Carved in Stone Read online

  She glanced outside toward the people mingling in her garden. None of them knew how close the college teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

  President Matthews continued outlining their situation. “I hoped my negotiations with the senior members of the Blackstone family would be successful without appealing to you for help,” he said, his voice placating and cautious.

  People on campus still treated her with kid gloves even though it had been two years since she lost both her father and her husband in the same week. She had fully recovered from both tragedies, but President Matthews still seemed worried about hurting her feelings.

  “I’m afraid that without additional funding, I will be forced to close the physics department,” he said.

  Her shoulders sagged. “That department was very dear to my father.”

  “Other colleges in the city can take our students in physics should the worst occur. New York University has an excellent program in physics.”

  “I don’t care about New York University,” she said with a sigh. “I only care about the colleges founded by Vanderbilt and Carnegie, and you know why.”

  Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie had both created colleges to enhance their reputations, and soon Blackstone College would be equally prestigious. If all went well, someday the name Blackstone would stand for scientific and medical progress rather than greed and exploitation.

  “Yes, yes,” President Matthews said. “Unfortunately, the physics department hasn’t yet turned a profit. At least the biology and chemistry departments have patented some of their work, but overall, we have an atrocious record of—”

  His sentence choked off, and Gwen smothered a laugh. “You can say it,” she teased. “I know my father was terrible at managing money.”

  President Matthews looked grateful that she took his gaffe in stride. “Your father was a great man, but not the best steward of a budget. Gwen, I’m afraid the situation is dire. Eliminating departments is only a short-term solution. If your family does not reinstate their annual donations, the college will face bankruptcy within the next few years.”

  It was inconceivable. This college was her entire world. She grew up here, went to college here, got married here. She intended to spend the rest of her life on these forty acres of ivy-covered buildings and intellectual progress. For eight years she’d been the wife of the college’s leading researcher, and she taught the introductory botany classes. She hosted faculty parties and cheered up students who sometimes flagged under the weight of demanding academic rigor. This sort of work was what she was born to do, not haggle over money or tangle with the bank.

  “President Matthews, please understand that I have no influence over how my uncle and grandfather parcel out the Blackstone fortune.”

  The only reason her father could pressure the bank was because everyone in the family felt sorry for him. The last bit of sympathy from her family’s banking empire had died with him, and now the college was gasping for breath. Tuition revenue could never keep their research-intensive programs afloat.

  “The only thing that will prove the college’s worth to my family is if we develop some magnificent scientific discovery that will garner national attention and help blot out the . . . well, the other things my family has been associated with in the past.”

  It was an elegant way of alluding to child labor, unsafe business practices, and union busting. Such ugly words. But those were things of the past, and the Blackstone Bank had come a long way since the tragedy that nearly destroyed her father.

  It hurt to see the anguish on President Matthews’s face. He was still young, but the sprinkling of gray in his hair had increased in the past two years. He’d inherited a financial mess from her father, and it would take a while to repair.

  “You’re doing a wonderful job,” she assured him. “You have my complete, unstinting support. Tell me how I can help.”

  He gave her a reluctant smile. “I know you dislike leaving campus and dealing with your uncle, but if you could appeal to him to reverse his decision, it would be a godsend.”

  Appealing to Uncle Oscar meant confronting the two things she disliked most in the world: lawyers and the snarl of downtown Manhattan. There was a reason she rarely left the college campus. This secluded haven in the Upper West Side was free of the congestion, noise, and skyscrapers that clogged downtown. Gwen would happily go through the rest of her life ignoring financial ledgers or the tedium of legal haggling if she could.

  But if a woman loved something, she needed to fight for it.

  “You can count on me,” she told President Matthews.

  His whooshing sigh of relief underscored how important it was that she succeed.

  Gwen left the safety of Blackstone College to confront her uncle and grandfather first thing on Monday morning. Tension coiled tighter with each mile as the carriage rolled farther into the heart of Manhattan, with its chaotic mix of carriages, trams, and automobiles all vying for dominance on the congested city streets. She never liked it here. The towering buildings blotted out too much of the sky, and it didn’t feel natural.

  The carriage finally arrived at her family’s bank on the intersection of Wall Street and Devon. She rarely came here anymore and braced herself for meeting with her uncle.

  “We’re here,” she said to the two bullnecked men sitting on the carriage bench opposite her. Anytime she came to the bank, she brought bodyguards. Zeke and Lorenzo had been with her since childhood, but after her father died, she reassigned them to other positions at the college. She no longer wanted to live in a protected bubble, but life could be challenging for anyone whose last name was Blackstone. Six years ago, an anarchist tried to assassinate her uncle as he left the bank. No Blackstone felt entirely safe entering or leaving the bank since.

  Lorenzo helped her alight from the carriage while Zeke scanned both sides of the hectic street. She craned her neck to look up at the marble columns of the Blackstone Bank, which had occupied this block of coveted Manhattan real estate for over fifty years. The neoclassical building had six columns on the front portico to symbolize the strength of corporate America.

  Lorenzo walked beside her as they approached the bank, and Zeke followed behind. A uniformed doorman held the steel-studded copper door open for Gwen and her bodyguards as they passed into the cool hall of America’s leading investment bank.

