by J. R. Ward
"We're not together." She waved her hand. "There's no relationship. It's not anything that makes sense, actually."
"Well . . ." Dagney stared into her eyes. "Edward Baldwine is a fool, then."
Sutton opened her mouth to deny it, but the man in front of her wasn't an idiot. "There's nothing going on between us, and I guess I still need to get that through my head. And also because of my new role, it's not a great time for me."
"At the risk of being forward, I just want to say that in the future, I'm willing to be your rebound." He laughed. "Yes, that is desperate, but I'm way out of practice with all this, and you are a very intelligent, very beautiful woman who deserves a good man."
"I'm sorry."
"Me, too." He put out his palm for a shake. "But at least we're going to see a lot of each other, especially with this new job of yours."
"Yes, we will."
She left his hand where it was and stepped in to embrace him. "And I look forward to it."
He held her briefly and lightly and then eased back. "Boys? Let's go."
The state police escorted the governor over to the two black-on-black SUVs, and a moment later, the motorcade formed, a pair of police motorcyclists falling in line.
Sadness closed in on her from behind, giving a chill to the balmy night air.
"Damn you, Edward," she whispered to the wind.
EIGHTEEN
The following morning, Lane stepped out of his bedroom suite at Easterly in a good mood. But that didn't last as he looked down the hall, and saw luggage outside his grandfather's room.
"Oh, no, you don't."
Stalking over to the stacked bags, he didn't bother knocking on the partially opened door. "Jeff, you are not leaving."
His old college roommate looked up from a prodigious pile of papers on the old desk. "I have to get back to New York, buddy--"
"I need you--"
"--but I've made sure I have everything ready for the Feds." The guy indicated various printouts and held up a flash drive. "I've created a summary of--"
"You're miserable on Wall Street, you realize."
"--the withdrawals that I've found. It's all right here. Just give them this drive, actually, and they'll know what to do. They can call me with questions. I'll leave my card and my cell phone number."
"You have to stay."
Jeff cursed and rubbed his eyes. "Lane, I'm not some magic talisman that's going to make this all go away. I'm not even the best man for this kind of thing. I also have no official role at the company and no legal authority."
"I trust you."
"I already have a job."
"That you hate."
"No offense, but my paychecks are huge and they don't bounce."
"You have more money than you need. You may live in a modest Midtown apartment, but you're sitting on a fortune."
"Because I don't do stupid things. Like leave perfectly good work --"
"Miserable work."
"--for a forest fire."
"Well, at least you'll be warm. And we can toast marshmallows. Wassup."
Jeff broke out laughing. "Lane."
"Jeff."
His friend crossed his arms over his chest and pushed his metrosexual glasses up higher on his nose. In his white button-down oxford and his black slacks, he looked like he was prepared to go to his office directly from landing at Teterboro, N.J., airport.
"Tell me something," the guy started.
"No, I don't know the square root of anything, I can't do that pi thing to the nth degree, and if you ask me why the caged bird sings, at the moment, I'm feeling like it's because the damn thing has a gun to its head."
"Why haven't you called the Feds yet?"
Lane went on a wander, heading over to the bank of windows that overlooked the side gardens and the river. Down below, in the morning sunlight, the Ohio was a gorgeous, shimmering pathway to Charlemont's business district, as if those glass-and-steel buildings were some kind of nirvana.
"There were crimes committed, Lane. Are you protecting your father even though he's dead?"
"Hell no."
"So drop a dime."
"We're a privately held corporation. If there was malfeasance, my family are the ones who were damaged. It's our money that was lost, not that of thousands of shareholders. It's no one else's problem or concern."
"You're kidding me, right." His old roommate stared across at him like there was a horn growing out of his forehead. "Laws were broken because improper disclosures were filed with the state attorney general and the IRS. I found discrepancies in your mandatory annual reports. You could be brought up on federal charges for collusion, Lane. Hell, I could, too, now that I know what I do."
