by Stephen Frey
“You know why I’m calling,” Stevens replied matter-of-factly. “So?”
“So … what?”
“Come on, David. Don’t play me. Did you get the damn e-mail? Did you hear from the man in China?”
“Nope, nothing yet.”
Bart groaned.
But not like he would have if he’d known the truth, Racine figured. “Stop worrying so much. It’ll be all right, Bart.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Racine replied convincingly. “Mao Xilai is going to invest. He’ll jerk us around on terms a bit, but we’ll get the money.”
“I hope so. I believe in you, David. Everyone at the company does.”
“I’ll bring this home.”
“Are you okay?” Bart asked as Racine was about to hang up.
“Sure. Why?”
“Amy and I have been thinking a lot about you lately. What Tess did, well …” Bart’s voice trailed off momentarily. “Why don’t you and Claire come over for dinner this weekend? We’ll grill out.”
“That’s nice, Bart. We’d love to. I’ll see you at the office in a few.”
After ending the call, Racine pushed the laptop aside and allowed his head to sink slowly down onto the table.
“Dad.”
He rose back off the table quickly, jolted by the soft voice. Claire, his fourteen-year-old daughter, stood on the other side of the new kitchen, clad in her school uniform. God, she was growing up fast. Why did she have to look so much like Tess? At least she didn’t act like her mother. Claire had a wonderful heart.
“Hi, honey.”
“Are you okay, Dad?”
“Of course, Claire, I’m fine, just fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks a lot.” He regretted his sarcasm instantly. She was just worried about him. “Really, I’m doing great.” He gestured at the laptop. “Just getting a jump on the day, that’s all.”
As she gazed at him her lower lip began to tremble. “I love you, Dad,” she murmured. “And I hate Mom.”
“No, no,” Racine murmured. “You can’t hate her, honey. You have to love her no matter what because—”
“She’s a bitch.”
The word shocked Racine. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that fourteen-year-olds didn’t already know everything there was to know in this day and age of impossible-to-block information highways. What shocked him was that Claire would say it. He’d never heard anything remotely offensive come from her mouth.
It was definitely something Tess would say, and he hated that she was still influencing their daughter from three thousand miles away. On Monday morning, despite what he’d have to deal with at the company, he’d start the divorce process. He had to face facts. Tess wasn’t coming back.
“Your mother’s going through a hard time.”
“What? We’re the ones going through a hard time. She’s off in California, partying. She’s sent me pictures.”
“It’ll all work out, Claire. I promise.” There he went again, promising things he had little hope of delivering on. But that was life as a CEO and a parent. He found the roles similar in that way.
“How can you be so nice about this, Dad?” Claire asked in a frustrated tone. “I mean, she ditched us.”
Racine gazed into her beautiful bright eyes for a few moments and then looked away when he couldn’t meet the glare any longer. His life was imploding. But that wasn’t the tragedy. As his life went, so did Claire’s. That was the disaster.
She was an eighth grader at St. Catherine’s School, the most prestigious girl’s prep school in Richmond. She was making straight As, her teachers loved her, and she had tons of friends. She had the world in front of her for the taking.
But tuition at St. Catherine’s, even for an eighth grader, was over twenty grand. And Racine had put every penny he could get his hands on into Excel Games—including the proceeds from a second mortgage he’d taken out a few months ago. At this point he had no way to pay for her second semester.
Hell, a week from now, he wouldn’t have a buck for a burger at McDonald’s.
“Get going to school and I’ll see you tonight,” he said, just as the doorbell rang. He rose and headed down the hall toward the foyer.
“Hello,” Racine said politely to the middle-aged man waiting on the stoop when he opened the front door. The man wore a paint-smeared jacket and jeans, along with scuffed construction boots. His leathery face looked vaguely familiar. “Can I help you?”
“Don’t you remember me, Mr. Racine?” the man asked as two younger men emerged from behind the big oak tree in the front yard.
Racine glanced at the two younger men apprehensively as they moved to where the middle-aged man stood. “No. Should I?”
“My sons and I remodeled your kitchen.”
“Oh, that’s right. My wife was the one who worked with you mostly. But now I remember.”
“You owe me forty-seven thousand dollars.”
“I’m sorry, but I—”
“I’ve been calling you a lot. I must have left you fifteen messages.”
Racine winced and nodded. “I’ve been very busy at work. No excuses, but I’m very sorry.”
“You need to pay me.”
“I’ll write you a check as soon as I get to the office.” He couldn’t come close to covering a forty-seven-thousand-dollar bill, but what was he supposed to say? “I’d do it right now, but my checkbook’s at the office.”
“Okay,” the older man agreed in a friendly tone. “I really appreciate that, Mr. Racine. I’m glad this was easy.”
Relief coursed through Racine. The sons seemed relieved, too. This could have gotten nasty.
“And just so I’m sure you’ll remember to write that check, my sons are going to leave you a little reminder.”
