But Mr. Stone didn't like him, even though they were business partners. And that thought crossed my mind again. Billionaires don't become billionaires without getting some blood on their hands. Again, I struggled with the idea. I did trust Mr. Stone but I kept having all these thoughts. Thoughts that maybe I was the fool.
I glanced down into the box and my eyes widened when I read STONE PHARMA. I put everything on a desk and pulled out the contract. It was mostly in legalese gibberish like the rest but this one was clearly a contract for chemical waste-disposal services in Bedford. After all this time, this was precisely the kind of thing I had been looking for. All it had taken was a blackmail threat to find it. I flipped to the signature sheet and felt my heart sink. I grabbed another contract and went to the back only to find the same result.
They were all signed by Jackson Stone.
*
My trip upstairs with the box of contracts wasn't a happy one. I trusted Mr. Stone but now I had papers with his signature on them. Contracts directly connecting the waste-disposal service with Stone Pharma.
I sat down at my desk and glowered at the black mahogany door of his office for a few minutes. Was I being a fool? I should trust Mr. Stone just because he says I should trust him?
I looked at my email and saw he'd sent me one telling me he'd left the office and giving me the time Mi-oh would pick me up. He also advised I should order lunch in and not leave the building until she collected me.
Blackmail and blackmailers and someone in my apartment. Was I in more danger than I suspected? I'd go home and die from poisoned milk or some black van would scoop me up on the street and I'd never been seen again?
I felt like I was playing some game where not only didn't I know the rules but I had no idea who the players were or what they might do. I started going through the papers and then had to stop to take out a piece of paper so I could draw up all the connections. One company contracting to another but owned by some other one and licensing out another service and then they were owned by two more and it looked like a big tangled knot between them all.
I scowled at the complicated diagram in front of me and then that expression got worse as another email arrived, this time from Mr. Black. He was requesting more work and could I pretty please have it by tonight and he'd send me all the bacon lunches I wanted. I ignored it and continued to look over the puzzle in front of me. I'm sure there was an answer.
*
The rest of the day went by fairly quickly and eventually my bad mood lifted. Yes, it was replaced with terror at meeting Mr. Stone's mother and then guilt about how ridiculously expensive the dress I'd probably wear would be but at least it was a change.
I met Mi-oh downstairs, only recognizing her by the car because this time he was dressed like a South Korean pop star.
"Is that dress made out of bubble-wrap?"
"Something Alma made for me," she said and winked. "Is that Mr. Stone's work?"
I gave her the box of contracts and got into the car. Something about Mi-oh always managed to make me happy.
We chatted away as Mi-oh drove and I told her I was meant to be buying Mr. Stone tonight at the bachelor auction.
"Oh, he's at least worth five bucks," she said.
"I'd pay ten," I answered and laughed.
"Must be true love," she said and flickered her eyebrows at me.
Love?
True love?
Soon we were in that ridiculously expensive shopping district we'd come to last time. I got out of the car just as Alma opened the door to her boutique. Last time I'd seen her, her hair had been dyed a deep red. Now it was pitch black with a red shimmer and moved like a silken waterfall as she nodded at me.
She handed me a glass of champagne as she invited me inside.
"What can we do for you today?" she said, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
I took a sip of the champagne, feeling the bubbles rush over my tongue and the warmth of the alcohol flow down my throat.
"I'm buying a billionaire tonight," I said and raised my glass.
Alma clinked hers against mine and laughed.
"We have just the thing," she said and took me by the arm.
*
After the girl had done their thing, Mi-oh drove us over to the opposite side of the city from where Mr. Stone's mansion was. And when I say opposite, I mean opposite. His mansion was about as far away from where we were going as it could be while still being in the same city. I wondered if that was deliberate.
As we drove along a hedge-lined street I caught glimpses of a distant mansion through the trees. Was that it?
Soon, Mi-oh turned and we were buzzed in through a giant wrought-iron gate and began our way up a curved paved driveway. I looked out the window feeling my sense of calm evaporating and then I realized the street we'd been driving down for the last ten minutes was just one on side of this piece of land. You could have fit two suburbs with their very own Wal-Marts in here and still had room for a stadium left over.
We rounded a curve and I gasped at the mansion that appeared before us. I'd never seen a castle in real life ... that is, until now. It was like they'd taken a few mansions and mixed in a castle and then decided it needed to be about three times larger. It looked like one of those crazy places you see in a magazine that some movie-star just bought and they talk about its twenty-three bathrooms.
"Close your mouth, a fly will go in," Mi-oh said and then laughed.
I shut my mouth but I couldn't stop myself clenching my hands on the tiny black bag I carried.
"This is Mr. Stone's childhood home?" I managed to squeak out.
"Rather small isn't it? No wonder the guy suffers from claustrophobia."
I laughed and then shook my head at myself. Have some confidence Delilah! Mr. Stone invited you here. He wants you here.
We pulled up and a doorman approached.
"Knock 'em dead, tiger," Mi-oh said.
I stepped out of the Bentley and took a deep breath of the night air.
I can do this.
*
The doorman led me to a butler who led me to a ballroom. I'm sure I mumbled something to the butler but I have no idea what I said as I walked through the Stone mansion. It felt like I was in an art gallery and museum that had then been covered in gold and silver. Statuettes in glass cases lined the corridor along with enormous oil paintings. I'm pretty sure the rug I walked on cost more than I've made for my entire life put together.
I understood on some level that Mr. Stone was wealthy. I mean, he was a billionaire but all that had meant so far was an amazing mansion that he lived in. It was big and incredible but it seemed to fit him. This place though ... he grew up here? It didn't look like a place for children. I suddenly wondered what Mr. Stone would think of the little house I grew up in. One of the bathrooms here was probably larger than our kitchen.