Lane glanced over his shoulder. "Is that why you're going?"
"Maybe."
"What if I said I could protect you?"
Jeff rolled his eyes and went over to a duffel on the bed. As he zipped the thing closed, he shook his head. "You entitled motherfuckers think the world revolves around you. That the rules are different just because you come from a family tree with some money."
"The money's gone, remember."
"Look, either you call in law enforcement, or I'm going to have to. I love you like a brother, but I'm not willing to go to jail for you--"
"Down here things are taken care of."
Jeff straightened and cranked his head around. He opened his mouth. Then shut it. "You sound like a mobster."
Lane shrugged. "It is what it is. But when I say I can protect you, it includes against things like the government."
"You're crazy."
Lane just stared at his old friend. And the longer he met those eyes behind those glasses, the paler Jeff became.
After a moment, Jeff sat down on the bed and braced his hands on his knees. Staring across the elegant room, he said softly, "Shit."
"No, not shit. You stay here, find out everything that happened, and I will deal with it privately. That's the course we're going to take."
"And if I refuse?"
"You're going to stay."
"Is that a threat?"
"Of course not. You're one of my oldest friends."
But they both knew the truth. The man was going nowhere.
"Jesus Christ." Jeff put a hand to his temple like his head was pounding. "If I'd known what kind of rabbit hole this was, I never would have come down here."
"I'm going to take care of you. Even without the money, there are too many people who owe my family. I have plenty of resources."
"Because you're going to coerce them, too?"
"It is what it is."
"Fuck you, Lane--"
"Let's play this out, okay? You finish what you started, maybe it takes you another week, and then you're free to go. No harm, no foul. It's like you were never here. I'll take it from there."
"And if I leave now?"
"I really can't let you do that. I'm sorry."
Jeff shook his head like he wanted to wake up from a bad dream. "The real world doesn't run like this anymore, Lane. This isn't the fifties. You Bradford types can't control things like you used to. You can't bury accountability in the backyard just because it's inconvenient or you think a veil of privacy is more important than the law of the land. And as for me? Don't push me. Don't put me in this position."
"You're not the only one with information, though." Lane walked over to the desk and picked up the flash drive. "Somehow, I don't think your professional reputation up in Manhattan would survive the disclosure of the gambling ring you ran in college. Students at five universities ran hundreds of thousands of dollars through you and your system of bookies, and before you go down the water-under-the-bridge argument, I'll remind you that it was illegal and of such a large scale that you yourself have some RICO stain on you."
"Fuck you."
"It is what it is."
Jeff looked down at the cuffs on his business shirt for a while. Then he shook his head again. "Man, you are just like your father."
/>
"The hell I am--"
"You're blackmailing me! What the fuck!"
"This is about survival! You think I want to do this? You think I'm getting off strong-arming one of my best friends to stick in the viper pit with me? My father would have enjoyed this--I hate it! But what else am I supposed to do?"
Jeff got to his feet and hollered right back. "Call the fucking Feds! Be normal instead of some kind of Kentucky Fried Tony Soprano!"
"I can't do that," Lane said grimly. "I'm sorry, but I can't. And I'm sorry . . . but I need you, and I'm in the tragic situation of having to do anything in my power to make you stay."
Jeff jabbed a finger across the tense air. "You're an asshole if you go down this road. And that doesn't change just because you're playing the poor-me card."
"If you were in my situation, you'd do the same."
"No, I wouldn't."
"You don't know that. Trust me. Shit like this changes everything."
"You got that right," Jeff snapped.
Flashbacks of them as college students at U.Va., in the frat house, in class, on vacations that Lane paid for, filtered through his mind. There had been poker games, and practical jokes, women and more women--especially on Lane's part.
He had never once thought the guy wouldn't be in his life. But he was out of time, out of options, and at the end of the rope.
"I'm not like my father," Lane said.
"So delusion also runs in your family. Quite a gene pool you people have got, quite a motherfucking gene pool."
