Charlotte started to feel the tiniest flicker of anger, deep within her fear. “Gentlemen, let me be crystal-clear. You think my father is guilty of something. You think he is a criminal. But I assume your suspicions don’t extend to me?”
A short pause, each waiting for the other to catch the ball.
“Or do they?”
The cop caught it. “Not at this time, Miss Williams. The investigation is just beginning.”
“I thought your case was watertight? That’s what you’ve told the media. You’ve hung my father before you’ve even begun? That’s not very sporting of you, is it?”
She walked to the window and looked out for a moment, composing herself and pulling together every ounce of inner strength she possessed. She wanted her father to walk through the door, laughing, telling everyone what a good joke this had been. But when she turned back to the investigators, she looked as if she were serving tea rather than an ultimatum.
“If at any time during this investigation I feel I am not being treated with the utmost respect or that I am being deliberately misled in any way, I will cause problems for each and every one of you that will make you wish you had not been born. My father and my family are connected at the highest levels of government, of society, and internationally. Please remember that you have been welcomed into my home and treated with civility. Do me the courtesy of extending the same civility.”
She took a deep breath.
“Now, will whoever’s in charge please answer my simple question: May I see my father?”
Scarsford smiled. “Of course, Charlotte.” “Miss Williams.”
The smile didn’t wobble. “Miss Williams, sorry. Once our people have begun to search your father’s study, I will take you to him myself.”
“Very well.” She extended the key to him. “Here is what you need. Nothing has been disturbed or removed since my father left for work this morning. We have nothing to hide.” She looked Scarsford in the eye. “Can you say the same, Mr. Scarsford?”
He flushed.
It was actually an hour before they could leave the apartment, and during that time, Charlotte was able to talk to Emily on the phone. Emily seemed more amused than anything.
“It’s just ridiculous, Charlotte! There are photos of your dad on CNN, for crying out loud. And not very flattering ones, either.”
Charlotte made a face. “That’s hardly a problem right now, Emily. When this is all cleared up, I’ll make sure to update their file photo, OK?”
Emily was unchastened. “Well, he looks heavy, is all I’m saying.” She giggled. “Maybe he’ll be like Martha Stewart and get in shape in jail.”
“Emily.” Charlotte’s tone was sharp. “Don’t even joke about it. It’s not funny.”
She could hear her friend pouting. “It is a little bit funny, Charlotte. It’s silly. Why on earth would your dad steal money when he’s so wealthy? The po-po are so stupid.”
Charlotte happened to be looking at Detective Mallory as Emily said this, and she thought she’d rarely seen a man who looked less stupid, but there you go.
“Shall I come and visit you?” Emily sounded giddy. “I can wear dark glasses and cover my head with a shawl and creep in.”
“Don’t you dare, Emily. Stay away so you don’t get dragged in the mud, too. Besides, I’m going to see Dad soon, so I won’t be here much longer.”
“OK, Charlotte. I’ll call you later, OK?” Emily hung up, presumably to call all of her other friends and revel in schadenfreude.
Charlotte was getting a pretty good handle on her anger now, and she found herself irritated by her friend’s lighthearted response to her crisis. Not once had Emily said she was sympathetic or said that she felt bad that Charlotte was going through this or offered to do anything concretely helpful. Oh well. To be fair, she wasn’t sure what she would do if the situation were reversed. She smiled at the thought of Emily’s parents getting in trouble. For what? Shoplifting at Zabar’s? Buying non-fair-trade coffee?
Jim Scarsford, watching her from across the room, saw a brief smile soften her features for a moment, then fade away. Mallory came over and spoke to him.
“We’re good here. You can take her downtown now, if you want. Or keep her waiting some more. It’s up to you. Sometimes if they get worked up enough, they make a mistake, you know, blurt something out in frustration that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Scarsford frowned at his NYPD counterpart. “I doubt she knows anything. She’s been away in Paris for the last year, and before that, she didn’t seem interested in anything but boys and clothes. I doubt Charlotte Williams is a criminal mastermind.”
Mallory looked less sure. “She would have been arrested for arson if she’d been anyone else, you know that. Yale hushed it all up because Daddy stepped in and threw money at the problem. If she’d been an eighteen-year-old black kid from New Haven, she’d be in jail still, and where’s the fairness in that?”
All three men had been watching the Williams family for quite some time. Charlotte surely would have been embarrassed if she knew how much both of these men knew about her life. Including her love life.
She stood as Scarsford approached her. It was a pity he was the devil—he was actually nice looking. “Can we go now?”
When she stood close to him, he realized she wasn’t as tall as he’d first thought. He’d been seeing pictures of her day after day for the last several years, and he’d been prepared for her prettiness. What he hadn’t been ready for was the intoxicating mix of reserve and heat she gave out. Very controlled, very elegant, very stylish. But she moved like a cat, and her face was so expressive. He wished for a moment he could take her to bed, really find out what made her smile, what made her eyes close in delight, what made her curl up inside. But that was never going to happen, because he was going to put her father in jail, and that tended to be a dating no-no. Smiling wryly at himself on the inside, he maintained his cool and simply nodded.
ONE OF THE things an expensive Upper East Side education gave you, supposedly, was the ability to make polite conversation with anyone. You might run into a diplomat one day and a king of some small country the next, and a properly educated young woman should easily be able to discuss a variety of neutral topics. But it turned out that riding downtown in a car with a man responsible for arresting your parent was a tough situation to chat your way through.
“Music?” As soon as he said it, he kicked himself.
Charlotte simply turned and looked at him, one perfectly arched eyebrow lifted. “What would you suggest? ‘Folsom Prison Blues'? ‘Jailhouse Rock'?”
Silence. He’d graduated first from his class at Columbia Law, slaved as a junior associate at a white-shoe firm, learning the ins and outs of securities litigation, and joined the SEC determined to bring big business and fat cats to task for cheating the common man. Instead, he’d spent most of the previous half-decade watching rich people get richer while getting away with crimes poorer people would have rotted in jail for. He wanted to feel nothing for Charlotte Williams and her ilk, the protected offspring of the wealthy. But she was hot and smart and apparently had a sense of humor even now.
“Sorry, you’re right. Not appropriate.”
More silence. They were crawling down Fifth, and he cut across the park, joining traffic that was moving a little faster. She gazed out, seeing familiar buildings sliding by, filled with people who presumably had worries of their own. Piles of stubborn black snow clung to the corners here and there. Sometimes the puddles in the