Читать книгу The Golden Girl - Erica Orloff - Страница 13

“Madison, darling?”

“Yes?” Maddie said into her private cell phone and sipped her coffee. Her voice was raspy from lack of sleep.

“Renee.”

“Hi, Renee…” Madison said a bit unsteadily. Renee had recruited her into the prestigious Gotham Roses, appealing to her sense of philanthropy. The Pruitt Family Trust was known for doling out millions of dollars in charity each year—and Madison was instrumental in choosing the charities. But Gotham Roses was more personal—a chance to actually go out and do something for the charity of her choice. Nonetheless, she and Renee were acquaintances only. And now, Madison guessed that she quite possibly was about to be kicked out of the Gotham Roses for dragging their name through the mud. Already the front pages of the two major New York daily papers were covering the murder—and her father’s affair with her former best friend—in gory detail.

“I’m so, so sorry to read of your friend’s murder.”

“Thank you,” Madison murmured.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No. I’m skipping the office today and working from my home—the better to avoid the phalanx of reporters outside my place. Two nearly ran me off the road last night.”

“They can be awful…. I felt like they were a school of sharks encircling me during Preston’s trial six years ago,” Renee said sympathetically, referring to her husband who Renee always maintained had been framed for financial misdealings at his family’s investment company. “Do you think you can slip away, though?”

Here it comes, Madison thought. “Sure, Renee.”

“Wonderful. I’ll expect you for tea then, whenever you can get here.”

Madison hung up. She had told her housekeeper, who usually came twice a week, to stay home. A pot of coffee sat on the corner of her desk, and Maddie had been drinking cup after cup of the French roast. She hadn’t slept at all the previous night, tossing and turning and sighing. She wasn’t the crying sort—she had been raised to be coolheaded. But her heart ached.

Maddie rose from her desk and stretched. She hadn’t needed to dress in her usual office attire. She most often favored Chanel suits, or black classic suits from other designers, with silk blouses—always with feminine details, whether that meant a sexier cut, or unusual buttons, or French cuffs. She liked heels that raised her from her usual five foot seven to close to five foot eleven. She mused that if you wanted to play tough in New York City real estate with the big boys, you had better be able to look them in the eye.

“Casual Friday”—and today was Friday—meant nothing to Madison. She had power lunches and meetings every single day, and she never wanted to look less than her professional best. But today, working from home, she wore her typical weekend attire—Donna Karan—who had once espoused that one of the most essential wardrobe pieces was the simple black bodysuit. Maddie wore a black Karan bodysuit, dark blue jeans, loafers and a simple black sweater. For color, she wore a necklace with a large amethyst—her birthstone.

Sighing, Madison looked at her watch. It was two. She dreaded seeing Renee, expecting to be “called on the carpet.” The Gotham Roses were supposed to represent the stars of philanthropy. White-collar crime was one thing. Murder another. But Maddie felt it best to get it over with. She was practical that way. She never felt it was worth putting off the inevitable. The police were scheduled to interview her at six that evening, which gave her plenty of time to get to the Gotham Roses Club on the Upper East Side, at Sixty-eighth between Park and Madison, and back again.

She called down to the garage and told them to have her limo and driver ready. With its black-tinted windows, Maddie knew the photographers clustered outside would snap away, but she would be safely ensconced from their sight inside.

She took another gulp of coffee, left her office, grabbed her purse from the dining-room table, set the alarm code at the door and descended in the elevator to the basement.

Her limo was waiting, and her driver, Charlie, gave her a small smile, worry etched on his face. He had been her personal driver since her parents divorced when she was twelve. Charlie was the one to ferry her between the warring Jack Pruitt and Chantal Taylor, taking her from one penthouse to the other across Central Park, her beloved cat—and goldfish, Sam—in tow. Charlie was a former marine, who’d done a couple of tours in Vietnam. When her father hired him, Charlie had been putting his life back together again after his wife left him, starting with quitting drinking. He was older now, his hair streaked with gray. But Maddie knew, gray hair and bum right knee aside, he was loyal enough to do anything to keep her safe. And he was equally loyal to Jack Pruitt, who gave him a chance when no one else had.

