might be just what the doctor ordered.
The week Lexi arrived in South Africa, Gabe McGregor was officially pronounced dead.
“It’s a legal formality,” Robbie told her. “No one knows for sure what happened. But given his state of mind and the length of time he’s been missing…he hasn’t touched his bank accounts. He left his passport in the office.”
Lexi nodded. She had accepted weeks ago that Gabe was gone. Even so, having his death confirmed in the newspapers felt strange and sad.
I never got to say sorry. I wish he’d known how much he meant to me.
Robbie Templeton opened the lawyer’s letter at breakfast.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Paolo teased. “Been harassing the busty sopranos again, have you? Bad boy.”
“It’s from Gabe McGregor’s law firm. I’ve been asked to come to the reading of his will. According to this, I’m a beneficiary.”