Home > One of Our Own(7)

One of Our Own(7)
Author: Jane Haddam

“Hitchhiked. To the state penitentiary.”

Tibor was afraid Gregor was about to explode. “It is not safe, Krekor, I know that.”

“Not safe? It’s outright suicidal. He’s fourteen. He looks twelve. He’s practically asking to get picked up by the worst sort of—I thought Donna had one of those tracking things on his phone.”

“I think she thinks she has. I think she put one there, but Russ tells me there are things you can do about it if you know how.”

Gregor rubbed his face. “And Tommy would know how. God help us. Look, come over and meet Javier. He’s a very interesting small person.”

“The meeting has been going well? There is not any—antagonism? I am told that in some cases the foster families and the children do not mix, there is tension—”

“There’s a lot of tension, but not that kind. And he loves your dog. Oh, and he also sort of loves Tommy. Hero worship 101. Like I said, come on over. We’re due to go home in half an hour. You should get something to eat before you go.”

“Krekor.”

“What?”

“Krekor, maybe you should at least think about it. Going up to the prison to see Russ. He wants to see you. He wants to see everybody. He misses—everything.”

“He ought to miss everything,” Gregor said. “What the hell else did he expect?”

 

 

8


Clare McAfee had wanted to change her name as soon as she came to America. Her Lithuanian name was too hard for Americans to say, and too hard for Americans to spell, and just not American enough. Clare had been twenty-two at the time. The Soviet Union had just fallen apart, and she didn’t care. She didn’t just want to leave Lithuania. She wanted to be American, with everything that implied in her then very confused mind. She thought the name thing would be simple. She’d read a million stories about people who had their names changed at Ellis Island. She thought it was just a thing you could do in the United States, like eating at McDonald’s or buying Starbucks coffee.

All this time later, she couldn’t come to an assessment of the experience. She was still glad to be here and not there, but here had been both more and less successful than she hoped. On a career level, it had been very successful indeed. She had started at a small bank as a teller, moved up to assistant branch manager at a slightly larger bank a year and a half later, and then moved to the Mercantile Mutual Trust on a career track that led her right to where she was now, vice president in charge of commercial lending. This was the result of a confluence of circumstances. The United States was crazy on the subject of “equality,” and especially the equality of women. Women who had graduated from the very top universities were very expensive to hire. And anyone who had not graduated from the very top universities was so badly educated they were painful to listen to.

To tell the truth, even some of the people who had graduated from the very top universities were badly educated. The president of the Mercantile Mutual Trust had graduated from Yale, and he knew less about American history than Clare had in first form. Clare didn’t know what was going on with that. Lord knows the Americans spent enough on education, far more than Lithuania ever had. They just didn’t seem to do much of anything with the money.

What had been less successful had been Clare’s attempt to find a place for herself in New York. It was New York she had always imagined herself living in. It had turned out to be far too expensive, insanely expensive, so that even the tiniest little box of an apartment would have cost more money than she could make. If she’d found the same kind of job she had now, at the same salary, she might have been able to rent something smallish and derelict in Queens—but she didn’t want to live in Queens.

Philadelphia was a livable second best, but Clare could never forget it was second best. And her apartment was beautiful. It was large, and new, and had three bedrooms and a beautiful view across the city. Still, people with jobs like hers in Philadelphia didn’t usually live in Philadelphia. They bought houses in the suburbs and invited people to cocktail parties they held next to their pools.

It was incredible how much everything cost in America. She had this very good job, and full benefits, and a 401(k), and her little … side efforts … and it still wasn’t enough.

Sometimes she thought she was balancing on the very point of a pyramid, and any moment now she was going to fall off.

She didn’t keep the records for her side efforts at the office. That would be far too dangerous. She didn’t keep them on her computer, either. All she needed was to be hacked. She had a set of old-fashioned ledger books, carefully disguised to look like old-fashioned atlases. Maps of South-Central Europe. Topographical Guide to the Mediterranean Nations. She didn’t know if they would be effective if everything blew up, but at least they wouldn’t be all that easy to find.

She was making notes in the ledger about the new complex going up on the edge of Society Hill when Cary Alder called. She was thinking they were going to have to restructure the mortgage in at least three places if this was going to work. Her boss might be an idiot, but he was not a fool about this kind of thing.

She picked up the phone when it rang. She wasn’t surprised to hear Cary Alder. He called all the time. He was always afraid he was going to screw something up and his father was going to come back from the grave to murder him.

“Listen,” Cary said. “She’s back again. Hernandez pulled one of his pieces of crap, and she’s back again.”

Clare put down her pen. “We can’t afford to do this right now.”

“Don’t you think I know that? I’ve told him and told him. He won’t listen.”

“I have the semiannual audit in just two weeks. There shouldn’t be any problem with it. They’re not really looking for anything. But if we gave them any reason to be looking for something—”

“She’s on the warpath. You wouldn’t believe it.”

Clare closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she counted to ten again, in Russian.

“I wish you’d regularize your situation,” she said. “If I’d had any idea what kind of a mess you were in when we started this, we wouldn’t have started it. What do you do with all the money you get? I’ve seen your books. I’ve seen more of your books than you ever wanted to show me. Why you thought I wouldn’t check into all that—”

“We’ve had that argument.”

“I still want to know what you do with all that money. Even you can’t be spending it all. I’d understand it if you were addicted to gambling, or cocaine, or—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted me to fire Hernandez.”

Clare considered this. “That’s not necessarily a terrible idea. He won’t go to the authorities. He isn’t legal even if he pretends to be. He wouldn’t risk it in this climate.”

“There are other considerations. I’ve … used him for a few things. Off and on.”

“Used him.”

“Things have to get done sometimes. You know what I mean.”

“Do any of these things you’ve used him for concern me?”

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)
» The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash #4)