Shopping for an Heir (9 page)

Vince cursed.

“Run with me, then.”

“I’m wiped, man.” Plus, whatever had made Vince leave like that loomed over them like a bad spirit, not quite ready to move on.

“Too wiped to run?” Vince walked over to the weight racks and grabbed a vest. He began tucking little weight pouches into the pockets. By Gerald’s count, he loaded up eighty pounds.

“Three miles,” Gerald said grudgingly.

“That’s like getting your dick stroked over the pants, man.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a tease.”

“You’re comparing being your running partner with
that
?”

“Sex brain, man. I’ve got it bad.”

Bzzz.

Gerald’s phone buzzed in his bag, which was on a long bench next to him. He grabbed the phone.

James McCormick.

“My boss? What’s one of my bosses doing texting me at six a.m. on my day off?”

“They own your ass, G.” Vince began running in place, wearing a hundred-pound vest. “C’mon. Get it done.”

Gerald read the text:

I have a medical appointment that has been moved to eight a.m. Pick me up at my residence.

The guy got to the point.

Yes, sir
, he typed back.
Received.

“I gotta work early,” Gerald said with a sigh, half relieved not to need to run, half sad to have to drive James McCormick to the cancer center. For the past half a year, Gerald had managed his boss’s appointments, which the elder McCormick hid from his sons. The old man asked him to keep it quiet, and Gerald was the only one he trusted to see him in a weakened state.

“G, it’s your day off.”

“Not anymore.”

“Fishing for a reason to leave?”

“No. James McCormick needs me for an eight o’clock medical appointment.” He knew he could take a different day off this week. The old man would never say it, but he needed Gerald—and only Gerald—for this errand.

“Haven’t met him yet.” Vince grunted. “Andrew’s decent.” He frowned. “Medical, huh? Is it serious?”

Vince’s casual tone, calling Andrew McCormick, CEO of Anterdec, Inc., by his first name, made Gerald shake his head.

“How do you get away with that? Andrew McCormick insists I call him sir.” Changing the subject meant preserving confidentiality.

“Charisma. Either you’ve got it, or you’re a loser.”

“You misspoke, Vince. You meant to say
bullshit
.”

Vince grabbed a medicine ball and pitched it at Gerald’s head. Gerald ducked. The thwock of the weight against the padded wall sounded like a gut punch.

“What was your emergency, Vince?”

“My dad.”

Gerald sucked in air sharply. “He’s bugging you again?” Once Vince began making steady money as a trainer, his deadbeat dad came back into the picture. Junkies love success.

“Yeah. This time, he OD’d.”

“He in the hospital?”

Vince’s braid swung across his back as he shook his head. “Nah. Refused transport. One of his junkie buddies knows I work out here, so...”

“I’m sorry.”

Vince gave him the hairy eyeball. “Go to work for the billionaires, Mr. Heir. Just remember we peons when you’re rolling in it.”

Ducking just in time, he laughed and shot through the front doors, wondering if he could beat rush hour traffic to get to Anterdec in time for a shower before his shift began.

As he left, he caught Vince’s eye, the look serious.

And then he remembered the inheritance papers in his bag.

It was going to be a long day.

A very, very long day.

“
I
’ve never seen
you behave so unprofessionally, Suzanne. What happened to the iron maiden? You’ve been rock solid for seven years. Hell, half the junior associates are convinced you’re part robot.” Norman Phelps, one of the law firm’s founders, glared at her from his desk. Remaining seated, wearing half-glasses, he looked up over the edge of both lenses with the air of a well-fed old man who doesn’t have time for anything but his own agenda.

Eight a.m. was too early for this. Suzanne took a long, hot sip from her black coffee and watched him over the rim of her cup, trying to decide how to respond.

With aggression, or
more
aggression?

“The fact that I’ve worked here for seven years without a single personal request like this should be a testament to my robotic nature, Norm.” She glared back. Suzanne wasn’t taking crap from anyone. This was anemic compared to the face-offs she’d had over the years from opposing counsel, various judges, and at times, her own firm colleagues.

Norm needed to try harder.

Suzanne wanted someone other than Gerald and herself to be pissed off at.

“I can’t take you off the Hopewell-Wright case, Suzanne.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“The difference matters to me.”

“I said it doesn’t matter.”

“Then how about I take my client base and find a firm where it does matter?”

Never before had she made the threat. She’d thought it, sure, plenty of times over the past year, since making partner. Not quite a year—eleven months.

“I literally cannot take you off the case.” Phelps looked at the open door, and to Suzanne’s amazement (which she hid carefully), he stood, crossed the room, and shut the door with a barely audible click that felt like a signature in blood on a contract from hell.

When he turned to face her, his eyes were tired. Norm Phelps wasn’t the most attractive of men (at least, to Suzanne), with hair the color of a young lion, artfully colored on a regular basis, and overly-white teeth that glowed as a result of his burnt-orange tan.

