by Erica Orloff
“You have any hunches?”
“No. I mean, sometimes I think it might be Attorney General Cleghorn. Other times I guess someone from the president’s cabinet, other times the second-in-command at the bureau. Bottom line? I haven’t a clue.”
“Don’t you find all this cloak-and-dagger stuff a little weird?”
“I used to. But then I realized there was a whole shadow realm to the government, to law enforcement, to the world, that most don’t know aboutand to catch the really bad guys, you need all the weapons you can muster in your arsenal. Hence the Gotham Roses. Just a prettier, classier weapon, but a weapon nonetheless. You know, people used to think that white-collar crime wasn’t so bad, wasn’t worth going after. The Savings and Loan scandals, the junk-bond kings, insider trading. But now that so many ordinary citizens have money in mutual funds, company stocks, IRAs, retirement accounts…so they can send their kids to college, people realize a few bad apples can literally wipe out whole families’ meager savings, decimate the confidence of investors. The administration knows this is bad for politics. It’s bad for the country.”
“Well, I also didn’t give my heart and soul to my company to watch some unseen bastard destroy it. Let’s go catch some bad guys,” Madison said as they crossed into Long Island. She didn’t care who the Governess was. Hell, it could be her grandmother for all she cared. She just wanted whoever was responsible for Claire’s deathand the big lump on the back of her headto pay.
“Ms. Shipley,” the bank manager said, sweeping his head down to kiss her hand, “a pleasure to see you again.”
“Thank you. Lovely to see you, as well.”
“And what can we do for you today?”
“I’d like to visit my safe-deposit box.”
“But of course. Follow me.”
Madison and Troy had arrived the night before on the small island, a territory of the United Kingdom. Madison walked behind the bank manager. He had on a crisp blue blazer and a tie reminiscent of the sort worn at Eton. Gray slacks, expensive loafers. Very preppie. He had an uppercrust British accent, no doubt sent to boarding school, Madison imagined.
He led her into the vault area, and she produced her key.
“Excellent,” he said. He pulled out some papers. “A formality, but sign here, as always.”
Madison had practiced Claire’s signature over and over again all the previous night. She took a breath to calm herself. Troy had told her on the plane flight over that the manager would accept her at face value. Three visits hardly meant he knew Claire intimately. Relax, she told herself as she lifted the Mark Cross pen. He hasn’t an idea you’re not Claire.
Indeed, the manager didn’t even look at her signature. He pulled out a large safe-deposit box, gave her a gracious half bow and said, “Simply press the button when you’re through.”
“Merci,” Madison said. Claire had always used that…and her standard goodbye was Au revoir. She wasn’t Frenchjust a silly habit, Claire used to tell her. Her French tutor had ingrained it into her as a child.
Once the manager left the vault, Madison opened the box. Inside were papers, neatly bundled with rubber bands, sheaves of them nestled against each other. She pulled one out and took off the rubber band. They were copies of ledger pages and computer printouts of accounts. Shell companies. There was no way Madison could make sense of it immediately, but she assumed this was the evidence she neededthe evidence Claire died for. Troy told her that the agency had forensics accountants ready to pore over anything on the waterfront-tower property at a moment’s notice.
Madison put every single paper into the alligator-skin briefcase she’d brought with her, pressed the button to exit the vault, and proceeded to the bank lobby, her heels clicking on the pink marble. Troy was waiting, and they took a cab back to their hotel.
They were staying on the beach, in rooms opposite each other. Both had ocean views from their balcony, and the Caymans at this time of year were magnificentthe waters bluer than ever, the temperature perfect, without humidity.
Once inside the hotel, they went to Madison’s room and spread all the papers out on the bed.
“Does any of this make sense to you?” Troy asked.
“Not really. Not yet. But give me a couple of hours.”
“We have five hours until we have to leave for the airport. In the meantime, I’m going to place a few calls to get the accountants ready for us at Renee’s.”
