“No problem. I think you’re right. I’ll be in touch.” Nikki stood in the howling wind and watched Avery’s van until it was out of sight. She sighed, pulled the collar of her coat a little tighter around her neck, then headed for the rear door of her office building. “And this is just October,” she mumbled under her breath.
The minute she had her coat off and a cup of coffee in hand, Nikki rang for her secretary, Carol. “I want you to take this over to Maggie Spritzer’s house right now. Tell her to upload it and send it on to Charles. We’re okay here, right?”
“Right as rain, boss. Everything is set up for your eleven thirty depositions. I’ll be back by the time you’re ready to start. Anything else while I’m out?”
“No. I have it covered. It’s really cold out there, so dress warmly.”
“Okay, Mom.” Carol giggled.
I just need five minutes. Five minutes to sit and stare at ... nothing. Nikki felt pleased that her devoted secretary already had a fire going in the private seating area of her office. Five minutes to stare at the dancing flames. She sat down, propped her feet on the coffee table, and closed her eyes just as her cell from the go bag, which she had turned on after leaving Amy’s temporary home, rang. Lizzie. Her feet hit the floor as she bolted upright, almost spilling the coffee in her cup.
“Just listen, Nikki. I’m here. Leave the line open, and you’ll be able to hear everything. Everything go okay?”
“Couldn’t have been more perfect if we had rehearsed for days. Avery left the laptop in her bag and one of his operatives is turning it over to the police as we speak. But I think Amy suspects a put-up job.”
“All right, I’m in the lobby now. Don’t say another word.”
* * *
Lizzie Fox swooped into the luxurious lobby, propelled by the ferocious wind, which caused the silvery hair to move a little and put a natural glow to her cheeks. The overall effect was breathtaking, so much so that the young receptionist was instantly tongue-tied when Lizzie approached the desk.
“Good morning, young lady. My name is Elizabeth Fox, and I do not—I repeat, I do not—have an appointment with the partners of the firm. Having said that, I need to speak immediately with either Mr. Queen, Mr. King, Mr. Bishop, or Mr. Rook. I’m afraid I cannot take no for an answer, so if you would be so kind as to notify them I’m here, I would appreciate it. I can only wait seven minutes, so please advise them of that fact.”
The young receptionist tried to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth as she stared in awe at the woman standing in front of her issuing orders. If she did what she was being asked, she was going to be fired on the spot.
“Um . . . I . . .”
“Oh, dear, we are eating into those seven minutes. I’ll do it for you,” Lizzie said, walking around to the back of the desk. She eyed the elaborate console; then one rosy-tipped nail hit the button that would broadcast her message throughout the building. “Hello, everyone! This is Elizabeth Fox. I represent Livinia Lambert and I am standing in your exquisite lobby waiting to meet the men known as the Chessmen, who are representing the Speaker of the House in the matter of his divorce from said Livinia Lambert.
“The reason you’re hearing me over your sound system is that I think your receptionist just left the building or she quit. When I came in here, I said I would wait for seven minutes. Two of those minutes have expired. I’m waiting, gentlemen.”
Lizzie looked around and saw the young receptionist grab her purse from under the desk and then walk away from the area at a very fast pace. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard feet stampeding in some faraway hallway. She decided to amuse herself by tapping all the buttons of the console, then hitting the loudspeaker, where all manner of curses and expletives could be heard ricocheting throughout the building.
Lizzie stared down at her treasured Mickey Mouse watch on her slender wrist, a gift from Annie de Silva. She turned just in time to see the door to her right burst open with such force that it banged against the faux-marble wall. A chunk of marble-streaked Sheetrock fell to the floor as four breathless men barreled into the lobby. “Right on time, gentlemen. I like that. Punctuality is an art, did you know that? First things first, let me lock the door so we aren’t interrupted.” Once again, the rosy-tipped finger pressed a button. The sound of the locking mechanism was so loud, it sounded like thunder in the silent room. Then, just to be ornery, she let the same rosy-tipped finger run over all the keys on the console again. She smiled.
“We have an office, Ms. Fox. We do not conduct business in the lobby,” Maxwell Queen blustered.