Racine tried to slam the door shut as the man’s sons lunged for the door. But one of the young men wedged his boot into the doorway, and then both of them quickly forced the door wide open. One of them grabbed Racine from behind, while the other struck him three times in the gut with wicked punches.
As they took off, Racine collapsed to the foyer floor in a tight fetal position. Eyes shut tightly, he tried desperately to suck air into his lungs as he groaned loudly.
When he was finally able to pry his eyes open, Claire stood in front of him, tears streaming down her face.
CHAPTER 17
JURY TOWN
“Good morning, Ms. Wang.”
“Good morning.”
Kate sat alone in Jury Room Seven. As the previous candidate had instructed, she sat in the middle seat of the jury box’s front row, staring up at the camera, which was affixed to the wall above the stack of electronics equipment in the corner to her left. The four huge screens hanging from the opposite wall were all turned on, which was distracting. The movements on the massive screens kept catching her peripheral vision. But she managed to stay focused on the camera so the attorneys who were sitting in an intimate-looking courtroom in the tiny town of Abingdon in far southwestern Virginia could see her face as she answered. She really wanted to be part of this jury. Then she could always say she was a member of the first jury to ever hear a case at Jury Town.
But that wasn’t the extent of her agenda—far from it.
“Where is your home?”
“Leesburg, Virginia.”
“Where is that located?”
“About forty miles west of Washington.” She glanced to her right so she could see the screens and the two lawyers at the defense table leaning together to confer.
“What was your living arrangement?” one of the men asked as he came back to the microphone.
“Excuse me?” That seemed like a strange question.
“Did you live in an apartment or a house?”
“Oh, I lived in an apartment.” She laughed nervously and tugged on her necklace. “I thought you meant something else.”
“Did you pay the bills?”
&nbs
p; “Yes, I lived there by myself.”
“Who provided your electric service?”
“Um, Commonwealth Electric Power.”
“And you paid that bill yourself?”
“Yes. I just said that, didn’t I?”
“Ever have any problems with Commonwealth?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Ever have any complaints about CEP’s service or had any problems with the bill?”
She shrugged. “No. Everything was always fine. Sometimes we lost power in the summer because of thunderstorms. But they were always real good about getting the lights back on.”
“Okay.” The defense attorney nodded to the prosecutor.
“Are you familiar with any legal problems Commonwealth has?” the prosecutor asked. “Any idea why you’re here?”
Kate raised both eyebrows and shook her head. “No.”
The prosecutor nodded to the defense attorney, then leaned back to the microphone. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Wang. We’d like you to be a member of this jury.”
“Okay,” she said calmly, giving away no hint of the thrill racing through her. She’d been worried that they might have detected her lie in her reaction and her response to the last question. She knew all about CEP’s coal-ash problem in southwestern Virginia outside Abingdon—which, she assumed, was what this case would be about. “Can I go?”
“Yes. Please tell the next prospective juror to come in. His name is Harold Wilson. And could you tell him to sit in the same seat you were sitting in?”
“Sure,” she called back as she headed for the big snack table to the left, which was covered with all kinds of goodies. She was going to grab a few 3 Musketeers Bars. They were her favorite.
GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT
“Did you hear what she did now?” the Gray yelled.
Rockwell held the phone away from his ear. He’d barely said, “hello” before the man blurted out his vitriol. “No, what?”
“She switched out the damn jurors, every damn one of them.”
“What?” Rockwell asked incredulously as he gazed at the computer screen in his Rockwell & Company office. He’d just pulled up the senior management section of the Commonwealth Electric Power website, and he was staring at the confidently smiling picture of the CEO—the brother of the man he was on the phone with right now. “What do you mean?”
“Late last night four buses pulled up to Archer Prison with a hundred and ninety-six people aboard. They got off and went inside. Then the hundred and ninety-six people who’d been bused up there from Richmond yesterday afternoon, the ones who’d attended the opening ceremony, got on the four buses, went back to Richmond and back to their boring lives. We thought the first group was the real juror pool, but obviously it wasn’t. Our contacts were all in that first group, but they were just part of an elaborate hoax Victoria Lewis was playing. That bitch!”
It occurred to Rockwell that the Gray who had called used the words “Archer Prison.” Rockwell had been warned over and over never to use actual names for anything during these telephone conversations. He wondered if the Gray even realized what he’d done.
“Wow.”
It also occurred to Rockwell that Victoria Lewis was turning out to be a formidable enemy.
“The good thing,” the Gray spoke up, “is that we’ve identified three of the people who are in there now, one of whom will be on the jury that I care very deeply about.”
Rockwell glanced at the picture of this man’s brother on the computer screen, wondering how in the world the Grays could have already identified one of the jurors on the Commonwealth Electric trial. At least the Gray hadn’t identified the case by name.
“I want you to check her out,” the Gray continued. “Her name is Felicity West, and she worked for CSX before going inside Archer.”
Rockwell cringed as the man used more names.
“Did you get that?”
“I got it,” Rockwell answered quickly. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of this anymore. For the first time since he’d joined he was hearing desperation in one of the Gray’s voices. People tended to do very stupid things when they were desperate.
