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56
Athena walked down the short corridor, through the kitchen, and out the back door of Redemption House, the lovely colonial she’d bought several years ago for a country getaway, now their headquarters. It was set back a half mile from a little-used country road, a perfect spot, isolated enough for safety, but close enough to Bexholt to reach in under an hour.
She tossed her car keys in the air, caught them handily, and unlocked her silver Audi. She would get to Coverton and Bexholt with enough time to speak to her brother and dear daddy. She laughed. Daddy, in particular, would have a stroke if he knew what was going to happen, what she, his daughter—a mere woman—was making happen. She turned off the AC, opened the convertible top, and sang Katy Perry’s “Roar” at the top of her lungs.
Fifty-two minutes later, she parked in her personal space next to her brother’s at Bexholt. Her father’s space was on the other side of her brother’s, his gleaming black Bentley directly in front of the main entrance to Bexholt, of course.
She walked around to the passenger side of her Audi, opened the door, and shoved it against her brother’s driver’s side panel. A pity about another lovely gouge in his white Mercedes.
She strode through the main entrance into the huge gold marble-floored lobby with seasonal photos of Maryland on its white walls and smoothly morphed into her alter ego, Nikki Bexholt.
Nathan Bexholt, COO and heir apparent to his powerful father, Garrick Xavier Bexholt, turned from the large window overlooking the lovely three-acre park twelve floors below. His own office had the same awesome view of the small decorative lake. His sister Nikki’s office overlooked the Bexholt campus, their R&D buildings and the warehouse complex with its lines of shipping trucks, white with bright blue lightning bolts on their sides. He rubbed his neck, wished there was someone to massage the knots out, but that would have to wait. Crissy, his wife of fourteen years, was in Paris, probably on the lookout for an artist/lover with oily black hair and a concave chest who splashed red and black blobs on a white canvas. Who cared? They each had their own lives. Their two boys were at Andover, and thank heaven, in good standing. He turned to face his father, who wasn’t wearing his usual go team expression. He looked tired, pensive.
Nathan said, “What a day. I still can’t believe it—Eleanor Corbitt, dead, murdered. I sent everyone in accounting home after a Detective Raven of Metro finished interviewing, even hauled two employees out of the bathroom to speak to them. Apparently there were some FBI agents here as well.” He shrugged. “Of course, no one seemed to know anything helpful. It’s a pity she didn’t have any close friends here at work.” He rubbed his neck again. “I knew her, Dad, I knew Eleanor. She was nice, competent, always on point, on the quiet side, but really sort of intense—” Nathan paused, saw his father raise a salt-and-pepper brow, and added, “She kept her private life very private. I never heard any gossip about her after she divorced her husband, a gold-plated jerk, I heard.” Nathan turned away to look out at the park. “I have no clue what she did when she left work every day. I hope whatever it was didn’t lead to this.”
Garrick Bexholt joined his son at the window. “Your mother told me she saw Eleanor once in one of those women’s centers she likes to support.” He shrugged, added with a dash of contempt, “You know several of the women’s shelters are on her endless string of charities.”
Nathan frowned. “Maybe one of the husbands didn’t like what Eleanor was doing, so killed her.”
“Who knows?” Garrick asked without much interest. “Maybe you should pass that along to the Metro cops. Or the FBI, or whoever. Ah, here’s your sister.” He looked down at his Piaget watch, shook his head. “Late,” he said to Nathan. “But what can you expect from a woman?”
Garrick Bexholt watched his strong-willed, outspoken daughter stride through the door, his secretary, Margo, standing behind her looking helpless. Bexholt merely shook his head, mouthed, Go home. Margo, no expression on her face, nodded and turned away.
Garrick kept a smile firmly in place as Nikki walked up to him, gave him a light kiss on his cheek.
“Well, where have you been? The FBI are at your office, been there at least five minutes now, waiting for you.”
“Did you and Nathan speak to them?”
Garrick said, “Of course not. Why would I?”
Nathan said, “I really wasn’t available when they were here. Dad’s right. Why would they want to talk to us? To me? What could I possibly know? Ah, but they want to speak to you.”
“Well, that makes sense. After all, I supervise the accounting department. It’s a pity, but I really don’t have anything useful to tell them. They can wait a bit longer.”
Nathan said, “FYI. Since you were supposedly in Washington all day, I went ahead and sent everyone in accounting home. They were all either crying or sitting there doing nothing anyway. So why not dismiss them? It makes for good employee relations. I’m sure you would have done the same thing, wouldn’t you?” He saw she wanted to blast him, reveled in it a moment, but instead she said, “Why did you say ‘supposedly’? Of course I was in Washington all day.”
Nathan shrugged. “My assistant tried to call you, but got booted to voice mail. Then she called one of the staff and was told you’d left. I asked Dad, but he didn’t know where you were, either.”