Charlie held open the door for her, and she slid into the back, the leather seats smooth against her touch. She smiled. Next to her usual seat in the back was a copy of the latest issue of Forbes. He knew her so well. Usually, he’d also have a copy of the morning’s New York Reporter, opened to the “In the Know with Rubi Cho” column. Charlie knew her newspaper reading at the office was limited to the Times and the Wall Street Journal, but he and Maddie would chuckle over the innuendos and blind items about people they knew in Rubi’s column. Today, no Reporter waited for her, because, she was sure, the murder was on page one and would fill the gossip columns for weeks. He would instinctively protect her from that.

“I’m going to the Gotham Roses Club, Charlie,” she said when he got behind the wheel. “Just wait for me when we get there. I shouldn’t be all that long, and then I have to get back here…the police are coming to interview me about Claire.”

“I’m really sorry, Miss Madison.”

“Me, too, Charlie. Me, too.”

She settled back into the plush seat and shut her eyes, actually dozing for a few minutes on the way to the club. She felt the car stop and opened her eyes.

The Gotham Roses Club was in a beautiful brownstone with a white facade, wrought-iron gate, and a feel about it that said old-money establishment, gentility, quiet wealth. She loved the building—had since the first time she laid eyes on it a year before.

While she and her father prided themselves on some of the most spectacular high-rises and lofts in New York, she did love the feeling of the old brownstones near embassy row, an area of New York where many consulates and embassies quietly maintained their headquarters. The streets were quieter, tree-lined, and seemed from another time.

Charlie got out and held open the door for her. She patted his arm and smiled at him as she got out, reassuring him she’d be okay. She went to the gate and pressed a buzzer. When she gave her name, she was buzzed in immediately after looking up at the security camera.

Entering the club made the bustle of New York seem even more distant than the tree-lined street on the Upper East Side had. In the immense entrance hall, Debussy was piped in through hidden speakers, and immediately Maddie felt a tiny bit of tension leave her shoulders. The floors were polished parquet in an intricate pattern, the workmanship definitely from the Roaring Twenties. A grand staircase swept up to the second floor, curving, with a carved banister in rosewood. Curtains covered the windows and puddled on the floor, creating an ambience that was elegant yet relaxed, with sunlight streaming through their filmy whiteness. A fireplace huge enough to stand inside took up a portion of the wall to the left, and as always in the fall, a toasty fire glowed.

Olivia Hayworth, Renee’s personal secretary, greeted her warmly, kissing her on each cheek. “So glad you could make the trip in these circumstances, Madison. Please let me know if there’s anything we can do. We’ve sent over flowers to the funeral home, and the Shipley family listed a charity—”

“Yes, they give a great deal to the Children’s Museum in Philadelphia. Claire had a niece who had leukemia—since recovered. The museum was Amy’s favorite place during treatment and afterward.”

“Well, we’ve sent a sizable donation, in the Club’s name.”

“Thank you, truly. That’s very thoughtful. I’ll let my father know. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your gesture.”

“Renee’s waiting for you in the sunroom. Tea will be served in just a few minutes now that you’re here.”

Madison nodded and made her way down the hallway to the sunroom in the back of the brownstone. The French doors were open and there sat Renee Dalton-Sinclair, her auburn hair in an elegant bun, and dressed to perfection in an Oscar de la Renta suit. She rose and extended her hand. Though Madison knew she was in her forties, her beauty was timeless in a Grace Kelly sort of way.

“Hello, Madison. Thank you so much for coming.” Renee leaned forward and kissed Madison’s cheek as the two women clasped hands.

“Good to see you.”

“Again, I am so sorry…terrible, terrible crime.”

Madison nodded. It was difficult accepting condolences when she knew that as much as Claire had hurt her, she had wounded Claire in return by refusing to forgive her.

“Sit down. How are you feeling?”

Madison was unused to making more than small talk with Renee, but she was also weary. She opened up a bit.

“To be honest…awful. I haven’t slept.” Madison ran her fingers through her long golden-blond hair. “And…Claire and I had a falling-out over her relationship with my father. They had hidden it for months, and…well, it was hard to accept. So I feel terrible that she’s gone and things hadn’t been right between us.”

Renee nodded, her royal-blue eyes conveying empathy.

