The Golden Girl (4 page)

“Sit down,” he said, sweeping his hand to a chair.

“Thanks.” She sat and watched as he opened a case file and sat down to her left—even seated he was stiff.

“After your attack, we sped everything up, Madison. Ordinarily, we’d still be training a month from now, but if your life is in jeopardy, we surmise you’re not the only one. On the one hand, we’re extremely fortunate. You had a background, frankly, we’d kill for, if you’ll pardon the expression. Harvard, MBA from Wharton, multiple languages, fluency especially in French, given your mother’s from Paris. And then this little oddity of having been trained by Frank Killian and his boys.”

“You know Frank?”

Troy looked up at her. “There’s no one in this business who doesn’t. But only someone like your father could afford him. Most people only hire Frank and his people to guard them—he’s had teams guarding everyone from Shaq to Brad Pitt after his separation, to a few Middle Eastern members of various royal families. The former Shah of Iran’s family. But your father is nothing if not controlling.”

Madison smiled and nodded.

“For your father, it wasn’t enough to have guards. He wanted you to be able to handle any situation that might arise. To keep your wits about you. My understanding is they even put you through three different mock-kidnapping scenarios, and you came through them all with flying colors.”

“You’re certainly thorough.”

“That’s my job.” He shifted some papers around. “Anyway, Madison, because of this acceleration, I’m going to be with you pretty closely, just to be sure you’re ready. In fact, as of Wednesday, I’ll be working at Pruitt & Pruitt in the management-training program—real-estate division, of course. You’ll be seeing quite a lot of me as an assistant.”

“How did you manage that? I mean, Claire was just…well, this is the weekend and this is all, as you said, lightning fast.”

“We’ve been planning this for some time, actually, just hadn’t counted on you being part of it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Madison, I’m about to tell you a few things that are going to be really startling, so brace yourself.”

“I don’t know how it could be worse than the last couple of days.”

“Madison,” he sighed, “Claire was working with us already.”

“What? She’s not a Gotham Rose—wasn’t a Gotham Rose.”

“I didn’t mean that. My fault for not being more clear. I meant she was working with the FBI. She was a whistle-blower, Madison. She was gathering evidence that Pruitt & Pruitt was money laundering for the mob. More specifically, that Pruitt & Pruitt was laundering vast amounts of drug money and that the mob was investing in some of your holdings. We even wondered if it might have ties with the Duke.”

“That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard of. We’re a corporation. We’re not some cover for illegal elements of society. We don’t even
know
mobsters. And who’s the Duke?”

“Someone we’ve been after a long time. We think he’s got his hand in nearly everything—prostitution, money laundering, drugs. And we’re convinced he’s someone in your social sphere.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Might seem so…but Claire was onto something. She had files and banking papers to prove it.”

“But…” Madison looked down at the table, steeling herself for these new revelations. “I had nothing to do with it. And my father…I mean, I was so angry with them, but I believe he loved her. So does this mean she was planning on turning against him?”

“We don’t know. She was supposed to meet her contact in the agency the night she was killed. She didn’t show up at the meeting point and instead turned up dead in the warehouse.”

“Who was her contact?”

Troy looked her directly in the eye. “Me.”

“And you had no idea what she was going to say? What she had found as far as proof?”

He shook his head. “She only said it was irrefutable. That Pruitt & Pruitt was into some stuff that would make the Enron boys look like Boy Scouts. She was scared. Terrified, actually.”

“Did she implicate my father?”

He shook his head. “She wouldn’t say on the telephone. She was getting nervous, jumpy. That’s when I secured a job in the management-training program.”

“So I’m supposed to find out what my own company is into.”

He nodded solemnly. “Even if that means it goes right to the top.”

“It won’t,” Madison said. But now, even she was starting to have doubts. She felt as if she had entered a hall of mirrors—and nothing in her world was what it once seemed.

T
here was no use in hiding forever. When Monday morning came, Madison went to the office. The photographers had eased off quite a bit, but around the office some people were crying. A few, who’d been away for the weekend, hadn’t even heard until they arrived for work.

