Pimpernel

by Sheralyn Pratt

  No one cared about the maestro while the symphony was playing, but when all was said and done, the maestro was the one standing center stage, taking a bow.

  That was true magic. That was mentalism. It was as scripted as a symphony, and Jack’s job was finding the players who were ready to play each of the parts. Players like Natasha Ramsey, Everett Ramsey, and Ryan Eastman. Players like Claire, Margot, Ren, and maybe even Kali. Players like the still-unknown man from the SUV, the judge who had taken a bribe, and the defense lawyer who had no interest in defending Eastman.

  They all had a part to play. They all had solos. They all had harmonies. Jack just needed to decide who did what and set things up so that everyone thought their actions were their own idea.

  True magic was not a disappearing card or holding your breath for five minutes. That was discipline shrouded in showmanship. True magic was letting people do exactly what they wanted to do and having it all turn out in your favor…which why there was only one thing Jack could write on his first card.

  Claire visits Eastman in jail.

  That had to happen before anything else. Claire was still torn and a bit resentful to be working with Jack. He’d forced her hand to join forces, which made her a loose cannon. He needed her to be a perfectly timed cannon, like in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

  No rogue blasts.

  And so, for his first trick, Jack was going give Claire the answers she needed. Because, after all, the only time he could trust Claire to do what he needed her to do was to make her believe it was all her idea in the first place.

  “Abracadabra,” he said, holding up the card he’d just finished writing on. Then, with a flick of his wrist, it burst into flames and disappeared.

  Chapter 23

  At last, Claire was getting her chance to talk to Ryan. She needed to understand what had happened in court and why he was going to trial on obviously bogus charges. Insider trading could only be proved if a person had actual inside knowledge. Ryan had feigned inside knowledge while trying to make a sale. That was totally different.

  So why did a judge think there was enough evidence to go to trial? It made no sense.

  She needed to talk to him, even if that meant having Jack’s team listen in to the entire conversation. Maybe then they’d see Ryan was innocent too and offer him the same immunity.

  Maybe there was still a chance that Ryan could be saved alongside her.

  If there was, the necklace Jack—not Daniel, Jack—had insisted she wear until everything was resolved would capture the evidence. What looked like a simple gem pendant hanging around her neck was actually a camera the prison security hadn’t even given a second glance to when she’d gone through the pat down.

  She’d kind of been hoping they’d spot it and force her to remove it. No luck. But maybe it was for the best. If Jack saw Ryan through her eyes, he’d understand…he’d have to.

  Claire sat alone at a table in the prison’s visitor’s lobby, her eyes mapping and remapping everyone around her, looking for one of Mr. SUV’s men. But most of the other visitors in the lobby were wives with children, a fact that made Claire’s heart break just a little bit. Visits were limited to 30 minutes, which meant this was the only contact these wives and children would have with their husbands and fathers all day.

  Maybe it was the fact that Thanksgiving was just over two weeks away, or maybe it was the honest love he saw as the inmates embraced their families that made her feel a tickle of depression in her energy. Or maybe the melancholy stemmed from the fact that she’d never met her biological father at all, and her legal father had never greeted her with such enthusiasm.

  Either way, she couldn’t think about other inmates right then. Those were all thoughts for another day. Today was all about using Jack—not Daniel—to help Ryan.

  When Ryan finally stepped through the security door, he quickly spotted her. Even in his prison-issue jumpsuit, he still had the good looks that had always made him so popular with students. Short, dirty blond hair, pale blue eyes, and perfect, white teeth framed by a strong jaw. All of that on top of a lean body made him very easy to look at. For years the mere sight of Ryan had made Claire’s heart skip a nervous beat, but at the moment she felt nothing but anxiety as she looked at him.

  She’d thought him to be such an intelligent and logical man, yet situation he’d landed both of them in was beyond reckless. She’d been forced to admit that after talking to Kali and Jack yesterday…but mostly Kali. That woman had been a bucket of ice water on Claire’s current plans. It wasn’t so much what she’d said, as it was the realization that if she ran, people like Kali would be the ones chasing her down.

  Something told Claire she wouldn’t even make to the airport.

  She may not like it, but saving Ryan and herself without Jack’s help was no longer an option.

  Claire smiled at Ryan, giving him a little wave as their eyes met. His handsome face did not look pleased to see her as he crossed over to where she was seated.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered, taking a seat across from her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should you,” she hissed back. “What happened yesterday?”

  “Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “You happened. You raised more money in four weeks than I did in a year. You’re a wunderkind, just like I knew you’d be.”

  She shook her head, confused. He sounded excited. “No, I was just filling in.”

  “Well, now you’re taking over,” he said, not looking at all distressed.

  “No,” she said, panicking. This wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to be scared…confused at what was happening to him. Instead he sounded pleased. “No one asked me. No one talked to me. I don’t want in. I’ve never wanted in.”

  He shook his head, his hands reaching out to cover hers. “Don’t you see, Claire? This is your genius? This is what you were born to do!”

