House on Fire

12

In a sitting room that looked and smelled like it was rarely used — oil paintings on the wall, uncomfortable Edwardian furniture, the cool tang of lemon-oil furniture polish — I changed into a suit that I liked for occasions like this because it had a number of well-concealed pockets.

I looked around for visible security cameras, didn’t see any, but I hadn’t expected to. I pulled out the architectural plans and scanned them again, familiarizing myself with the layout. Then I refolded them and slipped them into an inner pocket on the suit coat. I put my street clothes in the garment bag, left it on a chair, and went out to find Sukie. If I was going to pretend to be her date for the evening, I had to stay pretty much by her side. I’d be an outsider in this family gathering and would thus be scrutinized especially closely. I had to be ready for that.

When I emerged, I could see that the guests had started arriving in the spacious entry foyer. Maybe a dozen people were gathered at the foot of the mighty stone staircase, the sort of grand feature that was probably used for weddings and other ceremonial occasions when you wanted to make a dramatic entrance.

I glanced at the small crowd. They were all members of the Kimball family, whether by birth or by marriage. Heirs to the Kimball Pharma fortune. Gathered here at the estate of Dr. Conrad Kimball, the patriarch, the doctor turned pharmaceutical tycoon, to celebrate his eightieth birthday.

And I was here — I reminded myself — as Sukie Kimball’s date. I was not Nick Heller. I was a guy she met at a party in TriBeCa. I worked for McKinsey and Company in Boston. I was a consultant named Nick Brown.

It was a light cover. I had a counterfeit Massachusetts driver’s license in the name of Nicholas Brown and a fictional address on Beacon Hill. If someone checked with McKinsey, my cover would probably be blown. Unless someone actually named Nick Brown worked for them, which was totally possible. But I had no reason, at that point, to expect anyone to challenge me. This was a family birthday party I was invited to. I wasn’t infiltrating a meeting of the politburo.

I also had more on my mind than just getting by. I’d been given a rare opportunity to penetrate the Kimball family, to interact among them as an equal. A temporary insider. So I needed to do some social engineering.

Because if for some reason I failed at getting to the old man’s secret files, I might have to come back again, to some other family function at the estate. And the more comfortable the siblings were with me, the more they’d share. In my experience, people like to talk if you know how to listen. There were more secrets to be found, I was sure. And the secret you think you’re looking for may not be the one you really need to know.

As I approached, I thought I recognized a few of the arrivals, but at that distance I couldn’t be sure. A couple of small blond boys in blue blazers, making a ruckus. They had to be the sons of Megan Kimball, forty-five, the second-oldest child of Conrad Kimball. I thought of her as the corporate one. She was the only family member in the family business, a vice president. There were also a couple of awkward teenage boys in blue blazers, hers, who looked like they’d much rather be playing Fortnite.

Then there were the servants bustling in and out, carrying silver trays. They all looked tense. From what I’d read, Dr. Conrad Kimball, that self-made man, wasn’t good with staff. He went through people at a fast clip.

Looking up, I noticed a few discreet CCTV cameras hidden in the carved walnut ceiling molding. It was important to remember that Dr. Kimball was a highly suspicious man. He had reason to be. His family was under assault.

I heard a laugh that sounded like Sukie’s and turned to see her — shaggy brown hair, brown eyes, sharp nose — smiling at a tall woman a few years younger with a short boyish haircut and that same prominent blade of a nose. Her younger sister. Hayden Kimball, the Broadway impresario, was wearing a neatly pressed denim shirt and black jeans and boots.

Sukie broke off to say to me, “Nick, sweetie, meet my sister Hayden.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Nick Brown.”

She nodded, smiled remotely, didn’t extend a hand.

“You’ve produced some terrific plays,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” Her face colored. “Thank you.” She seemed to be loosening up a bit. I obviously knew who she was. She was president and majority owner of the Kimball Theater Group, which owned five Broadway theaters and produced some successful Broadway plays and musicals. She was famous, in a small world.

“You said you’re Nick Browne, with an e?”

“No e.” Last I looked, Nick Browne yielded nineteen million search results on Google; drop the e and you’re up to seven hundred million. Far more anonymous.

“And you, uh — how do you know my sister?”

“We met at a party in TriBeCa,” Sukie said.

I waited for Hayden to ask, “Whose party?” but instead she said, “Are you in the arts?”

“Just the dark arts of McKinsey and Company.”

“McKinsey,” she said. “The consulting firm.”

I nodded.

“Huh.”

She looked like she was mulling a follow-up question. Maybe she knew somebody who worked there. So I quickly changed the subject. “I’m looking forward to your all-Asian version of Suddenly Last Summer,” I said. I’d read in a profile in the New York Times that she was partial to Tennessee Williams.

She seemed to loosen up even more. With a tilt of her head, she said, “Yes, that’s shaping up to be a powerful piece.”

At that moment, a waitress appeared with a tray of miniature hamburgers. I took a slider. Sukie drew close to me for a moment and muttered under her breath, “Uh-oh. Danger, Will Robinson.”