“The main thing is, don’t feel it’s something you can’t talk about. Don’t feel it’s some weird, shameful thing, okay? Tits aren’t the end of the world. Zits, on the other hand…”
Another burst of giggles, less nervous and more high-spirited.
They were having The Talk. Relief washed over him, mixed with a little jealousy over the intimacy Cassie and Julia seemed to have developed. He’d mentioned to Cassie how much he was dreading the prospect of having the girl-stuff talk with his daughter: in his hands, it would probably have ended in some grisly level of mutual embarrassment. Marta, despite her tight jeans, was prim and embarrassed about talking about sex and had let Nick know that she most emphatically didn’t consider it her place to tell Julia about things like periods.
Cassie, though, was talking about it as if it were no big deal, and somehow making it no big deal. Something about her low, commonsensical voice was keeping everything real, down-to-earth, and comfortable. Or at least as comfortable as it could be for a giddy, giggly ten-year-old.
“Lot of things change, lot of things don’t,” Cassie told Julia. “Just remember, whatever happens to you, you’re always going to be your daddy’s little girl.”
Nick cleared his throat, then said to Julia, “Hey, baby.”
“Daddy!” She got up and received his hug.
“Where’s your brother?”
“He’s upstairs working.”
“Good to hear. And where’d you get this outfit?”
“Cassie bought it for me.”
“She did, huh?” A velour tracksuit? It even exposed her tummy. She was ten years old, for Christ’s sake.
Cassie looked up, shrugged sheepishly. “All the fifth-graders consider me their fashion guru,” she said.
When Julia had left to go to her room, Nick looked at Cassie and shrugged. “Thanks, by the way. I gather you were talking about girl stuff with her. Not easy for her old man to do.”
“She’s a sweet pea, Nick. The main thing is that she knows you’re always going to be her daddy, and you’re always going to love her.”
“Stay for dinner?”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Plans?”
“No. I just-you know, what’s that they say about guests and fish? They start stinking after-I forget how many days.”
“You think Julia considers you a guest? Or Luke?”
She couldn’t hide her smile. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Stay. Plus, I could use your take on what’s going on at work.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” she said. “The wisdom tooth of Fenwick, Michigan.”
He told her about his meeting with Dorothy Devries.
“Well, she’s not calling the shots anymore,” Cassie said. “You said Todd Muldaur is.”
“That’s the problem.”
“The question I always like to ask is: Who’s your daddy?”
“Yeah. You and Shaft.”
“So who’s Todd Muldaur’s daddy?”
A shrug. “Willard Osgood is the chairman of Fairfield Partners. But it sounds like he’s become an absentee father.”
“Willard Osgood-the guy with the thick glasses and all that folksy investment advice, right? I read that profile in Fortune you showed me. He’s the one you’ve got to go to.”
“For what? I don’t see the upside.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Osgood really think of himself as a father figure? What you’re describing doesn’t sound like his style.”
“True,” Nick said. “But times change. The face of the future is probably Todd Muldaur.”
“See, that doesn’t add up to me. The way it’s all been kept under wraps-that’s not just about keeping the details away from you. Is it possible they’re trying to keep the details away from Daddy too?”
“Hmph. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But it’s possible, right?”
“It’s possible, yes.”
“So maybe you should go right to Osgood.”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if he knows everything that’s going on?”
“Consider your options right now. The real question is, What if I’m right?”
94
Audrey’s e-mail icon was bouncing. It was a message from Kevin Lenehan. She opened it immediately, then practically ran to Forensic Services.
“Guess what?” he said.
“You got it. The video.”
“No fucking way. I told you, that’s so gone.”
“Then what?”
“This is cool. I noticed this code on here. It backs up to an FTP server on a preset schedule.”
“Can you explain that?”
“Sure. Certain archivable events, ranging from alarm inputs to motion-detector inputs, get automatically sent to an FTP server using the IP address that’s preprogrammed in here.”
“Kevin,” she said, mildly exasperated, “that really wasn’t much of an explanation, now, was it?”
“The eleven minutes of video you’re looking for? That we thought got totally erased? Well, it got erased on the box, here. But it also got sent over the Internet to Stratton’s LAN-sorry, the company’s computers. There’s a backup copy at Stratton. That clear enough?”
Audrey smiled. “Can you get into the Stratton computers from here-on the Internet or something?”
“If I was that good, do you think I’d have a job like this?”
She shrugged.
“But get me into Stratton and I’ll know where to look.”
95
It was an hour drive to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport, then a five-hour flight to Logan Airport, a bustling place that seemed as populous as all of Fenwick. Nick made his way past a Legal Sea Foods restaurant, a WH-Smith bookstore, and a Brookstone gadget center before he reached the escalator to Ground Transportation. Among a flock of livery drivers, he caught the eye of an olive-skinned man in a blue blazer and gray slacks who was holding a card that read NICHOLAS CONVER. Close enough.
Fairfield Partners was the anchor tenant of a vast glass-and granite-faced building on Federal Street, in the heart of downtown Boston. Willard Osgood’s offices were on the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth floors. The reception area was all dove-gray velvet and tropical woods, and Nick expected he’d be given plenty of time to study its details, cooling his heels in preparation for his audience with the Great Man. To his surprise, though, the strawberry blond receptionist told him to go right in. Nick wondered whether he was late. His watch told him that he was a few minutes early if anything.
As he walked through the glass door, Nick was immediately met by another blond woman, this one with red plastic-framed glasses. “Mr. Conover,” she said. “Your flight okay?”
“It was,” Nick said.
“Can I get you anything? Water, a soda, coffee?”
“I’m fine,” Nick said, striding to keep up with her power walk.
“I’m sorry Todd’s on the road. I’m sure he would have loved to say hi if he knew you were coming in.”
I’m sure he would have, Nick thought. “Well, you might want to check with Mr. Osgood before you tell Todd or anyone else that I was here.”
“Yes, sir,” she said quickly. “Of course.”
The offices of Fairfield Equity Partners were soaring and glass-walled, two floors combined into one. Along the walls, he noticed framed magazine covers featuring Willard Osgood-holding a fishing reel on the cover of Field & Stream, wearing a blue suit and yellow tie on Forbes. Osgood’s square, bespectacled face and pleased-yet-concerned expression were always identical, as if the head had been Photoshopped onto different models.
Finally, she gestured toward a tan leather sofa in what looked like a vast waiting area, and said, “Have a seat. I’ll leave you here.”
Nick craned his head around, took in the large glass desk and various fishing trophies on the wall. It took a moment before he figured out he was in Willard Osgood’s own office. He looked out the windows on two sides and could see the Boston Harbor in the distance, then some scrubby little islands beyond that.