Neck & Neck (38 page)

“Hazel . . .” Maisy said sheepishly, trying to shrug off the praise but looking delighted by it nonetheless. “I would like to own my own software company someday, though,” she added more enthusiastically. “I’ve been involved in this local group called Kids, Inc., that’s all about teaching kids how to be entrepreneurs. I have some great ideas for starting up.”

“Really?” Russell asked, surprised that someone so young already had such a solid vision. “Designing what? Games?” he added with a smile.

She shook her head. “No, I’m more interested in piracy.”

His mouth dropped open at that. Okay, this was something he was going to have to nip in the bud right here, right now. Before he had the chance, though, Maisy started laughing.

“Man, you should see the look on your face, Mr. Mulholland.”

He would have told her to call him Russell, but since she was turning out to be a criminal mastermind . . .

“I’m interested in stopping piracy,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m working on a project right now that would allow record companies to include code on their CDs that would make it impossible to upload them to the Internet without permission. I figure once that’s perfected, I could do some tweaking for the gaming and publishing industries, too.”

Oh, Russell thought. Well. That made a big difference. He smiled. “Listen, Maisy, you can call me Russell, you know.”

She smiled shyly back. “Thanks. Russell.”

“And that’s interesting about Duke and Johns Hopkins, because Max is in both of them, too,” he added of the university programs. “He’s going to Tokyo this summer to study new technologies that are being introduced in Asia. Maybe you could both go.”

Suddenly flustered, Maisy looked down at her plate again. “Oh, I don’t think I’d be a good candidate for—”

“She’d be an excellent candidate,” Hazel cut in. “But at four thousand bucks a pop for those programs, her mother can’t afford to send her. Unlike
some
people,” she added a little testily—oh, all right,
a lot
testily—“money doesn’t flow from golden faucets in this house.”

“It doesn’t flow from gold in ours, either,” Russell was quick to point out. “My designer preferred brushed stainless. Much easier to keep clean.”

Hazel nodded gruffly. “Yeah, and unlike
some
people, you don’t have to work nights and raise a kid and go to college and keep your own house clean, do you?”

He shook his head, completely unashamed. “No, I don’t, Hazel. But there was a time in my life when I did. And I remember it
very
well.”

She snapped her mouth shut at that, but Russell could tell she still didn’t like him. Didn’t trust him. Then again, he supposed he couldn’t blame her. She really was the closest thing to a parent Ginny had ever had. And she’d helped Ginny raise Maisy. It made sense that she would feel protective of both of them. Especially when some interloper like him, who’d only known her “daughter” and “granddaughter” for a week was suddenly trying to edge his way into their tight-knit family.

He was about to say something to alleviate the tension the exchange had created, but the sound of Ginny’s voice coming from the other room did that instead. At least for Russell. Just hearing her speak made him feel calmer, less stressed, better.

“Bill, bill, bill,” she said as she came into the kitchen, sifting through the mail. She stacked those envelopes neatly on the counter, then continued, “Credit card offer, credit card offer, credit card offer.” These she immediately tore into quarters and tossed into the trash. “Advertisement, advertisement, advertisement,” she added, tossing those, too, into the garbage, “Maisy, you got your latest issue of
Wired
and, Hazel”—she lifted a folded bit of newsprint wrapped in plastic and concluded—“your
National Investigator
came.”

“Oh, goody.” The old woman fairly snatched it out of Ginny’s hand as she passed by on the way back to her seat next to Russell. “I love the
Investigator
,” she added as she slipped it out of its mailing sleeve. “It’s the only news you can trust. But I gotta check my horoscope first.”

Russell couldn’t hide his smile. Ah, yes. There was nothing more touching than an apple-cheeked, white-haired, former sharpshooter for the Detroit PD sitting down with a quality publication like the
National Investigator
. It was just so all-American. There must be millions of families in this country who, at this very moment, had apple-cheeked, white-haired members sitting at their breakfast tables, reading about the latest celebrity breast implants, which heads of state were actually pod people from outer space, and the most recent sightings of the Chupacabra. Life just didn’t get any better than—

“Dad?”

