Undercover Genius (7 page)

“You sound just like Magda.
Tell
Sean you’re using him and don’t go giving him ideas. Let’s
pretend we’ve learned our lesson.” I handed over the bag and aimed for my
hideaway.

“I think if he’s using us, he knows the score,” she called
after me. “And thanks for hunting me down.”

“It would be easier if you’d tell me where you’re going,” I
muttered back, but she knew that. Then I stopped and nodded at her bag. “Let me
know if there’s anything on those disks?”

She grinned and hefted her stolen goods more tightly under
her arm. “Will do. That was a pretty good caper.”

“I refuse to bail you out if you repeat it,” an irritable
male voice growled from the chandelier.

I waved at the camera in the cornice. “Same to you, lover.”

That shut him up. I do love Graham’s thunderous silences.

We didn’t
need
Graham’s bail money, I realized. We had our own little nest egg. I liked having
that cushion of cash to fall back on.

I trotted downstairs to finish up a few projects I’d left
hanging. I needed to start a separate file on Broderick Media as related to my
family. Would BM actually offer the daughter of Patrick Llewellyn a job or had
they lured her here so that arsonists could destroy the rest of her father’s
notes? Not that I was jumping to conclusions, mind you. Cough.

The Bill Bloom incident had compounded my wariness. I booted
up the computer and remembered to turn my phone back on.
Patra’s
phone. Dang, I’d have to run upstairs and trade with her.

Even as I read the message on the screen, I heard her racing
back down the stairs. Nick had texted both of us.

YACHT BLEW UP.

Our yacht blew up
!
I almost cried at the stupid message. I wanted to put my chin up and say
easy come, easy go
, as I would have in
the past. But Nick had risked his life going after Reggie to salvage that damned
thing, and my heart broke with his.

At least Nick had been alive to let us know, which meant he
hadn’t been aboard, but probably nearby. I ran upstairs punching in a message
and met Patra in the foyer.

“What does he mean?” Patra shoved my phone at me. I handed
hers back after I sent a reply into cyberland.

“Unless we’ve forged insurance papers as well as titles, it
means we’re out half a million dollars and someone doesn’t like us very much,”
I said, my hopes dashed lower than my cellar floor.

I couldn’t tell if it was gloom or triumph emanating from
the spider in the attic. I could be enslaved to him forever, or out on my ear
tomorrow. If I didn’t have to trust the man, I’d suspect he’d planted the bomb
himself.

Tragedy had haunted my life so long that I knew the best
remedy was to return to work rather than weep or rage over what couldn’t be
changed — no matter how much I wanted to fling myself on the floor and
throw a tantrum to end all tantrums.

The last time I’d been this furious and heart-broken, I’d
walked out on my family and disappeared for years. I liked to think I was older
and wiser now.

With resignation, I climbed up to my room while flipping
through the phone photos Patra had taken. I found nothing more elevating than the
rear end of a black Escalade. It had been a sedan that ran over Bill. I had no
evidence other than common sense to prove it was the same people.

I didn’t sleep well that night. Dreams of providing cozy
houses/trailers/tents for all my siblings kept exploding into fire and ash. I’m
sure the dreams weren’t that explicit but my memory of them the next morning
was Freudian enough. I was getting soft. I should have been forging fraudulent
insurance papers before Nick returned.

But I’d stupidly hoped I could provide an honorable example
of good citizenry and its rewards to the rest of my family. Stupid, stupid,
stupid. We all grew up understanding that the rest of the world lacked
integrity and the best liar won.

Nick was at the breakfast table looking as haggard as I
felt. He glanced up with shadowed eyes, shoved a file folder at me, and
returned to inhaling Mallard’s mean cappuccino.

I sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice, thinking maybe slavery
wasn’t too awful if I could always be fed like this. Flipping open the file, I
perused the yacht title signed over to us. Brashton was a lawyer, after all,
and knew how to handle these things even coked out of his little mind. The
insurance and assorted other documents were all still in the name of Reginald
Brashton. He’d insured the
Patsy
for
the same amount as he’d paid, which was more than we’d been offered. If he
collected the insurance, he could hire lawyers and get out of jail free.

