Need to Know (Sisterhood Book 28) by Fern Michaels (2)

Chapter 1

Yoko Wong put her hands up to shield her eyes from the bright sun as she watched Kathryn Lucas expertly back up the huge eighteen-wheeler full of spring flowers and seedlings for the Wong Nursery. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a luxurious silver Mercedes inching its way into the customer parking lot. The only person she knew who drove a car like that was Garland Lee. Her heart kicked up a beat, knowing that Garland would buy every single flower and seedling the moment Kathryn unloaded the truck. Garland loved flowers.

With one eye on Kathryn and the other one on Garland, Yoko realized it had been months since she’d seen her friend. Garland was Beyoncé, Rihanna, Tina Turner, and Madonna all rolled into what the public knew as Garland Lee.

Yoko grinned when she saw her friend step out of her fancy car and wave both arms. Garland looked like a bag lady, dressed in baggy coveralls, black lace-up–to–the–ankle Converse sneakers, and a tattered T-shirt that at one time had said MUSIC IS MY LIFE. Most of the letters were worn off, and the shirt was three sizes too big for the songbird. Her long, luxurious, strawberry-blond hair, one of Garland’s trademarks, was held in place by a bright red bandanna.

“I’ll take it all!” Garland shouted. “How are you, sweetie?” she said, gathering Yoko in a tight bear hug. Up close, Yoko admired the other woman’s ageless beauty. Garland’s explanation for her looks was that she came from hearty peasant stock. She pooh-poohed those who said she had plastic surgery, telling them that if they could find the surgeon, she would pay them a cool one million dollars. She did, however, admit to dyeing her hair, wearing contact lenses, and having had her teeth capped. She always ended her explanation by saying, “I’m no different than half the women in America.” And that was the end of that.

Yoko threw her hands in the air. “Hanging in there, Garland. How about you? I’ve missed you. Were you on tour? It’s been months. I’ve missed our occasional lunches. Uh-oh, something’s wrong. I know that look. What? Wait, wait. I have to sign off on this load and pay for it. You sure you want all of it? Because if you do, I have to place my order to replace this delivery.”

“I’m sure. Go along, take care of business. I have all day. We can talk when you’re finished.”

Garland Lee was a very beautiful woman, with a warm smile and sparkling green eyes. Her smile was welcoming and sincere. If Garland welcomed you into her very small inner circle, you had a friend for life. She walked along now, up and down the different aisles where flats and pots of colorful spring flowers filled the nursery. She wondered if what she was seeing would be enough to replace all the damage done from the fire at her estate. She winced when she remembered how the firefighters had trampled her flower beds, how the construction workers had uprooted her beautiful shrubs and flowering trees. It had been necessary, she knew that, but still, she wished it hadn’t happened. She loved her mini estate, the beautiful gardens she had designed herself because she so loved flowers. What she missed the most were her treasured lilac bushes. When they were in full bloom, she filled the house with lilacs. She looked around but did not see any. Well, Yoko was a magician when it came to plants and flowers. If anyone could find lilac bushes, it was Yoko Wong. The thought left her feeling better.

Garland’s ears picked up the sound of the eighteen-wheeler’s powerful engine. She turned around to walk back to the entrance. She smiled at the sound of the air horn and an arm waving out the driver’s-side window. Yoko waved back.

Garland laughed. “If I had known this delivery was scheduled for this morning, I could have had you divert the driver to my house. Oh, well, everything happens for a reason. When do you think your people can deliver all of this?” she said, waving her arms about.

“When my afternoon help arrives.”

“I didn’t see any lilac bushes,” Garland said fretfully.

“That’s because there aren’t any. The lilacs, the red tips, and the magnolias are scheduled for delivery next Wednesday. I guess you want all the lilacs, right?”

“Yes, all of them. I don’t care how many you have. But I don’t want little bitty shrubs. I want them full grown. At my age, I don’t have time to watch them grow like the original batch. Yoko, I cried, do you believe that? All my beautiful plants, the hemlocks in the back, my gorgeous lilacs trampled like roadside scrub. The house . . . I was able to deal with that. It was the garden, my sanctuary, that I hated to lose. But life goes on, so now I’m in a place where I am fortunate enough to be able to replace everything.”

