Erica Orloff - The Golden Girl

She worked for an hour, barely glancing up. Then, after a while, she felt this nagging idea. Who was going to clean out Claire’s office?

She rose from her desk and crept down the hall. Feeling guilty for sneaking around, she then berated herself internally. You head this company, Madison. Get a grip. You owe it to your shareholders to go look around.

Madison walked more purposefully through the empty hallways to the elevators and took an elevator two flights down to the legal department. She walked to Claire’s office, trembling for a minute at the sight of her friend’s name on the brass plaque. Maddie still couldn’t believe she was gone.

She opened the door and turned on the lights. Claire’s office was a reflection of who she’d been. She collected Steuben-glass pieces, which she displayed in a glass cabinet in the corner of her office. On the walls hung reproductions of Degas paintings—Claire had been a ballerina, training for years until a knee injury forced her to rethink her plans for college and life.

Madison felt as if she was walking into a shrine. She walked around the office, remembering lunches when they sat at Claire’s conference table and ate delivered sushi or delectable pastas from one of their favorite restaurants. Whether poring over real-estate contracts or laughing over a rare night together on the town, they could read each other’s thoughts—more like sisters than friends.

She strode over to Claire’s file cabinets. They were locked, of course. She knew the police had poked around and tried to seize Claire’s laptop—but Pruitt’s lawyers had given them a tough time and sent them packing with instructions to return with warrants. Moving to Claire’s desk, it was also locked, but Maddie knew she kept the key in a Steuben bowl in the cabinet. She found it, opened the desk, and in turn found the key to the filing cabinets. Everything looked in order—and in truth, Maddie had no idea what she was really looking for.

In the second-to-last file cabinet, though, she found something peculiar. Every other cabinet was stuffed to the brim with papers. This one was fairly full, but one file marked “WATERSIDE TOWERS/FINANCING” was empty. Not so much as a shred of paper.

Maddie looked at the file folder in back of the empty one, and the one in front of it, in case the paperwork was just misfiled, but there was no sign of it. Maddie decided to ask Claire’s paralegal about it the next day—Waterside Towers would one day stand on the site of the old warehouse where Claire’s body had been found.

Shutting the file-cabinet drawer, Maddie heard someone in the hallway, heavy footfalls. Heart beating wildly, she looked around and quickly stepped into Claire’s private bathroom, shutting the door except for a sliver.

From the darkened bathroom, Maddie watched in horror as her father strode into the room. He had a look of irritation on his face and made a beeline for the cabinet with the missing file. When he discovered the Waterfront Towers file missing, he cursed under his breath. And when he stood, he kicked the drawer for good measure, and then strode out of the office, turning off the lights as he left.

Madison shrunk back from the door and sat down on the ceramic-tiled steps leading into the tub. Putting her head down onto her knees, she squeezed her eyes shut. Now what? She had told Troy and Renee that she was absolutely convinced of her father’s innocence. Yet Renee had told her, the day she arrived to enlist in the undercover agency, that her allegiance had to be to the truth, first and foremost. Maddie had told her that she understood—that she was committed to finding out the truth, not just on this case, but on future cases as well.

But what if the truth all led to one conclusion? And what if that conclusion destroyed not only the corporation she was dedicated to, but her relationship with her father? She was starting to wonder if being an undercover agent would carry with it a price tag, for all her wealth, that she was unable or unwilling to pay.

After seeing her father in Claire’s office, Madison decided a trip to Waterside Towers was in order. Tonight—even if it was eleven o’clock.

Because everything about her undercover work had been expedited, and because she had always had a conceal-and-carry permit, she had been issued a Glock, which she hadn’t felt necessary to wear. When she arrived at work that morning, she had locked it in her lower-desk drawer. Now she retrieved it and then left the high-rise offices of Pruitt & Pruitt via the elevator to the parking garage. That was one of the perks of being an executive there. Though there wasn’t enough parking for all the employees, those from Senior VP on up got a reserved parking space. Because Madison was, after all, a Pruitt, she got two. She used one to house her second car, an adorable Aston Martin V12 Vanquish painted metallic blue. She climbed behind the wheel, revved up the engine and pulled out of the garage and onto the streets of Manhattan, heading over to the West Side Highway.

She had always loved the West Side Highway. Yes, it had some potholes, but it snaked along the Hudson River, affording a view of the New Jersey side of the water, then, the George Washington Bridge stretched across the Hudson connecting New York City to the other side of New York and, to the south, New Jersey. Maddie loved the sight of the bridge. It was simply majestic at night.

She sped along the highway, and then cut across the GWB, looking often in her rearview mirror. The Aston Martin was fast—and it was small enough that she zipped in and out of lanes. What bothered her was about thirty cars back, so did another car, but because she hadn’t seen anyone in the garage, she tried to tell herself it was coincidence.

After she got to the Jersey side, she ended up heading south to the waterfront property. What was going to make the tower site spectacular was not only the view of Manhattan, but its easy accessibility to a high-speed ferry to the city and back again, making the towers a commuter’s dream.

She didn’t see anyone following her, and about fifteen minutes later, she pulled up to the warehouse. The site was locked with heavy padlocks and chains binding together a chain-link fence. Security lights would come on automatically as she stepped foot on the ground. However, since the warehouse was condemned to be destroyed, and it was abandoned, it was not guarded by an alarm system. The former attack dogs used by the owners Pruitt & Pruitt were purchasing the land from were also now gone.

Maddie took a deep breath. Troy had told her not to go off on her own, but if her father knew something about the Towers and Claire’s death, better to find out by herself.

Maddie opened her car door and stepped out. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. She took off her blazer, checked that her weapon was loaded and stuck it into the holster she had put on. She took her cell phone from her purse, put it on vibrate and walked over to the chain-link fence. It rose up around eight feet, but Madison didn’t have a fear of heights. She stuck the toe of her right boot into one of the holes in the fence and began climbing. When she got to the top, she swung a leg over and then carefully climbed down the other side. As she started walking to the warehouse, a German shepherd came out of seemingly nowhere, baring its teeth at her and barking like crazy. So much for the attack dogs being gone.

Maddie knew if she ran, she’d be bitten. And she didn’t want to shoot a dog that was just doing its job. Slowly reaching down, she grabbed a two-by-four that was on the ground near her. She moved slowly, calmly, looking the dog in the eye. Sure, she thought, I’d like to see what Jimmy Valentine would say to do here. Who was she kidding? A real agent would shoot the dog, but the place was abandoned, so she hoped to avoid that unless it became absolutely necessary.