“Anyway,” Madison said, waving a hand, “the Pruitts are nothing if not tough. It’s just going to be rough going for a little while.”

Renee pursed her lips and clasped her hands together. She gave a nearly imperceptible nod and one of her staff wheeled in a tea cart with a beautiful bone china tea set on it. Madison was always amazed at how Renee’s crew forgot nothing. There were two hundred members of the Gotham Roses, but Maddie assumed the staff kept a catalog of each member’s likes and dislikes, because without asking, she got a cup of Earl Grey tea with lemon, no sugar, no cream—exactly as she liked it. The woman also handed her a plate with two scones on it, and raspberry jam as opposed to strawberry—also her preference.

After the woman had served Renee, she retreated from the sunroom, shutting the French doors behind her.

“Madison, perhaps you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here in the midst of your crisis.”

Madison nodded, ready for the worst.

“Well, the police are making vague references to ‘persons of interest.’ Of course, your father heads that list.”

“I know,” Madison said softly.

“Well…I consider myself an excellent judge of character. If I wasn’t, I couldn’t have created this charitable organization. In the year you’ve been a Gotham Rose, you’ve always struck me as a bit aloof, a shrewd negotiator. Cautious, perhaps, in your personal life. You stay out of the headlines—except when you think it counts, namely well-executed business deals. You are absolutely driven, the kind of person who thrives on putting in a hundred and fifty percent and the thrill of the deal.”

“I think that’s a fair assessment.”

“And my guess is being the by-product of the most famous divorce in New York history is part of that. At twelve, your life was an open book, wasn’t it? That’s why you guard your privacy.”

Maddie sighed. “They fought over every detail. My mother had to have a private chef shuttle between my father’s household and mine so that she could control what I ate—macrobiotic. When I got to college, I had my first taste of caffeine and loved it.” She smiled at the memory, but then shook her head. “I had matching wardrobes at her apartment and his. My father was required to send me on vacations tallying no less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year. I had to have two nannies at each home—a morning nanny, who also got me from school and oversaw homework—and a night nanny. It was insane. I was branded the Poor Little Rich Girl. They used to snap pictures of me getting out of my limo at school, with the headline Hundred-Million-Dollar Baby.”

Renee nodded. “Then there was that brilliant IQ of yours. Skipping grades. Private tutors to challenge you. Fluent in three languages. And finally, there are the things no one knows…like your training.”

Maddie looked at Renee, puzzled. “My training?”

Renee smiled enigmatically. “You can fire a .44 better than an FBI sharpshooter. And I believe you know the correct technique to break a man’s nose—or even kill him—with just the right palm-to-face blow.”

“I don’t understand…that stuff isn’t anything I would ever discuss with anyone. No one knows outside my father and the men he had train me.”

“I know. And why did he train you?”

“Well,” Maddie said coolly, “you seem to know so much about me, why don’t you tell me?”

“Trust me in that this all will make sense in a few minutes. From what I understand, your father and his brother Bing were actually two of three brothers. And the middle brother, William, was kidnapped and died in a botched rescue attempt. Though that was covered up by the family so that their failed security wouldn’t seem like an invitation to every kidnapper in the world back then to try again.”

Maddie stared incredulously. “Yes, though I’m…I don’t know what to say. Yes, that’s true. Understandably, my father has a security obsession. He wanted me to be safe, but then he knew that even a personal-security detail could have failings—namely, traitors. So he wanted me to be able to defend myself. It might seem a bit extreme, but I was trained by former Black Ops. Two of them who own a private security firm…Look, Renee, what is all this about?”

“It’s about me wanting to know what makes Madison Taylor-Pruitt tick. Madison, do you believe your father had nothing to do with Claire’s death?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then why was she shot at a property your father was negotiating for?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is I want the killer or killers brought to justice soon, because she was my friend, and because this kind of publicity Pruitt & Pruitt can do without.”

“What if I was to say I can offer you the chance to do just that?”

“Just what?”

“Find the killer. Would the Madison Taylor-Pruitt I think I know—nerves of steel and a resolve unlike anyone else’s—would she take me up on the offer?”

