by Erica Orloff
“Might as well make him earn his salary.”
“No,” she said more insistently.
“Look…are you pulling this because of Claire? Because your job, Madison, has nothing to do with my personal life. You have”
“A responsibility to our shareholders.” She said it singsong fashion.
“That’s not funny. You think your position as future CEO here is a joke?”
“No. It’s just that someone I loved, someone you claimed to love, was murdered. And you’re more interested in Wall Street than seeing her killer brought to justice.”
“You act like you’re thirteen years old, Madison. Like you’re some petulant teen, instead of responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars and major shareholder decisions and obligations. I’ve always had to put aside my feelings. And so have you. Now, suddenly, you’re acting completely out of character. I’ll expect you here tomorrow, acting like you support me to the fullest, Madison. I’m counting on you, but if you don’t care about thatand it appears you don’tthen the company is counting on you. If we take a major market dive, then people, employees, who have given their years in dedication and service to us, will be out of jobs. That can be on your conscience.”
“And I wonder what’s on your conscience, Dad.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Figure it out,” she snapped and hung up the phone. She soon felt guilty. She could sense her father’s growing desperation as his worldordinarily so controlledspun out of his control.
Her cell phone rang. She saw it was John Hernandez, calling from his cell.
“Madison?”
“Hi, John.”
“I’ve been worried about you. You didn’t come to the homework session yesterday. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I was worried, but then I started to wonder if you were just avoiding me.”
Madison cursed herself in her mind. She had meant to call him, but the two thugs at the cemetery had effectively taken care of that.
“How could you think that? What am I saying? I know it was bad form of me not to show or call…and I am so, so sorry. I had a wonderful time. A better than wonderful time. I ran into some work issues, and then I got food poisoning. I’ve been in bed.”
“Do you want me to come over and take care of you? I could whip up a pot of chicken soup.”
“No…I’m really miserable company right now.” She purposely made her voice sound a little weak.
“My bed seems empty without you.”
Madison felt a bolt of warmth sear through her. “You have no idea how much I wish I was there.”
“When can I see you?”
“How about Saturday night?”
“Sounds great. I’ll call you to check on you in a day or so. Feel better. And I’ll see you Saturday.”
“Okay…bye.”
“Bye, angel.”
Madison hung up the phone. For a brief moment, she let herself recall the moment when he slid inside her. It was like her body was made to fit his. Shaking the thought from her mind, she checked her watch. Troy was due over in about fifteen minutes to reconvene a strategy as far as investigating Claire’s murderand the box of clues.
She padded into her kitchen and started a pot of coffee. She wore a yoga outfit from Christy Turlington’s Nuala line. Madison’s mother was a huge yoga fanaticfor a while. Like most everything, Chantal had eventually grown bored and gave it up. Madison still tried to at least begin each day with some stretches, but this morning, every bit of her hurt. The yoga clothes were a simple nod to comfort.
Fifteen minutes later, her doorman called her and said a Mr. Carter was there. She told him to send him up, and she opened the door when Troy arrived.
“Whew,” he said, letting out a low whistle. “So this is how the heir to the Pruitt fortune lives.” He walked to the bank of windows and gazed out on Central Park. The crisp fall day showed off the colors of the trees.
“Give me a break. Renee is hardly living the poor life and you’re there all the time. Around many beautiful agents. A lot of men would kill for your job.”
“A lot of men kill for the fun of it.”
“You know what I mean. Tell me you haven’t gotten used to Renee’s chef’s watercress salad and warm pomegranate vinaigrette. There must be FBI agents in the field just green with envy.”
He nodded, smiling. “Working with Renee and you is a cushy deal, I admit it. Still, that’s like my make-believe life. Agents don’t live like this in the off-hours, Madison.”
No, she thought looking around her apartment. In one corner stood an armoire from eighteenth-century France in a burled wood and polished to a sheen. She had bid sixty thousand dollars for it at Sotheby’s. And I suppose teachers don’t live like this either.
Thinking of John made her frown. She turned her head and said, “I’m going to go get us some coffee.”
“Great…I could use it. I’ll help.”
He followed her into her expansive kitchen as she busied herself pulling out china and sugar. She favored raw cane sugar and a tea biscuit or two.
“What’s the matter?” Troy asked her. “Your face clouded up in there a minute or so ago.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on. It has to be something.”
“Perceptive of you.”
“Training. I took a profiling coursea bunch of them actuallyat Quantico. I was pretty good at it. Then I got too old.”
“What do you mean, too old?”
“The best profilers are under twenty-eight.”
“Why?”
“The older you get, the more you make allowances.”
Madison put the mugs and silver coffeepot and sugar bowl on a teak tray and pulled a carton of cream from the subzero refrigerator. Troy lifted the tray and carried it to the dining room.
“What do you mean, allowances?”
“Well, when you’re eighteen, say, and you meet someone, what’s your typical reaction?…I’ll tell you. A teen makes a snap decision. Dork or cool guy. Nerd or jock. Outcast or cheerleader. They see the world in instantaneous black and white. When we get older, we temper that. We learn there’s more to someone than appearance and body language.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Madison sat down and poured them both coffee. Troy sat opposite her.