  Her heels clicked on the marble floor and echoed off the coffered ceiling. This wasn’t the sort of bank that did business with individual customers, so there were no tellers stationed behind counters. All the important business took place upstairs, where analysts made recommendations for funding the nation’s infrastructure. Over the decades, the Blackstones had financed ports, canals, and railroads that crisscrossed the nation. They floated bonds to support cities, states, and foreign governments. It was said that France would have fallen to the Germans in 1871 if her grandfather hadn’t propped up their army with an emergency loan.

  A clerk rushed forward to meet her. “Good morning, Mrs. Kellerman. Your grandfather and uncle are expecting you. Would you like tea or refreshments before heading up to the fifth floor?”

  She turned to her bodyguards. “Why don’t you both relax and have something to drink?” Once inside the well-guarded confines of the bank, she had no fear of kidnappers, bombs, or blackmail.

  Zeke and Lorenzo headed toward the lounge, while the clerk escorted her to the elevator. A uniformed attendant closed the gate on the elevator and cranked the brass dial to begin the lift. Even the elevator was grand, its marble floor inlaid with turquoise and jade. Her grandfather did nothing halfway.

  The word grandfather usually conveyed a warmly paternal man fading into old age while occupying a rocking chair. Nothing could be further from the truth concerning Frederick Blackstone, who so disliked the implications of the word grandfather that he had ordered her to call him Frederick once she became an adult.

  She pasted a serene smile on her face as she entered Frederick’s offi
ce. Velvet draperies framed floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the New York Stock Exchange only two blocks away. Frederick sat at his desk while Uncle Oscar stood by the window, his pearl-handled walking stick at his side as he glowered at her through his one good eye. A black patch covered the other eye, ruined by the assassin’s bomb six years earlier.

  “Gwen,” her uncle greeted her tersely. “Still wearing your Rapunzel look, I see.”

  She touched the long braid of blond hair draped over her shoulder. Most women in Manhattan pinned their hair up in fussy styles, but Gwen preferred a more natural look and usually wore it down. Instead of torturing herself with tight corsets, she favored the loose gowns that were coming into fashion among the artistic set. She was a free-thinking woman and loved the softer silhouettes of the Art Nouveau movement, but her uncle was far more traditional.

  Still, she didn’t want to get distracted from her mission. She lifted her chin a notch and met her uncle’s single good eye. “I’ve come seeking a reinstatement of the college’s annual funding. The new president is doing amazing work, but he needs more time before he can run the college without a deficit.”

  Uncle Oscar approached her, leaning heavily on the cane as he drew near. The bomb that ruined the tendons in Oscar’s right leg had also killed two innocent bystanders. The doctors had feared Oscar would never walk again, but her uncle’s indomitable will came to the fore, and he’d trained his body to adapt to its shortcomings. He could now walk as quickly as anyone, albeit with a distinctive lurch.

  “We founded that college as a sop to keep your father happy,” he said. “It was supposed to add luster to the Blackstone name, but it’s never performed as hoped.”

  “Not true,” she insisted. “Just last month Harper’s Magazine featured us on their cover. Our biochemistry department expects to have a treatment for tetanus within the next few years.”

  “And I expected the college to be financially self-sufficient by the last decade,” Oscar said.

  Her grandfather nodded in agreement. “When your father was president of the college, he wasted far too much money on expensive professors and overly ambitious research.”

  Gwen looked away. Her husband had been a perfect example of one of those idealistic professors who was brilliant but profligate with his research budget. “We always knew the college would initially lose money—”

  “It’s been thirty years!” Uncle Oscar interrupted. “The entire idea was a foolish endeavor to pacify Theodore. He had no business being a college president if he couldn’t even balance a checkbook.”

  Gwen maintained her serene expression. “It wasn’t to pacify my father, it was to turn around the reputation of a family name that had become synonymous with greed and avarice. We’ve spent decades improving our reputation, and now you want to throw it all away?”

  Oscar lifted a book off the table and tossed it at her. Its pages splayed as it flew, but she caught it just before it hit the ground. She read the title on the cover and gasped.

  The Flamboyant Life and Adventures of Mick Malone: A Memoir

  Mick Malone, the man who haunted her childhood nightmares. She didn’t even realize he was still alive.

  “That book will be released in September,” Oscar said. “One of those seedy journalists from the New York Sun got an advance copy and wanted my opinion. It’s slated to become a bestseller. Your fancy college has done nothing to dampen the public’s appetite for sordid gossip.”

  Gwen’s mouth went dry as she read the summary of the book, which promised the details of Mick Malone’s colorful life of crime, including special insight into the Blackstone scandal and the injustice he endured at the hands of the most powerful family in America.

  The irony was that Mick Malone wasn’t a victim, but a criminal who had perpetrated a profound crime against her family. Everyone knew he was guilty of kidnapping and killing her three-year-old brother shortly before Gwen was born. Her father paid the ransom, but her brother was never returned. Days went by, then weeks, then years, but young William Blackstone was never found.

