“You want cereal instead of this masterpiece?” Mal waved her hand over the breakfast she’d made. “Are you dying?”
Halsey had fed her to-die-for banana hotcakes with maple syrup on their last morning together. “I can’t cope with banana this morning.” She hadn’t been able to cope with getting out of her pj’s, and she’d even gone off eating Lic-Lac chocolates. Such was the depth of her misery.
“You raise money for women who might actually starve to death, and you can’t cope with banana.”
At least it would look like she was down because of Easton and listing her apartment, and not about the fake boyfriend who could do wonderful things in the kitchen with bananas, who’d caused her to dump him in a spectacularly wrenching public fashion that inspired Delilah Schwartzman to feel sorry for her and pledge a large donation.
“You know I’m not angry. I’m okay about everything. The counselor helped heaps,” Mal said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
She ducked away as Mal tried to ruffle her hair. It was heartening to know her sister was so resilient, when her own ability to snap back was decidedly lacking in elasticity.
She’d done several exhausting rounds of meetings with lawyers, and there was little they could do for Easton. The evidence against him was solid, and without the grace to plead guilty, things would go badly for him. It was obvious now he’d wanted her to finance his drug lord ambitions, and he might’ve continued to pressure her if Halsey hadn’t chased him off. Things could be much worse. Easton wasn’t going to be a problem from behind bars for a long while.
The real surprise was Mom. She was devastated, though instead of shutting down like she’d done when Dad was arrested, she’d been galvanized into action and tackling grocery shopping was the least of it.
“So, it’s about Halsey?”
Right. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Didn’t mean she should stop trying. “The thing with him never went anywhere. Not everyone you like will turn out to be right for you.” More to the point, men who you know up front aren’t good for you shouldn’t be able to make you want to be with them more than anything you ever wanted in your life.
Halsey was a good guy who traded in bad for great reasons. It was all around the wrong way, and she didn’t have enough life experience to deal with that, only the knowledge that she wouldn’t want to change him, and she couldn’t keep him. It hung on her like being sentenced to a thousand years of black clouds and filthy weather.
“Then, it’s about selling the apartment and Mom and me moving. You could still come with.”
For the moment she was staying put, toughing it out. Framing the terse apology note that had come on official Ossovian government stationery and savoring the reports of Cookie Jar returning home to protest marches and strike action in Ossovia.
“I have to keep working for the women who might starve.” And the young women of Ossovia who deserved scholarships they’d missed out on when D4D’s donation bought a car instead. And she could do that comfortably, knowing Mom and Mallory got to start fresh with a new surname and a new home. Selling her apartment to set them up was the sensible thing to do.
“Can’t you do that in Florida?”
“Not as easily.” All the big money was here, and so was Fin, who’d sent a message to say she and Cal would be home at the end of the month.
“You’ll visit? You won’t be useless?”
“I’ll visit. When have I ever been useless?”
“When you’re sad like now, because Halsey made you happy and it didn’t work out.”
Lenny pulled the plate toward her. It was just a banana, for God’s sake. “I’m not sad.”
Now who was the fraud.
The important thing was Mal wasn’t sad, angry, or acting out any more than any other sixteen-year-old, and Mom was focused and hopeful. If Lenny couldn’t rehabilitate the Bradshaw name, she could at least ensure her mom and sister weren’t forever burdened by its legacy.
“I liked Halsey,” Mal said.
“He bribed you with theater tickets.”
He’d bribed Lenny with his good guy hustle, and the way he’d conned her into thinking he cared, and then did exactly what he’d promised to do—gave her revenge over Cookie Jar and tried to make sure she wasn’t caught up in his downfall.
Oh, shit.
She was the one who’d insisted on going to the gala, and Halsey had done his best in a bad situation to take the heat, right down to making himself look like an arrogant asshole.
Mal laughed. “Yeah, that was cool. Hey, we should get tattoos. Like all of us. You, me, and Mom.”
