She really hoped her imagination had run away with her, but knowing the hedonistic Hawley as she did...probably not.
“Jenny!” Hawley stood up from his desk and came around to greet Jeen Lee with arms outstretched. “Did Petie take good care of you and your guest?”
Miss Lee endured his embrace, as she endured his mangling of her name, with serene indifference. “Petie drove me and my guest with perfect competence as always.” She stepped aside and, with a beautifully choreographed gesture, presented the young man who stood behind her. “Mr. Bradley Copeland, formerly of Santa Clara, California, now of Quemada.”
“Good to meet ya.” Hawley shook Bradley’s hand enthusiastically. “First time here, right? Wait until you pull in your first twenty pounds of fighting salmon!”
Copeland wore carefully tailored jeans and a starched white shirt. He looked incredulously at Hawley, then slouched, hands in pockets, and drawled, “That sounds...awesome.”
Miss Lee’s eyes narrowed, and she said to Bradley, “I knew you would be pleased to join your new colleagues in the team bonding exercise.”
Bradley straightened up so fast, Petie thought he might have given himself whiplash. “I’m pleased to bond with my new team.”
“The whole group of you’ll go out tomorrow first thing to catch your first fish.” Hawley loved to sell the camp. “Make sure you attend the orientation tonight. Petie runs it, and you’ll come away knowing everything about Alaska and salmon fishing. You’ll be a pro before you start!”
Bradley cast an unfavorable eye at Petie. “That sounds interesting.”
Petie thought he was one of those guys who never needed, or wanted, anything explained to him. “We look forward to seeing your success in this new venue.” She was careful not to inject sarcasm into her tone.
She might not have bothered.
Not by a flick of an eyelash did he indicate he’d heard her.
Miss Lee put her hand through his arm. “We should go to our rooms and unpack before our meeting with our people.”
“And dinner!” Hawley patted his extensive belly. “You’ll have the best chef in Alaska cooking for you at the Katchabiggie Lodge!”
“Such a...unique...name for the lodge.” Bradley couldn’t have been more insincere.
“I named it myself. Always makes me chuckle, and isn’t that what we’re all here for? To catch a biggie?” Hawley gave forth with a peal of laughter.
If Bradley had looked beyond Hawley’s loud, bluff demeanor and wide girth, he would have noted that Hawley’s eyes were sharp, and his new, perfectly tailored suit was a Brioni.
But Bradley saw no reason to pay attention to others, and he could barely contain his contempt.
“After Bradley unpacks, he’ll wish to join the rest of my employees as they plunge into this new adventure,” Miss Lee said.
“Of course.” Petie held the door for them and shut it firmly behind them. She turned back to Hawley.
“We’re going to have trouble with that boy,” he said.
4
“I SUSPECT YOU’RE RIGHT,” Petie said. “Bradley is a superficial man made acceptable by his brilliance.”
“Ain’t it always the way?” Hawley returned to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. “Have you decided what to do about Jeen Lee?”
“I’m going to tell her.”
“You’re makin’ a mistake.”
“It wouldn’t be my first.”
“One supposes.” Hawley had never asked what events had driven Petie to the camp, or inquired why she stayed, day after day, month after month, year after year, never leaving the vicinity, never calling out or receiving personal calls, never making friends or taking lovers. In turn, she didn’t ask him about his similar lack of personal relationships.
Petie liked, admired and respected him. She thought he felt the same about her. But they didn’t share confidences.
They did share finances.
Now she followed him to the desk, leaned over and said softly, “We have an investment opportunity with Cardinal Electronics.”
“What did you hear?”
Jeen Lee and her people weren’t the only corporate entities that visited Midnight Sun Fishing Camp. Wealthy, successful people came and went, and most seemed only half-aware of Petie as a person, and virtually all of them spoke freely about their successes, their failures and their investments.
During her second summer, she’d realized her opportunity.
If she invested as they invested, she might possibly make...a fortune.
Yet thanks to Donald White, she did not exist in the modern world. She had no identity and no social security number, no way to capitalize on her insider intelligence.
She began to chart the investments she would make, and the lines for profits made a steep ascent. So in the spring of her third year at Midnight Sun Fishing Camp, she went to Hawley with a proposition. She would report the financial tips to him, he would invest her meager salary for her and take twenty percent as his commission.
At first he’d been skeptical, but within those first two months, she had more than doubled her money. Then she got cocky and lost it all. He rumbled a laugh and let her sit on her hands until he paid her again. That was when he started investing, too; her successes had convinced him she knew what she was talking about, and he believed her failure had taught her a lesson. Which it had.
“Invest half my winter’s savings.” She tapped her lips with her index finger. “And sell all my stock in Kontos Structural.”
“All of it?” Hawley leaned back and folded his hands over his belly. “For what reason?”
“The prosperity/building cycle is due to end. Sales will crash within a year. I don’t want to take the ride down with the stock prices.”
“All of Kontos and half your winter’s savings. You’re very sure about this.”
“I am. Miss Lee wouldn’t steer me wrong.”
“She didn’t know you were listening.”
“She doesn’t miss much.”
“Be careful, Petie, when you tell her, how much you tell her, how you tell her. She’ll not appreciate you sticking your nose in her business, and I have never known a female as dangerous as Jeen Lee.”
“How many dangerous females have you known?” Petie was joking.
“All females are dangerous.” He didn’t smile. “It takes a wise man to know that. You’re dangerous. Try to be wise, too.”