“You do now, Max.” Lizzie walked over to the squat little man, reached down, and straightened his hairpiece. “Ah, that’s so much better. You were looking a little lopsided there for a minute, Counselor. Yes, yes, I know you have offices. I have one myself, but if your offices are in any way indicative of this ostentatious lobby, I have no desire to see them. Ostentatiousness offends me to no end. Especially when it is done so poorly. You could take some lessons from Las Vegas.
“So, gentlemen, I just wanted to drop by to introduce myself, since we’ve never met in person. I am Elizabeth Fox. I know who you all are, so there’s no need for you to introduce yourselves. I also wanted to advise you that I will not tolerate any dirty tricks where my client is concerned, and also to tell you in advance that I am delving into your backgrounds. All of your backgrounds, including the Speaker’s, from the moment that you all dropped out of your mothers’ wombs. I can do this, as you well know.”
Lizzie moved a step closer and lowered her tone so the Chessmen had to strain to hear her soft, melodious voice. “I know that you all have a secret. And I’m going to find out exactly what that secret is. The wheels are in motion as we speak.” The appearance of four deer caught in the headlights was Lizzie’s reward for announcing her intentions.
“Are you threatening us? Because that certainly sounded like a threat to me,” Eli Rook barked.
“Good grief, no, Mr. Rook. Why would I threaten you? That was simply a promise. A statement of fact. That statement, that fact, that promise extends to your client, Wilson ‘Buzz’ Lambert, the Speaker of the House, too. You are, of course, perfectly free to delve into my past to your heart’s content. I’m an open book.
“Now here’s our deal, gentlemen. Mrs. Lambert and her son, Jeffrey, are off-limits. This is a straightforward divorce case. I will not tolerate any ‘he said/she said’ comments. Play your cards right and you still might make it to the White House on the Speaker’s coattails. Resort to your dirty-tricks MO, and we’ll have a serious problem. Oh, dear, my time is up. I really have to go now. It was such a pleasure meeting you all in person.”
“Blackmail is against the law,” Leo Bishop snarled.
“I know! Did you just figure that out, Mr. Bishop? So, do we shake hands, hug, or spit and snarl at one another? Which is it to be?” Lizzie’s eyes were twinkling.
Josh King, the handshaker of the group, as well as the weak link of the partnership, stepped forward and held out his hand. The other three Chessmen backed up a step just as Lizzie’s index finger hit the door-lock button. Then, just for fun, she let her fingers run across all the other buttons on the console again. Lizzie laughed all the way to the door, the sound tinkling off the marble walls.
“What in the goddamn hell just happened here?” Maxwell Queen thundered.
“What happened was that Ms. Fox straightened out your hairpiece. You did look quite silly, Maxwell.” Josh King grinned. “That lady is everything everyone says she is. I can still smell her perfume. A hint of hibiscus and a smidgen of gardenia. Very pleasant.”
“She wears a goddamn Mickey Mouse watch,” Eli Rook all but screamed.
“She’s delving into our past! You did hear that, didn’t you? We need to put a stop to that right now!” Leo Bishop hissed, spittle flying in all directions.
“I do believe we are being broadcast throughout the building, Leo. You need to forget it. If Ms. Fox said
it, that means she’s already on it,” Josh King said. “You all said it would never see the light of day. Guess you were wrong, gentlemen. Looks to me like it’s time to pay the piper.” With that said, King turned on his heel and walked toward the front door. He turned, and called out, “I do not know yet if I’m coming back. I seriously doubt it, so just consider this my notice. I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t say I warned you this day would come. I also told you I would walk if that happened. Well, that day is here, boys!”
“Son of a bitch!” the three Chessmen cursed in unison.
“Shut that goddamn thing off!” Maxwell cursed.
Eli Rook looked down at the elaborate console and had no clue how to turn it off. Leo Bishop reached down and yanked the wires loose from the outlet. Blissful silence filled the lobby.
“One of you call Buzz and tell him to get his ass over here right now,” Queen said through clenched teeth. Eli Rook looked pointedly at the dismantled phone system. Queen slapped at the desktop, and said, “That’s why we have frigging cell phones.” Leo Bishop was already punching in numbers on his cell phone.
