Undercover Genius (14 page)

She pulled out her shiny card case to hand him her business
card, then dropped the case. “Oops, I’m clumsy when I’m tired.” She waited
expectantly.

Riley glared but picked the case up and handed it to her.
She carefully tucked it into her purse so she could have his fingerprints
pulled later. Maybe Ana knew someone who could dust Bill’s apartment for
prints. She’d have to steal the gorilla’s whiskey glass if she had a chance.

“I’m retired,” Riley said grumpily. “We all write our
memoirs at this age. Did your father have notes for his?”

“Oh, daddy just had boxes of notes and dusty old disks. Even
his lawyer said they were worthless. I lost them all in a fire. You must have
exciting tales to tell about politicians you’ve met. That’s what I aspire to,
interviewing the president and the prime minister!”

Riley wanted to know
about her father’s memoirs, interesting
. Did he suspect there was dirt in
there? Or was he just fishing? If so, he wasn’t very good at it. An interviewer
had to show interest in his subject. Riley looked as if he wished she would
drop dead.

“It’s a dangerous world out there for little girls,” Riley
said with scorn. “You ought to stick to interviewing movie stars.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will for years and years, but I can wait
until opportunity knocks. It was so good to meet you, sir.” She waved her
credit card at the bartender. “But I really must do my Rhianna research before
I talk to her Monday. Such a fascinating woman! Good luck with your memoirs.”
She leaned in to touch gorilla’s coat and confiscated his empty glass while he
was distracted. “And thank you again, sir.”

After signing off on the tab, she sauntered out without her
unpleasant companions even thanking her for the free drinks. She’d like to
think it was because she had them so baffled that they couldn’t react, but she
figured it was because they were jerks.

Sean lingered in his dark corner booth without looking up at
her departure.
Go, Sean
.

Still, she located a dirty alley between buildings, climbed
over the feeble gate, and hid against the wall between garbage cans to see what
happened next. She watched the bar entrance in the traffic mirror reflector on
the corner. The gorilla lumbered out a few minutes later, heading in the
direction of her new home. Patra didn’t worry too much about the gorilla
knocking on Graham’s door. Ana had his photo and a gargoyle glare that would
scare varnish off wood.

Riley appeared next. He looked up and down both sides of the
street, studying everyone before stepping out onto the sidewalk. Apparently
satisfied that he was safe, he trotted in the same direction as Gorilla Boy.
There was a closer Metro stop in the other direction. Really, could one man be
so stupid?

She fell in a block behind him and Sean joined her a moment
later.

“We really should quit meeting this way,” she told him, not
looking at him.

“I wasn’t sure you could take care of yourself as well as
Ana does. After you left, the thug and Leonard had a brief discussion. Money
was exchanged. My bet is that someone is a target for gorilla-boy’s automatic.
Want to place any wagers on whom he’s about to threaten?”

Patra snorted. “Sexist pigs like that will think they don’t need
automatics to scare Ana. They’d think a good shovel would work. So my bet is
petty revenge on Nick or Mallard or both.”

“Very astute of you, if not spyboy.” He shoved a hand in the
pocket of his tweed trousers as he watched Leonard turn a corner. “Did you
indicate you had something that might be of interest to Broderick?”

“Old news,” she scoffed. “Leonard wants to know if I have my
father’s files, which probably means Broddy wants to know. If they try to look
for them inside the Monster Mansion, they’ll either be dead or behind bars for
a long time.”

“Graham’s that good, huh?”

She finally shot him a quick glance. Sean looked determined
as well as interested. And interesting. Excellent jaw. Cute curly dark hair.
Nice shoulders. But did she really know the man? “You’re kidding, right?”

Sean shrugged. “A guy can only try. Why do you protect Graham?
He could be a pervert and a terrorist for all you know.”

“So could you, for all I know. Graham has the benefit of
offering us a house to live in. He leaves us alone, and we return the favor, to
the best extent possible, leastways. One doesn’t muddy one’s own nest. Look, Leonard
is taking the street behind ours and Gorilla Boy is casing the front.
Obviously, they didn’t learn. Surely they don’t mean to commit murder on a
public street. Threatening seems more their speed.”