Troy let himself out, and Madison called room service and asked for a club sandwich and a Diet Coke to be sent up. Then she settled in to pore over the papers.
It was like entering a maze. She couldn’t believe that her own company could have so many accounts for, at least on the surface of things, bogus subsidiaries. She felt sick to her stomach. The S.E.C. implications alone would be enough to send shock waves through the stock exchange.
She massaged her temples. What a mess!
And then she took the rubber bands off a sheaf of papers that looked like canceled payroll checks. Madison felt even sicker. Because there was the signature of a William Charles Pruitt III. The little baby buried in the family vault. He had a social security number, and apparently, he’d been drawing several different salaries over the years at Pruitt & Pruitt.
A dead person on the payroll.
With the title of senior vice president.
Maddie leaped from the bed and went to run across the hall to tell Troy. His hotel-room door was ever so slightly ajar. From inside she could hear sounds of a struggle.
Panic swept over her. Troy had declared to security that he was an agent before the flight, and he had been allowed to check his sidearm, unloaded, through customs and security. But the Gotham Roses undercover agency was, ostensibly, a shadow one. Renee had explained to her on her orientation day that in some situations, this secretive nature would operate against them. For instance, she couldn’t identify herself as an agent on the flight. So she had no weapon. This hadn’t seemed like a problem with Troy along at the bank, but it sure as hell was a problem now.
Well, Madison thought, time to see if what Jimmy Valentine taught me works in a real situation.
She inhaled deeply, gathered her energy into her solar plexus, the way she’d been taught, and kicked the door open, surprising the man who was choking Troy. With a flying sidekick, she kicked the man as hard as she could in the side, knocking him over. Troy fell to the floor, looking, at least to Madison, as if he was dead.
“I thought you were killed,” the man growled as he stared up at her. “I saw you. You were dead.” His eyes were wide, and Madison thought he looked spooked.
Taking advantage of his shock, she kicked a foot to his face. He grabbed it though, pushing her backward. Falling against the small hotel table, Madison lost her balance. She and the bastard who’d killed Claire both scrambled to their feet. She used Jimmy Valentine’s leg-sweep method to bring him down again. Then she added a sharp kick to his diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him.
Wasting no time, she kicked his windpipe, and leaned hard with her foot on his throat. She heard a sort of sickening whistle. Then he clawed at her leg. He was gurgling, fighting for air, and she leaned down her weight more. Finally, the man passed out. She ran to the bedside table, lifted the lamp, and came back and smashed it on his head for good measure. Then she raced to Troy and felt for a pulse. It was there, a little weak, but there.
She didn’t know if she should call for an ambulance. She was essentially in a foreign nation with an FBI agent and a man she’d just single-handedly beaten up. She stood and went to the bathroom, wetting a towel with cold water and coming back to Troy and pressing it on his head. In a minute or twoduring which she tried to fight her fearshe started to rouse. He coughed, and then his eyelids fluttered.
“What happened?” he croaked.
“I’m not sure. I saw your door open a bit, came in, and that guy” she pointed to the man on the floor “was choking you until you passed out.”
&nb
sp; “Jesus…” He sat up and rubbed his throat, which was very red. “Can you get me a glass of water? And shut the door in case someone walks by.”
Madison did as he asked. Then Troy stood and looked down on the man. “Do you recognize him?”
The guy on the floor was extremely well-built, almost to the point of being muscle-bound, with close-cropped dark hair and a square jaw. He had a scar near his left eye, and a single diamond stud earring.
“No. But he recognized me…um, Claire. He said that he had seen medead.”
Troy leaned down and felt the man’s carotid. “He’s still alive.”
Troy rolled the man on his side and found his wallet. “No ID.”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
Maddie knelt down and rolled up the man’s sleeve. “Look. A tattoo.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that.” It was an intricate daggertruly a work of art.
“It’s Russian.”
“What does it say along the dagger?”
“Kremlin Killers.”