The two partners watched as Bishop’s face went from red to white and back to red. “Listen, Buzz, I don’t give a good rat’s ass if you’re sitting on the president’s lap and licking his ear. Get your ass here right now or get yourself new lawyers. Your wife’s attorney just left the building. How’s that for a reason?”
“Now what?” Eli Rook asked, his hands flapping in the air.
“My office. NOW!” Queen bellowed so loud that his hairpiece shifted on his head.
* * *
Four blocks away, in her office, Nikki’s closed fist shot in the air. “Way to go, Lizzie!”
“They do have a secret. I just threw that out there to get a rise out of them, and I got it in spades. It must be a pretty awesome secret by the looks on their faces. Now, all we have to do is find out what that secret is. I had some fun in there, Nikki.” Lizzie chuckled. “Sometimes you just have to do something wicked, stir the pot a little, you know. When you hang up, call Charles and have him put everyone and their brothers on ferreting out the Chessmen’s secret.”
Nikki burst out laughing. “Will do. I heard it all, and may I say you were quite masterful.”
“I’m signing off now. I have a plane to catch and a husband and son who are waiting for me, and whom I can’t wait to see. You need me, call.”
“Will do. Thanks, Lizzie.”
“My pleasure, Counselor.”
* * *
Ted Robinson opened the door to see Nikki’s secretary shivering in the cold October air. He invited her in, but she declined, saying she had to get back to the office. “Nikki said the material from Amy Lambert’s laptop is on this USB drive, and she wants Maggie to go through it and to call her the minute she knows anything. She also said to tell Maggie to upload it all to Charles.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Ted raced back to Maggie’s family room, where she was cuddling with her cat, Hero. “I have here something you can really sink your teeth into, Maggie. Straight off Amy Lambert’s laptop, courtesy of Avery Snowden. First, though, you have to upload it to Charles, then do the same to me. We can work side by side, and this way I won’t be interrupting you to tell me what it is you’re seeing. Okay?”
Maggie nodded.
“On the count of three, flex those fingers and dive in,” Ted chortled. “This is just like old times, eh, Maggie?”
Maggie’s eyes turned dreamy. “Yes, just like old times,” she said softly. “Let’s do it, lover!”
Ted almost fell off the sofa. Lover. That’s what Maggie always called him back in the day when they went from being an item to engaged, then unengaged, then to rivals, and now back to friends. Friends with benefits. Lover. Yippee! Maybe there was hope, after all.
Two sets of fingers tapped out a symphony of sound so quick and fast, Hero leapt from Maggie’s lap and ran to quieter quarters.
Twenty minutes later, the symphony stopped as both Maggie and Ted threw their hands high in the air. “Well, hello, Emily Holiday!” Maggie squealed, her closed fists shooting in the air. She winced at the pain in her shoulder, but she ignored it.
“Nikki and Lizzie were right when they said start at the beginning, and the beginning is Amy Jones Lambert, aka Emily Holiday. The name change appears to have taken place when she turned eighteen. Just as she entered college. I’ll check the records to see if the name change was done legally. Keep working on what you have there and talk to me as soon as you see something we need to know,” Ted said happily. Right now he was in what he called Maggie heaven.
The symphony of sound started up again. “Oooh, listen to this. Emily/Amy was adopted when she was five days old. Nothing on who the birth parents were. Her adoptive parents are Bradford and Pamela Holiday. Bradford Holiday manages a hedge fund in the billions. Pamela was a stay-at-home wife and mother. She passed away when Emily was approaching her eighteenth birthday. The Holidays had divorced when Emily was fourteen. A bitter divorce, and Pamela got skinned, thanks to . . . drumroll, please!!!!”
“The Chessmen! I knew it! I knew it! She changed her name legally. It’s all right here. I’m sending all this on to Nikki,” Ted said jubilantly.
“This is sad, Ted. I feel terrible reading it. It’s Emily/Amy’s diary. Why she would put it on a computer, though, is beyond me.”