  She pulled her hands away. “Defraud investors? Are you insane?”

  He didn’t roll his eyes, but he came close. “People who can afford it, Claire. We’re talking about the 1% here. People who lobby themselves into living tax-free lives while the government rains trillions down on them. People who exploit labor to fatten their own wallets. They’re not the good guys here.”

  “And you aren’t Robin Hood,” she snapped back, surprised at the anger in her voice. “I never asked for this. I thought you didn’t either.”

  “This is where you belong, Claire!” he said with quiet enthusiasm. “You’re so much better at this than even I expected, which is why I need to stay in here. You keep things going while I go to trial, and then we’ll have the trial fall apart because of lack of evidence and overzealous prosecution and all that stuff that makes good headlines. I’ll be released and make a statement that I feel I can’t return to my job because of the defamation to my character. I bring a civil suit against the state then go off radar after I take a settlement. It’s perfect cover for when we all get our payouts. You already have a rich family, so you don’t need a cover story. But when this is all over, none of us will ever have to work again. Don’t you see? It’s perfect.”

  Claire had no words. Once upon four weeks ago, this man had been her mentor. Her idol. One critique from him would send her into a flurry of self-correction. She had walked away from prestigious universities and fellowships to stay by this man’s side, and now he was sitting in front of her in a prison jumpsuit asking her to help him not only defraud investors, but the government?

  What in the world had happened to him? When had he changed…or had he always been like this?

  “Say yes, Claire,” he said, his hand covering hers again.

  She flinched away. “How long have you been thinking like this?”

  Ryan hesitated, his gaze dropping down and to the side. Shame? All this talking about defrauding everyone he could without a hint of guilt, but he felt shame over the timeline?

  “I’ve been very open with
you,” he skirted. “From the first draft of your thesis eighteen months ago, I told you I thought it had enormous real-world potential.”

  “And I never disagreed,” she replied. “But there are protocols in place for testing new theories. Studies—totally legal and ethical studies—we could conduct to prove or disprove the concept.”

  “Which we both know your process doesn’t need,” he said dismissively. “It works. The only variable in determining effectiveness is the competency of the person applying it. I can attest more than anyone that there’s a definitely learning curve to your system. I was getting better, but…” He shook his head. “$162 million in four weeks, Claire? Do you understand what you did? How amazing you are?”

  Words that would have meant a whole lot more to her 24 hours ago. She shook her head.

  “Just take some time to think about it, will you?” he asked. “You get rich, and no one gets hurt. Not really.”

  He had to be kidding, only he wasn’t. Looking at his arrogant smile, Claire could see that her professor honestly thought he could take the money and run.

  “It’s a big world out there, Claire,” he urged. “You can be one of the slaves who clocks in and out every day, or you can live above that. It’s up to you.”

  Claire rubbed her temples, unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth while belatedly remembering that Jack was hearing them all real-time with her. The realization that not only was Ryan not the man she thought he was, but that Jack was going to make sure none of Ryan’s dreams came true hit her like a bittersweet wave.

  All her life she’d wanted to believe that there were good people out in the world. Not everyone could be as self-serving and mercurial as her parents. Could they?

  “You? Me?” Ryan said, leaning forward and trying to catch her eye. “We deserve more, Claire. At some point you need to change the theory of a light bulb into an actual light bulb and let the world pay you for it.”

  Heaven help her, it was like listening to her father. “If I wanted to have conversations like this, I’d be going home for Thanksgiving.”

  He smiled at that. “Your mom said that was likely why you were pushing away from using your skills for profit. You fear turning out like your brothers.”

  Claire snapped to attention. “Wait! Rewind. My mom? When did you talk to my mom?”

  He blinked as if the question caught him off guard. “What do you mean, when?” She could tell his heart was pounding when he added, “We talked when she came to your graduation.”

  “You talked to her for like five minutes.”

  “During which I gave her a card and told her I wanted to talk to her about your potential,” he said. “She invited me to her hotel that night. We talked over drinks.”

  Claire was quite certain the blood drained out of her face. Knowing her mom, there was no way that visit had ended platonically. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Then two moments. Then three.

  Breathe. She needed to breathe.

  “It was a very enlightening discussion,” he said, and though she refused to look at him when he said it, she heard the smile in his voice.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “You were born for this, Claire,” he lured. “Your father created his empire by making sales and getting people to invest. You have the same gift.”

  “He sells real estate,” she reminded him. “Totally legal.”

  Ryan leaned forward, a twinkle in his eye. “And you just made more in four weeks than he’s made in his entire career. Think about that, Claire.”

  Oh, she was thinking about a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them.

  “You have to do it,” he said after a pause, his voice much cooler. “You need to play this out, if nothing else. They’ll kill you if you don’t. They’ll target your family first to help motivate you, then they’ll kill you.”

  She could barely see straight with the anger raging through her. “But not you? You’re safe?”

  He shrugged. “I’m playing my part. I’m doing what I’m told. That makes me safe.”

