The Finishing School

15

AFTER THE DEA AGENT found the dope in Carmen Reyes’s locker, Patricia Andover excused herself politely, walked back to her office, and, nerves jangling, dialed James at home. It crossed her mind to worry about the trail of telephone records. Two calls this morning so far. But the next few days leading up to the gala were critical and dicey, and she had to make sure the ODs didn’t disturb their carefully laid plans. Neither of them could put a foot wrong if they wanted to pull this off. The calls were necessary and could be explained if it came down to it. They were simply evidence of the headmistress’s offering comfort to a bereaved family.

Charlotte must’ve been at least semiconscious-how unusual!-because when James answered, he pretended Patricia was someone from his campaign. He made her wait for what felt like ages while he went to his library, locked the door, and called back from his cell phone. Patricia sat there with palms sweating and heart pounding. Why put her through this? Screw Charlotte anyway, that drug-addled whore. Patricia could walk around that apartment buck naked, and Charlotte wouldn’t notice. Goddamn junkie, just like her daughter. Patricia hated them both with a passion. Correction-had hated them, before Whitney got what she so richly deserved.

The phone on her desk finally rang. She snatched it up.

“Hello?” she said breathlessly.

“How’d it go?”

“Fine. It was her, the one you told me about. Melanie Vargas. She was with some DEA agent.”

“Chinese guy, right?”

“Yes. I’m their best friend now.”

He chuckled. “Good. That’s the way to handle it, I’m telling you. Look at Martha Stewart. She didn’t go to jail for anything she did. Just for lying to them. They hate it when you don’t cooperate. Offends their little egos.”

“Well, I cooperated, all right. I even had Ted Siebert go through this song and dance about a search warrant so I could pretend to overrule him. You know, good cop, bad cop.”

“Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you about that, because that prosecutor called me for permission-”

“I know! I was sitting right there. Ted took me way too seriously. He wouldn’t let it drop, so she had to mollify him. I swear, it was almost like he wanted them to think we had something to hide.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“Do you think he did it on purpose?” James asked.

“What, over that old thing?” But Patricia considered the possibility.

“You know he hates me.”

“Honestly, with what I have on him, I don’t think he’d dare. He has a position to protect. Not just his family either, but you know he’s very big in the Bar Association now.”

“What a thought.” James laughed sharply, then stopped short, his tone turning ominous. “I’m glad it went well, but still…We need to talk. There’s a problem, you know, Patricia.”

“Yes, I know, dearest,” she said. “You’re angry about Whitney. I want you to understand, I tried to keep a lid on things. It wasn’t my fault-”

“Whitney’s the least of our problems. This is serious. It’s about the second set of books.”

“The…books?” Patricia’s heart began to beat erratically.

“You told somebody, didn’t you?”

“About our plan? Of…of course not, darling.”

“You’re lying.”

“James, what’s this about? Why are you talking this way?”

“Somebody’s been tampering. Accessing the computer files behind our backs. Or at least behind mine.”

Patricia felt suddenly ill. The fact was, she had told somebody. She’d been forced to. Did James really think she could handle the accounting all by herself? Or even the computer? She was not a math-science type. He knew that, and yet he’d refused to help her himself because he didn’t want to take the risk. Naturally she’d had to turn elsewhere. She’d been so careful about whom she’d trusted. What could possibly have gone wrong? But she couldn’t admit this to James now. He’d be furious at her.

“There are two possibilities,” he said. “Either you told someone and they invaded the account-or you’re fucking around with things behind my back. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming the former.”

“I swear, I didn’t breathe a word to anybody, James. Why would I? How could it even benefit me to get somebody else involved?”

“I don’t believe you, Patricia. Who was it? Was it Ted? Didn’t it ever occur to you he’d double-cross us?”

“I would never trust Ted. Are you crazy? James, please tell me, is the money missing? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

He paused, then said, “You’re a talented actress, but you don’t fool me.”

“You think I would steal from our future? If money was what I wanted, don’t you think I could’ve gotten it from you by now?”

“How, by blackmailing me? Please. How much could you really hope to gain from that? You know my situation.”

She hated the way he was talking. James had promised to marry Patricia after the campaign was over, and she planned to make him keep his word. She’d worked so hard to overcome the obstacles. There was the small matter of finances. The real so-called Seward money belonged to Charlotte, and James had told her from the beginning there was an airtight prenup. He wouldn’t get a red cent if he left. The endowment money would solve that little problem. Then there was the question of bloodline. Patricia had been born Andrewski, the daughter of a maid and a garage mechanic, Polacks from Paterson, New Jersey. The Andover, like the Mrs., had been her own invention. But she was confident James would overlook her origins once the financial end was taken care of. After all, Patricia was polished to a fine sheen, truly deserving of becoming Mrs. Senator Seward, whereas Charlotte spent her days so stoned she could hardly hold her head up.

Patricia couldn’t take this. She’d call his bluff.

“If you don’t believe me, James, I’ll prove it! The Van Allen money doesn’t get wired in until Friday night. I’ll rejigger the accounts, put everything back the way it was, and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened. We can still be together. We don’t need that money.”