Garrick said, “Where did you go, Nikki? Overseeing the Federal Reserve conference is top priority, you know that.”
Nikki gave a shrug to mimic her brother’s. “I had some personal business to take care of, didn’t take long at all. I saw you messaged, Nathan. I ignored it.” She harked back to what he’d done, still pissed. He was like their father, always sticking his nose in her business. The accounting department was her business, not his, not their father’s—well, it was their father’s, but maybe not for all that long.
Nathan watched her chin go up, watched her eyes flash from calm to fire, and got ready for the show. She was so predictable, the little bitch. “You should have called me, asked me.”
He gave her a smarmy smile he knew she hated. “As I said, no one was getting any work done. As I also said, I couldn’t reach you, and it was good for employee morale.” Nathan studied his younger sister’s face, not much expression now, but her eyes told everything if you knew how to read them. Even when she was a little girl, he knew when she was lying to him, knew when she was trying to stab him in the back. It was a good bet, given her mood, she’d put another dent in his car door. Well, that was why he had two assistants, one of whom would get the car fixed without any bother to him. Let her pull her passive-aggressive crap, it didn’t matter. Nathan had come to realize his younger sister not only disliked him, she hated him to his soul. She’d be ecstatic if poof, he was gone forever. In odd moments, he’d wondered if she’d kill him if she knew she could get away with it. He’d never been particularly mean to her, usually simply ignored her. He was her senior by six years, after all. As an adult, he continued to ignore her and her fake praise when she couldn’t get out of giving it, her backbiting, her jealousy, her attempts to make him look bad in their father’s eyes. He marveled at how blind she seemed to what his father was to his core—Garrick viewed women as underlings, to be told what to do, to give him sex when he wanted it, however he wanted it, didn’t matter if the woman was his wife or not. Didn’t Nikki realize he tolerated her at best? Gave her what he had to when there was no other choice? Nathan knew their father would never give her what she wanted in the end—and that was the big chair. No, she’d stay planted in any chair he gave her, forever. Nathan vaguely remembered when he was small seeing his mother stand up to her husband. He remembered the fight, the blow to her ribs, her tears and groans, then the awful silence, and at last his father’s soft, cold words: Don’t cross me again, Kyra, or I’ll break your ribs next time, shave off that pile of hair you’re so proud of. Nathan never said a word, not then, not to this day.
He shook his head, he didn’t like to remember that night. With Nikki, his father pretended to show respect, to give her power in Bexholt, since she’d worked her butt off in every department he’d assigned her to, probably expecting her to fail spectacularly. Only she hadn’t. And now she’d taken this Federal Reserve assignment—seeing that the hotel conference room, the entire floor, was secure from any electronic surveillance or simple eavesdropping. He could have easily taken care of it himself, but oddly, Nikki had begged their father to be put in charge of this one, to work alongside all the other security teams. So her father had hidden his contempt again, and let her have her way.
Most of the time Nathan found his sister tedious and annoying, but unlike their father, he recognized she was smart. As smart as he was? No, of course she wasn’t, but still, he knew in the deepest part of him if he didn’t stay alert, she’d try to find a way to bury him.
He grinned at her now, knowing it would drive her nuts that he hadn’t answered her about sending the accounting department home. He said instead, “You sure look good in Armani black.” Not a lie. She looked like a powerhouse, a champ. Nikki wasn’t exactly pretty, her features were too strong, her focus too intense. At least she didn’t look bland, like his wife, who for some strange reason liked to copy Nikki’s clothes. But black Armani made his very pale-faced blond Crissy look like a crow—in mourning.
Nathan eyed his sister again. No wonder she couldn’t keep a husband. She held even the smallest slight close to her breast, she nurtured resentment. There was never any forgiveness. She was a ball-buster, vindictive. Denting his cars, it was so typical.
When his father finally retired, if he didn’t croak over his desk, Nathan would get her out of the main Bexholt campus, set her up at one of their plants in Spain. She could bust Spanish balls.
Nikki said to their father, “Everything’s on schedule for the bankers’ conference on Monday. The Kentington Hotel will be swarming with security, and we’re making good progress on securing the conference room as well as the entire sixth and seventh floors. We’ve already started installing the acoustic panels and the Faraday cage.”
“I was told you’re covering the entire room,” Nathan said. “You know that’s not really needed. What, you’re trying to impress them?”
“Isn’t that the whole idea, Nathan? You’re not jealous, are you?”
“You know their own security will examine the room for listening devices. I hope they don’t ruin all your work.” He paused, rubbed his hands together, and Nikki’s eyes went to the backs of his big hands. She hated his hands.
“Let’s have no more bickering,” Garrick said. “I’m sure Nikki will do an adequate job.”
Right, you bastard. She left her father and brother discussing their weekend plans to go out on the yacht with Nathan’s two boys. “No women allowed, Nathan, only us men,” she heard her father say when she was nearly out of his office.