“It is. I mean, certainly in a philosophical sense it is. But here’s the thing, that’s still part of how a young person’s brain works. It’s more impulsive. I’ve even seen studies about almost a shearing effect as the brain goes through growth spurts. New, fast, impulsive pathways are born. It’s all very new science. Anyway…the bottom line is the younger a profiler is, usually the more talented. I wasn’t meant to stay a profiler. I ended up with this special assignment.”
“But you still have the skills. You picked up that something was wrong.”
“Yeah.” He held her gaze. “Come on…spill.”
“I was just wondering, I guess, how to balance being an agent with being a…person. I mean, for one thing, I am responsible for so much in my job. I’ve been chained to my desk for so longbecause I love it, but also because I always felt I had something I wanted to prove. That my name wasn’t the reason for my success. That my talent was.”
“It’s a balancing act, that’s for sure.”
“But then, I also have this new relationship.” Madison saw a cloud of disappointment skate across Troy’s face.
“Uh-huh.”
“Well…I’m doing an awful lot of lying. To hide my double life. I feel like it’s going to be impossible to be one person with him and another with the Gotham Roses.”
“I won’t lie to you. A lot of marriages and relationships just don’t work once people start with the agency. It’s just too complicated.”
“I thought so,” Madison said, sipping her coffee.
“That’s not to say it couldn’t work. It’s just to say that there’s a lot of pressure, and it is hard to explain certain
things away. I have two friends in the CIA, and they pretty much have given up on relationships. I mean, how can you be with someone if they can never ask you about your job, where you’re going, what you’re doing for a living, that whole thing.”
“I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed. All this undercover stuff makes a day in the boardroom seem like a picnic. Like last night in Venetian LakeI mean the adrenaline rush was so intense compared to the boardroom. I’ve known men to throw up before board meetings because it’s so pressurized. But I thrive on it. I love a challenge, which I guess is why I feel cut out for this Gotham Rose thing no matter how intense it gets. Speaking of which, what’s the status on those two guys?”
“They’ll both make it, though the one you got in the chest, the bullet pierced his lung and lodged in his back. He’ll be out of commission for a long time yet.”
Madison tried to process the information that she had wounded someone seriously. “Have you questioned them yet?” she asked softly.
“No. They’re both in a morphine haze. One is in intensive carethe one with the pierced lung. It’ll be a while before we get anything substantive out of him.” Troy took a swig of coffee. “Do you have the box from Claire.”
Madison nodded. Troy seemed unfazed by the events at Venetian Lakeeven though he was sporting a major welt on his face. She pulled the box out from under the table and laid the contents out for them both to look at.
“First of all,” Madison said, “I think she did it this way to protect me. If she didn’t spell it out completely, then if someone broke in my apartment there’d be nothing for him to find. Her mother would be safe, too. So it’s like a puzzle. A travel brochure from the Caymans. Well, you said it was likely some of this had to do with shell companies if the mob was involvedlaundering money. And the seashellrepresents the Caymans and the shell companies.”
“Okay, I’m with you there.”
“A key. To what? Well, it’s not an apartment keyand to be honest, I have a key to her placeand she had one to mine. We were best friends. So she would know that I would instantly realize this wasn’t to anything obvious there. So, coupled with the other clues, I’m guessing a safe-deposit box at a bank in the Caymans.”
“Makes sense,” Troy said.
“A photo of the Manhattan skyline, well, that’s kind of obvious. She was murdered at the site of our new tower-construction project, so it must have something to do with that. And when she was killed, she wouldn’t have known that she would be found dead there, so this was her clue. Just in case.”
“And her passport.” Troy took the green passport book and opened it. “She went to the Caymans twice in the last three months of her life. Did you know that?’
Madison shook her head. “No.”
“Was that usual? I mean, that she wouldn’t tell you.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been usualbefore our falling-out. But even so, my father didn’t go with her, and they were fairly inseparable. That is odd.”
“And finally, a map with Venetian Lake marked. Like you said last night, what could it all possibly have to do with the old murder of your uncle? An infant kidnapped more than fifty years ago. His kidnapper long dead in prison.”
“I’m no closer to an answer. And the safe-deposit key, there’s no account number, no way to know what it’s to for sure.”
“Let’s think.”
Maddie and Troy, almost as if the items were talismans, each picked them up one at a time. Maddie willed Claire to speak to her, to make it all clear, but she was as confused as ever.
And then, like the sun suddenly breaking through a storm cloud, Maddie grew excited.
“Oh, my God! I get it! At least part of it.”
“Want to clue me in?”
Maddie nodded. “Why would Claire include the seashell?”
“Like you said. Representing shell companies. And the Caymans.”
“Maybe, but” Madison turned the conch shell over in her hands and pulled it very close to her face. “I was right…” She grinned. “Looks like I am cut out for this work.”
“Okay, 007, let me know what you figured out.”
“Claire knows I used to love doing the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, and my favorite ones had puns or tricks to them. Well, this shell is nothing more than a trick. A five-letter word for whisperer of ocean secrets.”
“I don’t get it.”