“Stick with bananas.”
Mal grabbed her arm and, with a black marker, drew on the inside of her wrist. It was a symbol, a little like an obscure musical note, made up of two curls and joined by a ribbon folded like a sideways figure eight. Mal had drawn it in one motion without lifting her marker. “What is that?” It was no flying unicorn.
“A Zibu. It’s the Celtic symbol for inner strength and new beginnings. Bradshaw is an old Celtic name, and I thought maybe if Mom and I were going to be Dresdens from now on that we could, you know, together, like…” She shook her head. “It’s probably stupid.”
Halsey had joked they should get matching tattoos. Lenny looked at the symbol. It was neat and perfectly balanced. Its meaning wasn’t obvious, and it had no particular fashion, but inner strength and new beginnings was a perfect theme. It was time for all the Bradshaw women to move on. “I like it.”
Mal drew one on her own wrist. “You don’t think it’s dumb?”
A whole lot less dumb than believing that despite their crossed stars, she and Halsey had something wonderful together and had both simply ignored their better judgment instead of quitting while they were ahead.
It was no surprise they’d ended in shouting and a confused withdrawal. She’d been stubborn and overconfident, and he’d been hesitant to insist she stayed out of harm’s way. He’d taken her instruction not to tell her what to do a little too faithfully, and she’d trusted her own sense without question and gotten in over her head.
Goddamn, she still wasn’t ready to have ended it with him.
She picked up a slice of the toast, took a bite, and said around a mouthful, “There’s no way Mom will do it.”
There was no way to uncross the stars of a con artist and someone determined to live her life honestly. What hurt more than their break up was knowing he’d been on her side the whole time.
“She will. She said there was no way you would.”
Lenny coughed as toast crumbs scratched the back of her throat. “Wait, Mom will get a tattoo?”
“If you will.”
“Did you set me up?”
Mal grinned. “Yup.”
Everyone was a con artist.
Mal had sketches, and she’d already made an appointment for the three of them. Sneaky little rat. It was time to move on.
That afternoon the three Bradshaw women got inked. Mal had a tiny Zibu tattooed on the inside of her wrist after threatening to get it above her lip. Mom had hers on the inside of her now-empty wedding ring finger, and Lenny had one the size of a silver dollar on her hip where she could see it, where she could imagine a lover tracing his tongue over it.
They all got a little weepy. It wasn’t that it hurt; it was that they’d survived.
The next week, Lenny’s plans to do more than survive despite her blue heart were given a boost. It was all over the news that Aleksandrs Ozols had been dismissed from the leadership of his party and arrested on charges of abuse of power and defrauding the people of Ossovia. His assets had been confiscated and would be returned to the Ossovian people who had a new prime minister, Baiba Jansons, who planned to release all political prisoners, turn Cookie Jar’s palace into a university, and start construction on a new electricity grid.
Prominent in the story were the names of people who had feted and supported the prime minister during his US stay. There were government officials
, heads of major charities, and leading families named. She held her breath, feeling dizzy, but nowhere in the coverage were the names Bradshaw or Sherwood.
Buried in the details was the fact that Cookie Jar had lied to the UN, became wrapped up in an art fraud—paying over 170 million dollars for a forged Kandinsky—had invested and lost an enormous sum of money from government sources in a sham cryptocurrency scheme, and was rumored to have used stolen charity donations to pay a million dollars to join a fake private club.
He’d been made to look a fool; his reputation was shredded. His cronies and crooked hangers-on had fled his side or were deep in damage control. He’d rot in prison where he belonged.
It almost made her doomed romance worth it to know she’d played a small part in bringing a master thief and an evil autocrat to justice, no matter how sideways of the law that justice was.
Much as she wanted to pick up the phone and call Halsey to congratulate him, play PowerPoint Girl to his Excel Boy one last time, and pretend they hadn’t ended abruptly in confusion, anger, and tears, for all the right reasons, she couldn’t.
Not if she was being true to herself.