Something in his son’s voice made Russell’s sense of well-being evaporate. And when he looked over at Max to see his usually sunny face looking ashen, and his normally laughing eyes looking haunted, his stomach clenched with the very sort of terror he had hoped to never feel again. God help him, there was an irrational part of him that feared his son was about to echo Marti’s words of more than a decade before: “
There’s something I have to tell you that I wish I didn’t,
” then repeat the diagnosis she’d received a month before and kept hidden from Russell for weeks before finding the words to tell him. Nausea rolled in his stomach at the idea, however implausible—
impossible
, he corrected himself—that his son was going to leave him, too.

“Max?” he asked, his anxiety evident in that one word. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Instead of blurting news of his ill health, however, Max only lifted a finger and pointed it at something on the other side of the table. Russell followed the direction until his gaze lit on the tabloid that Hazel had opened in front of her face. There, staring back at him, was a photo of Russell himself. But that wasn’t what had caused Max’s reaction. What had caused that was the picture of Max—taken within the last week, because he looked exactly as he did this morning—beside it. That, and the words screaming out from the headline above: “
Unlike Father, Like Son!
” And then, in only slightly smaller letters, “
14-Year-Old Max Mulholland is the REAL Brains—and CEO—Behind GameViper and Mulholland Games!
” And then, in smaller, but still very readable, even from a distance, letters, “
An Investigator Exclusive!
”

“Oh, crap.”

The words were spoken in unison by Russell and Max. Like father, like son, he paraphrased from the headline. Great minds really did think alike. Except that the son’s mind was infinitely better developed than the father’s, allowing him to design a game system at the tender age of twelve that was more sophisticated than anything Russell could have come up with himself. He wasn’t sure what shocked him more, that the story he and Finn had spent the last two years keeping quiet had finally broken or that the
National Investigator
was, for once, reporting the truth.

He waited for the alarm that should have burned him up inside, waited for the panic that should have had him grabbing his son by the collar and racing him to the airport so they could fly someplace where the press would never find them. This was going to be the mother of all media circuses, something that was going to invade and upend Max’s life unlike anything had since his mother’s death. Russell and Finn had tried so hard to make sure Max’s life could be as normal as possible, had done everything they could to shield the child genius—and de facto head of Mulholland Games—from the spotlight so that he could spend his time being a teenager instead. With the news out now of the truth—and just how the hell had the news gotten out?—all of that was going to change.

But, surprisingly, Russell didn’t feel any alarm. He didn’t feel any panic. There was concern, of course, for how this was going to impact Max. But there was also a certain kind of relief that the truth
had
come out. A part of him had always known it was bound to come out, sooner or later. But there was something kind of poignant, something kind of perfect, that it was coming out in this moment, in this place. Because in this moment, in this place, Max didn’t have to face the crisis alone. And neither did Russell. They had family to help them cope. Family to help them stay strong. Family to provide shelter from what was sure to be a media storm.

Family. Their family. Five of them, right here at Ginny Collins’s kitchen table. Whether any of them realized it yet or not.

 

 

WHEN NATALIE TURNED ON THE TV IN TIME TO CATCH the last half hour of the
Today
show, she halfway expected to see Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira breathless with the news that Russell Mulholland would be attending Clementine and Edgar Hotchkiss’s benefit party in Louisville, Kentucky, this Friday night, so fearful had she become of newscasts in general over the last six hours. Fortunately, there was a commercial on for erectile dysfunction—and how cool was that, that men now had something to be embarrassed about in advertising, too?—so she lowered the volume and sipped her coffee and opened the Tuesday edition of the
Courier-Journal
instead.

Which, inevitably, had a front-page piece about Russell Mulholland attending the Hotchkiss affair this Friday night.

“Oh, crap!” she shouted loudly enough that Zippy went zipping off the sofa to retreat to the kitchen. As soon as she caught the national news, Natalie would call Clementine to discuss how they were going to handle this.
This
being the operative word in that sentence, since Natalie still hadn’t figured out exactly what
this
was going to be. A retraction to the several media outlets that had been notified, telling them a mistake had been made and Russell wouldn’t be attending the party after all? A demand to know who had notified them in the first place so that Natalie could hunt down that person like a dog? Yet
another
attempt to go toe-to-toe with Russell Mulholland in an effort to convince him to come to the party no matter what Finn Guthrie might or might not have to say about it?