But he wasn’t an asshole, either.

She had to remind herself of that fact daily. Take nothing personally, his executive legal secretary, Inez, had told Suzanne on her first day. Not one single word.

“Look. The Hopewell case is sensitive. We’re in a nasty grey area with this one.”

“Grey area?” Phelps, Miller and Lin didn’t do grey areas. Nothing but black and white. She stiffened. “Are you asking me to act in ways that could compromise my license?”

“God, no, Suzanne.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, lifting his reading glasses up over his eyebrows. “You know I would never do that.”

“That’s not quite true. Remember the Kikendaal case?”

His sigh deepened.

“And the Brownlea, and the—”

“Fine. Fine. Let’s just say that your friend—”

“Ex-fiancé.”

“Your ex is inheriting one hell of a mess.”

Protectiveness for Gerald kicked in. “What?”

“It’s an artifact.”

“I know that.”

“A very rare artifact. A pre-Buddhist item that was supposed to have been destroyed by the Taliban.”

She frowned. “What?”

“And allegedly carries a curse.” He rolled his tongue in his cheek, jaw tightening.

“Phelps, now I know you’re pulling my leg. This isn’t a joke.” She let out a derisive snort.

He paled.

“I know. I’m not the type to get caught up in stupid New-Agey crap like this. But Harold Hopewell was clear: Phelps, Miller handles the case, and Suzanne Dayton is the point person. Period. The archaeologist from the MFA will be here at two p.m. for the meeting.”

“Meeting?” She gave him a blank look.

He waved a dismissive hand. “Letitia must have put it in your calendar.”

“Letitia is my paralegal. Not my assistant.”

“Oh. Right. That’s Margaret.” He shook his head quickly, as if re-centering.

Norm wasn’t usually this off. “What’s wrong?” she asked, as neutrally as possible.

“Nothing.”

“Margaret has been my admin for three years, Norm. You don’t magically forget someone like that.”

He swallowed, hard, the shell rolling off him, revealing the deeper man. The nervous glance at the door made her internal danger radar go off.

“This conversation didn’t happen.”

How bad was this?

“Of course not.”

“Look, the Hopewell case is a hot potato. The fact that your ex is an heir is a sick bit of bad luck.”

“We’re making decent billable hours off it,” Suzanne reminded him.

“And the terms of the will state that you, and you alone, must handle the case.”

She laughed. “Good one. That won’t hold up in court.”

Alarm filled his face. “We can’t take this anywhere near a court!”

She narrowed her eyes. “I think we’d better stop right here, Norm, and you’d damn well better explain what this is all about.”

Curses? Pre-Buddhist artifacts? The Taliban?

And what the hell did Gerald have to do with any of it?

“If you don’t, I resign. I know how many billable hours I bring into the firm. You guys need me. So spill.”

“The artifact is a rare religious item. Dates back centuries, likely millennia. Between age, historical value, political value, actual precious metal and gemstone content, and the competition to own it, that damn item may be worth a cool hundred million on the black market, Suzanne.”

Well.

She’d demanded the truth.

And now she had it.

Plunking her stunned ass into a chair, Suzanne’s coffee dripped out of the small opening on the top as the cup slammed into the tabletop. “Gerald’s inheriting a hundred million dollar artifact?
Gerald
?” She bit back the phrase
my Gerald
just in time.

He wasn’t hers.

Even if she could still conjure the taste of that kiss last night.

“He’s inheriting a legal and political nightmare. But the guy has no choice. It’s his fault.”

“What?”

“Have you read the file? The full file?”

“Yes.”

Phelps pulled a fat envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Good. Then you’re ready for this.”

She took the envelope and began to open it. “What’s in here?”

“The rest of the story.” He tossed the envelope on the thick mahogany-topped desk. “Read it.”

She picked it up and took a step toward the door.

“No. In here.”

Suzanne looked at him in disbelief. “I can only read the documents in here? In your office?”

“Those papers do not leave the room. They’re not part of the official record. None of this is. Hell, the actual artifact doesn’t officially
exist
.”

Alarm buzzed through her bones. “I’m definitely removing myself from this case.”

“Suzanne,” he said softly. Norm Phelps was anything but soft. “Read. Then decide.”

Against her better nature, she pulled the thick batch of papers from the envelope and unfolded them.

And then she read.

And read.

And gaped.

Her coffee was cold when she reached for it, drinking anyhow. After she chugged the entire enormous cup, she looked at Norm. “These papers say that eleven years ago, Gerald Wright stole a very rare religious and cultural artifact from Afghanistan, smuggled it into the U.S., and somehow it landed in the hands of Harold Hopewell.”

“‘Stole’ isn’t the right word.”

“What is?”

“‘Rescued.’ Keep reading.”

She flipped through the papers, speed reading.

Her eyes halted abruptly on a name she hadn’t read or heard in ten years.