And if Halsey was being true to himself, he wouldn’t call. For a lying, cheating, scumbag, grifter, he was an honorable man who kept his word.
And she didn’t know what to do about that, except miss him in a soul-gutting way and curse him for achieving with his dirty money what she aspired to with the only thing she had left—good intentions she feared were a long way from being enough.
It was disappointing how being true to herself felt like all the colors in the world had suddenly dimmed and everything was washed out and muted.
Apart from the delight about Cookie Jar, she dragged herself through each day, struggled to get out of bed in the morning, hated all her clothes, binged on junk food, and in an effort to shake it off, paid too much for a haircut she hated.
Even when she got a sensational offer on her apartment, one that would easily cover Easton’s legal fees and support Mom and Mal for years to come, she felt little joy, which meant that another D4D direct-mail campaign failing wasn’t the disappointment it might have been.
She already felt so low there was nowhere else to go.
But that was an illusion.
A sleight of hand.
A con job.
The headline was “Frauds of a Feather.”
It appeared in one of those glossy weekend magazines. Lenny found it in a stack of reading material in her local coffee haunt. It featured her own smiling face. Twice. She converted her to-go order to stay and took the magazine to the back of the cafe where she could hide out and read it. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.
It was a bad haircut for life.
It was a dead end; a brick wall.
It was the ground opening up beneath her.
The magazine had run three photos: the one taken with Ida Dalton and Ketija, the one taken with the Schwartzmans, and one she wasn’t aware had been taken where she was smiling up at Cookie Jar like they were the best of friends.
The caption read: Lenore Bradshaw, eldest daughter of jailed Ponzi scheme fraud, Jeffrey Bradshaw, and sister of accused drug czar, Easton Bradshaw, hobnobbed with disgraced Ossovian prime minister, Sonny Ozols, at several events recently. Ms. Bradshaw’s charity, Dollars for Daughters, was a supporter of the United Heroes League, through which the accurately nicknamed Cookie Jar laundered millions of dollars he used for personal gain before being toppled in a leadership coup.
She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She couldn’t call a lawyer and threaten to sue or even press the magazine for a retraction, because every word was true. There was nothing slanderous about it.
But it was scandalous and would reach a broader audience than the showdown at the gala. Unlike gossip, it lived on in full color, the implication damming. Two out of three Bradshaws were crooks. The third associated with criminals and involved her charity. The only way to clear her name was to admit she’d been part of a clever con that helped bring Cookie Jar down.
To do that would out Halsey.
And who would believe her, anyway?
Damned six ways to hell. Not only was the Bradshaw name blackened over again, D4D was further compromised. It would never recover if her name remained attached to it.
There was no coming back to respectability from this.
It was an endpoint. A dark alley with no exit. A game she played hard but was only skilled at losing.
Her coffee got cold, the foam melted, leaving a film around the edge of the fancy glass cup, making it as undrinkable as her future was uncertain.
She waited to feel like puking; all she got was hunger pains. It wasn’t that unexpected, after all. Even before Easton’s arrest. Who on Earth had she thought she was fooling? She’d been clinging to the ideal of fairness. Believing if she worked hard enough she could outrun the shadow of her father’s crime and still do the work she valued most.
The only one who’d treated that ambition seriously was the one man she couldn’t afford to trust.
No, it wasn’t hunger. It was the stomach-churning sense of defeat. She could help her family, but she couldn’t save the Bradshaw name, and no amount of putting in the work would matter. She’d always be one of those Bradshaws. Untrustworthy. Disreputable. Causing a scene. Best avoided.
She could waste her whole life struggling to be treated on her own merits, stubbornly wishing for things to be different.
Ida Dalton was right—half the city would snub her, and the other half would make sure she was locked out of their circle of influence forever. There’d always be gossip, sly glances, and whispered reminders of the scandal. She’d always be guilty by association.
It was over.
The smart thing to do would be to stop fighting it.
