JC scrolled through his text messages, looking for the most recent one from his office manager. He didn’t see one from her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t send one. He glanced at Paul. “Do you have the same complaint?”
“Me? Nah,” Paul said. “If you needed me, you’d call and keep calling until I answered.”
“Why don’t you explain that to Becky and my parents?”
“It wouldn’t work.” Paul turned onto 31st Street in Georgetown. “How long are you going to be gone this time?”
“Not sure. A few days or a couple of weeks. It depends on what I find when I get where I’m going.”
“And you’re not going to tell me where that is.”
“Maybe North Dakota. Maybe New York City. I won’t know for sure until I get there. That’s all I can say.”
“Until you get there?” Paul shook his head. “You know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s the best I can do.”
“Okay, man. I’ll take care of things while you’re gone, as usual.”
Paul pulled into the driveway of JC’s 10,000-square-foot Second Empire mansion on 31st Street in Georgetown’s East Village. His brother would say buying the house built in 1815 for twenty million dollars wasn’t a wise investment, but it once belonged to Uncle Braham during the Civil War, and JC wanted the place, so he made the owner an offer he couldn’t refuse. Then he hired a decorator to fill the residence with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiques. It was a showplace now, and he made it available to a few of his favorite charities as a fundraising venue. It looked more like a museum than a home, but it suited his lifestyle.
JC entered his mahogany study and powered up his desktop. He had access to the MacCorp server and its wealth of information, but he didn’t want to leave footprints for Uncle David to find. Even with all the security precautions and firewalls JC and Paul had installed on JC’s network, Uncle David could find a back door if he tried hard enough. But so far, Paul assured him, nobody had been snooping around.
For the next two hours, JC did a deep dive into Teddy Roosevelt’s life from 1884 until 1895. He printed several summaries and tried to narrow down a specific time in TR’s life that might sync with Ensley’s.
“I’m leaving now,” Paul shouted from the kitchen.
“Okay. I don’t have plans for tonight. I’ll be here working.”
Paul crossed the hardwood floors and stood in the doorway to the office. “You won’t leave without saying goodbye, will you?”
“I never do.”
“Wherever you’re going, I’ll go with you. All you have to do is ask.”
“I know, man. And thanks, but I don’t need you this time. Just take care of things here and do your best to dodge my parents.”
“Have you pissed them off enough that they’ll show up here unannounced?”
“I haven’t yet, but there’s always a first time. And if David McBain shows up with Dad, don’t let either one of them bully you. David could kill you if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t unless ripping you apart was the only way to get the information he wanted.”
“About you?”
“About me.”
“Got it.” Paul turned to walk away, then stopped and turned back. “Hey. You’ll be careful, right? I mean, you won’t do anything dumb.”
JC squared the papers on his desk and fanned one corner of the pages with his thumb. “Do something dumb? I don’t think so. I haven’t done anything dumb since I was a teenager and ran away and almost got myself killed. Since then, I’ve never accepted any job before doing risk assessments and minimizing them as best I can.”
“I got that,” Paul said. “But shit still happens.”
God, JC knew that all too well. He narrowly escaped a trap in Asia last week, a trap that could have brought all hell down on the family. “Don’t worry.”
Paul smacked the door frame. “Okay, see you later.”
As soon as Paul left, JC took his TR research and went to the kitchen, fixed a salad for lunch, and read about TR’s life in North Dakota while he ate. When he finished, he cleaned up his dishes and left the house.
His first stop was his law office. When he opened the door, he sailed his Sandown Trilby across the room, and it landed on the top hat hanger, spinning. Without looking up, Becky said, “James Cullen, where in the world have you been? I’ve been calling you for days.”
He strode across the room, sat on the corner of Becky’s desk, and presented her with a small gift-wrapped box. “I hope this makes up for the distress I’ve caused you.”
She smiled, tugging on the ribbon. Inside the box was a two-inch vintage thimble with six white gold pins. She gasped. “This is gorgeous. Nothing can make up for the distress you cause me, but this comes damn close.”
The top of each pin was different. The first one on the left side was a mallet and pearl polo ball, then a pearl and ruby cluster. The third one was a love knot. The fourth had the infinity symbol with a pearl. The fifth was a British crown, and the last one was a Star of David with a pearl cluster. The infinity symbol was JC’s favorite pin.
“For your thimble collection, ma’am.” He was rather proud of himself for finding it in a London shop, and while it wasn’t an actual thimble, he knew she’d love it.
“It’s lovely. Thank you.” She pinned it to her jacket lapel and patted it gently. “But it doesn’t get you out of hot water for not calling. You know the rules.”
Yes, he did, and she’d sufficiently chastised him with her tough love.
Becky was a striking woman in her early fifties with thick, shoulder-length black hair, flawless skin, blue eyes, and reminded JC of his mom. She showed up the day he hung the sign with the firm name on the door and told him he needed to hire
