Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

“Some of it. I put the proceeds of my husband’s estate in his hands, but I continued to manage my own funds. I started a cosmetics business years ago, and I sold it before the recession, so I have means of my own to support me.”

“An enviable position to be in,” Stone said. “Has anyone heard anything from David?”

She gazed at him over her martini glass. “You’re very well informed. What do you know about David?”

“That he’s . . . on vacation.”

“Well, yes.”

“And that he’s suspected of being the real culprit—or, at the very least, Jack’s coconspirator.”

“Suspected by whom?” she asked.

“Just about everybody, I gather.”

She shrugged. “I honestly don’t think Jack is capable of stealing his clients’ money. For one thing, he’s always made plenty of his own. He was a top man at Goldman Sachs; only went out on his own when he was passed over for CEO there. He left with a very large bundle, which he used to establish his own business, and that has done extraordinarily well.”

“And how do you feel about David?”

“I love the boy. He’s always been the perfect young man, you know—top of his class, everybody’s choice to succeed.” She made as if to continue, but stopped.

“But?”

“But I don’t understand his generation; they are all so different from the way we are, used to having everything so early in their adulthood.”

“You think he might have cut corners?”

“A billion dollars’ worth of corners?” she asked. “It hardly seems possible.”

“I guess we’ll know when the accountants are done,” Stone said.

When they were back in the car Adele said, “Now I’d like to see your mother’s pictures.”

Stone mixed them a drink in the living room, then took Adele upstairs in the elevator and switched on the lights that washed the wall where the four pictures hung.

Adele went and stood before them, gazing intently at one after the other. She turned and put her hand on her breast. “They take my breath away,” she said.

“They still do that to me, too,” Stone replied.

“If you should ever—”

Stone held up a hand. “Never. They’ll go to the Metropolitan Museum—eventually—to hang with her other work there. The museum shop is already selling reproductions that are somewhat smaller than the originals.”

Adele sipped her drink and looked around the room. “You’ve done this quite well,” she said. “Who was your designer?”

“I was,” Stone replied.

“I’m not at all uncomfortable in your bedroom,” she said, “but I’d like to take one more look at your pictures and then be taken home.”

“As you wish,” Stone said. He waited until she was finished, then took her empty glass and led her to the elevator.

“Did you ever marry?” she asked on the way down.

“Never,” Stone lied. There had been a marriage, with the daughter of a friend, but it was terminated after only a few weeks. He had never felt married.

“Do you have something against the institution?” she asked.

“No, I always assumed I would be married someday; it just hasn’t happened.”