There was a certain arrogance in thinking she’d be forgiven, anyway. She’d already lost Halsey. They’d never had a real chance. She wasn’t an asset to D4D any longer; her lifelong dream had become a nightmare. She should hand it over to Fin, change her name, and move to Florida.
Salty water blurred her eyes and burned on her cheeks. In her misery, the people who mattered most were being forgotten. The women who raised their families on little but back-breaking work and hope. She still had choices, and she still had means, and she wasn’t near as tough or resourceful as a disadvantaged woman trying to build a better life for her family.
Women who had nothing made sacrifices, took risks, asked for help when they needed it, and gave it to others less fortunate. They did whatever was necessary and had done for generations.
Lenny’s tears stung, but more from the shame of defeat. Florida was Mom’s choice and would be Mal’s salvation, but for her, Florida felt like giving up, and that had never gotten women anywhere.
She looked at the photos. Sonny Ozols would rot in jail, and she’d played a small part in making that happen. Ketija was regal, but she didn’t wait to be made a princess before becoming an engineer. Ida Dalton grinned like she had the secret to life. Ida had carved her own path even though her family didn’t approve. She’d said rogues made the best lovers, never cared for what society thought about her, and was happier for it.
There was a lesson in all that, if only she was brave enough to try it.
Sometimes the only tactic left was to make a mess and break things.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Halsey had done three completely spontaneous things in his life. He’d gotten a tattoo, he’d gone to Lenny in a fever of need, and he’d stolen Cookie Jar’s 1970 forest green Mercedes-Benz 280SL Coupe Roadster.
He could’ve gotten a cousin who specialized in the appropriation of ill-gotten items to take the car, but he was restless, and being back behind his desk wasn’t the solace he’d thought it would be, despite the undeniable satisfaction of a mission accomplished.
Besides that, going to Lenny in a desperate attempt to ask for forgiveness and somehow fooling her into loving him was a wor
se idea than stealing a car from a thief.
The theft itself was uneventful. The car had been impounded after waiting shipment back to Ossovia. It had been easy to impersonate a government official and commandeer it. It was a lovely ride, but once he had it, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
That was the problem with spontaneous, impulsive acts. They left a mark; they led you astray and for all their daring and momentary thrill. They didn’t fill the need inside you, just left you rubbed raw and hollow.
He drove the Merc around for a week, had it valued, and decided he’d have it delivered to Lenny. He’d already returned her donation money. This would be a cherry on top. She could sell it and tip the cash into D4D. That only seemed fair.
That was before the weekend magazine article showed up. After he knew about the “Frauds of a Feather” story, he went from hollow to despairing. He’d made sure Lenny’s name didn’t appear in any of coverage of Cookie Jar’s downfall, but this photo story had slipped under his radar.
It was a month since he’d seen her. A month of sleeping badly, snapping at people, canceling meetings, and forgetting to eat. One morning he came to work in jeans and a tee because he couldn’t be bothered to iron a dress shirt. That freaked Zeke out, but since Cal was expected any day, Zeke, like everyone else, avoided him.
Everyone else, that is, except tiny Cousin Amelia. She drew him a picture. A horse dragon-like creature with wings and claws that breathed fire. It was purple with pink spots, a spikey yellow tail, and red eyes.
Amelia really got him.
“Nice dragon horse thing,” Cal said, when he saw it pinned to Halsey’s cork board the day he got back.
Cal had a tan. He looked like he’d regressed about five years or snuck in some plastic surgery.
“Vacationing works for you. How’s Fin?”
Cal smiled. “As soon as I can change her status from One Night Wife to every-night wife, she’ll be perfection. How’s Lenny?”
“Her books check out.”
“You think I’m asking about her books? Zeke briefed me. Congratulations on the Cookie Jar sting. That was big-game hunting and quite an achievement for a man who doesn’t think he has any fieldwork skills. I’m sorry I missed the fun.”
Fool Me Forever (Confidence Game) Page 24