The Golden Girl (6 page)

“Damn them!” All four of her tires were slashed. Her precious Aston Martin. Now she was really mad. Stuck there, with a dead body on the second floor, she realized she had no choice. She took out her cell phone and called Troy. She was an agent for all of a few days and already he was having to come bail her out.

“A
re you out of your mind?”

Troy Carter stared at her. He’d obviously thrown on jeans and a sweatshirt and come straight from bed. His hair was rumpled, and he had major beard stubble.

“No.”

He was surveying her car’s tires while inside a team of FBI agents processed the dead body.

“Look…I understand that you’re used to calling all the shots in your company, and that you are, in some weird, competitive, type-A insane way, cut out for this. But I already feel responsible for what happened to Claire, and I sure as hell don’t want to come and find
you
with yellow police tape around your body. So do me a favor and operate just a tiny bit less like a one-woman commando and more like part of a team. Me and you…Here…” He handed her a tiny device that looked like a hearing aid.

“What’s this?”

“It’s how we keep in touch. It’s like a wire. You come to do something like this again, you let me know, for one thing. We do it together. In law enforcement, we have what is called
backup.
It’s an amazing concept, backup—I cover your back so you don’t end up in a dirty warehouse with two guys wanting to kill you. And then you wear this, which beats a cell phone. We can be in constant contact. And I’ll know if something’s going down.”

“Very James Bond.”

“Yeah. Wait till you see some of the gadgets we have for you ladies…. See, you actually get better gadgets than even me.”

“How come?”

“Well…we do need you. But we’re also aware that most of you come from backgrounds where, no matter how well we train you, there is no way you can be prepared for just how low the bad guys will sink. Not to mention, if something happens to you to blow your cover and word gets out about this undercover team, it’s a lot of people’s asses—mine included. I don’t relish the idea of a desk job in Butt Fuck, Alaska, you know?”

“I hear Butt Fuck can be pretty cold.”

“Exactly.”

“So…” Maddie said, “who is that guy in there?”

“We don’t know yet. The driver’s license on him is a fake.”

“Big surprise.”

“Yeah. And you’re
sure
he spoke Russian.”

“Absolutely.”

“Yeah…the multiple languages. You’re a real dummy, I hear.” He grinned at her.

“Mm-hmm. Stupid.” Away from the training facilities and out in the field, he was downright flirtatious, Maddie thought.

“All right, well, we’ll be running his prints, everything. And we’ll see what we can come up with. In the meantime,
go home.
And stay home, will ya? Don’t ever do anything like this again.”

Thinking of witnessing a man get shot in the head, Maddie didn’t need convincing. “I won’t. But how am I supposed to get home?” She pointed at the Aston Martin.

“Oh, yeah…all right, then, let me talk to some of my guys. I’ll drive you.”

Troy went and conversed with three agents, then he motioned to her and pointed at a black Acura. “My ride,” he said.

“Nice.”

“It’s no Aston Martin, rich girl.” He smiled at her again.

On the way back to Manhattan, Maddie felt she had to make a crucial decision. Tell Troy about her father and the files…or keep her mouth shut. He had given her that speech about teamwork, but she had never relied on anyone before in her life. When she went up against Ryan Greene, for instance, or against steely-eyed negotiators, she was the one at the head of the boardroom table. She called the shots.

But she also knew that, in some ways, this assignment was like
Hansel and Gretel.
Each clue was like a single bread crumb dropped in a dark and eerie forest from which she wasn’t sure she’d escape. If she left something out with Troy, maybe evil would overtake them.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” Troy said, hands on the wheel.

“Can I tell you it as my partner? I mean, can we just sort of keep this between us until I figure it out?”

“What? Figure what out?”

So she told him about Claire’s office, the missing files, and how, exactly, she had come to be in the warehouse. She also told him about her father apparently being after the same files himself, and that was why she’d gone to the warehouse alone.

