The Golden Girl (9 page)

“O
h, 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 test—through 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 Bing—a major shareholder—and 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 time—at 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 bob—an 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.

“It’s uncanny.”

“Thanks,” Kristi said. “Colored contacts, perfect makeup job—I 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 bit—more 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 bag—what 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.”

“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 about—and 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 death—and the big lump on the back of her head—to 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 French—just 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 needed—the 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 magnificent—the 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 two—during which she tried to fight her fears—he 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.”

“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 me—dead.”

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 dagger—truly 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.”