“As long as you don’t dance,” she quipped back.
Up ahead, Barbie Cooper gripped the crook of her husband’s arm as she wobbled toward the house, her heels
poking holes in the lawn.
Barbie filled out her small silver dress in a wonderful way, and she looked up into Bryce’s face with adoration. When her wrinkly husband leaned down for a kiss, she made it good, pressing her supersize chest into his, putting her hand to his cheek, laying it on him for all she was worth. Which, according to the numbers they’d cranked out at Private, was half a billion dollars if he died, far less if they divorced.
That big, full-body smooch looked weird and gross and made Scotty pretty sure that Barbie Cooper wasn’t looking to get divorced. Scotty felt very bad for the old man.
He started walking, caught up to the Coopers at the entrance to the Dressler manse, stuck out his hand, and said, “Bryce, I’m Chris Scofield, Scofield Systems. Oakland.”
Bryce looked understandably perplexed.
“I uh, I don’t quite remember…”
“That’s okay. There were a lot of us there when we had lunch at Donald Ross last year. And you must be Barbie.”
Barbie gave Scotty an appreciative look, patted him down with her eyes. Then she said, “Scofield Systems. Is that computers, Chris?”
Still chatting with the Coopers, Scotty gave his fake name to security, and thanks to Mo-bot’s superior hacking skills, Chris Scofield was on the digital guest list with a star next to his name, meaning “big donor.” And as he was also engaged in conversation with Bryce and Barbie Cooper, well known in Aspen society, Scotty entered the private enclave without questions.
Now, all he had to do was stay close enough to Bryce Cooper to make sure that his cute little wife didn’t kill him.
Chapter 85
VAL KENNEY ENTERED Las Vegas’s famed CityCenter, determined not to be awed by this glittering constellation of resorts, hotels, high-end retail shops, and million-dollar condos, all of it a monument to greed and excess.
Val had grown up poor, the child of a working single mom, and they’d lived with Grandma in Liberty City, a black ’hood in Miami. She had nothing against money. It provided necessities and comfort and also the means to help those in need, and that she loved. But Val’s ambitions didn’t run to amassing wealth. She wanted to raise her own bar, do good and achieve big things.
That’s why she was here.
Olsen taught his how-to-catch-a-rich-husband class in his condo in Veer Towers, the residential complex composed of two buildings, each thirty-seven floors of modern luxury encased in glass and golden panels, their tops craning outward, so that neither building would interfere with the other’s view of the Las Vegas cityscape.
Val took the escalator to the main floor of the North Tower, traveling up through a vast, futuristic lobby that made her feel as though she’d been living in a cave until today, when she had somehow stepped into the twenty-second century.
She told herself to get a grip.
She looked like she belonged, dressed to impress in a brilliant cherry-red-and-white print Rachel Roy dress that skimmed her curves without hiding them, the hem ending just above her knees. Her black shoes were pointy toed with three-inch heels, which would make her the tallest woman in almost any room.
As she headed toward the elevator bank, Val had an unexpected flash of fear. In a few moments, she would be entering Lester Olsen’s home with a wireless microphone nestled in her cleavage, a digital recorder in her handbag. And then she was going to lie her face off.
Would she get away with that? Really?
Val remembered the last thing Jack had said to her before she left LA; “I have one hundred percent confidence in you, Val. But if you become afraid for your safety at any time, get the hell out. Okay? Get the hell out and call me.”
“Okay,” she had said. “I’m going to be fine. And thanks for having faith in me.”
No question. She had faith in Jack. And she would not disappoint him.
Chapter 86
THE ELEVATOR WHISPERED Val upward, and twenty-seven floors later, the doors opened into a private foyer facing a closed mahogany door. Val tapped numbers onto a keypad beside the door, and a female voice asked her name.
“Valerie Fernandez.”
A buzzer sounded and the lock clicked and Val pushed open the door, stepped into both her false identity and an astonishing room. It was elegantly furnished in white leather and steel with marble floors and modern artwork, and a great wall of windows admitted all of the light in the sky.
A very fit woman in a smart geometric-print dress, her blond hair pulled up in a ponytail, crossed the room, shook Val’s hand, and said, “Hi, Valerie. I’m Norma Tiefel. I work with Mr. Olsen. Would you please fill out this form? I’ll be back in five minutes.”