The Golden Girl (13 page)

Suddenly, a huge explosion rocked the entire block. Madison fell backward into a pile of newspapers delivered for the morning, and John hit the sidewalk, smashing his elbow.

Debris rained down, ash and dust, and an acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

With tears in her eyes, Madison looked across the street. Where her beloved limo driver had been parked with her limousine now stood the flaming wreckage of a car.

T
hinking fast, Madison grabbed John’s hand. “Let’s go!”

“What? We’ve got to wait for the police,” he said, his voice raspy with the smoke around them.

“Trust me,” she begged and pulled him around the block and then down the street to a subway station. In the distance, they heard sirens.

“Are you crazy, Madison? Someone wanted you dead. We’ve got to talk to the police.”

Teeth chattering from shock, Madison knew she had to think clearly. She shook her head from side to side, fighting tears, trying to breathe deeply and collect herself, squeezing her eyes shut to try to stave off the vision of the burning car that she was certain was now forever etched in her mind.

“John…we’ve got to get to your place. Fast.” She pulled him down the steep staircase into the suffocating air of the subway station. The smell of urine and stale, unmoving grimy air assaulted their nostrils.

“Give me a few dollars,” she urged him. Taking the bills he handed her, she bought a Metrocard and led him through the turnstiles.

Maddie kept looking over her shoulder, moving farther down the platform. A few minutes later, she could hear a subway car in the distance, its lights a glow down the tunnel. Finally, a subway car rattled to a stop, and its doors opened with a swooshing sound.

“Come on,” she urged.

Shaking his head, he nonetheless followed her. “You’re in shock, Maddie. We need to go back. We’re witnesses.”

They hopped on the subway car. Its doors whooshed shut, and it pulled out of the station and into the dark of the tunnels.

“Where is this car headed?” she whispered.

“Not sure.”

“Let’s ride it for a couple of stops, get off and hail a cab to your place.”

“Madison…”

“Shh…” She squeezed his hand, teeth still chattering.

Three stops later, they found themselves within thirty blocks of John’s town house. They hailed a cab and were dropped off. Madison looked at her watch. It was just before midnight.

They let themselves into John’s apartment, but she stopped him before he turned on the lights.

“Wait! They could be watching us.”

“Who’s they? Madison…what is going on?”

“You have to trust me. I need to call the FBI. Remember that man I was seen with in the Rubi Cho column?”

He nodded. “How could I not remember? I was so jealous.”

“He’s an FBI agent.”

She conveniently left out that she was undercover, too.

Using her cell phone, she dialed Troy, gave him her location and told him she was safe.

“Whoever did this thinks I’m dead, Troy, and that’s a good thing. I need you to do one more thing before you come here.”

“What?”

“I need you to use your FBI credentials to get into my office. In the upper-left drawer of the credenza against the far windows is a locked briefcase. I need you to bring it.”

“Okay. Hang in there.”

“Trying to.”

“I won’t be able to get there for a little while. I’ll need to gather together a team. Give me a couple hours.”

“Won’t matter. Not like I’m going to get any sleep anyway.”

She hung up and then John came behind her in the dark.

“Let’s get out of these clothes and take a hot shower. I want to get the smell of smoke and street off of me.”

She nodded and allowed him to lead her into the bathroom. They took off their evening clothes. Compared to her apartment, John’s little bathroom was cramped, and the two of them barely fit in the shower stall, wedged together, their bodies close.

He turned on the hot water, still without the lights on, and pulled her to his chest. As the water enveloped them, followed by the steam, Maddie finally allowed herself to absorb—even partially—what had just happened. Great wracking sobs escaped from her mouth and she put both of her arms around John’s neck, clinging to him the way a drowning person clings to a life preserver. What if he had been killed? At the thought of the explosion, she felt a pain in her heart.

Charlie was like family to her. He had guarded her with his life…had paid the ultimate price for being part of her world. Guilt consumed her, and she laid her head against John’s chest and allowed the water to cascade over her, washing away some of the pain as he just held her.

