"Higher than just finding a missing person?" Jackie asked.
Austin chose a roast beef sandwich, spread mustard on the bread and added lettuce and tomato while he talked. "The Connellys hired the best there is. Bradley Hyde comes from Boston, wins ninety-nine percent of his cases, and he intends to win this one. I'm a corporate attorney and way out of my league, but I promised Nick I would handle it. Nick didn't trust anyone else."
He finished making his sandwich, laid it on his plate, and then took five 8 x10 glossy photographs out of his briefcase. "This is Nicholas W. Gladstone; the man I admired most in the world after my father passed." He handed the photo to Michael. "I mean to see his will is carried out to the letter. It's the least I can do for him."
The photograph of Nick wasn't of a man in a suit and tie, sitting in an office like Michael expected. Instead, Nick was dressed casually and didn't seem the wealthy business type at all. "What's that in the background?"
"It's a horse ranch he owns. There are instructors and riding trails for kids who want to learn how to ride. He loved horses, and so do I."
"Did he spend a lot of time there?"
"He did. He couldn't get enough of the kids and spent more time there than at the office." Austin handed Michael the next photo. "Laura Montgomery Gladstone, his wife of twenty years and the only woman he ever loved. Nick was devastated when she died."
Michael passed that picture to Carl, and then devoured another bite of his sandwich.
"She was quite a looker," said Carl.
Austin nodded. "Yes she was, and her daughter is as well."
"How did she die?" Michael asked.
"She had a stroke. She was only forty-seven."
"Wow," said Jackie, "that is way too young."
"I agree." Austin wiped his hands on a napkin and gave another photo to Michael. "Next is Laura Gladstone Connelly, Nick's only child. She was a fun loving kid growing up and Nick's reason for living after his wife died. That was before Laura married the wrong man."
"She was in love, I suppose," said Carl.
"That's what she told her father," Austin answered.
"Love does that to people," Carl muttered. "It makes them crazy and stupid, or stupid and then crazy. It's hard to tell which comes first."
Jackie took the picture of Laura that Carl handed her, examined it and then laid it on the end of the coffee table with the others. "She does look very much like her mother, and will soon be one of the richest women in the world, I take it," Jackie said.