A clerk rushed forward to meet her. “Good morning, Mrs. Kellerman. Your grandfather and uncle are expecting you. Would you like tea or refreshments before heading up to the fifth floor?”
She turned to her bodyguards. “Why don’t you both relax and have something to drink?” Once inside the well-guarded confines of the bank, she had no fear of kidnappers, bombs, or blackmail.
Zeke and Lorenzo headed toward the lounge, while the clerk escorted her to the elevator. A uniformed attendant closed the gate on the elevator and cranked the brass dial to begin the lift. Even the elevator was grand, its marble floor inlaid with turquoise and jade. Her grandfather did nothing halfway.
The word grandfather usually conveyed a warmly paternal man fading into old age while occupying a rocking chair. Nothing could be further from the truth concerning Frederick Blackstone, who so disliked the implications of the word grandfather that he had ordered her to call him Frederick once she became an adult.
She pasted a serene smile on her face as she entered Frederick’s office. Velvet draperies framed floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the New York Stock Exchange only two blocks away. Frederick sat at his desk while Uncle Oscar stood by the window, his pearl-handled walking stick at his side as he glowered at her through his one good eye. A black patch covered the other eye, ruined by the assassin’s bomb six years earlier.
“Gwen,” her uncle greeted her tersely. “Still wearing your Rapunzel look, I see.”
She touched the long braid of blond hair draped over her shoulder. Most women in Manhattan pinned their hair up in fussy styles, but Gwen preferred a more natural look and usually wore it down. Instead of torturing herself with tight corsets, she favored the loose gowns that were coming into fashion among the artistic set. She was a free-thinking woman and loved the softer silhouettes of the Art Nouveau movement, but her uncle was far more traditional.
Still, she didn’t want to get distracted from her mission. She lifted her chin a notch and met her uncle’s single good eye. “I’ve come seeking a reinstatement of the college’s annual funding. The new president is doing amazing work, but he needs more time before he can run the college without a deficit.”
Uncle Oscar approached her, leaning heavily on the cane as he drew near. The bomb that ruined the tendons in Oscar’s right leg had also killed two innocent bystanders. The doctors had feared Oscar would never walk again, but her uncle’s indomitable will came to the fore, and he’d trained his body to adapt to its shortcomings. He could now walk as quickly as anyone, albeit with a distinctive lurch.
“We founded that college as a sop to keep your father happy,” he said. “It was supposed to add luster to the Blackstone name, but it’s never performed as hoped.”
“Not true,” she insisted. “Just last month Harper’s Magazine featured us on their cover. Our biochemistry department expects to have a treatment for tetanus within the next few years.”
“And I expected the college to be financially self-sufficient by the last decade,” Oscar said.
Her grandfather nodded in agreement. “When your father was president of the college, he wasted far too much money on expensive professors and overly ambitious research.”
Gwen looked away. Her husband had been a perfect example of one of those idealistic professors who was brilliant but profligate with his research budget. “We always knew the college would initially lose money—”
“It’s been thirty years!” Uncle Oscar interrupted. “The entire idea was a foolish endeavor to pacify Theodore. He had no business being a college president if he couldn’t even balance a checkbook.”
Gwen maintained her serene expression. “It wasn’t to pacify my father, it was to turn around the reputation of a family name that had become synonymous with greed and avarice. We’ve spent decades improving our reputation, and now you want to throw it all away?”
Oscar lifted a book off the table and tossed it at her. Its pages splayed as it flew, but she caught it just before it hit the ground. She read the title on the cover and gasped.
The Flamboyant Life and Adventures of Mick Malone: A Memoir
Mick Malone, the man who haunted her childhood nightmares. She didn’t even realize he was still alive.
“That book will be released in September,” Oscar said. “One of those seedy journalists from the New York Sun got an advance copy and wanted my opinion. It’s slated to become a bestseller. Your fancy college has done nothing to dampen the public’s appetite for sordid gossip.”
Gwen’s mouth went dry as she read the summary of the book, which promised the details of Mick Malone’s colorful life of crime, including special insight into the Blackstone scandal and the injustice he endured at the hands of the most powerful family in America.
The irony was that Mick Malone wasn’t a victim, but a criminal who had perpetrated a profound crime against her family. Everyone knew he was guilty of kidnapping and killing her three-year-old brother shortly before Gwen was born. Her father paid the ransom, but her brother was never returned. Days went by, then weeks, then years, but young William Blackstone was never found.
Her father hired an army of private investigators to hunt for the kidnappers. Within a week, they caught Malone, along with undeniable proof of his guilt. His apartment contained hundred-dollar bills with serial numbers matching those in the ransom payment and the typewriter with the flawed key that had typed the ransom note. Most chillingly, there was a single shoe belonging to little Willy Blackstone that was stained with blood.
Malone was put on trial for kidnapping and murder. It was a hanging offense, but a slippery defense attorney distracted the jury by putting the Blackstones’ reputation on trial. At that time, the Blackstone name was synonymous with greed and exploitation. When the prosecutor objected, the defense attorney claimed the shameful details were essential to Mr. Malone’s defense because the list of Blackstone enemies was endless. How could the laughing Irishman who loved his wife and went to church every Sunday be a villain who kidnapped children? Day after day, the defense attorney presented witnesses who testified to various Blackstone depredations and pointed to other suspects, such as union leaders, anarchists, and disgruntled businessmen who’d been driven into bankruptcy by the unforgiving policies of the Blackstone Bank. There were plenty of suspects who might have killed Willy Blackstone, and the jury wanted to send a message.
They found Mick Malone not guilty despite the overwhelming evidence against him.
Not guilty. The verdict practically killed her father but delighted the press. People hailed Mick Malone as a working-class hero, a man who challenged the hated Blackstones and lived to tell the tale. While everyone agreed it was a shame about the child, unsympathetic journalists touted the plight of other children who labored in Blackstone-financed coal mines and factories. Twelve men considered all the evidence and decided there wasn’t enough proof to send Mick Malone to the gallows.
The verdict changed her father forever. Theodore suffered a nervous breakdown, and he began believing the hatred against his family was justified. In a desperate attempt to find meaning in his son’s death, Theodore created Blackstone College, dedicated to education and curing the diseases of the poor. Her grandfather never liked the expensive venture that had yet to turn a profit, but he agreed because Theodore asked it of him.