“Do I call the cops now or wait until there are bodies?”
Sean asked dryly.

“The bodies would be the gorilla and Leonard, and that comes
under messing the nest.” Patra texted Ana and Nick. “Really, I don’t know how
old-fashioned hoodlums think they can keep up in modern times unless they
recall technology exists.”

“Do we watch and wait or incite war?” He studied the
gorilla’s position beside the house under construction, apparently unfazed by
murderous thugs or Ana.

He really ought to be worried about Ana.

“On my own, I’d go for war, but EG’s inside, and that comes
under messing the nest, too,” she said with regret. “I really need to get my
own place. This level of monitoring is beyond all tiresome.”

“Leonard’s had an opportunity by now to discover the old
carriage house on the other block. Shall I leave you here while I check on him?
I can video you the result.”

Laughing, Patra looked up at him. “An older man who gets
technology. Good for you, sport. Go at it. I want to see how Graham protects
his rear.”

Sean all but snarled and trotted off around the corner. That
should get him out of her way before she started shooting.

I glared as my no-longer new or amusing toy beeped with
still another message from Patra. My sibling was showing off, metaphorically
strutting her stuff by sending photos of the nosy reporter and his cohort in a
tavern. If Patra wanted to try the mossy tactic of cozying up to the enemy, it
was her time and money. But I supposed it was considerate of her to let me know
where she was.

I was monitoring the coded file slowly emerging from the
current document I’d fed into the software. Graham had been right. Patra’s
father had coded some of his papers. Figuring out which ones was the trick. He’d
played dirty pool by encoding what appeared to be meaningless office memos and
expense reports instead of his journal entries.

I hit the phone for the image coming through at the same
time as Graham snarled through the intercom.

“Send your sister back where she came from. I don’t need
those termites snooping around my back door.”

“Because that’s where you keep your Batmobile?” I asked,
just because.

The image appearing on my phone showed a gorilla-sized goon
with a shoulder holster leaning against the wall of the house across the
street. And Graham had spotted a termite at the back door? Not good, Patra.

Graham didn’t waste his breath responding. He’d got his
threat across with his snarl. I grabbed my phone as it rang with a forwarded
photo — from
Sean
? What the hell
was Sean doing out there? I trotted to the kitchen to show Mallard the image of
Riley at the carriage house.

He recognized the location behind us and grabbed a meat
cleaver.

“Protect yourself and EG with that,” I warned. “We don’t
take violent offensive.”

As if Mallard would take orders from me. He glared down at
me with scorn and took the kitchen stairs to his backyard herb garden. Assuming
Patra was somewhere outside, I ran up to the second floor and EG’s tower aerie.

I knocked politely. “Tower surveillance needed. Coming in.”

Her door instantly popped open. She had our newly purchased
spy telescope in hand. “There’s a man with a gun in the alley.”

“Yeah, Patra is out there sending live action photos. Have
you spotted her yet?”

EG had lowered the top half of her shades so she could stand
on her reading chair and look out. I had a little more height, but not enough.
I took the spyglass, climbed on the desk chair, and worked it like a
skateboard, looking for the best position.

The big goon with a gun was on the east side of the vacant
house across the street. Patra was stationed on the west, watching something on
her smart phone. Sean must be sneaking around with a camera, and she was
forwarding his images.

I turned to look out the rear tower windows, but the
warehouse or reinforced carriage house or whatever that was behind us was a
solid mountain obstructing the view. I couldn’t even see Mallard.

Nick wandered in, dressed in his best Saturday night duds
and smelling like an expensive whorehouse. “What game are we playing?”

“Patra’s out there with a hitman,” I said, handing over the
glass. “We’re wagering on whether she brings him down before or after Graham
does. And Graham reports a termite at the rear.”

“Oh, goody, can I have the termite?” he asked facetiously,
checking out the thug in front. “The goon is totally passé. Patra really ought
to look for a better class of enemy. A good strong fire hose would bring him
down. I think Mallard has one in the basement.”

“Mallard has gone after the termite with a kitchen axe. Since
Patra’s been following Leonard Riley, I assume he’s the termite. We’re waiting
for the fireworks before bothering with the goon.”