When she was done, she looked over at Troy’s profile as they made their way across the George Washington Bridge. He was frowning.

“I wish I knew what Claire had found, Maddie. But it’s got something to do with that warehouse, that dead guy, your father, Pruitt & Pruitt, and her murder. I know you believe your father couldn’t have had anything to do with her death, but I’ve been doing this longer than you have, and the sad truth is that people you would never imagine committing a crime will do so when desperate enough.”

“But…I don’t know. He’s brash. He’s abrasive sometimes. But he’s all about the deal. The bloodletting in the boardroom. The killer deal. Not killing real flesh-and-blood people, let alone someone he supposedly loved.”

“There…that.”

“What?”

“Supposedly. You added that. Do you know, in your gut, that he really loved her?”

Maddie stared out the window at the lights of Manhattan in the distance as they crossed the bridge. “Honestly? Yeah. I think he did. I was so angry at first, I think I forgot that in the end, it was about how they felt about each other. Even if it hurt me in so many ways.”

“Pretty mature of you.”

“Yeah, well, I was born mature. My mother
insisted
on mature.”

“There’s not a whole lot in your file about dear old mom.”

“She’s complicated. She and I are complicated.”

“Eh…me and my father are, too. Former cop. Really hard-core tough guy. His way of showing love was a swift kick to the ass.”

“In my case, Mom’s an actress. Pretty much retired now. Was considered a famous beauty. When she hit thirty-five, she was already freaking out about aging. By forty, she’d had a lift and her eyes done. And when she and my father got divorced, she was…I have to say, like a rabid she-wolf.”

“Nice visual there.”

Maddie nodded. “You don’t know the half of it. I mean, she was out for every penny she could get her hands on, in ways that were so petty. Like, she was getting a many-million-dollar settlement, and he was supposed to pay child support—including everything related to my schooling. If she bought me a box of
pens,
she would give him the receipt. She had a bankbook with eight zeros in it, and would charge the man for my pens.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. You know, I was so ashamed of her—and him. They were so vicious in the divorce. Then, as a single mom, she was worse. She was just husband hunting and expected me to pretty much be all right with a nanny raising me. Dad was building his empire. So, yes, maturity was required.”

“You could have ended up one of those spoiled rich girls.”

“I’m spoiled.” Maddie smiled. “I like the perks that come with never having to look at a price tag. I like my cars, my apartment, my lifestyle. But I’m not a spoiled
brat.
There’s a difference. I work for what I have, too. Hard.”

“I admire that. You don’t have to. Just like you didn’t have to accept this assignment.”

“I owe it to my father. And to Claire.”

“Let’s hope we can get the bastard who killed her.” Troy said softly.

Maddie nodded, thinking silently. And let’s hope that’s not my dad.

T
roy Carter, management trainee, started at Pruitt & Pruitt on Wednesday. The management training program brought in the brightest candidates and trained them for nearly a year, which they worked side by side with a mentor in each major department. Maddie called human resources and demanded that Troy spend his first four weeks of training in the real-estate division. She said she needed the extra manpower, and pretended to show Troy the finer points of contract negotiation. However, they spent that first week looking in every conceivable spot for information on Waterside Towers. They pored over files and looked online at thousands of Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.

By that Friday, Troy came into her office.

“I have those contracts to review, Ms. Pruitt.”

“Excellent. Shut the door, Troy.”

He did, and for all intents and purposes, they appeared to be two colleagues poring over contracts. With the door shut, he delivered the news. “That dead guy? He’s with the Russian mob, who appear to have their fingers in the waterfront deal.”

“Why would we get involved with the mob—even unwittingly? We’re not desperate for that land. If something looked fishy, we’d walk. I mean, it is harder and harder to put together these big deals, but I don’t see my father, Claire, or anyone in this company being dumb enough to climb into bed with anyone that shady.”