After the hot water began to run lukewarm, John turned off the shower and helped her from the stall, wrapping her in a big well-worn towel. He led her into the bedroom and dug through his drawers—still in the dark, his room only illuminated by a single night-light—until he found a pair of sweatpants for her and a big sweatshirt. He donned the same—sweats and a T-shirt, then a zippered sweatshirt he sometimes wore for his morning run.

“Want a cup of tea, angel?”

Madison still had the sniffles from her crying jag. “Kind of, yeah.”

She followed him into the kitchen as he readied a kettle of boiling water, his profile illuminated in the moonlight coming in through the kitchen window. Then he poured her a cup of peppermint tea and made himself one.

“I keep this tea for when I have a cold. Drink it down…. Come on, let’s go to the couch.”

Madison sat down. He went to get the comforter from his bed and wrapped it around her, then sat down next to her. For a long while, he didn’t say anything, just pulled her against him and stroked her damp hair. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“I need to ask…Why are you involved with the FBI, Madison?”

She knew Troy would never reveal her status as an undercover operative. So she told John pretty much the rest of the story, leaving out her own involvement—Claire’s death, her father, rumors of offshore accounts and the mob.

“Basically, Claire was onto something. I really can’t be one hundred percent sure of what, but I have a really good theory I’ve been developing all week.”

“So you think whoever’s behind this was who ran us off the road—or tried to—at West Point.”

Madison nodded, feeling almost robotic, numb.

“Can’t the FBI and police protect you?”

“Yes, but until all the pieces to this puzzle are solved and the people responsible are arrested, I can only be but so safe.”

John rubbed his eyes with weariness, worry. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Neither do I…and every time I think about Charlie, I want to just curl into a fetal position and cry. But I’d rather get mad. I’d rather get these bastards once and for all.”

In the dark, she couldn’t see John’s face. She curled against him and he stroked her face.

“I love you, Madison,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

Madison had never really said the words to a lover. She had never even thought them about anyone else. She was too busy. Her BlackBerry was jammed full, her voice mail always overloaded, her e-mail overflowing. Love would have just been another inconvenience to fit into her schedule—right there wedged between a meeting with the board of directors and dinner with the head of the zoning commission. But this felt right.

“I love you, too.”

Around three in the morning, she and John were dozing, when there was a knock on the door. John startled awake, stood and went to his peephole.

“It’s that guy…from the FBI,” he whispered.

Madison rubbed her eyes. “Let him in.” Her body ached, and she felt as if she’d been sucker punched in the gut.

Troy nodded at John, shook his hand and identified himself, and entered with another agent he introduced as Mark Layton.

“I brought the briefcase, Madison, but before we go over all that, we want to get you to a safe house. Right now, we were able to talk to the M.E. He’s saying two people were blown up in the limo—you and Charlie. That way we can keep you safe—no one’s looking for you—until this is all straightened out.”

“How long will that be?”

“I hope not long at all. But I can’t make you any promises. All I do know is at this point, someone is very, very determined to see you very, very dead.”

“What about John?”

“He’s a material witness. We can hide him, too, but I think sticking a detail on him for a few days will be enough. We’ll say he saw nothing. Honestly, with you dead, they probably think they’re home free.”

“Can you catch whoever did this? Charlie was…he was a really good man.”

“We’re working on it, Madison. We’ll get them. How quickly depends on what’s in this briefcase you had me bring.”

“Okay. So when would I go to this safe house?”

“Now, Madison. There isn’t a lot of time to second-guess this whole thing.”

Madison’s gut twisted some more. She had gone from the height of being in love, dancing at the Waldorf, to death, grief, and now life on the run, all in the space of one night.

She turned to face John. “I have to go with them. I can’t let anyone else die because of me. They’ll watch you for a few days. But promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Forget about me, Madison. You’re the one who’s in danger. How can I get in touch with you?”

Madison looked at Troy.

“You can’t. Not directly.” He took out his wallet and handed John a card. “You can call my cell and relay messages. And I can relay them to you. But until this blows over, your best bet is just to act the role of the grieving boyfriend.”

Madison rushed over to John and kissed him on the lips. “I’m going to get these guys. I’ll see you soon.”