As she walked through the impressive executive-level offices at Pruitt & Pruitt, she noticed how both she and her father were looked at more intently than usual. Though Madison, at first, had been scrutinized closely right after college when she started working, after a while, people got used to her being “the big guy’s daughter.” When her colleagues saw she was a superstar, when they saw she was in the office by six forty-five in the morning and was usually the last to leave—sometimes at ten or eleven at night—they stopped thinking of it as nepotism and started thinking of her as the future leader of their company. After a while, Madison had relaxed and no longer felt as if she was in a fishbowl—until now.

Her father called her into his office. The two of them had corner suites in opposite corners of the top floor. His was furnished to impress with a desk bigger than some conference tables, and floor-to-ceiling windows behind him revealed the skyline—his skyline. One of Pruitt’s towers dominated the center of his view.

After Madison shut the door, he started into her.

“You’re attacked in your own apartment, and then I can’t get ahold of you for two days? That’s just unprofessional, Madison. You’ve got to hold yourself together. And that includes in here. Everyone’s watching us to see how we handle the situation. You need to stay focused and professional every minute of the day. Pulling a disappearing act is childish.”

“Professional?” Madison arched an eyebrow. “You want me to remain professional? I’m sure everyone thought it was professional when you started sleeping with in-house counsel—a woman your daughter’s age. Oh, no, wait, not just your daughter’s age but her best friend.”

She saw him clench his jaw.

“That was uncalled for.”

“Hmmph,” she snorted. “There was so much uncalled for in your relationship, I don’t know where to start. And now she’s gone.”

Jack Pruitt stared at his daughter—glared at her was more like it. And she gave it right back at him—which she’d been doing since she was a precocious kid off to nursery school, who insisted on not holding hands. But then, he did something completely uncharacteristic. He put his palms to his face, and his voice grew hoarse with emotion, “Maddie, I swear to you, we never meant to hurt you. And now, I feel like my world is shattered.”

It took a few seconds, but Madison softened. “Oh, Dad…I’m sorry. I miss her, too. This is all just like a bad dream.”

“Her parents are having her cremated. And they refuse to let me attend the memorial service. They’re taking her home to Boston. They never approved of us. Worse, everyone’s looking at me, as if I could have harmed her. I couldn’t have hurt a hair on her head, Maddie. You have to believe me.”

“I do,” Madison said softly.

“I’m sure our stock is also going to take a tumble. If this case doesn’t get solved soon, if they don’t bring her killer to justice, I have no doubt the board of directors will ask me to pull a Martha Stewart. They’ll keep me as a figurehead, but install a new CEO.”

“Well…it would be temporary, even if they did that. But I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“If it ever becomes necessary, you better be named CEO.”

“What about Uncle Bing?”

“Eh…you know, he’s great, but he’s not as involved in the day-to-day as you are.”

Madison nodded. “All right, Dad. Listen, I have a negotiation for the new hotel in the Meatpacking District. I’ve got to get going. You hang in there.”

“I will. Look, while Marcus tries to figure out that security breach on your apartment, I thought of having Frank Killian come in and act as your personal bodyguard.”

“No!” Madison said a little too hastily.

“Why? Your safety should be the most important thing, Maddie. Think of Claire. We still have no idea who killed her—or why. And you seem to be the next target.”

“No, Dad,” Maddie said, more measured, calmer. “I just meant that I have Charlie to drive me anyplace. Marcus has been posting an extra guy outside my apartment at night. I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “But we’ll play it by ear.”

Maddie nodded and left the office. What she hadn’t said was that Frank Killian would make her undercover work impossible. There’d be no way she could fool him, slip away when she needed to, nothing. Charlie…well, he was devoted, but she still had her own life. Killian was the type of security professional who didn’t even let her use the restroom alone.

Walking briskly back to her office, she soon got lost in her day, racing from meeting to meeting. Next thing she knew, her watch read two o’clock. She hadn’t taken a lunch break, and her head was pounding. On top of that, it was time to head to Harlem. Her charity, the Harlem Charter School for Excellence, was expecting her.