Yoko nodded. “Let’s go in the office and have a cup of tea so you can bring me up to date on what’s been going on in your life.”

“Fine, fine. I can use a cup of tea, but I want to be sure your crew will do the entire yard. It has to be graded, fertilized, then planted. I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business, but I just want to be sure we’re on the same page. By my best guess, this is a hundred-thousand-dollar job. Possibly more. I can pay you a deposit now. The insurance company settled with me last week.”

“Don’t worry, Garland. My people know what to do. When they’re finished, you’ll never know you had a fire. Are you satisfied with the house?”

“I am. It’s amazing how one faulty wire could cause all that damage. But that’s behind me now. This is a new page in my book of life. How are things with you? Oh, you have those sticky rice cakes that I love so much. Talk to me, Yoko.”

“My life is routine. Harry does his thing, and Lily is happy as a lark and loves her new school. I work here every day. I saved you the biggest, the prettiest Christmas tree, and you never came for it. I think I knew something was wrong at that point. I had heard about your fire. One of the tabloids said you were living in your guesthouse, and another one said you were in Europe. I didn’t know what to think.”

Garland untied the colorful bandanna on her head, bundled up her hair, and tied the bandanna back in place. “It’s complicated, Yoko. I’ve been in California. That’s where my backup sound studio is. I did a lot of crying, but I’m over that now. I think I’m going to retire.”

“No! You aren’t serious, or are you?” Yoko was so shocked, she was virtually speechless.

“I’m thinking about it. Like I said, it’s complicated. Part of it is that crazy lawsuit.”

Once again, Yoko was speechless. “That’s still going on! Good Lord, that’s . . . that’s three years!”

“Two years and ten months, to be precise. That low-life, bottom-feeding scumbag is not giving up. I’m gearing up to go to trial because I won’t settle with him. By the time it gets to court, it will be well over three years. I’ve had to spend millions to defend myself. The scumbag does most of his own legal work, and he has his creepy lawyer sign off on it, so his legal bills are nowhere near what mine are. The case is starting to heat up again after months of nothing. Every day, I pray that the bastard will drop off the face of the earth or just disappear into thin air. I keep rooting for a UFO to appear and whisk him away to some deep-space asteroid, preferably in another galaxy, to live out the rest of his life in abject misery. I know that’s an impossible dream, but I still pray for it. There are no words to tell you how much I loathe that man.”

Yoko poured the tea into pretty little cups and set the rice cakes on a matching plate. She smiled. “I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“The thing is, Yoko, if my son hadn’t taken over my affairs, I still wouldn’t know what he had been doing. Twenty years! For twenty years, I believed him. I thought he was my friend. I trusted him, and he betrayed me. He helped himself to twenty-five million dollars of my money! Not just my money, but the money meant for my charity!” To Yoko’s dismay, Garland was screeching now.

“What are your lawyers telling you?”

“They tell me what they think I want to hear as they run to the bank with all that billable-hours money. Let’s not even go there. Things were fine when he was simply my lawyer from way back, when I got my first contract. David Duffy, who became my business manager, had a handle on things and was as honest as the day is long. When he died eight years ago, I was lost, and when Arthur Forrester stepped in and said he could take it all over, I was grateful! Can you believe that? I was actually grateful to the man who proceeded to rob me blind. I must have been out of my mind. But I did ask my son if he’d take over, and he said he didn’t think he was capable and really didn’t have the time since he was going for his doctorate. I asked my daughter, but Misty was just starting out in her career and was on the road constantly. There was no way the twins could have done it. I had no other choice, or that’s how I saw it at the time, other than to go with Arthur.”

Yoko’s head buzzed. “How did he do it? Rip you off for so much money and you not know it?”

“He did it in small amounts so I wouldn’t notice. A little bit off every contract, every record, every dollar in endorsement money. That’s how. But worst of all, he took most of it from my charity.”

Yoko knew that Garland had created early in her career a charitable foundation that provided scholarships, school supplies, and other opportunities for underprivileged kids. Many times over the years, she had said that she believed in sharing her success with others, and devoted a lot of her precious free time to fund-raising and appearing at events for her foundation. Yoko could tell that most of Garland’s outrage sprang from the fact that the money specifically set aside to help others had been misused for individual gain.