“Maybe she was worried about someone’s finding an actual diary. It’s pretty hard to lose a computer, and yet that’s what happened this morning with the pretend mugging. What else is there?”
“Mother and daughter moved into a two-bedroom apartment. The husband paid his ex a pittance every month to live on. He did pay for the daughter until she reached the age of eighteen. Again, a pittance. His defense was she wasn’t his blood, she was adopted, and, therefore, he owed her nothing. A court of law would say differently, but the wife didn’t have the resources to fight it. Once he filed for divorce, father and daughter never saw each other again. He remarried shortly after the divorce to, I would say, a trophy wife. Eye candy. According to what is written here, Emily/Amy hates her adoptive father’s guts for what he did to her mother. Because . . . the mother couldn’t accept going from living in a mansion with servants to a two-bedroom apartment, where she had to do everything herself. She started to drink. Heavily. She also took pills to go to sleep, pills to wake up, pills to fight her depression. In the end, she died of a combination of alcohol and drugs. She left a paid-up insurance policy of ten thousand dollars to Emily/Amy. The girl had to use part of that to have her mother cremated.
“Emily/Amy, with the aid of one of the counselors at her high school, found a rooming house where she stayed until it was time to go off to college. She worked two and sometimes three jobs to save up money. She got several grants and scholarships to ease her way. Very smart, with a high IQ and a 4.0 GPA. She’s a very frugal person.
“She grew up in the Tupper Lake area in the Adirondacks. At first, her father commuted to work in Manhattan. He’d make the four-hour drive and stay in the city for a few days, then go back home for a day or so, then do it all over again. Says it was the perfect place to grow up. They moved to Manhattan when she was eleven years old. Mother hated it. Parents started fighting a lot, and the father didn’t come home every night. Mother became convinced he was having an affair. At least now we know where she came from.
“In this narrative, she says she cries herself to sleep every night. By that, I mean at that time in her life. What kept her going was the thought that somehow, someway, she could find a way to get back at her adoptive father. That’s when she knew she would have to go to law school to make that happen.
“In her spare time, and there was not much of that with her work hours and studying, she spent hours and hours researching the Chessmen. Her original plan was to see if she could get a job with them. Later entries, in current time, said that did not happen, although she did interview. Under her new name, of course. Her next bet
was to go with the Quinn Law Firm and try her luck from there. Which she has succeeded in doing.”
“Anything on the marriage?”
“Yes, right down to the wedding night. We aren’t going there, Ted. It’s bad enough that I’m reading this; I am not repeating it. Suffice it to say, she met her soul mate, the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, to grow old with. And she writes here that Jeffrey feels the same way. She says she doesn’t feel whole unless he’s next to her. He echoes the feeling. He writes her beautiful poetry professing his love into all eternity. They are compatible in every way.
“She adores Jeffrey’s mother, Livinia, but she detests his father.
“There are no entries after she interviewed with the Quinn Law Firm.”
“That’s odd. What do you think that means, Maggie?” Ted asked.
“She wasn’t taking any chances of whatever she was up to coming to light. We can now rightfully assume hiring on with Nikki was a means to an end. The divorce was all a setup. I’m sure if she has to, she’ll go through with it, and when the dust settles, the two of them will remarry. Tall tales to tell their grandchildren someday. I’m guessing here, Ted.”
“Right now, a guess is as good as a given. That’s just my opinion. Look, you call Nikki, fill her in, and I’m going to text Dennis to come over here. I think he’s the one who should perhaps have a talk with Mr. Bradford Holiday. Then let’s see what you and I can uncover about whatever it is that the Chessmen are hiding. If Lizzie says they are hiding something, you can take it to the bank. With all of us working on it, we’re bound to come up with the goods. At least I hope so.”
Maggie flexed her fingers. “Let’s do it!”
Chapter 17
The three Chessmen stomped their way down one hallway after another until they came to the partner wing and Maxwell Queen’s elaborate suite of offices. Leo Bishop was the last man to walk through the door. He slammed it so hard, the other two Chessmen turned around to see if the door had come off the hinges. All three men were breathing fire as they verbally attacked one another, shouting obscenities to the four walls.
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