“Maybe she wouldn’t like the publicity,” Leif said. Old-line society types felt the only times their name should appear in the papers were when they were born, when they were married, and when they died.
He paused, hit by a sudden notion. Matt automatically assumed — and so had he — that the cease-and-desist letters came from the Callivants. What if those lawyers were instead working for Felicia Hadding? Maybe she didn’t want anyone nosing around in the facts about her daughter’s death.
“Whoa!” Charlie Dysart’s boisterous comment cut through Leif’s thoughts. “Looks like we get to party with the rich and famous tonight! That’s Nikki Callivant coming off the dance floor.”
Talk about your coincidences, Leif thought. After talking about that old case with Matt, I come to Haddington and meet a Callivant.
On second thought, it might not be such a big coincidence after all. The Callivant compound wasn’t all that far from Haddington. And this was probably the sort of society affair that the young Callivants were encouraged to attend.
He knew the name Nicola Callivant. She was Walter G.’s granddaughter, about the same age as Leif and Matt. Either she wasn’t interested or wasn’t old enough for the splashier affairs attended by her older cousins. Somehow, she’d managed to keep away from the lenses of the press and HoloNews.
The few pictures Leif had seen of her made Nicola look fragile, like an overly nervous thoroughbred horse. In holos her features seemed too delicate, her expression too refined.
The word you’re looking for, Leif told himself, is effete.
Seeing Nikki in real life changed that impression. Yes, her face was delicate, more delicate even than portraits of her mother, a famed beauty. Her hair was light brown and fine, floating like a cloud around her face. But those deep blue, almost violet, eyes were far from delicate. They glittered with pride, and with intelligence Leif could feel even halfway across the room.
Without even discussing it, Leif and Charlie began heading toward the girl. Nicola gave the guy she’d been dancing with a cool smile and began turning away.
“Hey! Nikki!” Charlie Dysart called, grabbing Leif by the arm. “I didn’t think you’d be out slumming tonight.”
Nikki Callivant’s lips retained the same smile, but Leif noticed a brief flicker in her eyes. He recognized the look. Sometimes it passed between his Net Force friends when Andy Moore got a little too boisterous.
“Hello, Dysart,” she said, her voice flat.
“I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Charlie said, drowning out her words. “Leif, say hello to Nikki.”
Dysart’s crude introduction left Leif no choice. He’d just have to make the best of an embarrassing situation. “Ms. Callivant, how do you do. I’m Leif Anderson—”
Those incredible eyes suddenly went cold. “I’ve heard about you, Anderson.”
Leif almost physically stumbled. “Excuse me?” You’d think he’d broken wind instead of trying to break the ice.
“You pestered a friend of mine,” Nicola Callivant spoke remorselessly on. “Forced your company on her. Embarrassed her. Do you speak French, Mr. Anderson? Maybe you’ll understand a few of the words she had to say about you. Parvenu. Arriviste.”
As she spoke, Leif couldn’t help noticing the fine-boned sculpting of Nikki Callivant’s nose — even though she was looking down it at him.
“Déclassé,” she finally concluded her insulting list.
Leif’s French was impeccable, better than hers was if the accent was anything to go by. He understood each painful word. Social climber. Upstart. Lower class.
“So who had all these nice things to say about me?” he asked in a carefully level tone of voice.
Nikki Callivant’s right eyebrow rose in a perfect arch. “Is it a hobby of yours? Are there so many women who might say such things that you can’t guess? Do you push yourself on every woman you meet?”
“It’s an exercise in masochism.”
The girl’s lips twisted in disgust. “A friend of mine from New York. Courtney Hardaway.”
Leif spread his hands. “Well, there you go. Courtney did have to put up with me. Just as I had to put up with her. We were forced together by my parents — and by hers. Hardaway Industries was getting a big cash transfusion from my dad’s company.” He made a modest, waving-away gesture. “Yes, I know. Crude. New money. Not like yours. But then, my father had certain handicaps. His family was busy being oppressed while your family was busily war profiteering during World War Two.”
Beside him, Leif heard Charlie Dysart make a noise somewhere between a gasp and a gulp.
Nicola Callivant showed her breeding, however. First, her perfect face went pale as marble. Then her cheeks burned bright red. “How dare you!” she grated. “I am a Callivant!”
“And I’m an Anderson,” Leif replied. “Thanks for teaching me an important lesson. I wouldn’t have believed it. But there are worse snobs on this earth than Courtney Hardaway.”
Spinning on his heel, he stalked away.
4
The moons of Jupiter continued their stately orbital dance around the swollen bulk of their mother planet. Megan O’Malley took a long minute to study the view from her seat in the stone amphitheater cut into the crust of Ganymede. This was her personal virtual space, big enough to hold the largest crowd — like all her friends from the Net Force Explorers.
She finally brought her eyes down to stare at the guest of honor in disbelief. “You actually dissed a Callivant — and lived?”
“There were a couple of tight moments,” Leif Anderson admitted. “But I managed to get out of there before the lynch mob was able to find a rope.”
Andy Moore laughed. “Even so, word will get out. I mean, what you did is like taking a whiz on the Washington Monument. Aren’t you afraid your folks will get deported or something?”
Leif rolled his eyes. “Please.”
Megan figured the subject of parents was probably a painful one for Leif right now. The Andersons had returned late last night to find Leif not at home, long after he was expected back from the party. They’d tried to contact him on his wallet-phone — and had gotten no answer. So they’d called around to Leif’s Washington friends, waking up a lot of people, not finding their wandering son…and, in the end, leading to this virtual meeting of the crew, who had finally tracked Leif down, at home, just before dawn. Everybody wanted to find out what really happened.
So far, Megan had to admit, the story had been pretty entertaining.
“So how come your folks couldn’t get through to you?” Maj Greene demanded.
Leif smiled, but his eyes moved just a little too much. “My phone crapped out.”
The needle on Megan’s mental BS meter flicked. Leif was not being honest. “How could that be? I thought you had the top-of-the-line, latest-model, most expensive wallet-phone known to humankind.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Leif really didn’t want to answer this. “You’d think it would be waterproof.”
“Water-resistant. It is. How’d you let it get wet enough to kill it?” Megan hooted in derision.
“Can I help it if I ended up in a fountain, thanks to some of Nikki’s Neanderthal male friends? Do you know how long it took for me to dry out?
“How could you let that happen?” David Gray asked in disbelief. “Didn’t you have any warning?”
Leif wouldn’t meet their eyes. “Oh, I saw them coming. I just figured I could talk my way out of it.”
“Yeah,” Megan repeated, “like you did with Nikki Callivant, you silver-tongued devil.” She shook her head. “I’m beginning to believe that study on HoloNews — the one that says ninety percent of problems result from human error.”