“Andy was in a car accident several years ago and had to have extensive rehab,” Garland continued, “so he had time on his hands and tried to help me out. He’s the one who found out what Forrester was doing.”

“I don’t really understand, Garland. How could you not have noticed that amount of money going missing? Were you asleep at the switch?”

“No. But I might as well have been. Duffy was so honest, I never thought.... It just never occurred to me that Arthur would . . . would cheat me like that. As you know, I’m bipolar. I’m sure, to a certain extent, that plays into it. In my own defense, I had every right to expect that he would act like an honest lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to be like doctors. You’re supposed to be able to trust them. The bottom line is, he betrayed me for his own personal gain. When I fired him, he said that I ruined his life and the lives of his family. Then the bastard sued me, and I had no recourse but to sue him back. And here we are.”

Yoko sighed as she sipped at her tea. “That is such an outrageous sum of money. I don’t deal in those kinds of numbers. What is he suing you for specifically? What does, or did, he do with all his money? Do you know?”

“I don’t know this for sure, but one time he told me he plays the stock market and is not a very savvy investor. Twice, he claimed, he lost really big. But he’s such a liar, I have no idea if that was true or not. Or why he would admit such a thing to me. I almost tend to think it was true because at one point I had to cosign a loan for him to buy some kind of horse ranch in Montana. Stupid as I was, I didn’t even question the why of it. I just did it because I trusted him.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Yoko. It’s too depressing, and it’s too nice a day to be depressed. I’m going to take a walk around the Tidal Basin because the cherry trees are blooming.”

Yoko nodded. “Do you want to take the rest of these rice cakes with you?”

“Such a silly question,” Garland said, hugging Yoko.

“Ah . . . Garland, I don’t want to seem like I’m inserting myself into your personal business, but I know some . . . um . . . people who could possibly help you. If I could arrange a meeting, would you be interested?”

Garland took a step back and stared at Yoko. “Are we talking about what you do in your other life?”

Yoko laughed out loud. “I can neither confirm nor deny. And you know I have this other life . . . how?”

“Because I’m a good listener, and I’ve heard things over the years. I know how to add two and two. But, to answer your question, yes, I am up to anything to speed things up. You have my number and know where I live. Just let me know.”

Yoko smiled as she watched Garland fish around in her bag for her checkbook. She pulled it out, scribbled on a check, and handed it over with a flourish. “I don’t need a receipt. Just these rice cakes. Nice seeing you again, Yoko, and I’m sorry about that Christmas tree. What did you do with it?”

“I put it in the middle of the nursery, decorated it, and lit it up with two thousand LED lights. I kept it up till the end of January.”

Garland laughed out loud all the way to her car.

Yoko waited till Garland’s car was out of sight. Then she went back inside to her office and sent off texts to all the sisters. With Kathryn in the area, they’d have a full house. Things just worked out perfectly sometimes.

* * *

It was nine o’clock when the last car, driven by Isabelle, whizzed through the gates at Pinewood.

It was a dark night, and the air was damp. It would rain before long. Isabelle stepped out of the car, looked around at the other cars, and soon realized that she was the last person to arrive. She shrugged. She could not be held accountable for the traffic, even at this hour of the night.

She was greeted inside by comments and laughter. Everyone knew that Isabelle was always punctual to a fault. “Damn traffic” was her response.

“Well, we’re just glad that you arrived safe and sound, dear,” Myra said as she led the parade out of the room to the secret staircase that led to the underground tunnels, where Charles and Fergus waited in the war room. She could feel the charged electricity running through the sisters and herself as well. It was always this way when they were about to embark on a new mission.

At the top of the steps, Myra stepped aside and looked over at Lady and her pups. “You know what to do. Guard.”

Lady looked up at her mistress and let loose with a soft woof before she herded her brood to the kitchen to guard the door that had three special locks on it. None of the locks were more efficient than Lady and her pups.

Down in the war room, Charles was calling the meeting to order, saying, “The hour is late, but no one is complaining. I suggest we give Yoko the floor and hear what she has to say.” His suggestion was met with nods of approval.