  He believed that. She could see it in his eyes. He absolutely believed he was safe and that everything was going his way.

  “You can be safe, too, Claire,” he said, his eyes losing their friendliness. “Do as you’re told, and we all walk away safe and rich. Do you understand?”

  Claire didn’t respond. She couldn’t. All she wanted to do was put as much distance as possible between her and Ryan as quickly as she could. So she did.

  Chapter 24

  Margot and Jack sat watched the feed in silence until Claire stormed her way out of the prison’s visitor lobby.

  “Wow,” Margot said. “I don’t have much of a heart, but even I thought that was brutal. He didn’t even pretend to care about her.”

  Jack nodded, his ears trying to discern if Claire was crying as Margot picked up a tablet and used it to bring up a folder of documents on the smart screen that took up the entire wall opposite her desk.

  “Speaking of sucky men in Claire Ramsey’s life,” Margot said, expanding each of the files in the folder to cascade across the screen. “It would seem Natasha doesn’t have the corner on illegitimate children, nor does she have the lead.” She brought up an image that showed eight faces, ranging from around twelve to maybe forty. “Daddy dearest has eight children he’s paid a good deal of money to make sure he never meets. I assume you can use that.”

  Jack nodded, taking in each of the faces. What kind of man denied his own children? “I can definitely use that.”

  Margot shook her head. “It’s a wonder Claire trusts any men at all—or people, for that matter. Finding a decent person in her life is like finding a trout in the Dead Sea. By all accounts, she should be a sociopath.”

  Yet she’s kind, Jack thought to himself, equally amazed. Innocent. Although he had a feeling Eastman had just thrown a brick at all that.

  “I want her to meet you and Ren.”

  Margot froze in surprise. “What?”

  Jack nodded, feeling more confident after saying it out loud. “We’ll meet offsite tonight and Claire will be there.”

  “That’s not how we play this game, Jack. Ren and I stay anonymous.”

  “Not this time,” he said, looking her way. “You just said it. Claire needs people she can trust, and that’s not me right now. But she trusted Kali, and she’ll trust you and Ren. We’ll need that if she’s going to make through all the twists and turns the next seventy-two hours is going throw at her.”

  Margot didn’t like it. Jack could read that in her eyes plain as day. But disliking and disagreeing were two different balls of wax.

  “I’ll arrange a meeting spot,” she said, giving him her back as she said it.

  “Thanks, Margot. You’re the best.”

  “I know.”

  Chapter 25

  Unfortunately, life didn’t have a pause button. If it did, Claire would be pushing it with all she had to give herself time to recover from the bombshell that Ryan had been in on everything from the beginning.

  He’d set her up.

  It didn’t seem unreasonable that Claire should be given a day or two to process that. But instead of alone time and a mountain of chocolate, her fake roommate was driving her to a meeting somewhere on the outskirts of the city to plan how they were going to get all the investors their money back without painting a target on her in the process.

  I liked Ryan, was all she could think as Jack drove her to a small apartment outside Vegas. I really thought I liked him. Realizing who the man actually was compared to who she’d thought he was felt like a big punch to her intelligence. How had she missed so many red flags?

  “We’re here,” Jack said, pulling into a covered parking garage and putting on a baseball cap. He handed her one that matched. “Keep your chin down. Let the bill block your face.”

  “Okay,” she looked around. 2008 Mini Cooper, 2016 Honda Civic, 2015 Jaguar XF. “Where are we?”

  He sent her a weak
smile. “At your first club meeting. Ready to meet the crew?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said, pulling on the cap.

  “Good,” he said, looking serious again. “I cannot reinforce the importance of never discussing who you are about to meet and what you are about to talk about with anyone. Ever.”

  Claire noted the tension in Jack’s body…the clench of his unshaven jaw…the folding in his brow…and the slight fisting of the hand at his side. His words weren’t posturing. They were pure honesty.

  His eyes searched hers. “These are amazing people who live in a very different world than you do. They’ve agreed to help you, but you can never speak of it.” He pointed to the parking garage’s elevator, his hazel eyes looking deeply into hers. “You can go back to normal life after this, Claire, but you can’t ever—and I mean ever—talk about anyone or anything that happens from here on out.”

  “I understand,” she said, somehow encouraged by the intensity of his warning. If Jack’s warning told her nothing else, it made it clear that she was dealing with people who would be just as good at keeping her secret as she would be keeping theirs. People like Kali, who could outsmart her—a genius—without breaking a sweat. People like Jack, who had convinced her—a body language expert—that he was a full-on dandy for four weeks straight. He’d marked her, profiled her, and flawlessly formed himself into her perfect roommate.

  Claire could respect that these were not normal people. They were intelligent, decisive risk takers. Claire knew she was intelligent, but she was behind the curve when it came to decisiveness and risk taking. But behind the curve or not, life was a come-as-you-are event. Fairy godmothers didn’t arrive to primp you for a ball. You just had to make do with what you had on hand.