“You shouldn’t have hired him without talking with me first,” Scout said, turning the conversation serious.
Red crept in to Olivia’s fair complexion. “I know. I was wrong, but I was worried about you.”
“Thank you for that,” Scout said gently. “But it should have been my decision.”
“I’m sorry.”
Scout reached for her friend’s hand. “I know you’re worried, and Nicco’s not so bad.”
Olivia sat back, regarding Scout with knowing eyes. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” she managed to say.
A satisfied gleam lit Olivia’s eyes and then vanished as her expression sobered. “Now to the hard stuff. What’s going on that someone wants to kill you for?”
Scout told her friend about her mother’s suspicions about Crane.
“Are you investigating anything else?” Olivia asked. “Anyone else?”
“I’m writing a series of stories about Patrice Newtown’s charity, Homes for Everyone.”
“Sounds harmless enough.”
“Except for having to choke down chicken dinners and make nice with a bunch of society ladies, it’s okay.”
“So it’s got to be your mother’s story. Is it worth your life?”
* * *
When Scout came down the stairs the following morning, Nicco did a double take. She wore a yellow dress and had done something smoky to her eyes that made her look both intensely feminine and a little mysterious.
“What’s with the getup?” he asked.
“Another one of the Duchess’s events.” Scout wrinkled her nose. “A fashion show.”
“You look like one of the models.”
“You’re kidding, right? No way could I compete with those models. Even if I wanted to wear ridiculous clothes and starve myself until I looked like a stick, I’m about a foot too short.”
To his eyes, she was beautiful, even though the shadows under her eyes made her look vulnerable. He found it impossible to turn away from the troubled look he saw there. Unaccountably annoyed, he started to say something, then stopped himself.
There was more to this woman than he knew, and he doubted she allowed many to see beyond the mask of the tough, no-nonsense reporter she wore so easily and with such assurance. He found himself curious to discover who the real Scout McAdams was.
She was smart, funny and fearless. A potent combination. And an appealing one. So why was he fighting admitting that he might actually like her?
Maybe it was a good thing. He didn’t need a relationship. He had a career to concentrate on. No woman, even one as engaging as Scout McAdams, was going to derail that. It shamed him to admit it, but he was afraid, afraid to feel something for another woman after losing Ruth. Fear didn’t sit easily on his shoulders, but honesty forced him to acknowledge it.
When his phone buzzed a few minutes later, he frowned on seeing that it was his boss. Shelley wouldn’t be calling when she knew he was on duty unless it was important.
“Can’t, boss,” Nicco said when Shelley told him that he was needed to testify at a court case in which S&J had been instrumental in bringing down a corrupt judge. “I’m with Scout today.”
“Get your relief to take over.” A harried sigh sounded over the phone. “I’m sorry about the last-minute notice, but the other two operatives are UC. Their assignments were due to end last night, but things took a turn south. I just got the call.”
Nicco heard the worry in her voice. He understood about undercover work. Rarely did everything go as planned.
“Anderson was on duty last night. He’s due back tonight.”
“Can’t be helped. Besides, you won’t be in court more than an hour or two. You can get back to Scout when you’re done and Anderson can catch up on his beauty sleep.” A long pause. “Is there something going on that I should know about? Something other than the assignment, that is?”
“No.” His answer was short to the point of being rude. “Just doing my job,” he said in an attempt to soft-pedal the brusqueness of his response.
Nicco accepted that he wasn’t going to get out of testifying. Normally he didn’t mind court duty, but he didn’t like being away from Scout any more than he had to be. The other night’s incident was a reminder that her enemies hadn’t let up.
He relayed the change of plans to Scout and Anderson.
“No problem,” Anderson said with a barely concealed wince. “I can take Ms. McAdams wherever she needs to go.”
“Including a fashion show?” Scout teased.
Anderson swallowed. “Like I said, wherever you need to go.”
Nicco didn’t blame him for his reluctance. Attending a ladies’ luncheon and fashion show bordered on cruel and unusual punishment.
Ordinarily, he’d have asked Sal, but his brother was attending a doctor’s appointment with Olivia. No way would Nicco drag him away from that.
“It’s settled,” Scout said to Nicco. “You go testify and put bad guys away and Anderson and I’ll go scope out the latest fashions.”
Nicco expected Anderson to make a joke, but the man looked slightly green. “Buck up, man.”
Scout reached up to skim her lips over Nicco’s jaw. “Don’t worry. What’s going to happen to me at a fashion show?”
EIGHT
Scout had cause to remember her words when, ten minutes before she was supposed to leave for the show, Anderson collapsed, clutching his left side and groaning. A call to 911 brought emergency personnel to her town house, who, after a brief exam, announced that the operative was having an appendicitis attack.
Still, Anderson tried to get up from the stretcher where the EMTs had him strapped down.
“No way,” she told him. “You go to the hospital. I’ll be fine.” She’d have chucked the whole thing and accompanied him, but her boss, Gerald Daniels, had been uncharacteristically adamant that she cover the show.
“Nicco will have my head,” Anderson muttered.
