Angelique Rising (42 page)

             
After that he mostly just talked to his secretary Janelle, who kept walking in and out with messages that he gave her instructions for while I just wished he would shut the hell up. Something was showing in the drawing as it took advent under my fingers, something I couldn't identify, had never seen before. Something very commanding, very potent, kept appearing, and I didn't like it.

             
It scared me.

Chapter Three

Kenneth

              I figured she wore those old stained jeans just to highlight how poor she was compared to how rich I was. Make me feel bad, probably give me some cockamamie story why she was going to have to increase her fee. But she didn't. Instead she just sketched but the further she got into it, the more she frowned.

             
"Problem?" I asked her.

             
"There's something... there," she said in obvious disapproval. "There's something dark about you [and by 'you' I realized she was referring to the sketched me, not the me sitting in front of her me] but I don't know what it is. I've never seen it before."

             
I had to smile, she was trying to interest me, intrigue me in the art process which really was rather nice of her.

             
"What does it look like? Does it have horns and a tail?"

             
She didn't respond, just stayed focused on the canvas.

             
"Not dark bad," she finally said, pale and motionless. "Dark powerful. But I've drawn powerful before, I know it, this is it but different, it's almost
hungry
."

             
Janelle walked in right on time and put iced tea down on a tray beside
Jay-sha
(I'd been corrected) as I'd told her to do, a signal to Jaesha to start wrapping things up.

             
"Do you like, herd cattle on the weekends or something, I keep wanting to draw a whip in your hand," Jaesha said dubiously.

             
Now that definitely caught my attention.

             
"Mr. Stone is an accomplished horseman," Janelle said, a rarity for her to speak about my personal life to a stranger but she was a horse fanatic who was enthralled with the stables I kept. "Perhaps a riding crop?"

             
"
That's
it," Jaesha said suddenly eyeing me quite doubtfully. "Not a whip, a
riding
c
rop
."

             
Now I had never used a riding crop in my life, at least not on my horses. Maryanne yes, and Deidre maybe (it was hard to remember) though when I thought about it I remembered that I had briefly considered it on Gloria because she'd had such a tough time, but then it had been unnecessary. But it had been close. A riding crop, yes I'd forgotten about that. But how on earth had Jaesha picked up on it?

             
"I think we need to call it quits for now," I said tensely, and Jaesha only shrugged, gathered up her things and allowed Janelle to lead her from the room. She stepped outside and there was Sol, early of course for his big payday. Without warning Jaesha shrieked like a banshee and collapsed to the floor amidst a cascade of her art supplies as she gaped at Sol in total horror who simply stared back at her in disbelief. Jaesha's eyes were apoplectic, like they couldn't unfasten themselves from Sol. Janelle --and this is why I pay her the salary I do-- swooped in, seized Jaesha under her arms and pulled her through the foyer into a side conference room and smartly shut the door.

             
"What the heck was
that
?
"
Sol sputtered, agog.

             
Hell, damned if I knew. Women didn't freak out in my office, my home yes, regularly, but not the office. But a freaked out woman took priority over moneyman Sol any day of the week in my book, so I ushered him into my office and I dashed to the conference room. Janelle had Jaesha in a chair with a glass of water in her hand, Jaesha's face stark white.

             
"Go see to Sol," I ordered Janelle who left without comment, closing the door behind her. "Are you all right?"

             
"I'm sorry," Jaesha croaked.

             
"What happened? Do you know Sol?"

             
"That man?" she whispered.

             
"Yes."

             
"No. I don't... know him." She sipped her water and peeped up at me but I knew she was just trying to buy time, collect herself. She was
really
shaken. "He's..." she seemed to be struggling with whatever it was.

             
"Tell me."

             
"You'll
laugh
at me. You'll think I'm crazy."

             
"Maybe. But I happen to have an uncle who if he were here right now would undoubtedly tell you I'm overly familiar with crazy. What is it?"

             
"He's... a...
screamer
.
"

             
"A screamer?"

             
"Evil. Unscrupulous. I can feel it. People like that. You're going to give him money. He's ecstatic about it. Because he's a crook. It's not an investment, he's running a giant Ponzi scheme and he's proud of it. He's ripping people off right and left, pension funds, charities, and he's just using it to buy himself yachts and stuff. And he's
thrilled
he's about to screw you."

             
I was floored. Sol ran one of the biggest, most successful private investment hedge funds on the west coast, almost a billion dollars under management. And I was about to put in fifty million and
nobody
knew that except Sol and me.

*****

              I was actually uncomfortable about seeing her again. I didn't have answers and I don't like not having answers.

             
I'd put Sol off (he'd actually
raged
at me) and hauled Joan in to do two things: an emergency forensic vetting on Sol's hedge fund, and, an emergency forensic vetting on my little artist, Jaesha Hampstead.

