Whatever cooked information Louis had shared with his reporter friend is leading this downturn, but as I’d reminded Gabriel, I have a separate, private holding company with an obscene amount of ready capital. When Kerr Inc. stock falls to thirty percent below opening trading, it will be the time to buy. My guess is that it would happen before noon tomorrow.
The rest of the late afternoon is spent handling phone calls from frantic board members. I assure them that all is fine. I don’t know if any of them have been listening to Louis’s whispers, so I don’t share my plans with them.
Right before I leave, Rose alerts me to the director of the Frick on the phone. “Mr. Kerr, I’m so sorry to bother you today. You must have a lot on your plate.”
“No problem, Ross. What can I do for you?” I try not to sound impatient because the Frick event is one that must go smoothly. I need Ross Fairchild to ensure that.
“It’s about your donation. I know we’ve received the first one but…” he trails off.
“In light of the impending financial news, you’re worried my pledge may not be sound?” I finish for him.
“Of course not. Only, if we are to provide naming rights for such an important expansion, we want to ensure that it the renovations encounter no barriers. I’m certain you would agree if you were me.”
I tamp down my anger at his insinuation that I’d make a promise and not live up to it. “What will it take for the event to proceed as planned with the naming rights as we previously discussed?”
“The entire amount?” he suggests. At my stony silence, he relents. “Perhaps sixty percent?”
“The cashier’s check will be on your desk first thing, Fairchild. The event better be f**king perfect.”
“Of course, and thank you for your understanding.”
Fuck you.
I slam the phone down and close my eyes. The amount of the Frick donation is sizeable, and while I have contingency funds, it isn’t bottomless. I hadn’t accounted for the entire five million to be called in like that.
Any other time and I would’ve told Fairchild to f**k himself, but then again, any other time and he wouldn’t be asking.
The phone rings again, but I’m done for the day. I need to see Tiny.
EIGHTEEN
WHEN I ARRIVE HOME SHE’S already there, vibrating with energy. The sight of her helps to drain away some of the tension of the day.
I drop my bag on the floor and enclose my arms around her slender waist. “I’m disappointed. When you told me to come home right away, I thought for sure you’d be wearing nothing but whipped cream.”
“Not every night is your birthday,” she teases.
“No, but we can pretend,” I answer. “But before I ravish you, you appear to be bursting with news. What is it?” I bury my head in the side of her neck, growling and rubbing my afternoon scruff all over her tender skin. She squeals and pushes ineffectually at my hands.
“Stop. I seriously have something to tell you.”
Drawing back but still keeping her within the circle of my arms, I say carefully, “Are you pregnant? And if so, do you want to be?”
“No! Come over and sit down though.” She leads me into the living room and has me sit on the sofa. There’s a cold beer, fresh from the cooler, waiting for me on the side table. Picking up the beer, I obediently take a long drink. She waits, hovering at the edge of the coffee table as if she can barely contain herself.
“Lay it on me,” I say, dropping the beer on the table and leaning forward.
“I was thinking about Howe,” she begins.
With a groan, I lean back and cover my eyes. “No, Tiny, you said you wouldn’t.”
“I haven’t done anything.” She pauses. “Much. I haven’t done much of anything.”
“I’m going to kick Jake’s ass.” I pick up my phone to start a verbal flaying.
“Wait. I never left the office. Okay, a few times, but I knew Steve was following me.” When I set the phone down, she continues. “I asked Jake about what research he’d done on the other women who had been rumored to be involved with Howe. He told me that you’d done background checks and had them followed, but they appeared to be ordinary women. There was one girl who was a student at Columbia. Another who was an intern for a councilman connected to his dad. The third, though, was a waitress. She worked at Table 57, a restaurant that Howe liked to go to without his wife.”
“His wife didn’t like going because it was too down-market.” I finish for her. “I know this. I read the report when Jake put it together.”
“Well, the waitress bothered me. The other two women came from money, so maybe it was easy to see why they would turn away yours. And maybe they didn’t want to be in the eye of a scandal, particularly the intern, but the waitress was like me. She seemed to be barely scraping together enough to live on. Jake said she lived in Brooklyn and took a two-hour train ride to get to Table 57. You’d think she’d be okay with suffering through a few pictures in exchange for the hefty half-million you were willing to pony up.”
“You’d think,” I say.
“But then I thought about blackmail. Did you know that Malcolm wanted your signature in the hopes of blackmailing you in the future?”
“I thought that might be the case,” I say, unconcerned. I never gave Malcolm my signature, and there wasn’t anything that would tie me to him—except for Tiny, and she was worth any risk.
“I had Jake check the marriage records for her mother. They showed that her mother remarried once, for like six months, to a guy who is currently in prison. But there was another kid who lived with them.”
“I’m interested. Keep talking.” I think I know where this is going, but I want to hear it all.
“The kid from the marriage was in juvie, and he got out. Lauren, that’s the waitress, was the one who picked him up, according to one of Jake’s contacts.”
“So she’s related. A half-brother. Maybe a stepbrother,” I muse out loud. “He gets out conveniently around the time I start sniffing around.”
“Yes,” she claps her hands. “It’s crazy, but maybe he’s bought off a judge or something. The kid gets let out and Lauren is super grateful. Whatever he holds over their heads is more important than the money.”
“Let’s check it out.”
“Both of us?” Her eyes are glowing.