Maddie changed in the private bathroom off her office. The bathroom was equipped with a shower stall big enough for five people, a whirlpool tub and an immense walk-in closet, none of which she ever used, except the closet. She wasn’t a clotheshorse. Not in the traditional sense. In fact, she employed a personal shopper named Vanessa Guzman, who basically stocked both her personal and professional wardrobe so Maddie didn’t have to shop. She was too impatient to waste her time—another trait she’d inherited from her father.

Still, she liked designer clothes, sunglasses, shoes and bags—and she liked to dress in an unfussy, clean, elegant way that recalled a timelessness. She liked showcasing new designers when she had a charity ball or holiday party. Ashley Thompson had showcased her clothes choices in
Chic
—a photo essay on “young heiresses.” According to Tallulah James, a young designer who’d branched out on her own after apprenticing with Richard Tyler, after Madison appeared in
Chic
in the infamous “Hepburn” dress, a little black number that brought to mind a sexier “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Tallulah received enough orders to put her firm in the black—after one season—which was unheard of.

In her dressing room, Maddie shed her work clothes, surveying herself in the three-way mirror. The bruises from both her attack and Jimmy Valentine’s training showed when she was naked. She had one bruise on her thigh that had turned an eggplant color. Still, Maddie was proud of her body—taut, busty yet athletic—she knew she looked good. Her abdomen was completely flat, her upper arms toned.

She dressed in a black Donna Karan bodysuit and black jeans. Then she donned a pair of black half boots, pulling the leg of her pants over them, creating a lean silhouette. She put on a black blazer, twisted her blond hair into a loose chignon and touched up her makeup. She added a green scarf around her neck that instantly emphasized her eyes. She scrutinized herself extra carefully.

Maddie tried to kid herself, but then again, she was a no-nonsense person. The truth was she was excited to see John Hernandez.

Exiting the office, she told her administrative assistant she’d be gone for the rest of the day.

“I have my cell phone, though. If Ryan Greene calls, have him call me. That jerk is trying to steal the Aberdeen building right out from under me.”

Her assistant, Carla, smiled. “I swear he does that just to get to you.”

Maddie smiled. “I think he does. But he knows damn well who he’s messing with.”

She left the office and then walked ten blocks to the train station, grabbing a subway car bound for Harlem. She could have had Charlie drive her but she always took the train, not wanting to call attention to herself among the children at the school. There, she wanted to be an ordinary volunteer.

The Harlem Charter School for Excellence was the charity she chose for her work with the Gotham Roses when she joined a year ago. She had raised considerable funds for it over the year or so of her time with the Roses. But it was the gift of her time that meant the most to her. Renee always insisted that the Roses spend time—not just money—with their chosen charities. “It’s only by pruning ourselves, tending to our inner qualities of compassion, that we can really bloom,” was one of her sayings.

At the charter school, which was also supported by very large donations from the Pruitt Family Trust, she went by Madison Taylor. Only the principal knew her true identity. So she was able to show up once a week on Mondays, cutting short her day even though she usually returned to the office to work until the wee hours, to be a homework tutor with John Hernandez’s students, and she was able to do so without everyone thinking of her as the spoiled heiress “slumming it.” That wasn’t who she was or what she was about, but she wanted to be taken at face value.

Unexpectedly, over time, her friendship with the dark-haired young teacher grew until she found herself uncharacteristically with sweaty palms as she walked into John’s class each week. This week was no different.

“Here’s our homework angel,” John said. “Class, say hi to Ms. Taylor.”

The classroom full of sixth-graders gave her big smiles and a chorus of hellos. John held her gaze for a few seconds and smiled. Her stomach flip-flopped.

“Hi, everyone,” Madison said. “Hello, Mr. Hernandez,” she added with a playful tone to her voice.

She left her blazer on but put her purse in his file cabinet and immediately went to the computer-lab area to start helping the kids who were gathered there. She knew all of their names and most of their stories. And her heart both broke and soared for each one.