Yoko leaned forward. She looked at Kathryn and smiled. “This all happened after you made your delivery.” To the others, she said, “Kathryn had just delivered a load of spring flowers when Garland Lee pulled into the parking lot. We all know who Garland Lee is, known as ‘America’s beloved songbird.’ She bought the entire delivery, by the way. A while back, she had a fire at her mini estate, and the work crews ruined her property. You know, construction, all that earthmoving equipment. We’re friendly, she and I. I don’t exactly know how that happened, but we go back almost to the time I opened the nursery. She’s my best customer and a wonderful person. She wasn’t afraid to ask for advice, and she always followed the advice. I know you all have seen pictures of her estate. It’s literally covered in flowers and flowering shrubs and trees.

“We would talk from time to time. She never, not once, used her celebrity with me. She was just a customer. Over time, she talked about her kids, like everyone does. She also talked about her other kids, the ones she helps via her charitable foundation. She would talk about how she hated the tours and being away from home. For years now, she has talked about retiring. She’s older than she looks.”

“Why hasn’t she retired?” Nikki asked, a frown building on her beautiful face.

“Ah, you see, that’s where the problem is. She told me about most of this earlier today, and then I did some research online. She has this lawyer who has handled her legal affairs for over twenty years. Let me stress the words legal affairs. Eight years ago, her agent and business manager, whose name was David Duffy, died. She was so devastated at his passing, she took off a whole year, canceled tours, etc. During that year is when I got to really know her. She came out to the nursery almost every day to walk through the greenhouses, and she attended every class I held for new gardeners. I even got her hooked on my apple tea.

“During that year, her attorney, a man named Arthur Forrester, hounded her relentlessly. He appointed himself her agent, saying she needed to be represented, and the canceled tours and such had to be dealt with. Not wanting to deal with all the threatened lawsuits, she agreed. And, remember, she was still grieving for Mr. Duffy. She always called him Duffy. He was her best friend, her children’s godfather. By the way, she has four children. She dotes on them all. She said Forrester would show up with piles and piles of papers and say, ‘Sign this, sign that,’ and she did. She admits she never asked questions because she trusted him, and he had been her lawyer for over twenty years at that point in time.”

Charles interjected a question. “So he took over as her agent, but then what happened?”

“He slowly started to embezzle money, in small sums so as to go unnoticed, from all aspects of Garland’s earnings. But the majority of it came from the charity that she runs.”

“How is that possible?” Alexis demanded.

“I do not know,” Yoko said. “If Garland said he did it and got away with it, then believe it. Moving along here . . . about three years ago, she was scheduled to go on a worldwide tour. She said the money was unbelievable, but she didn’t want to do it, told Forrester she was going to retire and write her memoirs, but she would do a mini tour, a kind of farewell thing. They argued and fought openly, and she said she saw a side of him she had never seen before. That, according to Garland, was when she finally woke up and smelled the roses.”

“What kind of money are you talking about, Yoko?”

“It was fifty-five million dollars for the tour. That’s net for her after expenses. Forrester takes his percentage off the gross. If you’re asking how much he double-dipped her for, she said it was an astronomical amount. She said her lawyers know to the penny, but she’s not sure.”

“Well, damn, I need to work for his law firm,” Nikki said. Alexis agreed.

“And his firm knew nothing about any of this?” Kathryn said in disbelief.

“I can only tell you what Garland told me. Two years and ten months ago, when she canceled the world tour, Forrester drafted some kind of letter and told her it was to keep the offer of the mini tour on the table. Also, unbeknownst to her, he was out there trying to get a book deal for her memoirs, a deal that she knew nothing about until the lawsuit was filed. It seems he was going on vacation or something at that time. She wouldn’t sign it, and it got a little heated. He told her, over and over, that it was not binding and was just to keep things in play. He then told her that if she wouldn’t sign it, to have one of her kids sign it through the corporation she owns. She did do that.

“Then, the more she thought about it, the more she didn’t even want to do the mini tour. She asked her son, who was in rehab because of a serious car accident, to handle it for her. He had to have both of his knees replaced and had time on his hands. He agreed, and he was the one who discovered all that had gone on. He called in a forensic accounting firm, and they verified it.