Madison smiled, feeling her excitement grow.
“Claire knew she didn’t have to be obvious with me. Eventually, I would figure it out. I don’t need a clue as obvious as a seashell. I don’t need a clue for the Caymans, since the travel brochure is there. So what else can a big conch shell like this do?”
“Provide shelter for a conch.”
“Right. Shelter. Tax shelter. Okay. And if you hold a conch to your ear, what will it do?”
“It won’t do anything.”
“It will duplicate the ocean’s roar, though. You can hear the sea. It’s as if it can tell you something. A secret.” Maddie handed Troy the shell. “Look inside.”
“Holy shit!” Troy exclaimed.
For there, etched into the soft pink hue of the conch’s interior shell, was engraved the name of a bank in the Caymans, along with a safe-deposit-box number.
Chapter 14
“Oh, my God! Look at me,” Maddie exclaimed as she stared in the three-way mirror and twirled slowly around. Claire’s reflection stared back at her.
“Pretty amazing what we can do, huh?” Troy asked her.
“It’s uncanny.”
The papers that week had been filled with innuendo and gossip about her father refusing to take a lie detector testthrough his attorneys, of course, a high-powered team that threatened to devour the police detectives and the media. The lawyers spoke in sound bites and the war of words was just beginning, Madison knew. The media were like sharks in waters filled with fresh chum.
The Pruitt & Pruitt board had agreed to convene the next week to determine a course of action until the investigation was completed. Her uncle Binga major shareholderand her father were edgy and sending assistants scurrying and cowering into their offices. In the meantime, Maddie and Troy were flying to the Caymans on Thursday night, and had an appointment at the bank on Friday morning.
Maddie needed a cover story for her absence from the office. The case and all its intricacies was taking up a lot of her timeat a point when she really couldn’t afford to be out of the office. Maddie decided to say she was going to Miami to view a property she’d been eyeing before Claire’s murder. She would bring Troy to see if the site was viable for a hotel.
Now at the town house, Madison was literally transformed into Claire.
Kristi Burke was the stylist for the Gotham Roses. Her job was to give the women working undercover whatever look they needed to complete their assignments. She walked around Madison, obsessing over every detail.
“I have given girls complete makeovers. They’ve been transformed into everything from call girls to foreign dignitaries. Blondes to brunettes and back again. Redheads in every shade of the color spectrum. I’ve taught them to walk the catwalk for one assignment, and how to wrap a sari for another. But this…this is the pièce de résistance. It’s unbelievable.”
Madison smoothed the sleek line of her black boban expensive wig. Her hands trembled slightly. It felt almost sacrilegious to portray Claire, and a vague queasy feeling passed over Madison. On the other hand, by portraying her, she could access the safe-deposit box and perhaps solve this case once and for all, hopefully while saving the corporation in the same action.
Kristi, dressed in a funky Anna Sui tweed jacket and miniskirt in a soft green that showed off her auburn hair, shook her head. “I’m amazed. What do you think, Troy?”
“Kristi, you’re a genius. I even asked Renee to come down.”
Almost as if on cue, Renee swept into the dressing room. She stopped and shook her head in amazement.
&nbs
p; “It’s uncanny.”
“Thanks,” Kristi said. “Colored contacts, perfect makeup jobI altered her lip line completely into the cupid’s bow, like the photo Madison brought of her. Cindy Crawford–mole drawn here,” she pointed. “A wig to die for. The right clothes. Changed her eyebrows a bitmore arched. Gives her the cat’s-eye kind of appearance. Exotic.”
Renee approached Madison. “How do you feel?” She clasped her hand, empathy registering on her face. “I’m sure this isn’t easy, darling.”
“Thanks for asking. It isn’t. It actually feels very, very strange…and sad.”
“You’re doing a superb job. I briefed the Governess’s representative on this one. The concern is an Enron-type blowup over at Pruitt & Pruitt. But the powers that be are impressed by your prowess so far. We chose well.”
Madison wasn’t sure she believed in this phantom “Governess.” In fact, she definitely didn’t. But figuring out who was the mystery person pulling strings behind the Gotham Roses was a far lower priority, behind catching Claire’s killer.
“She was born for this,” Troy said. He looked at his watch. “Time to grab our limo, Claire.”
Madison froze imperceptibly at the name, but then, without missing a beat, said, “Great. Let’s go.”
Leaving through a side entrance where a sleek, black, dark-tinted limo waited, Madison and Troy climbed in the back while Renee’s chauffeur put their overnight bags in the trunk. Madison’s was a Louis Vuitton and Troy’s a black duffel bagwhat a mismatched pair, Madison thought. The chauffeur climbed behind the wheel, pulled into traffic and headed toward the United Nations area and then onward to Long Island and LaGuardia Airport.
With the privacy glass up between them and the driver, Madison said, “Can I ask you something…? Who is the Governess, anyway?”
“No one knows.”
“Renee told me that, but I figured she was just keeping me in the dark. You know, until I proved myself.”
“Hell, you’ve already proved yourself. I can tell you’re determined to see this through to the end, no matter who turns out to be behind it. No…Renee doesn’t know who the Governess is. And neither do I.”