“Leave Nicco to me.”
She made it to the event on time and then wished she hadn’t. The luncheon was typical society fare, though the chicken had been replaced by some other meat equally rubbery. Scout did her best not to think about what she was eating and entertained herself by watching the other guests and making up stories about them.
The blue-haired lady with the matching dress, definitely one of the “marching matrons,” as Scout had labeled the women who had an abundance of money, class and time and devoted themselves to good works, was in reality employed by the FBI. The woman dressed all in pink, right down to the bows on her pink pumps, secretly moonlighted as a dancer in an all-night club where she worked for tips.
And the lady with the purple turban that clashed violently with her orange suit had to be a spy for a rival fashion house to the one featured at today’s event.
Scout looked down at her own attire. Her mouth turned up in a brief smile as she wondered if any of those individuals present might mistake her for one of the city’s elite. The forsythia-yellow sheath dress and matching jacket paired with stiletto heels in coral wasn’t her usual style. Her typical workday uniform of jeans, T-shirt and high-top sneakers wouldn’t cut it for a luncheon sponsored by the Duchess.
She picked at a limp salad, all the while wishing it were a double deluxe cheeseburger with a side of fries and washed down with a chocolate malt. After risking one bite of the pinkish-brown blob on the dinner plate that she supposed was some kind of meat, she decided she’d do better to stick with the salad.
Patrice Newtown made her way toward Scout. The four-inch heels she sported didn’t slow her pace in the least. In fact, they seemed to propel her forward. Scout estimated the woman’s shoes alone to be around twelve hundred dollars. She admired the shoes, even while accepting that she wasn’t likely to ever have the kind of money that allowed for such luxuries.
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The woman didn’t walk, she glided, as if the money that was associated with the Newtown family paved her every step.
“Scout McAdams. Just the person I wanted to see.” Lips pulled in a slight pout, the lady looked about. “You’re definitely the most interesting person here.”
Scout lifted a brow.
Patrice nodded emphatically. “You’re exactly the kind of woman this city needs. Intelligent. Vibrant. Passionate. And your roots run deep.”
The Duchess frowned when she saw there wasn’t an empty chair at Scout’s table. A waiter hurried to put a chair in place. She crossed one elegantly shaped leg over the other and sat back. Her expression was one of speculation. “I want you on my team. More than writing articles about my charity.”
“As an extra woman?” Scout asked with a wry twist of her lips. A single man or woman who didn’t chew with his or her mouth open and could speak with reasonable intelligence was a sought-after commodity on the guest list of many hostesses.
“As an essential woman. You would be an asset in any gathering. With your contacts and panache, you’re just the kind of individual we want serving on our board.”
Scout shook her head. “I’m flattered, but I’m not society board material. I’m more the sell-raffle-tickets-in-the-church-basement type.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. It’s beneath you.”
“You’ve been frank with me, so I’ll do the same. I don’t like society affairs. I normally avoid them like the plague. Same with the people who run them.” She paused, gauging how that sat with Newtown. “For the most part, the affairs are stuffy and boring and the money spent in putting them on would be better spent on the charities they’re supposed to benefit.”
“Don’t stop now,” the lady said, her eyes full of amusement. “Give it to me with both barrels.”
“Okay. How much did today’s shindig cost?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“Why not just donate that amount to your charity to begin with and save all the fuss and bother of putting on a show?”
Scout already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear Newtown explain it in her own words. Getting to know a subject—which was how Scout regarded the Duchess—meant speaking her language. Scout knew she was woefully ignorant in society-speak.
Newtown held up a finger. “First, we’ll make five times that amount in ticket sales and donations. Second, this event attracts influential women.”
She directed a discreet finger at a woman dressed head-to-toe in lavender, including the animal carrier at her feet. “That’s Julia Kramer. The mayor’s wife. She’ll go home and decide she needs to throw an event of her own, one to top mine.” Newtown waved a hand, a dismissive gesture to what was obviously an old rivalry. “That doesn’t matter. Julia is a publicity hound and will do anything to get her name in the papers. What matters is that her shindig, as you call these things, will bring in fifty thousand dollars or more. She’ll present her husband, the mayor, with a check for the new shelter. Do you see the lady toward the front, the one with the two security men hovering around her? That’s the governor’s wife. She’ll do the same.”
Scout looked about for Christine Daniels, the wife of the paper’s publisher, expecting her to be present, but didn’t see her. Probably the lady had decided to send a check and forego the fashion show. Scout would have done the same if she’d been able. “So these events are contagious. Like a virus.”
Newtown laughed again. “I knew I picked the right person to cover these things.”
Scout had wondered how the Duchess had managed to pull off requesting a specific reporter to cover her events before remembering that the paper’s publisher and Newtown were both supporters of the opera. Such bonds were common among the ultra-wealthy.
“You’ll bring your trademark no-nonsense tone to the articles you write,” Newtown continued. “That will attract interest from people who normally avoid social affairs ‘like the plague.’”