“‘Harrison Kulli!’” Her voice cracked. “Jesus, Norm. What the hell does he have to do with any of this?”

Norm shook his head, the skin around his eyes sagging like a depressed bloodhound. “You knew him, right? In the Navy?”

She looked up sharply. “How did you know?”

“Research. Investigations. Background checks.” He gave her a one-shoulder shrug.

“You mean corporate spying.”

“Details.”

“Gerald smuggled this artifact to the U.S.? When?”

“On some sort of trip to D.C. It gets murky from there. Somehow it ended up in a private collection owned by Harold Hopewell.”

“And now Hopewell left it to Gerald as an inheritance?”

Norm nodded, sighing deeply.

“Where is it?”

“The artifact?”

“No. The Hope Diamond. Yes, the artifact.”

“It is in an undisclosed location.”

“You’re acting like this is some kind of summer action thriller, Norm. Why all the cloak-and-dagger crap?”

“Because it’s a cursed religious artifact made of gold, encrusted with rare jewels, and it has a black market value of a hundred million or so, give or take eight figures.”

Suzanne just blinked.

“Gerald inherited this.”

“Yes. And part of our job is to convince him to sell it.”

“Sell it? He can’t! It has to be given back to the rightful government. International law dictates exactly what he needs to do.”

Norm’s discomfort level shot through the roof. She could feel it radiating off him like toxic paint fumes. “Technically, no. This artifact was never recorded by a cultural institution or government body. It doesn’t exist. But even more important: handing it back to the government would lead to its destruction.”

“Under the Taliban, sure, but not under the elected government of Afghanistan.”

He gave her a gimlet eye. “You’re not that naive, Suzanne. You know damn well that a pre-Buddhist religious artifact like this, with so much significance, would be destroyed. Or melted down and sold. It wouldn’t even reach the government, no matter how hard we might try. The channel to get from A to B would be rife with interlopers.”

Suzanne studied a picture of the item. It was solid gold, a statue of a small woman with large breasts and a protruding belly, a tiny version of a human coming out of her as she gave birth.

“Inside the statue there’s an enormous emerald and a ruby, and legend says that if the gold is melted down with great care, on one of the layers there is a map, etched into the gold, leading to unlocking Indus script.”

She snorted. “C’mon. Now I know you’re messing with me. Who am I supposed to meet with today? Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford?”

“No. Gerald Wright and the archaeologist we’re trying to sniff out to examine the artifact in question.”

“If what you’re saying is true, this relic could be something like a Rosetta Stone?”

He nodded.

Dumbfounded. She was dumbfounded.

“Wait. Where is it? An item like this should be under lock and key, with armored guards! This is ridiculous.”

“But it’s true. And the item is at Hopewell’s Boston home, protected by a security team.”

The weight of the paperwork fooled her into thinking this wasn’t as great a burden as it truly was. Norm’s explanation, this cloak-and-dagger behavior, left her suspicious and reeling.

“Then you should understand how serious this is. Our position, by the way, is to encourage Gerald Wright to sell.”

“Sell?”

“Sell the artifact. Quickly. Get out from under the item. He’s a chauffeur and an art teacher. Impress on him that the money is life-altering, We already have someone who represents a client. They have an open offer on the table of fifty million.”

“A buyer?” she repeated dumbly.

“Yes. Represented by Harrison Kulli. I believe it’s in the paperwork.”

“Harrison Kulli wants to
buy
the artifact from Gerald?” This was getting crazier and crazier by the minute.

“On the behalf of a client of his, yes.”

“Harrison Kulli has a client? A client for what?”

“Kulli represents an anonymous buyer.”

“I’ll bet he does. Bad pennies always turn up.”

Norm frowned. “What’s the deal with him, Suz? Why’s he bother you so much?”

“He was my commanding officer in Afghanistan.”

Norm was in the middle of eating a donut and froze. “And?”

“Do you not understand why this is setting off my hinky meter?”

He made a small huffing sound, then resumed stuffing his face. “Your ex-fiancé has just inherited an artifact that your former commanding officer is trying to buy for a client. For fifty million dollars.”

“Just another day at the office.”

He frowned, giving her an evaluative look. “It wasn’t a coincidence that Phelps, Miller was chosen to handle this particular bequest, was it?”

Suzanne broke eye contact, the paper resting in her hand like a weapon.

“I don’t think so. But what does it mean?”

“It means I need to chase down Miller and have a talk. But it also means you’re still on the case.”

“For now.”

He gave her a small, concessionary head nod. “For now.”

The air between them changed. She couldn’t give it a name, but the essence of this case—what was supposed to be a simple bequest, handled like any other—had shifted.

So had the balance of power.

* * *

“
W
ant
to grab some Thai for lunch, Suz?” Letitia asked, looking up from her bar exam study guide. Four long years at Suffolk University night school and Letitia had just finished law school. Suzanne had warned her that was the easy part.