“Garland fired Forrester on the spot, once her son told her what was going on. A lot went down, and Forrester ended up suing her. She countersued him. The rest has to come from her. I forgot to mention that Forrester had retired from the firm a few weeks before Garland fired him. She said it got really ugly. He called her, screaming and yelling, saying that she had ruined him and his family. I would assume his plan was to retire, play golf, and live off Garland’s money. It got so bad, she had to change her phone number. So what do you all think?”

“What I think is that this guy gives all us decent lawyers a bad name. I met the man once at a dinner somewhere. But while I remember the name, I would be hard-pressed to pick him out of a crowd. What’s the name of his firm?” Nikki asked.

Yoko shrugged. “If she told me, I don’t remember. She did say Arthur said he hated the people he worked with.”

“It’s easy enough to Google him and get his profile. Is he a local?”

“No, no. He works in Washington, D.C. Garland used to live there as well. Actually, she was born and raised there and lived in the house she was born in. She still owns the house, but a cousin lives in it, rent-free, and maintains the property.”

Yoko looked around at the others. She threw her hands in the air instead of asking if they were in or out. Understanding her sign language, the girls all shouted at the same time, “Count me in!”

Charles and Fergus agreed.

“When can you arrange a meeting with Garland?” Fergus asked.

“I took the liberty of sort of/kind of telling her I knew some people who could help her. She was all for it. I think I can arrange a meeting for the weekend, if that works for all of you.”

“That works for me. I have a run and will be back by Wednesday morning,” Kathryn said. “I wish you’d all stop pretending that you aren’t looking at me. I’m okay. I’m really okay. So Bert is back in the States and is engaged. He wants to get married and raise a family. That’s not the path in life I’m on. Yes, he and I talked, and we’ll be friends for the rest of our lives. It simply didn’t work for us. To show you I am serious, I am going to tell you something. I have a date that I am looking forward to. He understands me, and I understand him. Marriage is not in his DNA any more than it is in mine. At least for now.”

“Who is it? Do we know him?” the girls chorused as one.

Kathryn laughed, pure joy in the sound. “Of course you know him. It’s Jackson Sparrow.” At the girls’ stunned surprise, Kathryn laughed harder and louder.

Ten minutes of hugs and more laughter followed. “As Jack Emery likes to say, ‘I did not see that coming,’ and I live next door to Sparrow.” Maggie giggled.

The group then switched back to the matter at hand and agreed to meet Thursday evening for one of Charles’s gourmet dinners, with a special guest named Garland Lee.

“I’m excited, aren’t you, Myra? I have every album she’s ever made. I know you do, too,” Annie said.

“What I always liked about her was how normal she is. She never bought in to all that celebrity nonsense. First and foremost, she always said she was a wife and mother, and singing was just something she did to fill in the blanks. She sings in church, did you know that?” Myra said.

“I do know that, and I couldn’t agree with you more. I just hate it when I hear about some man trying to take advantage of a woman. Especially a lawyer. If you can’t trust your lawyer, whom can you trust? It’s scary, isn’t it, Myra?”

“There are a few bad apples in every barrel, Annie. That’s why you and I and the girls do what we do. We’ll make it right for her.”

Maggie, who had been quiet most of the evening, suddenly piped up, saying, “I’d like to do the due diligence on that guy. I know a few really good reporters in Washington whom I can ask for help. I’d like to go to D.C. undercover and infiltrate the firm. That’s where I think we should start. If that’s okay with all of you, I can have Alexis fix me up so no one will recognize me.”

“Alone? Maggie, the boys are on assignment. I’m all for it, but you need a partner.”

“I’ll go,” Nikki volunteered. “The office is slow, no pending cases on my calendar. Alexis can handle the office and anything I would have to deal with.”

“All right,” Annie said. “But not till after our meeting with Garland.”

“I wish you girls weren’t driving back to town. It’s so late, and you are more than welcome to stay. Please send a text when you arrive home safe and sound,” Myra said, her face creased in worry.

“Not to worry, Mom, we’ll be a caravan all the way into the city,” Maggie drawled.

Lady and her brood followed the girls out to the courtyard parking area and gave the girls a rousing send-off. They waited until the huge iron gates closed before trotting back to the kitchen.

Pinewood, their kingdom, their domain, was now safe for the night.