Erica Orloff - The Golden Girl

She parked the car next to the cemetery. Troy climbed out and said, “I’m going to go check out the church, see if maybe the minister or his wife is there.”

“Okay, I’m going to find the baby’s grave.”

Maddie walked through the wrought-iron gates—unlocked and open—and began strolling down the rows of graves. Most were neat and tidy, but near the edge of the cemetery, along a row of trees, the graves were more haphazard and dated from the turn of the century. The dates were nearly faded in the stone by years of weathering and wear.

She saw, also near several trees, a very large mausoleum. Maddie walked over to it, her feet crunching in the dead autumn leaves.

She read the inscription carved in white marble: Angels and Saints of the Pruitt Family. An enormous wrought-iron gate, about fourteen feet high, stood in front. She pressed on the gate, and it opened easily. Five marble steps led down into a tunnel-like entrance to the mausoleum. Maddie walked down, and allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Inside the mausoleum it was about ten or fifteen degrees cooler than the already-brisk fall air, and she shivered slightly. In the pale light that seeped in from the entrance, she saw a single tile in a wall engraved: William Charles Pruitt III, beloved son and brother, 1947–1948. Maddie’s eyes welled for a moment, thinking of how her poor grandmother must have been crushed by the crime. She ran her fingertips along the engraved marble, its feel icy to the touch. She shook her head ever so slightly. What could this poor baby’s death have to do with Claire’s murder? Little William was murdered, too. But how could the two murders many decades apart have anything to do with each other?

Maddie was completely puzzled. And, lost in her own private thoughts, she never heard the attacker sneak up on her and hit her over the head with a metal pipe. She only saw blackness as she collapsed to the ground.

Chapter 12

Hours later, her teeth chattering, Maddie woke up. At least she thought it was hours later. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been a day. All she knew was it was pitch-black. And she was cold, colder than she had ever been. And she had a splitting headache. She could hear two men whispering outside, and she struggled to sit up, the movement sending shattering waves of pain through her temples and neck.

Quietly, she felt at her back. Her gun was still there. No one knew she was an agent, and whoever was after her would have no idea she was carrying a weapon. She guessed they thought she was just a curious heiress looking into her past, or into whatever mystery Claire had stumbled on. Was this how Claire had met her death? Was some of it from snooping into a long-forgotten murder? And where was Troy?

Maddie quietly pulled herself into a standing position and crept closer to the opening to outside. She pulled her gun from its holster. In the darkness, she saw one man’s face slightly illuminated by the glow from a cigarette. She didn’t recognize him. She overheard the other man say, “We wait for the word. I think just getting rid of her fits with the plan anyway.”

She didn’t recognize his voice or his profile in the dark, either. But she was scared. Getting rid of her?

The two men stood close together, talking in low voices.

“She’ll be out cold for a week. Or dead,” the taller one said, laughing a little.

Maddie knew she had to get them both. If she left one standing, she was as good as dead.

Taking her gun, she aimed at the taller one and fired, hitting him between the shoulder and his chest, and spinning him around. He fell to the ground with a weird sort of grunt, and the other one drew his gun, facing her in the darkness. “What the fuck!” he shouted.

He aimed wildly in the dark, missing her, and she heard the bullet echo inside the mausoleum. He fired again, and she ducked, then took aim from a crouching position and fired. She hit him in the leg, but she guessed it was just a grazing bullet, because though he cursed, he was still standing. She took advantage of his pain, though, to slip out of the mausoleum and dash out into the cemetery.

Over her head another bullet whistled, and she heard him on his cell phone shouting he had “trouble.”

She dived behind a large headstone. If she called 911 or local police, she feared some inexperienced country cop would get killed. She was convinced she had to escape herself—and find Troy. Fear coursed through her. What if they had killed Troy? She was on her own and would have to think and operate like an agent until she found her partner. Screw these bastards. She had been underestimated in the boardroom before, and she didn’t like it. And now these guys had no idea who they were messing with.

From behind the headstone, she fired at her assailant. She missed, and he fired back.

The moon was just a sliver, and it gave off little light. She squinted and dove for a different headstone, one a few yards down and closer to where she’d parked her car. She scrunched down. She only had a single clip in her weapon. Scaring him off wasn’t an option. She had to stop him in his tracks. With her adrenaline pumping, her heart pounding wildly, she forgot her pain just a bit. She knew she had to get out of the cemetery and to her car.

Peering over the headstone, she saw the man limping and leaning on another headstone, crouching slightly. She guessed he was tending to his existing wound, pressing on it, staunching the blood flow. She couldn’t afford to show mercy. As thoughts ran through her mind of little baby William, and Claire, she pointed her gun and fired again. Just as the man crumpled in a heap, she heard Troy call out, “Maddie! Stay down!”

She leaned against a cold headstone. She could see Troy emerge from the shadows, his face bruised, gun drawn.

At least they were both safe. Alive.

It was only now, with the rush of adrenaline slowed, that she began shaking in earnest. It wasn’t the cold. It was the reality that inside of two weeks, her life had been turned upside down. With startling clarity, she realized that she, Madison Taylor-Pruitt, heiress to one of America’s biggest fortunes, may just have killed her first man.

Chapter 13

Madison called in sick the next day—and her father was none too pleased.

“Goddamnit, Madison, what the hell is going on with you? Bing is breathing down my neck over the board meeting, the board itself is up in arms, the police have been here yet again with a search warrant for Claire’s office, and meanwhile, you’re goddamn AWOL. How do you think that looks?”

“How does it look? It looks like I’m sick and can’t come in.”

“Don’t give me that.”

Madison couldn’t believe how her normally coolheaded father was losing it.

“Dad, I’ve been working for you for years now, and I came to work with double pneumonia last winter. So it’s not like I take it lightly. I just am really not feeling well. I think it’s stomach flu. Maybe food poisoning.”

“You want me to send over Dr. Halloway?”

“No.”

“Might as well make him earn his salary.”

“No,” she said more insistently.

“Look…are you pulling this because of Claire? Because your job, Madison, has nothing to do with my personal life. You have—”

“A responsibility to our shareholders.” She said it singsong fashion.

“That’s not funny. You think your position as future CEO here is a joke?”

“No. It’s just that someone I loved, someone you claimed to love, was murdered. And you’re more interested in Wall Street than seeing her killer brought to justice.”

“You act like you’re thirteen years old, Madison. Like you’re some petulant teen, instead of responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars and major shareholder decisions and obligations. I’ve always had to put aside my feelings. And so have you. Now, suddenly, you’re acting completely out of character. I’ll expect you here tomorrow, acting like you support me to the fullest, Madison. I’m counting on you, but if you don’t care about that—and it appears you don’t—then the company is counting on you. If we take a major market dive, then people, employees, who have given their years in dedication and service to us, will be out of jobs. That can be on your conscience.”