“Mob. They’re infiltrating some of New York’s drug trade, not to mention Moscow and some of the fallen Eastern European countries. Heavy into the prostitution biz. Drugs. Murder for hire.”
“So what do we do with this guy?”
“We call the local authorities. I also have to call in to my boss at the Bureau. Oh, and hey, thanks for saving my life. He caught me off guard.”
“Well, I owed you. Now we’re even.”
“Not by a long shot, but thank God you came across the hall.”
“I had something to tell you.”
Maddie explained to him about the accounts for William Pruitt.
“Shit, Madison…we’re going to have our hands full with the forensic accountants.”
“No kidding. Listen, you call the police. I’m going to pack…eat something. Get ready. Now that I did what I need to, can I change out of my Claire look?”
“No. You need it for your seat on the return flight. Since 9/11, it’s a lot trickier for us to fly commercial and make changes. Use her passport, same as on the way here.”
“All right, but as soon as we land, I’m losing the wig. It’s itching me like mad.” Because it had been put on expertly by the stylist, Madison was afraid to take it off and put it back on herself.
“You got it.”
Maddie left Troy’s room and headed over to her own. Once inside, she opened the minibar and took out a little vodka bottle. She poured it into a glass and swallowed it in one swig to settle her nerves.
Kremlin Killers.
What the hell had Pruitt & Pruitt gotten mixed up in?
Chapter 15
In The Know With Rubi Cho
So is one of our city’s fairest heiresses finally getting some much-needed R&R?
The lovely and always perfectly put-together American heiress, Madison Taylor-Pruitt was snapped at JFK airport in this photo with a hunky assistant. Business or pleasure?
Our poor Madison has been chained to her desk for far too long, and with the police closing in on Jack Pruitt, and Madison being eyed for even greater responsibility, we can only applaud her. Head to the islandsor the slopes of Aspenour dear Madison. We think it’s high time you remembered you’re one of the city’s most eligible bachelorettes.
Chapter 16
Madison awoke on Saturday, checked her e-mail from the office by hookup from her apartment, attended to her electronic scheduler, left voice mails for about three dozen employees and enjoyed two cups of coffee. Then she saw her picture in Rubi’s column. After the flight, she had gone into the ladies room in the airport and taken off her wig. Her hair was matted and flat, but it felt good to run a brush through it. Then she pulled it back into a ponytail and headed to baggage claim with Troy. By chance, a photographer spotted her and snapped away.
At 11:00 a.m. the phone rangan interior phone from the concierge or front desk.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Pruitt, there’s a John Hernandez here.”
“What?”
“Yes, ma’am. And he’s parked his motorcycle outside. Is that all right, ma’am?”
“Um…yes. Oh, dear…” Madison was completely flustered. He had to have seen the paper. Rubi’s column wasn’t in the financial sectionit was way up front.
“Shall I send him up?”
“Yes, do. Oh…God, what a mess.”
Madison ran to the bathroom. Her hair was pulled up in a loose ponytail, she had on no makeup, and she was dressed in her yoga outfit.
“Damn!” she said to her reflection. The last two weeks or so were starting to take their toll. She swiped some concealer under her eyes to get rid of the dark circles, but there wasn’t time to do anything else.
The doorbell to her apartment rang, and Madison’s hands started shaking.
“Great,” she muttered, “I can practically kill a man with my bare hands, but at the thought of seeing this guy, I’m mush.”
She went to the apartment door and opened it. John stood there, looking gorgeous in a black sweater and worn jeans that showed off his well-muscled legs. He was holding a copy of the newspaper open to Rubi Cho’s column. And fury was registered on his face.
“That’s not a very good picture of me,” Madison offered, trying to defuse the situation, smiling halfheartedly.
“So let me get this straight. I’m good enough to fuck, but apparently, I’m not good enough to tell even the first thing about your life to.”
She recoiled at the curse, as if she’d been physically slapped. She’d never heard him use curse words before. “That’s not how it is, John.”