“Get back to me as soon as you have anything on her.”
“I will,” Rockwell assured the man.
“What about the woman in Virginia Beach? Have you—”
“I’m already working on that,” Rockwell interrupted loudly. He definitely did not want the Gray mentioning Angela Gaynor’s name on the phone. Some woman named Felicity who’d worked for CSX was one thing. A Virginia state senator was quite another. “I’ll be back to you on both of them by COB today.”
“Good. I look forward to hearing from you ASAP. What about our young friend? Is he going to finish what we—”
“He’s been tasked. Believe me.”
“Fine. Call me as soon as you know anything.”
Rockwell exhaled heavily when the call was over, and for several seconds gazed ahead, suddenly ruing what he’d gotten himself into.
When he’d calmed down, Rockwell searched the Commonwealth CEO’s name on the Internet. It didn’t take him long to find out that the CEO had only one brother. It didn’t take him long to find out what that brother did, either. And it didn’t make him feel any better about the Grays and his situation with them when he saw what the man he’d just been speaking to did for a living when he wasn’t in northern Maine.
“Phil.”
Rockwell’s eyes raced to his office doorway and Shane Harmon, the man who headed the mergers-and-acquisitions department at Rockwell & Company. Fortunately, Rockwell’s screen was positioned such that Harmon couldn’t see it from the door.
“Yes?”
Harmon shook his head, as if he wasn’t sure he actually believed what he was about to say.
“What is it?” Rockwell pushed, a bad feeling coming over him. “What’s wrong, Shane?”
“Nothing. In fact, everything’s awesome.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just got a call from the CEO over at Hydra Corporation. They want us to advise them on the hostile takeover bid they got yesterday. They’re in play, so they know they’re going to be acquired by someone now. But the CEO doesn’t like the outfit that made the hostile tender offer. So he wants us to find him a white knight, or at least goose the hostile offer higher.” Harmon shook his head again. “One way or the other, we stand to make fifty million dollars on this deal, Phil.” Harmon laughed like his ship had just sailed into port with all flags flying. “Fifty million on one deal, Phil, and the publicity we get for being the investment bank on this deal will get me a lot more high-profile deals like this one. It’s unbelievable. I’d like to tell you I expected it, but I really didn’t.”
When Harmon was gone, Rockwell glanced at the computer screen again. The man he’d just been speaking to on the phone before Harmon had interrupted with his incredible news was the number-two official at the National Security Administration. No wonder the Grays could get information on anyone they wanted, whenever they wanted to get it.
He glanced at the doorway again. He was going to earn fifty million dollars on one transaction. As Harmon had candidly admitted, he hadn’t expected it. The Grays had sent another huge fee his way. Now he could buy that chalet high in the Swiss Alps he’d been drooling over for the last five years.
Rockwell clicked away from the Internet, unaware that he was leaving a trail leading from his computer directly to the Grays.
CHAPTER 18
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA
Angela Gaynor closed her eyes as a refreshing breeze blew gently across her face. Like soft bristles of a child’s paintbrush, it tickled her cheeks. She hadn’t always appreciated the sea, not when she was a little, fat girl. But she could now.
“It feels so good to be here,” she murmured, aware of how much more acute the sounds and smells of the sea were with her eyes shut. They were twenty floors above the beach, leaning side by side on th
e balcony railing of Trent’s oceanfront condominium, elbows touching as they gazed out into a gorgeous day. “It’s beautiful, Trent.”
“So was that dinner you put on for those kids and their parents the other night,” he said, “very beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“Know what I was most impressed about, Angie?”
She glanced up at him. “What?”
“You invited as many white kids as blacks.”
“I invited the whole second grade. The neighborhood’s fifty-fifty. It’s that simple. Don’t overanalyze.”
“Still.”
“Still … what?”
“You could have been selective.”
“Why would I?”
“You didn’t like white people when we were kids.”
“Neither did you.”
“I’m not denying it.”
“We lived in an all-black ghetto,” she said deliberately. “All we saw on TV were white people living the good life. Now I know better. Poverty plays no favorites. Many more poor white kids live in this country than poor black kids. I didn’t know that back then.”
“Innocent little white kids grow up to be prejudiced adults.”
“When did you get so cynical?”
“All I’m saying, Angie, is that you’ve got to keep fighting the fight. We have to keep fighting the fight. Too many before us sacrificed too much to ease up on the accelerator now, too many brothers and sisters felt the whip. Worse, they died inside a noose or at the wrong end of a gun. I don’t want you going soft.”
“No one’s going soft,” she snapped. “But I’m going to fight for everyone if I get elected to the United States Senate. I’m going to fight for what’s right, without regard for the color bar.”
“That sounds a lot like going soft to me.”
“I can’t be biased.”
“You have to be biased.”
Angela shook her head, exasperated. “You are amazing.”
“Well, thank you.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“Yeah,” Trent muttered, “somehow I didn’t think so.”
“How much did you make your last season in the NBA?” she asked.