He said nothing.

“James?”

“I need it, Patricia,” he said with quiet urgency. “Of course it’s not about the money for me either, but campaigns are expensive. The new headquarters, those sixty-second spots in prime time, that smart Jew I hired away from Bell ’s staff.”

“Get it from Charlotte, then!”

She waited to hear what he’d say to this. She had her suspicions. The rumors about what Whitney was doing for money, about the status of their finances. James would never admit he was broke, even if it were true. He’d never let her see that he was desperate.

“ Charlotte would give it to me, but she’s not happy about my running for office,” he said nonchalantly. She suspected he was lying, that he’d bled Charlotte dry already, that there was nothing left. But she had no way of knowing for certain.

“I’m only in this because of you,” she said heavily. That was actually true. Okay, Patricia was wearing a current-season Badgley Mischka to the gala, which naturally she couldn’t’ve afforded on the pittance Holbrooke paid her, but how much was that, really? Six thousand? Maybe a couple of thousand more when you threw in shoes, bag, hair, makeup. Nothing in the scheme of things. She could scrounge up that much in gifts by giving some rich parent the evil eye. She didn’t need to expose herself to hard time for a few baubles.

James drew an aggrieved breath, but she could feel him calculating on the other end of the line. Once all was said and done, she had the power to make him keep his word. If nothing else, she’d threaten to turn state’s evidence, the last best refuge of the woman scorned.

“Of course, darling,” he said finally. “We’re in this together. You know that.”

She felt faint with relief.

“What were you doing looking at the books anyway, silly? You could end up leaving an electronic trail if you’re not careful. And I need to hear about this problem you found. You probably just misread the numbers,” she said.

“I certainly hope you’re right. But I don’t want to talk about the details over the telephone.”

“So let’s meet. It’s been too long. I miss you.”

“This mess with Whitney is screwing everything up. I can’t leave the house. The police could be watching me. The press definitely are.”

“Why the police? You’re the grieving stepfather. They should be bringing you a cup of hot tea.”

“Are you kidding? They’d love to see me trip up. Melanie Vargas was all over me about the timing last night. Where was I, when did I call the police…?”

Patricia caught an undercurrent of something in his tone. “I thought you were at that Guggenheim thing,” she said suspiciously.

“Yes. Yes, I was.”

“So why was she asking you, then?”

“Who knows? You know how these people are. I’m surprised she didn’t ask you.”

“Let her. I was home with the doggies.” Patricia glanced over at Vuitton, who was napping. Coco was at the doggy shrink. Poor thing’s eating disorder was acting up again, the way it did every year as January 1 approached. They lived in a building that barred dogs weighing more than twelve pounds because they took up too much space in the elevators. The annual weigh-ins were disastrous for Coco’s body image, even though Patricia constantly reassured her there was no chance she’d hit the limit. Coco was tiny-barely eight pounds!

“So they searched?” James asked.

Patricia was distracted, her mind wandering to the bothersome question of where he’d been last night. “Hmm? What?”

“What did they search? They didn’t ask about the school’s computers, did they?”

“No. And I don’t see why they would. It was just the girls’ lockers they were interested in.”

“But you’d gone through Whitney’s-”

“Yes, of course!” she exclaimed irritably. “I came in at five to be sure nobody would see me. I went through everything, like you told me, all right? I left the innocuous stuff where they would find it so it wouldn’t look too obvious.”

“What do you mean? Was there anything you removed? Anything that wasn’t innocuous?”

Did he really have so little idea what his stepdaughter had been up to? He was surely playing dumb. After all, if he didn’t already know what was in there, why have her search? But she wouldn’t tell him what she’d found. She didn’t trust him these days; she needed something up her sleeve.

“No,” Patricia lied. “Just the usual teenager crap.”

“What about the other lockers? Did they find anything?”

“Yes indeed. As a matter of fact, they found heroin in Carmen Reyes’s locker.”

“Really?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well.” He chuckled. “That’s fabulous. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did.”

“It makes so much sense. The little wetback with drugs in her locker. Just like I told them it would be. Now we can force them to stop investigating. Every second they’re out there poking around, you know, we’re at risk. And we don’t need any problems before Friday.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“I’m so glad we’re a team, darling.”

THEY AGREED THAT James would try to slip away and meet Patricia at her place later. The hours until then would be difficult ones. Normally she enjoyed the anticipation of waiting for a rendezvous with James. But not today; this security breach he was hinting about had her worried. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Had somebody really tampered with the second set of books? Was that possible, or was James lying? Testing her, maybe even screwing around with things behind her back and screaming bloody murder to cover his own tracks? Much as she adored him, she wouldn’t put anything past him. James was treacherous. She loved that about him; it was exhilarating. He really kept her on her toes. Patricia tapped her impeccably manicured fingernails on the desktop, thinking. She’d better damn well get to the bottom of the problem and figure out her next move. Here in the rarefied air at the tippy-top, it was play or get played.

And damn that Carmen Reyes, too, disappearing at just the wrong moment.