*
"Here's the company directory. There's the phone. Um . . . the computer. This is a desk. And . . . yup, this is a chair."
As Mack ran out of gas, he glanced around the reception area in front of his office at the Old Site. Like maybe someone would jump out from behind the rustic furniture and give him an orientation lifeline.
The Perfect Beth, as he was coming to think of her, just laughed. "Don't worry. I'll figure it out. Do I have a user name and password to get into the system?" At his blank look, she tapped the directory. "Okaaaaay, so I'm going to call the IT department and get that started. Unless HR is already on it?"
"Ah . . ."
She took her purse off her shoulder and put it under the desk. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything. Did you even let them know I've been hired?"
"I . . ."
"Right, how about you send them an e-mail? And tell them I'll be calling around various places to get everything up and rolling?"
"I want you to know, in spite of the stunning incompetence I'm currently throwing around here, I am stellar at many things. Making bourbon being chief among them."
As she smiled at him, Mack found himself looking into her eyes for a little too long. In her red blouse and her black skirt and her flat shoes, she was everything that was competent, attractive and smart.
"Well, I'm good at my job, too," Beth said. "This is why you hired me. So you take care of your stuff, I'll take care of mine, and we'll be set--"
The Old Site's cabin door opened, and Lane Baldwine walked in looking like he'd been in a car wreck and left the injuries untreated: his face was drawn, his hair a mess, his movements as coordinated as a jar of spilled marbles.
"We're going for a ride," he said grimly. "Come on."
"Beth Lewis, my new executive assistant, this is Lane Baldwine. Yes, he is who you think he is."
As Beth lifted a hand, Mack studiously ignored how awestruck she seemed to be. Then again, Lane had been one of People magazine's most eligible whatevers a couple of times. Also on TV and in magazines and online for dating actresses. And then there had been that Vanity Fair article on the family, where he had played the role of the sexy, commitment-phobic playboy.
Talk about method acting.
And good thing the guy was reformed and in a fully committed relationship or Mack would have wanted to throat punch him.
"Hi," she said. "I'm sorry about your father."
Lane nodded, but didn't seem to really notice her. "Welcome aboard. Mack, we're late."
"I didn't know we had a meeting." But apparently, it was time to hit the road. "Oh, crap. Beth, can you send that e-mail for me?"
As Mack gave her his sign-in details, Lane was already out the door and striding over to his Porsche. "And you'll have to excuse him. There's a lot going on."
Beth nodded. "I totally understand. And I'll take care of everything. Don't worry--oh, what's your cell phone? In case something comes up that I can't handle."
Mack picked up a BBC pad and a pen, and scribbled his digits down for her. "I don't have any meetings scheduled for today--but then, I didn't know I had this one, so who the hell knows what's going to happen next."
"I'll call if I need you."
"I don't know how long I'll be. And I don't know where I'm going."
"Be optimistic. Maybe it's Disneyland."
As he turned away laughing, he told himself not to look back. And he almost made it out the door without pulling a glance over the shoulder.
Almost.
Beth had gone around and sat down at the desktop computer, her fingers flying over the keys. With her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, her face was the picture of professional concentration--but also lovely.
"Any chance you're a U of C fan?" he blurted.
Those blue eyes lifted from the screen and she smiled. "Is there another college in the state? I'm pretty sure there isn't one."
Mack smiled and threw her a wave.
But as he walked over to the Porsche and got in, he wasn't laughing anymore. "What the hell, Lane. You don't return my calls, but show up here pissed off I'm late for something I didn't know about--"
"I'm solving your grain problem, that's what I'm doing." The guy put on a pair of Wayfarers. "And you're coming with me because someone has to tell my solution how much you require. Still mad at me?"
As Lane hit the gas and skidded out of the loose-gravel parking lot, Mack clicked his seat belt into place. "You get me the corn I need, you can slap me across the face with a dead fish if you want."