“The mob doesn’t put ‘Owned and operated by the Russian mob’ on their deeds, Madison. It’s all shell companies, so many times removed that tracing them is almost impossible. So maybe those missing files were Claire’s proof. The bottom line is we don’t know, and until we find them…”

“Well, Claire’s paralegal says she has no idea where the files are. I’ll have to try Katherine Gould.”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s my uncle Bing’s secretary. She used to work for my dad. Bottom line is she is one of the most knowledgeable people in Pruitt & Pruitt. She’s helped them build this place—and has a near-photographic memory of every person and file she comes in contact with.”

“I love people like that. We have a woman who works in the bureau—Lila. She can remember details on a case from four years ago she only had peripheral contact with.”

“Well, I’ll talk to Katherine on Monday. I have to go into a board meeting.”

“Hey…by the way, did you see today’s Rubi Cho column?”

“You read that junk?”

“Oh, come on, admit it. You undercover gals all read her—hell, you’re
in
it enough—not so much you but some others of Renee’s agents.”

“Okay, on occasion, I like my gossip as much as the next person. But no, I didn’t see it.”

In The Know With Rubi Cho

You know their names: the Pruitts, the Sinclairs, the Daltons, the Whitmans, the Rothschilds. They’re the names that dot this column and all society pages, the names of the city’s greatest philanthropists and the names of the city’s greatest scandals.

Admit it, sweethearts, we all love to read a nice juicy scandal. And a doozy of one is brewing. First Jack Pruitt divorced Chantal Taylor in one of the messiest front-page divorces this city has ever seen. Tales were told of secret lovers and infidelities, not to mention whispers of Taylor’s multiple face-lifts (come on…not even a baby’s skin is
that
smooth!). But after Taylor left for Paris, the city was on to the next eight-figure divorce-and-custody case.

But this new scandal just may be the juiciest yet. Sources are telling
moi,
Rubi Cho, that the police are, indeed, probing further into the murder of Claire Shipley, and this one has all the makings of front-page tabloid fodder, dear readers. First of all, Claire used to be the best friend of one Madison Taylor-Pruitt, she the Golden Girl of real estate and sometime–arm candy of Ryan Greene. Sure, they deny involvement with each other, but the eternal bachelor has a soft spot for Madison, those same sources tell me.

Once Claire started her love affair with Jack Pruitt, the friendship soured. Until Claire showed up dead in a warehouse
owned
by Pruitt & Pruitt. It all looks a bit fishy to police detectives who are working overtime. And
I
hear that soon, they plan on bringing Pruitt in for formal questioning. Of course, you know he won’t arrive without an army of lawyers that’ll make the Dream Team look like public-defender hacks. But if the charges stick, could it be that Jack Pruitt will finally be brought down, not by the stock market, or even his own hubris, but by something far darker? Stay posted, kids, because this one ain’t going away. But I promise, as soon as I hear it, you’ll read it and remain…

In the know…

With Rubi Cho.

Madison rolled her eyes. “You have to take Rubi with a grain of salt.”

“Yeah, but the agency is hearing that Briggs, the detective who interviewed you, likes your dad for murder suspect number one. The papers are all hinting at it.”

“Well, this is going to make for a very interesting board meeting. If you like being invited to a hanging, you can come sit in.”

Hours later, Madison left the magnificent Pruitt boardroom—with its long table, espresso bar and view of Manhattan—with a raging headache. Though the vote had been put off, the board said it was in the best interests of Pruitt & Pruitt’s shareholders that if the scandal continued, Jack should indeed “pull a Martha” and step down.

That left Madison and her uncle Bing poised with the support of half the board each for control of the company. Madison had spent her entire career being groomed for the role of her father’s successor—but this wasn’t the way she wanted to take control.

T
he next day, Saturday, Ashley called her.

“Just so you know, Madison, I am
not
Rubi Cho’s source.”

“Oh, Ash, I wouldn’t have thought you were. Most of that was yesterday’s news—except for the police angle. But the article was enough to have the board howling at the moon and circling my father like a pack of hyenas.”