  Her father hired an army of private investigators to hunt for the kidnappers. Within a week, they caught Malone, along with undeniable proof of his guilt. His apartment contained hundred-dollar bills with serial numbers matching those in the ransom payment and the typewriter with the flawed key that had typed the ransom note. Most chillingly, there was a single shoe belonging to little Willy Blackstone that was stained with blood.

  Malone was put on trial for kidnapping and murder. It was a hanging offense, but a slippery defense attorney distracted the jury by putting the Blackstones’ reputation on trial. At that time, the Blackstone name was synonymous with greed and exploitation. When the prosecutor objected, the defense attorney claimed the shameful details were essential to Mr. Malone’s defense because the list of Blackstone enemies was endless. How could the laughing Irishman who loved his wife and went to church every Sunday be a villain who kidnapped children? Day after day, the defense attorney presented witnesses who testified to various Blackstone depredations and pointed to other suspects, such as union leaders, anarchists, and disgruntled businessmen who’d been driven into bankruptcy by the unforgiving policies of the Blackstone Bank. There were plenty of suspects who might have killed Willy Blackstone, and the jury wanted to send a message.

  They found Mick Malone not guilty despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

  Not guilty. The verdict practically killed her father but delighted the press. People hailed Mick Malone as a working-class hero, a man who challenged the hated Blackstones and lived to tell the tale. While everyone agreed it was a shame about the child, unsympathetic journalists touted the plight of other children who labored in Blackstone-financed coal mines and factories. Twelve men considered all the evidence and decided there wasn’t enough proof to send Mick Malone to the gallows.

  The verdict changed her father forever. Theodore suffered a nervous breakdown, and he began believing the hatred against his family was justified. In a desperate attempt to find meaning in his son’s death, Theodore created Blackstone College, dedicated to education and curing the diseases of the poor. Her grandfather never liked the expensive venture that had yet to turn a profit, but he agreed because Theodore asked it of him.

  The college had helped the Blackstones slowly rehabilitate their image, but all that goodwill would suffer if this revolting memoir stirred up old animosity against them.

  She placed a trembling hand over the book. “I didn’t even realize Mick Malone was still alive.”

  “He’s a washed-up old drunk,” her grandfather said. “I won’t take this lying down. We’ve already filed paperwork with the court to halt publication. I’ll sue them for libel and defamation of character.”

  Gwen instinctively recoiled from lawsuits, lawyers, and anything that smacked of conflict. Why couldn’t people simply behave like decent human beings? She and her father had created a paradise on earth in their forty-acre campus where people respected and supported each other. It was as close to the Garden of Eden as could exist in a fallen world, and this awful book on her lap awakened old demons she believed were safely consigned to the past.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, scrambling for ways to mitigate this disaster. “Suing Mick Malone will roll back decades of goodwill we have garnered from the college. We need to handle this with finesse.”

  “What do you recommend?” Oscar asked. In truth, her uncle wasn’t a horrible man. He was smart and had suffered more than most from the hatred aimed at her family. Perhaps she could work with him to defeat a common enemy.

  “Mick Malone is obviously in need of funds,” she said. “I suggest we quietly pay him off. A thousand dollars ought to do it, and it will save us the headache of this memoir seeing the light of day.”

  “Absolutely not,” Oscar snapped. “That man killed my nephew and destroyed my brother’s spirit. I won’t pay him a dime.”

  “Then look the other way while I do
it,” she said. It was galling, but her family’s peace of mind was worth it.

  Uncle Oscar began pacing. “Malone will never settle for a thousand dollars. He knows the book will earn far more.”

  “Agreed,” Gwen said. “That’s why we offer his lawyer the same deal to persuade him to settle.”

  Uncle Oscar’s brow quirked in reluctant admiration, but he shouldn’t be surprised. It was impossible to grow up in the Blackstone family without a bit of their cunning rubbing off on her.

  “The lawyer will know that we have unlimited funds to stop this book,” she continued. “We can drag this out, delay their profits, and cost Malone’s publisher a fortune in legal fees. Or we can pay Malone’s lawyer in hope that he will pressure Malone to come to terms.”

  Uncle Oscar wanted to keep arguing, but Frederick lifted a hand to call an end to the discussion. “An excellent suggestion,” he said. “I’ll have one of our lawyers begin the process.”

  “Let me do it,” Gwen said. “I’m less threatening than a lawyer, and I’ll get the job done quickly. And if I can scuttle Mick Malone’s memoir, will you sign a document restoring the college’s annual funding in perpetuity?”

  Frederick’s eyes narrowed. “I’d never guarantee anything in perpetuity,” he said instantly. “Try again.”

  “Five years,” she countered. “Continue the college’s annual funding for the next five years, at which time the college must show the ability to generate enough revenue to cover our operating budget.”

  The corner of her grandfather’s mouth turned down as he considered her proposal. It didn’t take long for him to reach a decision.

  “Our lawyers have already initiated a preliminary injunction to halt the publication of the book,” he said. “I don’t like calling attention to scandal better left in the past, so if you can prevent that public court case, I will authorize a five-year extension on the college’s funding. I will commission a profile of Mick Malone’s lawyer to discover his weaknesses and provide insight for your fight.”