Erica Orloff - The Golden Girl

“That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard of. We’re a corporation. We’re not some cover for illegal elements of society. We don’t even know mobsters. And who’s the Duke?”

“Someone we’ve been after a long time. We think he’s got his hand in nearly everything—prostitution, money laundering, drugs. And we’re convinced he’s someone in your social sphere.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Might seem so…but Claire was onto something. She had files and banking papers to prove it.”

“But…” Madison looked down at the table, steeling herself for these new revelations. “I had nothing to do with it. And my father…I mean, I was so angry with them, but I believe he loved her. So does this mean she was planning on turning against him?”

“We don’t know. She was supposed to meet her contact in the agency the night she was killed. She didn’t show up at the meeting point and instead turned up dead in the warehouse.”

“Who was her contact?”

Troy looked her directly in the eye. “Me.”

“And you had no idea what she was going to say? What she had found as far as proof?”

He shook his head. “She only said it was irrefutable. That Pruitt & Pruitt was into some stuff that would make the Enron boys look like Boy Scouts. She was scared. Terrified, actually.”

“Did she implicate my father?”

He shook his head. “She wouldn’t say on the telephone. She was getting nervous, jumpy. That’s when I secured a job in the management-training program.”

“So I’m supposed to find out what my own company is into.”

He nodded solemnly. “Even if that means it goes right to the top.”

“It won’t,” Madison said. But now, even she was starting to have doubts. She felt as if she had entered a hall of mirrors—and nothing in her world was what it once seemed.

Chapter 5

There was no use in hiding forever. When Monday morning came, Madison went to the office. The photographers had eased off quite a bit, but around the office some people were crying. A few, who’d been away for the weekend, hadn’t even heard until they arrived for work.

As she walked through the impressive executive-level offices at Pruitt & Pruitt, she noticed how both she and her father were looked at more intently than usual. Though Madison, at first, had been scrutinized closely right after college when she started working, after a while, people got used to her being “the big guy’s daughter.” When her colleagues saw she was a superstar, when they saw she was in the office by six forty-five in the morning and was usually the last to leave—sometimes at ten or eleven at night—they stopped thinking of it as nepotism and started thinking of her as the future leader of their company. After a while, Madison had relaxed and no longer felt as if she was in a fishbowl—until now.

Her father called her into his office. The two of them had corner suites in opposite corners of the top floor. His was furnished to impress with a desk bigger than some conference tables, and floor-to-ceiling windows behind him revealed the skyline—his skyline. One of Pruitt’s towers dominated the center of his view.

After Madison shut the door, he started into her.

“You’re attacked in your own apartment, and then I can’t get ahold of you for two days? That’s just unprofessional, Madison. You’ve got to hold yourself together. And that includes in here. Everyone’s watching us to see how we handle the situation. You need to stay focused and professional every minute of the day. Pulling a disappearing act is childish.”

“Professional?” Madison arched an eyebrow. “You want me to remain professional? I’m sure everyone thought it was professional when you started sleeping with in-house counsel—a woman your daughter’s age. Oh, no, wait, not just your daughter’s age but her best friend.”

She saw him clench his jaw.

“That was uncalled for.”

“Hmmph,” she snorted. “There was so much uncalled for in your relationship, I don’t know where to start. And now she’s gone.”

Jack Pruitt stared at his daughter—glared at her was more like it. And she gave it right back at him—which she’d been doing since she was a precocious kid off to nursery school, who insisted on not holding hands. But then, he did something completely uncharacteristic. He put his palms to his face, and his voice grew hoarse with emotion, “Maddie, I swear to you, we never meant to hurt you. And now, I feel like my world is shattered.”

It took a few seconds, but Madison softened. “Oh, Dad…I’m sorry. I miss her, too. This is all just like a bad dream.”

“Her parents are having her cremated. And they refuse to let me attend the memorial service. They’re taking her home to Boston. They never approved of us. Worse, everyone’s looking at me, as if I could have harmed her. I couldn’t have hurt a hair on her head, Maddie. You have to believe me.”

“I do,” Madison said softly.

“I’m sure our stock is also going to take a tumble. If this case doesn’t get solved soon, if they don’t bring her killer to justice, I have no doubt the board of directors will ask me to pull a Martha Stewart. They’ll keep me as a figurehead, but install a new CEO.”

“Well…it would be temporary, even if they did that. But I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“If it ever becomes necessary, you better be named CEO.”

“What about Uncle Bing?”

“Eh…you know, he’s great, but he’s not as involved in the day-to-day as you are.”

Madison nodded. “All right, Dad. Listen, I have a negotiation for the new hotel in the Meatpacking District. I’ve got to get going. You hang in there.”

“I will. Look, while Marcus tries to figure out that security breach on your apartment, I thought of having Frank Killian come in and act as your personal bodyguard.”

“No!” Madison said a little too hastily.

“Why? Your safety should be the most important thing, Maddie. Think of Claire. We still have no idea who killed her—or why. And you seem to be the next target.”

“No, Dad,” Maddie said, more measured, calmer. “I just meant that I have Charlie to drive me anyplace. Marcus has been posting an extra guy outside my apartment at night. I’ll be fine.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “But we’ll play it by ear.”

Maddie nodded and left the office. What she hadn’t said was that Frank Killian would make her undercover work impossible. There’d be no way she could fool him, slip away when she needed to, nothing. Charlie…well, he was devoted, but she still had her own life. Killian was the type of security professional who didn’t even let her use the restroom alone.

Walking briskly back to her office, she soon got lost in her day, racing from meeting to meeting. Next thing she knew, her watch read two o’clock. She hadn’t taken a lunch break, and her head was pounding. On top of that, it was time to head to Harlem. Her charity, the Harlem Charter School for Excellence, was expecting her.

Maddie changed in the private bathroom off her office. The bathroom was equipped with a shower stall big enough for five people, a whirlpool tub and an immense walk-in closet, none of which she ever used, except the closet. She wasn’t a clotheshorse. Not in the traditional sense. In fact, she employed a personal shopper named Vanessa Guzman, who basically stocked both her personal and professional wardrobe so Maddie didn’t have to shop. She was too impatient to waste her time—another trait she’d inherited from her father.

Still, she liked designer clothes, sunglasses, shoes and bags—and she liked to dress in an unfussy, clean, elegant way that recalled a timelessness. She liked showcasing new designers when she had a charity ball or holiday party. Ashley Thompson had showcased her clothes choices in Chic —a photo essay on “young heiresses.” According to Tallulah James, a young designer who’d branched out on her own after apprenticing with Richard Tyler, after Madison appeared in Chic in the infamous “Hepburn” dress, a little black number that brought to mind a sexier “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Tallulah received enough orders to put her firm in the black—after one season—which was unheard of.