“It’s just awful. Whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

“Come on, remember when that book came out about my mother? The guy who wrote it picked through our garbage. Our
garbage.
”

“The depths people will sink to.”

“Exactly. And the people who read that kind of stuff, they don’t care about innocence. They just want good dirt.”

“What do you say to some martinis tomorrow night? I know the best little intimate bar—the king of the velvet rope keeps out the commoners,” Ashley sniffed.

“You are such a snob.”

“It girls like us have to be, dahling,” she said, affecting an accent. “So are we on?”

“Sure, Ash.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up in
my
limo. Dress to kill, and I’ll have a bottle of champagne chilling. We’ll forget all about the tabloids—either that or get so drunk we won’t care.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes, but at least I don’t fling my thong around.”

Maddie smiled. She hung up her apartment phone just as her cell phone rang. She had her ring tone set to “New York, New York.” She loved her town. Looking at the number, she realized it was John Hernandez and her heartbeat quickened a beat or two.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Madison, it’s John.”

“Hi…” She hoped he wasn’t calling to cancel.

“Listen, I don’t know how close you are to Central Park, but what would you say to me riding my motorcycle in and meeting you there, and taking a long stroll, then we can still go for Tex-Mex if you want.”

“Sounds wonderful. I’ll you meet over by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“About two o’clock?”

“Perfect.”

Maddie hung up and looked out her window. Central Park was her backyard, for God’s sake. Originally, she’d told John she was “Maddie Taylor”—an ordinary volunteer—precisely because she wanted to be treated as ordinary. But now, she hated the web of tiny white lies she’d created. All right, maybe not so tiny. She hoped he didn’t read the
Wall Street Journal.
She hoped, until the time was just right, she could keep her real name and position at Pruitt & Pruitt a secret.

She felt guilty about her situation, but at the same time, she thought as she turned around and surveyed the art in her apartment, how would John deal with the fact that paintings by Paul Klee and Basquiat hung in her hallway? That she owned whole
buildings?

Dressed in a pair of black velvet jeans and a warm emerald-colored cashmere sweater, Maddie waited by the museum steps. The Pruitt Family Trust always gave generously to the arts in Manhattan, and there was a gallery named for her great-grandmother in the museum.

Soon, John came strolling up in the afternoon sun. He wore a black leather jacket, jeans and black boots, and he had a confident stride—not a swagger, but definitely the walk of a man comfortable in his own skin. He smiled as he approached her and then kissed her on the cheek.

“You look like a million bucks,” he said.

“Thanks…” If only he knew how true that was. Though technically it was a hundred-million bucks—give or take.

He grabbed her hand as they started strolling down the street toward the park. Madison cast a sidelong look at him. He was so different from the men she dated—when she had time. Still, compared to the men she knew, John was so open. He didn’t seem interested in playing games. And here, on the street, he was openly affectionate. She was used to men like Parker Whittington III, who wouldn’t hold her hand if his life depended on it. She guessed it was from a lifetime of being raised by nannies and distant parents. Madison’s mother hated being kissed in public—or private. Her father used to sneak into the nursery, when he was still married to her mother, and give her bedtime kisses if he was home. Otherwise, the only tucking in she got was from Matilda, her old nighttime nanny. Her day nanny had gone on to work for another prominent New York family, but Madison always felt it was to her father’s credit that he still kept Matilda on—though her only duty now was tending to a lone Cavalier King Charles spaniel at Jack’s country house. Matilda, seventy-two now, spent her days reading and doing needlework, flower arranging, and enjoying her semiretirement. As Madison strolled, she realized there was much more to her father than his ruthless reputation, and she hoped the police would find that out, too.

When John and Madison got to the park, they aimlessly wandered down paths, talking. When they got to the Wolman Skating Rink, Madison stopped still when she spied the Russian from the night at the warehouse—the one who’d shot his partner. He was with a new partner now, a shorter, squat man with a black overcoat. Whereas everyone else seemed focused on their kids, or on people watching, the two men’s only focus appeared to be Madison—and now John. Fear gripped her throat, and Madison leaned into John.