“What happened?” I asked with a hint of grimness, fighting
my Magda tendencies to call in neutron bombs.

“The cops believe Reggie was transporting drugs and his
suppliers blew it up in retaliation for their losses.” Nick gloomily poked at
his Canadian bacon.

“Feasible, if he wasn’t profiting from the loss, which he
will be. Maybe drug dealers are too stupid to know about insurance. Your
thoughts?”

“Same as yours,” he said with a morose sigh. “Either Reggie
learned how to make bombs from jail — or someone didn’t want us to sell
the yacht.”

Since we were living in the house of one of those someone’s,
who could hear everything we said through the bugged candelabra, we didn’t
attempt guessing the names of our enemies. They were undoubtedly legion, but my
money would be on current enemies and not the sheiks and KGB agents we’d tweaked
in our childhoods.

I tried to fit Broderick Media and Patra into the picture,
but it wasn’t happening. Yet.

“Talk to Oppenheimer,” I concluded, naming the lawyer who
was suing Reggie’s old law firm over our embezzled inheritance. “Since the
yacht was purchased with stolen funds, maybe he can make a case that the
insurance proceeds belong to us.”

Which probably meant an interminable court fight in which
we’d come out with a pittance at best, but we were constitutionally incapable
of doing nothing.

Nick brightened a little at having something to do, which
proved my point. Had we been trained to politics
à la
the Kennedy dynasty, we’d be on our way to running the world
by now. Magda had reasonably avoided her father’s political machinations by
removing us from temptation. She couldn’t change our genes, unfortunately.

I heard EG on the stairs, so I switched topics. “How’s
Senator Tex doing now that he’s a lame duck?”

Nick worked for EG’s senator father, who’d been outed as not
exactly a family values candidate after he’d acknowledged EG’s existence. He
had been married and already had a kid when he and Magda had their impetuous
fling.

“Tex is pushing his own agenda, which won’t go anywhere
without the power of his cronies behind him,” Nick said with a shrug. “I think
he’s planning on staying in D.C. with one of the local law firms when his term
ends, so EG will still have a daddy. I’m not sure he quite grasps my
orientation yet, so I’m lying low while keeping my eyes open for a safer
position. Wonder what it takes to get on an ambassadorial staff?”

“Knowing an ambassador?” I suggested as EG slid into her
seat. “You mean you want to return to roaming the world instead of lounging in
our little corner of paradise?” I had to ask. I hated the idea of taking full
responsibility for EG turning out normal.

“I meant like getting on the Brit staff here. I have dual
citizenship.”

“I like that thought,” I said, immediately feeling more
cheerful. “Let’s research current staff and see who we know. Can you talk to
your dad about your desire to be a humble civil servant? I’m betting he’ll be
happy to help. Beats gambling for a living.”

Nick shrugged. While Nick’s dad had paid for his bastard
son’s education, Lord Terence Arbuthnot didn’t like acknowledging his youthful
indiscretions. He’d ditched Magda so long ago that even I didn’t remember him,
but he and Nick checked in with each other every few years. I had no idea if
their relationship included calling in favors.

“I want the MacBook Pro,” EG announced into the silence.

“You have an iPad. You don’t need another portable device. Look
at the low end iMacs. I want it out where I can see what you’re doing.” I’d
promised her the computer when I’d thought we were millionaires. I couldn’t
renege on my promise now that I was feeling cranky and less generous.

“I’m not a baby,” she argued. “You don’t need to watch over
my shoulder.”

I gave her the old gimlet eye. She’d gotten herself
kidnapped a few weeks back by emailing the universe of evil. Guiltily, she went
back to crunching cereal.

Patra clattered down next, wearing what might be called a
power red suit, except the skirt was about a foot too short for professional.
I’m a lousy judge of style, but human nature I understand. Patra was not
sending the message she ought to be if that was for her Broderick Media
interview.

“They’re hiring hookers?” Nick asked for me. Since he’s our
family arbiter of fashion, his words spoke louder than mine.