             
Three days later Joan shakily appeared in my office, rattled and wretched. By then I'd already guessed what she was going to say, I'd been deluged with emails and letters from Sol and his attorneys warning me to
back off
or else. All the signs were that Sol was indeed running one huge Ponzi scheme. Joan's investigation had found that papers Sol should have had on file at the SEC weren't there and that Sol had told investors he'd invested their money in companies and funds that either flat out didn't exist, or had stopped accepting new investment long ago.

             
It was all one big sham and I had almost fallen victim to it because my Head of Vetting had done what everybody else in the financial world had done. Joan had assumed somebody
else
had checked Sol out thoroughly. Big clients invested because others had, little clients invested because the big ones had and
nobody
had done due diligence. Well that's not what I pay my vetting department for. When Joan delivered her report to me trying to blame it all on some understaffers I quietly terminated her. I forwarded the information to a friend of mine at the SEC and ten days later spotted him on TV announcing that "his" investigation had uncovered a major financial fraud, cut to Sol in handcuffs doing a perp walk on his way to central booking.

             
I had all the answers I needed on Sol, no, the answers I didn't have were on Jaesha Hampstead. All Joan had come up with on
her
was that her parents were dead, she had eighty-five thousand dollars in student loan debt, four maxed out credit cards to the tune of five thousand dollars, and her last year's reported income was a minus twelve hundred dollars. Joan had found no connection to anything in the business world, let alone high finance.

             
So how had Jaesha known about Sol? And why had she told me in such a dodgy way? (All that he's-a-screamer-nonsense.) Why not just say it? What on earth was she playing at?

             
Jaesha had saved me fifty million dollars, I'd expected her to show up after Sol was arrested angling for a reward which I sure would have given her. Heck I would have given her a
job.
Instead all I got was a young Arab guy in the lobby with a package for Mr. Stone and you can imagine what happened to
him
. Security practically strip searched the guy before they called me, but he was just delivering the drawing Gloria had slashed, perfectly restored. And an envelope with five hundred fifty dollars and a note that simply said "Cost of repair: $450".

             
No, I wasn't going to just let it go. She owed me answers and she owed me a final sitting. I told Janelle to call her and arrange it. By golly I was going to get some answers out of
Miss
Jaesha Hampstead.

             
She arrived looking a whole lot better than the first time, she'd obviously made an effort. Her long hair was curled (and I knew personally how much work that took), she was wearing a light gray silk blouse with pearl buttons (and yes, my gaze did linger a bit long over the curve of her breasts under it) and she was even wearing some make-up. Carefully put together, she was making a statement.
I am a competent formidable young woman and
you'd better not mess with me.
Total fake. She was scared shitless.

             
I greeted her the same way she greeted me, politely and perfunctorily. She set up her paraphernalia in the same spot and I got back in my posed position but after quite a while she was again frowning at her sketch.

             
"The riding crop is gone," she said quietly, her eyes carefully searching the canvas. Baby, there had never
been
a riding crop.

             
"Well, nice to know I've cleaned up my act," I laughed dryly.

             
"No, and that's the thing," she said looking irritated, like the problem with her drawing was
my
fault, "I've taken out the darkness twice, but both times you disappeared. I had to put it back. I don't know how to take it out and keep you in."

             
"Well leave it in."

             
"I can't. It won't fit the room, it'll suck the oxygen right out of here. But this," she sighed, "is the best I can do. If you don't want it you don't have to buy it but it'll be a while before I can pay your deposit back, Kenneth."

             
She'd called me Kenneth for the first time. I noticed it was when she was talking about losing her commission.

             
I stood up and walked around her easel to look at the drawing and stopped dead in my tracks.

             
It was breathtaking.

             
I was
there
. Every nuance, every fiber of my being was on that canvas and for a moment it shocked the hell out of me. How had she done that? She didn't even
know
me. But she was right, no way I was hanging that up in my office. And then I realized exactly where the drawing belonged.

             
"I'll pay you. I'll hang it at my house."

             
"Really?" she said hopefully and I could hear the relief in her voice that she was going to be paid. "I could try and adjust it, to your house if you like."

             
No she couldn't. Not where I was going to hang it anyway. But getting her out to the house... yes she'd be alone with me, no distractions, and she'd pretty much be stranded out there, the perfect ploy. Now I admit, that part of the process invariably made me feel like an oily predator but I nevertheless always found it roller coaster exciting.

             
"C'mon," I said picking up her canvas, "let's go."

             
"Now?" she asked, astonished.

             
"You want to be paid, don't you?"

             
"Well, yeah. Okay. Is it far? I don't like to ride the bus back after dark, my neighborhoodn'all."

             
"I'll drive you home. Have you eaten? How about Chinese?" I didn't give her a chance to say no, just walked her out past Janelle telling Janelle
Chinese
. She knew what I meant. I had Jaesha in my car before she had time to blink.
That,
I came to learn, was the essential element in dealing with Jaesha: never give her time to think.