Looking every bit the part of the grieving boyfriend, John nodded. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Then, with an equally grieving heart, Madison nodded at Troy and left John’s apartment, not quite sure of when—or if—she would see him again.

T
he safe house turned out to be a nondescript motel in southern New Jersey. When they arrived at the room, Madison crashed for an hour or two on the very lumpy mattress, exhaustion overtaking her. When she awoke, Troy and two other agents—Layton and an agent named Lawson—were there, eating from a platter of cold cuts and catching some of the news coverage of her “death” on CNN.

Stock in Pruitt & Pruitt plummeted with this latest twist, but the board quickly announced the succession of Madison’s uncle Bing, and Wall Street analysts thought there was the possibility of a rebound based on rumors of an acquisition of a cereal and sports-drink company.

“Frankly, Jim,” one analyst said, staring at the camera, “Pruitt & Pruitt has a long history stemming from early in the last century. They invest wisely, diversify intelligently, and have had good leadership. I think they can rebound from this.”

Madison padded into the bathroom and rubbed cold water on her face. In her mind, she could picture Charlie offering to go into the store for them. Then the car being blown to bits. Her only consolation was he hadn’t suffered—and it was very, very small consolation.

Madison squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she sighed, rinsed her face again, then opened the toothbrush and toothpaste the agents had picked up for her—along with a hairbrush and mouthwash. She guessed they’d also go shop for some clothes for her. Though she doubted she’d be dressed in Ralph Lauren. More like whatever was on sale at the local department store. She brushed her teeth and ran the brush through her hair, then resolutely left the bathroom, ready to lay out her suspicions for the FBI.

“Guys…I’m ready to go over my theory now.”

“Great,” Troy said.

The motel room was shabby, and included a kitchenette with an ugly, brown Formica table and four uncomfortable chairs. Commandeering the table, Madison opened the briefcase and asked the agents to each take a seat.

“Okay, gentlemen, see if you can follow all this…. Many years ago, my uncle, the infant William Charles Pruitt III, was kidnapped and murdered. He was the second child of my paternal grandparents. My father hadn’t been born yet. The case created a frenzy. Even the president of the United States at the time called the local police, as well as the head of the FBI, asking them to put all their manpower into solving the crime. It looked like an inside job. Eventually, suspicion pointed to Victor Karaspov, a Russian immigrant employed by the household as a caretaker.”

Madison pulled out old photos and a couple of books from the library on the kidnapping. She had paper clips marking pages of photos. Most were in black and white.

“Victor claimed a lot of things. First, that he had no interpreter, so he didn’t understand the charges. Then that he was framed.”

“Aren’t they all?” Lawson, a solidly built agent with black hair and an olive complexion, said, rolling his eyes.

“I thought so, too,” Madison said. “But there’s more than meets the eye. Eventually, he changed his story, saying that he
had
kidnapped the baby—but not murdered him—by then the body had turned up, burned beyond recognition. He said he had a child, and he could never do anything so cruel, that he was the fall guy for a larger group of men. Later, they said a botched rescue attempt—a police raid—may have hastened the murder.”

“Was he framed?”

“Well, no one believed him. But in his interviews he came across as anything but a criminal mastermind. Eventually, Victor died in prison, still professing his innocence. That’s where the story ended, except for some enterprising journalists. One of them, a man named Harrison, was originally from the town where the body was discovered. He had grown up fascinated by the case and did his own investigation. He found evidence that Victor’s family received a payoff—no one knows from whom. They took the money, moved away, and changed their name. Victor spent the rest of his years in prison with no visitors from his family. But his wife remarried eventually, and his daughter was apparently quite well provided for.”

“Okay, so how does this intersect with you?” Troy asked. “Other than the attack at the cemetery in Venetian Lake and a false social-security number for a long-dead baby.”

“Ask me the last name of the man Mrs. Karaspov married.”

“I’ll bite.”

“Gould.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Mark Layton asked.

“Christ…” Troy said, “that’s the name of Bing Pruitt’s assistant. Katherine Gould.”

“You got it…. And there’s more. Okay…so the reason—aside from the incident at Venetian Lake—that I looked at this, was that the papers Katherine gave me don’t match the ones I got from Claire’s safe-deposit box.”