Chastened, Scout blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you did. I want that. I want you to be as blunt and honest as you are right now, writing the kind of articles that will make ordinary people consider contributing to the cause. Even if it’s only five dollars.”
With a flash of shame, Scout realized she’d come today with her mind already made up about Newtown and her charity. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, this time meaning it. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.” Newtown sat back. “The foundation means everything to me. My late husband...” Newtown’s voice caught. “It was his dream to do something to help the city’s homeless. Before he died, I promised I’d carry on what he started.”
Sunlight, streaming through the Palladian styled windows, caught the delicate tears on her cheeks, turning them into glistening drops. The woman even cried in a graceful manner. Her eyes didn’t go puffy; her nose didn’t turn red. There were no noisy sobs, only the quiet trail of tears down her perfectly sculpted cheekbones.
Scout wanted to dislike her, if only because the Duchess had caused her to be taken from real journalism, but there was nothing in the woman with which to find fault. Her concern for the homeless seemed sincere. She was a society lady, through and through.
Unlike herself, Scout thought. Her idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon was taking in a game and eating a loaded hot dog at the ballpark.
She felt like a fraud, sitting here in her dress and heels. She picked at the unidentifiable meat on her plate, more to have something to do with her hands than because she was hungry.
“Awful, isn’t it?”
Scout barely contained her surprise. “Uh...it’s not bad.”
“Be honest. It’s dreadful. But it’s the best we can do if we want to keep costs down and make more money for the shelter.” The polish of finishing school and summers in Europe wafted through her voice.
“Good point.”
Patrice Newtown smiled, drawing Scout’s attention to the razor-edged cheekbones in the beautiful face. Her smile, like the rest of her, was dazzling, a combination of feminine warmth and charm. “I may have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I know how to be practical. Especially when it involves something close to my heart, like...” Her eyes filled with tears, tears she didn’t bother to wipe away. “Excuse me, it’s just that this is so very important.”
Disarmed by the woman’s frank emotion, Scout reached out and touched the lady’s hand. She couldn’t help noticing the titanium Breguet with the carbon-fiber face, and though she didn’t know much about high-end timepieces and cared even less, she recognized that such a watch cost upward of ten thousand dollars.
She filed that away and yanked her attention back to what they’d been talking about. “It’s all right. I’m the same way. My friend says that when my heart is engaged, my emotions leak out of my eyes.”
The Duchess gave a delicate shake and then smiled. “Thank you for saying that. The friend? Would that be Olivia Hammond Santonni? I’ve heard that you two are close.”
Scout wasn’t often taken by surprise, but the Duchess had managed to do just that. “How did you know?” While her stories were written for the public, she kept her private life just that: private.
“When I want someone on my team, I make it my business to know everything about her. So I did some digging on you. I liked what I found.” Newtown eyed Scout shrewdly. “You’re smart and savvy and have more than your share of moxie. You know as well as I do that for a woman to succeed she has to work twice as hard as a man to be considered half as good.” Her forehead temporarily wrinkled before smoothing out once more.
Scout dipped her head in acknowledgement, reluctantly fascinated by this woman whom she’d first dismissed as all fluff and no substance. There was intelligence there, along with steely determination that said the Duchess would do whatever was necessary
to achieve her goals.
“It’s not fair, but it is what it is,” the Duchess continued in a matter-of-fact voice. “That’s why when I go after something, I don’t accept no for an answer. I fight for what I want. I see the same in you.”
No, Newtown wasn’t the empty-headed socialite Scout had first thought. There was grit beneath the rose-pink Chanel suit and Jimmy Choo footwear.
For as long as she could remember, she’d been able to size up people with only a glance, maybe a handshake. She was rarely wrong. Honesty forced her to admit that she may have misjudged Patrice Newtown. “You’re different from what I thought.”
If she’d expected the woman to take offense at the blunt statement, she was wrong.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. You must be all kinds of put out with me, calling in favors and asking for you to cover my events. But you’re the best and I wanted the best. Now’s your opportunity to prove it.” Newtown added the last with a bright spark of challenge.
“I’m not a society reporter,” Scout pointed out, flattered but determined to speak her mind all the same. “I can’t write the kind of pieces you’re expecting.”
“I don’t expect anything but the truth. Be yourself. Write from an outsider’s viewpoint. That will be far more powerful than the usual fluff pieces we get on these events.” The Duchess wrinkled her nose. “Such pieces are necessary, but they won’t attract the kind of attention I want for this project. People will see your byline and know that you won’t sugarcoat anything. They’ll expect the truth, and you’ll give it to them.”
Scout poked at what passed for meat on her plate and pulled a comical face. “Is it all right if I compare the food to that of a middle-school cafeteria?”
Patrice laughed, the tinkling sound one of unabashed delight. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“Duchess?” A man appeared at her side, his manner differential. “We’ll be ready to begin in three minutes.”
“Thank you, Roderick.” Newtown smiled at Scout’s raised brow. “You probably think the name is ridiculous. Someone bestowed it upon me years ago and it stuck. It’s meaningless, of course.”
High-Risk Investigation Page 8