"I like a man who thinks outside the box. And in my current mood, I'm likely to pull a pescatarian assault like that just on principle."
NINETEEN
The Charlemont International Airport was located south and a little east from the downtown area, and Lane took the Paterson Expressway around the 'burbs instead of fighting with traffic through spaghetti junction. Overhead, the sky was a gorgeous robin's-egg blue and the sun was bright as a theater light, the day presenting itself as if nothing bad could happen to anyone under its auspices.
Of course, appearances could be deceiving.
"You know John Lenghe, right?" Lane said over the breeze as he took the first of the airport exits and entered the ring-a-round.
"Of course I know who he is," Mack shouted back. "Never met him before, though."
"Well, put your Pepsodent on." As he slowed the convertible's velocity, the engine and the wind got quieter. "And get ready to be charming. We have twenty minutes, tops, to persuade him to front us your corn."
"Wait, what? I thought--you mean, we're not buying from him?"
"We can't afford to pay him. So I'm trying to engineer a carry without the cash situation."
Lane took an exit marked RESTRICTED ACCESS and headed over to the airstrip where the private jets landed and took off.
"So no pressure," Mack muttered as they slowed at the check-in kiosk.
"Nope. None at all."
The uniformed guard waved Lane through. "'Mornin', Mr. Baldwine."
"'Morning, Billy. How's Nells?"
"She's good. Thanks."
"Tell her I said hello."
"Always."
Lane proceeded over to the modernist concierge building and kept on going, passing round-topped hangars where hundreds of millions of dollars of aircraft were stabled. The chauffeur entrance to the runways was a motion-activated gate in a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence, and he sped through, the 911 h
itting the tarmac like something out of a magazine ad.
John Lenghe's Embraer Legacy 650 was just coming over, and Lane hit the brakes and killed his engine. As they waited, he thought about him and Jeff going at it.
Man, you're just like your father.
Glancing over at Mack, Lane said, "I should have called beforehand and told you what was up. But right now, there's so much going on, I'm scratching my watch and winding my ass."
Mack shrugged. "Like I told you, we got no problems if my silos are full. But explain something to me."
"What?"
"Where the hell is senior management? It's not like I miss the bastards, but I got voice mail on every single one of them yesterday. Did you fire them all? And you could make my day by telling me that they cried like babies."
"Pretty much. Yup."
"Wait--what? That was a joke, Lane--"
"They're not coming back anytime soon. At least not to the business center at Easterly. Now, as for what they're doing down at headquarters? I haven't a clue--probably looking to throw me off a bridge. But they're next on my fun-filled to-do list today."
As his Master Distiller's jaw dropped open, Lane got out of the convertible and jacked his slacks up. Lenghe's jet was similar to the ones that made up the BBC's fleet of six, and Lane found himself doing the math on selling all that sky-bound steel and glass.
There had to be sixty million right there.
But he was going to need brokers to handle the sales properly. You didn't Craigslist something like an Embraer.
Mack stepped in front of him, the man's big body the kind of thing you couldn't walk through. "So who's running the company?"
"Right now? This moment?" Lane put his finger up to his mouth and cocked his head like Deadpool. "Ah . . . nobody. Yup, if memory serves, there's nobody in charge."
"Lane . . . shit."
"You looking for a desk job? 'Cuz I'm hiring. Qualifications include a high tolerance for power plays, a closet full of tailor-made suits, and a disaffinity for family members. Oh, wait. That was my father and we already got stuck in that rut. So blue jeans and a good mid-court jump shot will work. Tell me, do you still play basketball as well as you used to?"
The jet's portal opened and a set of stairs extended down to the asphalt. The sixty-ish man who emerged had the stocky build of a former football player, a square jaw like an old-school comic book superhero, and was wearing a set of golf shorts and a polo shirt that probably needed safety glasses to be viewed properly.
Neon fireworks against a black background. But somehow, it worked on the guy.