“Yes. Though I don’t know how you can offer that, so it’s a hypothetical, Renee.” Madison lifted her teacup and sipped, and then took a bite of her scone.

“Madison, the Gotham Roses was an idea close to my heart. In my wilder youth, I was in the Peace Corps—that’s where Olivia and I met, you know—and I saw firsthand what good people with high ideals can do. But after I married Preston, I also saw what ruthless people with low ideals can do. The Sinclair family, his own flesh and blood, took advantage of his honesty and decency, and they framed him, made him a scapegoat. It nearly destroyed me. Until I received my own unusual offer—similar to the one I am making you today.”

“An offer?”

Renee nodded. “An offer to go undercover.”

“What? You mean, like for the police?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. It would provide you with a chance to clear your father’s name—and find Claire’s killer.”

“I’d do it.”

“Don’t say yes quite so fast.”

“I’m used to making split-second decisions based on my gut.”

“This is a bit more elaborate. You’d be working for a cover agency—not the police per se. You’d have to decide for sure that you’d be willing to dedicate yourself to catching the real killer, and sign an oath of allegiance that, if broken, would be just as serious as breaking an oath to the FBI or CIA. So think about it carefully.”

“If I can commit a hundred million dollars to a new waterfront high-rise and steam ahead with it in the face of every obstacle a large-scale building project can have, I can commit to this, Renee.”

“I knew I could count on you. And frankly, dear, you have too much to lose not to take me up on this, shall we say, opportunity.”

Renee paused, then continued, “When Preston had his legal issues, I was contacted by a woman named the Governess. Never directly, though we’ve spoken on the phone. Through representatives. And this person—and even I’m unsure who she is—wields unprecedented power. You, your father, Preston, myself, we deal with money and boardrooms and power. But this is power with the strength of the government and FBI behind it—resources I still find amazing.”

Madison tried to follow what Renee was driving at. “Are you saying you work for the government?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. The offer—early release for Preston—came with strings attached. I considered the strings positive, however. I never lost that part of me who was the free-spirited girl in the Peace Corps, determined to do good. The strings involved running a secret organization that reports only to the Governess. With backing and support from the FBI, the CIA and other law-enforcement entities, including Scotland Yard and MI-5, this organization is now embedded in the Gotham Roses. Among you are about fifteen or sixteen handpicked women with talents and ambitions needed to bring down various criminal activities. Undercover.”

“But why the Roses? Why not the FBI or the CIA or…the regular police? Why involve a bunch of—no offense—wealthy young women? What do we—or you—bring to the table?”

“Do you know how to use a lobster fork, Madison?”

Maddie laughed a little. “Sure.”

“And how to use a finger bowl?”

Maddie nodded.

“Can you waltz, fox-trot, discuss the Bauhaus movement in art and converse with a diplomat—in his or her native language usually?”

“Sure.”

“Well, shocking as this may be to you, Madison, this world we live in, this bubble, if you will, isn’t easily penetrated. The society pages, for instance, are concerned with old money. You and I both know how we often feel about the nouveau riche. The Kikis of the world, the women who, despite the wealth they may have married into, wouldn’t know class if it ran them over.”

“So?”

Renee leaned forward. “It would be impossible for the FBI or law enforcement to penetrate the society pages, to blend in with us, to fall into step with our world, if they had to solve a crime in our midst. And with Enron, with the various scandals…Tyco…whomever…we’re talking some crimes that not only top the hundreds of millions of dollars, but also that trickle down to ordinary people who put their faith in the officers of the board. If they claim the company to be financially sound, the public believes it until a scandal breaks and sends the market tumbling, and suddenly Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public lose their life savings.”

“So you’re saying these women have been working as…spies? Cops?”

“Agents. They’re able to blend in and solve major financial and banking cases, even drug dealing among the elite. They can do what the FBI can’t—namely, infiltrate the path of crime among mind-boggling wealth without being perceived as interlopers.”

“I’m…stunned.”

“Well, Madison, I always knew you had talents that would put even the best and brightest to shame, but I also knew the best agents have a passion, a reason, for joining. It’s a tremendous commitment, and it means a duplicitous life. And it’s not something anyone should undertake just because she’s an adrenaline junkie or thinks it might be a lark.”