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, Natalie
was
having a lovely time visiting the land of Denial. Thanks so much for noticing.

On the ride back to her house last night, she actually had made one last-ditch effort to appeal to Finn for an audience with Russell, to explain the situation and beg for a tiny slice of his time. But, as always, Finn had shot her down. Oh, he’d been nicer about it this time—and where that niceness had come from, when he’d been Mr. I’m Calling the West Coast Attorneys only minutes before, she’d never know—but he’d still shot her down. Then he hadn’t talked to or looked at her for the rest of the drive home. He hadn’t even offered to walk her to her door this time, evidently hoping there
was
someone in the house who would do her harm. Sure would save him a lot of trouble. Humpf.

Quickly, she scanned the article about the Hotchkiss party, which was suddenly being dubbed “a ticket hotter than entrée to Millionaire’s Row” at the Derby—Clementine’s phone should be ringing off the hook about now—noting how careful the reporter was not to cite any particular sources and how much emphasis she placed on the fact that the reports were unsubstantiated. But she did both in a way that made the story sound completely true and the sources impeccable. Damn those wordsmiths, anyway. Then again, maybe that would make it easier to retract the story tomorrow and save Clementine some face.

Reading further, however, Natalie realized it wasn’t just her client’s face that would need saving. Because there, in black and white, were the words “Natalie Beckett, local event planner and owner and operator of Party Favors, is . . . continued on page A7.” Hurriedly—once the sentence made sense to her suddenly flurrying brain—she turned to the page in question and continued to read. “. . . reportedly the woman of the hour, having single-handedly planned the Hotchkiss affair and arranged for Mr. Mulholland’s appearance.”

“Unfortunately,” she read further, “Ms. Beckett couldn’t be reached for comment. Calls to her business were not returned.”

“That’s because I was out of the office yesterday, trying to figure out how to get Russell Mulholland to come to the Hotchkiss affair!” she shouted in her defense. Then she made a mental note to install call forwarding at the office, something she probably should have done a long time ago.

Okay, Natalie,
she said to herself,
let’s review, shall we? In less than two weeks’ time, you’ve managed to mislead a client, get involved with a man you never should have gone near, create a media sensation without lifting a hand, and generally screwed up a bunch of people’s lives. Now Clementine Hotchkiss, a perfectly nice woman who’s never done anything to deserve it, is going to be humiliated, a worthy charity that was counting on a significant donation is going to wind up with nothing, you’re going to look like an imbecile, and your business is going to go under. Oh, and you’re going to have to date Dean Waterman exclusively for the next six months, something that will turn you into either a pudding-brained ninny or a raging alcoholic. Does that about cover it?

Yep. That about covered it.

She was trying to prioritize all of the above and decide which fiasco to try and un-fiasco first when the
Today
show came back on and went right to the news desk with Ann Curry, behind whom was a photograph of billionaire Russell Mulholland.

Natalie felt the blood drain from her face, thinking the national news outlets were indeed reporting that Russell would be attending a party in Louisville this weekend, and now she had screwed up on a national, perhaps even global, scale. But then a photo of Russell’s son Max appeared alongside his own, followed by a blowup of the latest issue of the
National Investigator
, a tabloid Natalie used to read for fun in college and hadn’t looked at since—

Okay, okay. Since last Thursday, when she was standing in line at Kroger. So sue her. She liked being kept informed about which heads of state were really pod people from outer space. It gave her comfort knowing what was actually wrong with the world. Still, since the
Investigator
was a weekly that was mailed early to subscribers so that they could receive their issues the same day the tabloid went on sale in supermarkets—okay, okay, so sue her again since she had been a subscriber in college—they couldn’t have had enough time to report on the news of Clementine’s party. Not that they would, anyway. Unless it was a slow news week for pod people from outer space or something.