“Where’d you park your motorcycle?”

“Not too far from here…found a spot on the street. Must be my lucky day.”

Not if these guys get ahold of us, it won’t be,
Maddie thought. “I was wondering…what if we changed plans and took that drive upstate? It’s a really pretty day.”

He looked at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You going to be warm enough in this sweater? Maybe we should drop by your place and pick up a jacket.”

“No, that’s okay, really. I’m always warm.”

“All right, let’s go then. You know, I think I have a sweatshirt in my saddlebag. It won’t match your outfit, but for the ride, it’ll be fine, if you don’t mind, and will give you another layer.”

“Great!” Maddie smiled up at him, and he pulled her against him and kissed her on the mouth.

“I just had to do that,” he growled.

Despite really preferring to go find a bench and kiss him all afternoon, Maddie knew she had to get them out of the park and out of the city. Now. “Come on,” she purred, hoping he would be anxious to get on the motorcycle together.

“All right,” he said reluctantly. Arm around her shoulder, he steered her out of the park and toward his bike. Looking over her shoulder, Maddie saw the Russian and his pal following them. The Russian had a square jaw and eyes the color of a pale blue glacier. They were only a few yards back. She quickened her pace, and John instinctively kept step with her.

They reached his motorcycle, and he handed her his sweatshirt—a black one with the Harley insignia on it.
If my peers could see me now,
she mused. She donned the warm sweatshirt and the shiny black helmet he had and climbed on the bike in back of him.

Within minutes, they were roaring through Manhattan. At a couple of lights, she looked over her shoulder. No one appeared to be following her and John, and she felt herself relax and actually enjoy the ride. She assumed that the two mobsters had decided that a scene in broad daylight—when she was with a well-built, tough-looking guy herself—was not in their best interest.

Eventually, they drove up the Palisades Parkway, which snaked up along the Hudson River all the way to Bear Mountain and West Point. The farther north they got, the more traffic there was—which was the opposite of normal—when closer to the city usually meant more traffic. But Madison remembered the morning newscaster rating the day as one of the top choices for fall foliage. She did marvel at the hues of gold and burnished reds. She felt, as they drove on into the mountains, the colder air as it hit her face. She buried her right cheek against John’s back. She was amazed at how much just touching him on the motorcycle gave her feelings she frankly had never thought she’d have. She was too controlled, too much like her father, too much a woman who had to play with the big boys and never let them see her break a sweat.

He slowed the Harley as they came to the circle near West Point.

“You cold?” he shouted over the roar of the motorcycle.

“Just a little.”

“We’ll stop in a little bit for some coffee. I know a roadside diner.”

As they completed the circle, she saw John look in his side-view mirrors and felt him stiffen.

“What?” she shouted.

“Some asshole is creeping up on my tail.”

Maddie glanced behind them and saw a black Mercedes sedan with black-tinted windows speeding up on them.

John revved the bike and leaned forward a bit. But the more he sped up, the more the black car kept up with them. “What the hell…” John shouted against the wind.

Maddie instinctively leaned against him, almost as if she willed him to go faster. She could handle the speed.

“Hang on!” he yelled. Suddenly, the motorcycle’s full capabilities were on display. John had the bike going ninety-five miles an hour, and he zipped in front of two slower cars, trying to put some distance between them and the Mercedes sedan.

However, Maddie could glimpse the sedan in his side-view mirrors. The driver of the car—and she assumed it was the Russian or his sidekick—had no respect for the law—or safety. The car pulled out into the no-passing lane and gained on them.

John urged the motorcycle faster, and they raced along the winding turns of the upper Palisades Parkway as other cars leisurely drove, taking in the sights of the fall trees in all their glory.

“I have an idea,” he yelled back at her.