“What do you mean…don’t match? They’re both cooked books.”

“Yeah. But
Claire’s
cooked books all point to Bing approving the payments to the nonexistent William Pruitt. His signature is on a lot of the papers. And Katherine’s cooked books all point to my father.”

“I don’t get it,” Troy said, leaning over as Madison spread out both sets of false papers.

“Well, let’s say Claire was on the up-and-up. She was a whistle-blower who wanted to figure out what was going on. And it would have killed her inside—if she really did love my father—to think he’d approved the false social-security number, the bogus companies, and so on. But bottom line, she would have come forward, because she was an attorney and she was moral, and that was just Claire. But someone killed her before she could meet with the FBI.
Her
books say Bing was behind the bogus companies, the mastermind. So who would want her dead? Bing. And if my father was setting her up, it’s not like she would have these fictitious books out of thin air—thus, if she already had papers and ledgers proving it was Bing, then my father could let her blow the whistle, and he gets the girl, and his brother out of the way, and his company’s illegal millions keep rolling.”

“So the fact that the papers she had pointed to Bing leads you to believe they’re the legit fakes—and Bing wanted her out of the way.”

“Right. And if I hadn’t gotten this other set of fakes from Katherine, I would have let it go from there. But since she doesn’t know what I have from Claire, I think Katherine wants to mislead me, intentionally, and send me gunning for my own father who, on the face of things, I am angry with for having an affair with my best friend. Unbeknownst to her, he and I reconciled at a dinner this week.”

Troy opened one of the library books. There was a picture of Victor’s wife and daughter leaving the courthouse.

“So what did you find out about Katherine?”

“Well, according to the writer of the book, her mother married another Russian and moved to a Russian enclave in working-class Brooklyn. This became a key area for the infiltration of the Russian mob after the fall of Communism and glasnost.”

“What do your personnel records indicate?”

“Her background is impeccable. She has a great education, and she clearly has elevated herself above where she came from. I see her in the office. She dresses beautifully, carries herself like an aristocrat.”

One of the agents stood and went to the small refrigerator and got a bottled water. “So how do you know it’s not a coincidence? Gould isn’t all that unusual a name.”

“I thought about that, too. So I went digging further. It’s her mother, all right, who was married to Victor. Then I did some discreet asking around on the office grapevine. Turns out, I never knew, but when she first joined the company years before, she worked for my father.”

“Your father? How come you didn’t know that? You work there, too.”

“Yes. But this was long before I was working at the company, around the time of my parents’ divorce. I was eleven or twelve. Office scuttlebutt has it that Katherine and my father had an affair. My mother found out about it…the affair was one of a thousand indiscretions on my father’s part. So it wasn’t like anyone put much stock or credence into it. It was never common knowledge. But the timing of the whole affair was unfortunate. Even if it was just rumor, my father didn’t need to give my mother’s lawyers ammunition. Right around that time, Katherine suddenly goes to work for Bing.”

“So who’s idea was the whole scheme to set up the offshore accounts, to have William on the books, the whole nine yards?” Troy asked.

“Well, I think Katherine carried the torch for my father for years. Call it woman’s intuition. If she and Bing began an affair, I think she introduced him to the Russian connection…and I’m not sure why he took the bait, but he bit all right.”

“So how do we catch the bastard? And her?” Troy asked.

“He thinks I’m dead. What if I show up to a private meeting with him? Confront him. Shock him with the fact that I’m not dead. I wear a wire. I get him to fess up. You cowboys sweep in, you get the bad guys, I get my old life back. We’re all happy. Case closed.”

“I don’t know if I like that,” Troy said. “Too many variables. Bing is volatile. Gould has connections to the mob. I don’t like it. I really don’t. Preliminary look at the limo points to C4. Fucking C4 explosives. These people don’t play around, Madison.”

“And neither do I. Treat me like an agent, Troy. Not a friend. I don’t think you’d hesitate to send one of your female FBI agents into harm’s way. And I am not staying in this sorry motel for the rest of my life. I already miss my Egyptian-cotton sheets.”

Troy finally cracked a smile.

“Great…This is what I get for working with heiresses.”