“Isn’t it? This guy” he thrust the paper toward her “he looks like he’d fit in with your life on Central Park West.”
“It was business. Please…please come in. If I had it to do over again, I swear to you I’d have told you right from the beginning.”
John shook his head. “I’ve been played,” he said and started to turn.
Madison grabbed his arm. “Please…you haven’t been played. I was just too scared to tell you the truth.”
Jaw clenched, he half faced her. “Scared? To admit you were rich?”
“Please just let me explain. Please?”
“And what about this guy?” He held up the paper.
“Please? Come in, and I’ll explain.”
John shook her off his arm, but he did follow her into the apartment. This was worse than the most vicious board meeting, Madison decided. She was used to fighting people through her lawyers, through her public-relations team. She was used to veiled digs and slights on the social ladder. She was even used to blind items in Rubi Cho’s column. But this was a man who wore his fury right out there. Given what they’d shared in bed, Madison told herself she should have assumed he’d fight just as passionately.
She watched as his eyes registered her apartment. “Renovations?” he sneered, apparently recalling why she said her place was off-limits. “You just didn’t want me parking a Harley outside your lobby.”
“That’s not it. Sit down,” she urged.
He sat on the couch, but leaned forward, as if he was most definitely not going to get comfortable. He tossed the paper on the coffee table, right next to a Fabergé egg. Then he clasped his hands together tightly.
Maddie remained standing, and she started pacing, trying to gather her thoughts.
“When I started working at the charter school, I wanted to just be me. Not some heiress…I wanted to be in the classroom, interacting with kids, not being treated with kid gloves myself. Mr. Hayes, the principal, he agreed to honor that and was very supportive. I was also able to fund computers and do all sorts of amazing things through the Pruitt Family Trust, and I got to do it basically anonymously. At school, I was Ms. Taylor, not Pruitt. I wasn’t there to elevate myself, John. I was there to make a difference. Quietly.”
He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at some unseen spot on the oriental rug, hi
s eyes intense.
She rushed on, headlong, into her story. “Then I met you. It was the highlight of my weekevery week. But I felt like I had the Maddie who worked with the kids and you, and the Maddie who was running Pruitt & Pruitt’s real-estate division. And they were two parts that would never meet, so why bother telling you all about my ‘poor little rich girl’ life.”
She took a breath, then continued. “The more you told me about your upbringing, the less I felt like I could tell you about mine. It was hopelessly lonely, and I was raised by nannies and shuttled off to boarding schools with other lonely kids. But it wasn’t about gangs and life and death on the streets. In my own way, I admired you…and was embarrassed by some of the excesses of my life. I mean, I won’t pretend that I don’t love going to Sotheby’s and bidding on a painting or spending the weekend in Paris, but I just couldn’t face your scorn.”
“Scorn?” He looked up with hurt and anger registering in his eyes. “Why would I treat you with scorn, Madison? Why would I judge you like that? I don’t like to be judged for my Harley or my tattoos, so why would I judge someone else?”
Madison looked at him pleadingly. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t imagine you accepting that I live in this life and run a huge conglomerate, and you live your quieter life of meaning. I figured you would either be intimidated or would hate me for being rich.”
“Or maybe you thought I’d just be after your money.”
“I never once thought that!” Her own anger flared.
“Don’t give me that,” he snapped. “I’m sure it ran through your mind.”
“Never once! Damn you! Never once.”
“Well, then what about being embarrassed by me? Maybe you just don’t think I’m good enough to be seen out with you. I mean, you kept me away from your apartment, your life, the restaurants and places where you’re seen…you would come to Harlem to avoid being seen with me.”
“That’s just not true. I would never be embarrassed by you. Ever. But you were so…gallant. I mean, you wanted to pay for my cabs…how could I take you somewhere I usually go and ask you to pay for a sixty-dollar Blue Pearl martini? I could just imagine what would run through your mind. That I was spoiled. And that sixty dollars could buy a whole lot of school supplies.”