A recorded voice began broadcasting from the speakers in the
hall. We all obediently trudged out to decipher the staticky broadcast from
Graham’s lair.

“Perennial bad boy, Reginald Brashton the Third, died
unexpectedly in his jail cell today after being extradited to face drug and
embezzlement charges. An autopsy has been arranged. Arnold Oppenheimer, lawyer
for one of the plaintiffs suing Brashton, had visited with Brashton earlier in
the day. Speculation is rife in the legal community.”

In frustrated fury, I whacked the telescope against the
speaker. The one at the other end of the hall continued with the news report,
but I didn’t have to listen.

Brashton.
Dead
!
After all our efforts to return him alive.

I couldn’t summon any grief over a spoiled rich boy who’d
murdered my grandfather. Fear and fury warred inside me instead. This was worse
than losing the yacht. I pounded my heel into the wood paneling in a fit of frustration.

Damn Reggie! Even in death he was a pain in the rear.

Unable to fight this devastating blow, we grimly retreated
to EG’s room to spy on the spies.

“News van at three o’clock,” Nick reported, gazing out the
shaded windows without need of chair. “The media has figured out who the
plaintiffs are.” His voice had gone from cheerful to flat. All his work
bringing Reggie back alive — for naught.

Nick and I gloomily contemplated the many ways we could have
tortured our grandfather’s lawyer if we hadn’t been trying to play legal. Was
Reggie’s death in a jail cell the justice we wanted? It didn’t feel like it.

“Thugs to the left of us, termites to the right,” EG said
helpfully. “Now what do we do?”

I sighed. Pouting wouldn’t get us anywhere. We might as well
deal with what was on our doorstep.

“Nick, check on our favorite termite journalist. Tickle Riley’s
fancy any way that makes you happy to chase him away so Mallard will put down
his axe and go back to fixing Graham’s dinner. We have a news van out front, blocking
our goon’s aim, so I’m guessing we don’t need the fire hose. I think I’ll go
pull a few daisy petals and see what happens. I need to get back to work and
this parade of imbeciles is in my way.” I stalked off, simmering.

I was back in my grubbies — long cotton skirt and
tie-dyed t-shirt — so I wasn’t exactly camera fare. Which was precisely
the image I wanted to project — dull, uninteresting, unnewsworthy. If
gorgeous Patra of the short skirt got out there first, the media would never
leave us alone.

So I took the stairs two at a time while texting Patra to
tell her to stay the hell out of sight. She objected. I told her I’d lock her
out of the house. She sulked in silence.

When I reached the front door, I slowed to a mosey. The
cameraman was at the front gate by the time I let myself out. Instead of going
to meet him, I ignored him. I sat down on the front step and began looking for
four-leaf clovers in the patch of lawn. If there had been daisies, I would have
plucked them.

Apparently Mallard had locked the gate while wielding his
meat cleaver. Smart man. The camera whirred and a reporter leaned over the
spiked wrought iron fence to shout, “Miss Maximillian, did you know Reggie
Brashton was murdered in his jail cell this afternoon?”

I picked a blade of grass, chewed on it, eyed him
skeptically, then returned to playing with the clover. I wasn’t giving him
credit for identifying me. My long black braid is pretty distinctive, and I’d
stirred up an ant’s nest of reporters just a few weeks ago. I looked for the gorilla
goon across the street from the corner of my eye, but the van blocked the house.

The reporter tried again. “Your lawyer was the last person to
see him alive. Will Brashton’s death help or hurt your case?”

Oh, the little boy had read his press copy. Very nice. I
chewed my grass some more, then looking past him, I nodded as if to a friend.
The reporter and cameraman swung around, maybe just a little afraid. I doubted
that they knew Graham was inside, so maybe it was just their surroundings that
made them jumpy.

From his street-side position, the cameraman must have
spotted the hired goon with his telescopic lens. Instead of jumping in his van
and leaving, he started filming the goon.

I pulled out my phone and called Patra. “Is the baddie leaving
yet? Want to be on entertainment news or come in the back way?”