Maddie gripped him tighter, moving her lips in an involuntary prayer of the Our Father, though she hadn’t been to church in years.

John sped along the parkway, slowed slightly, and made a turn into the Bear Mountain Park. He exited the park almost as soon as he entered it, by making a 360-degree turn in the parking lot, leaning the bike way down, almost on its side. Maddie leaned with him, trying to meld their bodies as one so there was no resistance. The sedan spun around, too, and followed them as John drove back the way they had come. Soon they arrived back at the West Point circle, only this time, he headed right toward the West Point campus. Slowing, they arrived at the entry gate, where soldiers manned a sentry post.

West Point, aside from being an officer-training school, was also a huge tourist attraction. It had a beautiful view of the Hudson, not to mention incredible historical significance, and a museum. John paid to park, acting as if they were tourists, after telling the guard on duty they were there to sightsee.

As John pulled the bike onto the campus, Maddie marveled at all the gray-uniformed cadets, walking ramrod straight, eyes forward, cap bills pulled down. John was brilliant, she decided. There was no way, in this political climate, that the two guys in the Mercedes would try anything on the campus. She felt John relax—and so did she.

They found a parking spot and climbed off the bike and removed their helmets.

“Who were those guys?” John asked.

Maddie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe some random weirdos.”

He stared at her. “Maddie…random weirdos in a hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar cars don’t decide to run people off the road in broad daylight. Did you get a look at their faces?”

“No. I was too busy holding on for dear life.”

“Look, is there something you’re not telling me?” His voice was filled with worry.

“Like what?” Maddie opened her eyes wide, feigning innocence.

“I don’t know…forget it. Maybe they were just screwing around with me because of the Harley. A testosterone thing. Speaking of…” He pulled her to him and kissed her. “As long as we’re here, want to take a walk around?”

She nodded. Anything to get his mind off the motorcycle ride. “First I need to use the ladies’ room.”

He craned his head, saw some signs, and they made their way to the museum, where she went into the ladies’ room while he waited outside. Once she was in a stall, she dialed Troy.

“Agent Carter here.”

“Troy, it’s Madison…listen, I don’t have a lot of time. I was out on a date when the Russian and a stocky pal saw me in Central Park—they were obviously following me. Long story but my date drove me out the city. Then the Russian and his friend nearly ran me—us—off the road.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. Now.”

“Where are you?”

“West Point.”

“The military academy?”

“That’s the only West Point I know, Troy.”

“Sorry…it’s just you’re way upstate. I’ll leave now. These goons still around?”

“No. And I’m actually going to be heading back to the city soon. I’ll be fine. I just thought you should know. You told me I should check in with you. You know, after the whole thing at the warehouse.”

“You actually listened. I’m shocked, but stay put until I can get there.”

“And how will I explain that to my date? Look, I’m going back to the city. I’ll check in, I promise. But for now, I’m safe.”

Troy didn’t respond. After a few seconds, Maddie said, “Hello? You still there?”

“Yeah. I’m weighing whether or not to let you go back on your own or waiting, which has its own risks. All right…you can head back on your own, but check in.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Maddie broke the connection and emerged from the stall. She left the rest room, and her heart skipped a beat when she didn’t see John. Then he rounded the corner, carrying two hot chocolates in plastic cups.

She smiled and wrapped her hands around the steaming cup he handed her.

“Warm up…it’ll be a cold ride back to the city. I thought, to be safe, we’ll cross the Bear Mountain Bridge and head back on the Westchester side of the Hudson.”

“You’re the pilot.” She grinned at him as they left the building, blending in with the crowds of tourists enjoying the fall foliage.

They walked back to the motorcycle, and before they put on their helmets, John asked her, “Are you sure there’s not something you want to tell me?”

She nodded.

He looked at her skeptically. “Okay…Listen, instead of that Tex-Mex place, I was thinking of cooking for you. I’m no gourmet, but I make a mean paella.”