“And then Claire was murdered,” Maddie whispered.

“Yes. And I wouldn’t wish this crisis on my worst enemy, not even on the bastards in the Sinclair family who framed my beloved Pres. But when I saw the news last night, so did the Governess. Madison, rumors are floating that Claire’s death is less personal than you may think.”

“What do you mean ‘less personal’?”

“She may have been murdered to stop her from revealing financial irregularities at Pruitt & Pruitt. And the administration would like to avoid seeing another Enron. The financial markets are unstable enough as they are.”

“So you think there is something illegal going on at our company and that Claire was murdered for being a whistle-blower? I can’t believe it.”

Renee nodded. “What I, or the FBI, think is immaterial. We need facts—and we need you to get them or we’ll assign the case to someone else.”

“Pruitt & Pruitt is my life. I’m not going to let it be destroyed. If elements in my company are trying to skirt the law, I will find out.”

“If you want to do this, Madison, you need to show up here tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. and meet your handler. If you don’t show, I’ll know that it wasn’t meant to be. Just as I know you will never speak of this to anyone. Ever. And if you show up, you will be trained even further than your father’s private security firm trained you. You’ll be pushed to your limit. And I know, of anyone, you’ll succeed.”

Maddie was still absorbing all Renee had told her. She looked at her watch. “Okay, Renee, I’ll think about it. I should go, though. The police want to interview me.”

“Of course. I hope I see you tomorrow. I learned a long time ago that we can live life in a gilded cage, or we can live life fully using our talents.”

They both stood. Renee clasped Maddie’s hand. Then Maddie left the sunroom and headed for her limo.

Charlie held open the door for her. She settled into the back seat and shut her eyes, her head spinning.

“You okay, Miss Madison?”

“Yeah, Charlie. Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Want to take a drive out to the country? Leaves are in full fall glory about now.”

“No, thanks. I have the police coming at six.”

“Right. Okay. Well, you just call my cell phone if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Charlie.” She smiled, remembering how he sometimes used to sneak her off after school to get ice cream if she’d had a bad day—a direct violation of her mother’s macrobiotic rules.

A short time later, Charlie eased the limo into the parking garage. Maddie got out, leaning over the front seat to give him a peck on the cheek first. Once in the building, she pressed the elevator for up and took it to her floor.

Glancing at her watch, Maddie saw she had an hour before the police arrived. She was dreading the interview. She unlocked the door to her place, and turned to her left to deactivate the alarm—only to be hit on the back of her head with something. She guessed the butt of a gun as she saw stars, but she had, through luck or training, “felt” the presence of someone for a split second before she’d fully even processed the thought in her brain. She’d turned just enough to deflect the blow, and though the pain through her neck and shoulder was severe, she hadn’t blacked out.

Whirling, she saw a man with a black wool ski mask. He froze for a second, surprised, she guessed, that she was still standing. She immediately grabbed the seventeenth-century stone statue of a pagoda that rested atop the desk in her entranceway, and swung it for the head of her assailant. She missed but managed to land a solid hit to his shoulder.

“Bitch!” came his muffled response. He reached out, trying to grab her by the throat, but Maddie ducked—always keep them off balance, her martial arts trainer had told her—and then landed a solid punch to his solar plexus.

He doubled over, and she knew she’d knocked the wind out of him. He wheezed and coughed, then raised one fist and punched her in return, landing on her jaw. She flew backward against the wall. Still on her feet, she somehow managed to land a roundhouse kick into his thigh. Now he was really angry, she could tell.

He bellowed, grabbing her by the hair, and rammed her head against the wall. She finally screamed—loud. She clawed at his mask. But using her hair for leverage of some sort, he spun her away from himself and then dashed out the door and down the hall to the stairwell.

Maddie had fallen back against the sharp point of the corner of her dining-room table. Pain coursed through her back, but she willed herself to get to the keypad of her alarm system. She pressed the panic button, still puzzled as to how the assailant had outwitted her system. The button made the entire keypad light up with red lights. Maddie looked down the hall, the assailant now gone, and waited for the security company to dispatch a team.

Someone, she decided, was up to no good at Pruitt & Pruitt. And she was more determined than ever to figure out who that was.