“I’m getting that job,” she said, throwing her portfolio on
the table. “I’m not an idiot, okay?” she said defiantly at our incredulous
looks. “But if Bill died for me, I owe him the respect of finding out why.”

The three of us familiar with the Power of the Candelabra
waited expectantly for Graham’s opinion of that news. The silver remained oddly
silent. Or ominously, as the case might be.

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “Are you sure the people
interviewing you are men?”

Patra sent me a look of scorn. “It’s Broderick. What do you
think?”

“Point taken, although it’s a point against working for the
sexist pigs.”

“If Broderick had his way, women would be barefoot and
pregnant and never seen in public. Al Qaeda has nothing on him. I’m going for
the modern harem girl look.” Patra admired the platters of eggs on the buffet
and helped herself to a healthy portion of everything in sight.

“Magda,” Nick and I said in unison.

Patra slid into her seat and unfolded her linen napkin.
“Whatever works,” she agreed. “If men are too stupid to change, why should
women, when we have them by the…” She threw EG a look and cut off that
particular Magda-ism. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I doubt it.” The candelabra finally spoke.

Patra’s fork fell out of her hand. She hastily chased it
under the table.

“But if you insist on emulating your notorious mother,”
Graham continued in that deep voice that always rattled my gonads, “at least go
in with a knowledge of the power brokers and questions only they can answer.
Ask Ana for the document.”

The speaker gave that infinitesimal click that said it had
gone dead again. The Wizard had turned to other interests.

“If I land this job, I’m hunting for an apartment,” Patra
announced, taking a clean fork from the buffet. “I don’t know how you live with
that nut job.”

Nick and I smirked. Just let her find an apartment with a
better location and amenities than this place. On a reporter’s salary, she’d be
lucky to find a leaky cellar and live off ramen noodles.

“And welcome to slavery, twenty-first century style,” I said.
We could move out anytime we liked. I just refused to do so.

I got up and ran downstairs to see what Graham’s nocturnal
messages had delivered to my office.

Flipping on the Whiz, I printed out a document that had
appeared overnight in Graham’s networked folder on Broderick Media, not my
private one on my personal computer.

Before taking anything to Patra, I skimmed down the sheet. I
recognized half his list of names as stockholders and upper management at BM.
Further down the list was local editorial staff for the Washington edition of
the newspaper, which was pretty much the same personnel for the local broadcast
station. Congress had severely limited the objectivity of the fourth estate
when they’d allowed media conglomerates to buy up all the journalistic real
estate in major cities.

Graham had added lovely touches like “Ted Tuttle, married
with a Vietnamese manicurist mistress,” and “Bernard Black, silent partner in
Virginia casino.” He didn’t have to add
No
Jews, Muslims, or people of color.
Not a Cohen or Jabal on the list. And as
expected, only two females, pretty far down the tree. Broderick had worked hard
to earn his reputation as a crooked, conservative, sexist bigot loved by all
for his money and power.

At the end, Graham had appended suggestions.
For Patra’s consideration:
determine if wire-tapping, cell phone
surveillance, and hacking still encouraged. Ask if Paul Rose is still a favored
candidate and indicate your enthusiasm. Mention your involvement with the
Righteous and Proud and ask if they’d be interested in human interest stories
on members.

Broderick Media was the official mouthpiece for the
stick-up-their-ass Righteous and Proud. Graham might as well tell her to join
Al Qaeda for White People. I crumpled up the suggestions and flung them at the
wastebasket before whacking the intercom keys. “I am not involving my sister in
your paranoid conspiracy theories.”

“Then send her home,” he grumbled.

He knew perfectly well I wouldn’t do that, no matter how
much I’d like to consider it.

* * *

With all my chickies out of the house, I settled down to
my own work, but disentangling the corporate web around Broderick Media did not
hold the personal appeal of learning what might have got poor Bill Bloom
killed.

Let me make this perfectly clear — I am not a sleuth,
not of the detective/trained investigator sort. I’m a hired researcher, yes, a
virtual assistant with international connections, but not a cop. Just think of
me as a rat terrier who sinks her teeth in and keeps shaking until something
useful falls out.