Free Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child by authors_sort Page B

case. Do you realize how many clips we are being shorted?"
    "Randolph, I never—"
    "After our discussion the other day, I knew you would be very happy to hear about this," he said.
    "Discussion?" I said. "What discussion?" He didn't blink an eye. Instead he began to put the boxes back into the paper bag. Then he closed it and stepped back, looking like a grade-school child who had just spelled the hardest word in the spelling bee. I sensed he expected me to say something complimentary, but I didn't know what to say.
    "Randolph, I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're talking about."
    "Oh, yes, that reminds me," he said, hearing different words. "I have started to look at the butcher's receipts, and I suspect you might be correct about that, too." He reached into his pocket and produced a small packet of bills so old their ends looked brown and crumbling. "The meat and poultry people have not given us the bulk discount we were promised. I don't know exactly how much we've been bilked, but I'm on it. I'll have the numbers for you by the end of the week. Then we'll have a session with them, huh? All right. I won't take up any more of your time, Mother," he said, pivoting to leave.
    "Mother?"
    He stopped at the door and turned back.
    "I'll see you at dinner, Mother," he added, and he left.
    I sat back in the chair, astounded, He wasn't simply refusing to accept Grandmother Cutler's death; he was imagining her still alive. But to look at me and think I were she! Was it simply because I was sitting in the chair in this office? It was eerie, as if Grandmother Cutler could reach out from the land of the dead and influence everything through her old possessions. I made up my mind that Mother had to understand how serious the problem with Randolph was.
    I left the office and started through the lobby to go up to her suite to speak to her. Randolph was standing by the receptionist's desk talking to someone when he saw me crossing toward the old section of the hotel. He waved and started toward me. What would he do and say now? I wondered. And in front of everyone?
    "Hi," he said, his voice lighter and much different from what it had been in the office. "Laura Sue tells me the wedding date has been set."
    I stared at him. He saw me as I really was. But how could he make such a rapid and dramatic reversal? I looked back toward Grandmother Cutler's office. It gave me a sharp chill. Did her spirit truly still linger there?
    "Aren't you excited?" Randolph asked when I didn't respond immediately to what he had said.
    "Yes," I said softly, but I couldn't help but be frightened at how quickly he could change the expression in his eyes, turning off one emotion and turning on another as one would turn on and turn off a faucet.
    "Good, good. Mother loves big family events. It will be a wedding like no other wedding you've seen before, that's for sure. Well, I'd better get back to work. I've made Mother promises," he said. "Promises . . ."
    I watched him rush off toward his office. Then I went directly to my mother's suite and interrupted her meeting with a decorator. She wanted to do something special in our ballroom for the dance reception after the wedding ceremony.
    "I must speak with you now," I said. "I'm sorry," I said to the decorator, "but this is a matter of some urgency."
    "Of course." He gathered up his samples and left quickly.
    "What is it, Dawn?" Mother demanded impatiently as soon as the man was gone. "I was right in the middle of something very important, and I'm on a very tight schedule today."
    "I'm sure it can all wait. Mother, why haven't you done anything about Randolph and the way he behaves?" I demanded.
    "Oh, that," she said with a wave of her hand. "What can I do? Anyway, why worry about it now, and especially in the middle of all this?" she said, making her eyes big.
    "Because he's getting worse," I replied. I described what had just happened in Grandmother Cutler's office and told her the things he had said. She