To be accepted to the charter school, each student had to sign a contract swearing off gangs, drugs and alcohol. They had to commit to two-hour homework sessions four days a week, and to achieving a B average or better—or be put on academic probation. Ideally, John had told her, the parents and family—or grandparents or involved adults—would also commit to the charter school’s principles. But that wasn’t always the case. Still, these kids made Maddie proud every week.

She leaned over the shoulder of Anna Williams, a favorite student of hers, and checked over her work.

“Great job, sweetie.”

Anna beamed. She had high hopes to be a lawyer, and like all the kids in John Hernandez’s class, an “anonymous” donor had agreed to fund a college education at a state university for anyone who maintained a B average or better all through high school. Maddie was secretly thrilled to think that someday, perhaps Anna, who was being raised by a very elderly great-grandmother in a wheelchair, might find herself an attorney for Pruitt & Pruitt.

But it was John Hernandez himself who intrigued Madison the most. Little by little he had shared his story. A crack-addict mother, a father shot dead in a drive-by shooting, little John Hernandez was raised by a grandmother who adored him. Even so, he found himself in a gang at ten for protection. He was shot not once, but on two separate occasions, in drive-bys, and he was stabbed in the chest during a fight over turf, the blade narrowly missing his heart.

Lying in a hospital bed in intensive care after being stabbed, he had told Madison that he had been “visited” by the spirit of his father while in a morphine haze, lingering in a netherworld between life and death. John, the most honest person Madison had ever met, had told her his father informed him he would be dead soon if he didn’t change his path. Then his father’s spirit, John said, laid hands on him and cured him. When John came to hours later, he discovered he had “died” for a full two minutes, only to be paddled and brought back by the trauma team. His young heart had apparently stopped beating and the doctors found a clot they had missed.

John, nearly sixteen, returned to his grandmother’s apartment a changed young man. He left the gang, got a job sweeping a Harlem store for minimum wage and worked his ass off to graduate high school on time. Eventually, he started college, applied for grants and got better and better jobs, his disarming good looks and smile winning him fans wherever he went. He had jet-black hair that he wore just a touch long, letting it curl at his collar. His cocoa-colored skin was smooth, and his eyes were so dark you couldn’t see his pupils in the black sea of his irises. Full lips, a strong nose and high cheekbones completed his look. Then there was his body, which Maddie decided was perfect, right down to the cross tattoo on his huge left biceps, which she’d spied once when he wore a polo shirt.

Eventually, John Hernandez worked his way up from the mailroom to a clerical position at Wade and Gonzalez, Attorneys-at-Law. Hector Gonzalez, a partner there, was impressed at the drive John had and mentored him, helping to put John through college with a loan with generous payback terms. Gonzalez always assumed John would perhaps become an attorney, but when he instead went back into his community to make a difference, Gonzalez couldn’t argue with him—and admired his commitment.

All Maddie knew was when, at the end of each Monday, he climbed on his Harley and drove away, she felt something inside that Ryan Greene and the other men who could discuss the bull or bear market, the fluctuation of the dollar and the impact of the Pacific Rim’s downturned economy on the American economy just didn’t do for her. She’d return to the office to work—often until midnight—but uncharacteristically her mind would often wander and replay each word of their conversations.

Maddie and John spent all afternoon with the kids. Every once in a while, he would come over to her and lean over the same student, his shoulder touching hers or his hand leaning on hers as they both held on to the back of the student’s chair. The kids would occasionally exchange giggles. Mr. Hernandez’s crush on Ms. Taylor was getting harder and harder to hide.

After they had sent the last student home, straightened the desks, shut down all the computers and tidied the room, John said, “Maddie, you’re an angel, you really are. You never say why you do this, really, but I’m just grateful you make it here each Monday. I couldn’t do this without you. One of me…twenty-five of them. Not a great ratio.” He laughed, pulling on a leather jacket. “Um…want to go for a drink?…I mean…I’m sorry. I don’t even know if you have plans. Or a boyfriend.” He looked at her intently.