Stephen Frey (10 page)

Paul was sprinting down the corridor, several steps ahead of two bodyguards in dark suits.

“Dad had a seizure,” Bo explained as Paul came near. “Dr. Silwa is in there with him.”

Paul glared at Bo for a moment, then tried to push past the nurse, who wouldn't yield. “Get out of my way!” he roared.

“You can't do anything for him at this point,” Bo said quietly. “Dad's unconscious. Dr. Silwa gave him something. He was in a great deal of pain.”

“I can at least see him.”

“No.” The nurse was emphatic. “You can't.”

“God dammit, I'm going in there.” Paul pushed the woman roughly to the side.

Before Paul could enter the room, Bo grabbed him and threw him against the wall beside the door.

“Get off me!” Paul shouted, pushing Bo back with both hands.

The dark-suited bodyguards approached the brothers hesitantly, uncertain of how to handle the situation. Then Teddy appeared, pushing past the bodyguards, but he stopped short as well.

“Don't be an idiot, Paul,” Bo muttered. “Let the medical staff do their job. Just stay out of the damn way for once.”

“I'm going in there.”

“You'll have to get past me,” Bo said defiantly. Paul made a quick move for the door but Bo hurled him back again.

“Stop it, you two!” Teddy's voice was trembling. “This is no time to fight.”

“You've already seen him and you don't want me to have the chance. That's what's going on here,” Paul hissed at Bo. “You want to be able to say that you were the last to see Jimmy Lee.”

“Shut up.”

“Who the hell gave you permission to come back from Montana anyway?”

“I didn't need anyone's permission.”

“Who told you Dad was sick?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Paul's eyes narrowed. “Dad taught you well, didn't he? Always answer a question you don't like with that one.” He leaned down so that their faces were very close. “Who told you?” he demanded again. “I bet it was that asshole Mendoza. You and he always did have a cozy relationship.”

“Why do you want to know?” Bo repeated.

Paul's upper lip curled evilly. “I've been waiting a long time to tell you this, Bo,” he said. “Dad wouldn't want me to, but, what the hell, he isn't going to be with us much longer.”

“Tell me what?” Bo had heard a strange, triumphant tone in Paul's voice.

“Didn't you ever wonder why you don't resemble Catherine, Teddy, or me?”

“What?” Insecurity multiplied inside Bo faster than Ebola in a hot zone.

“Haven't you ever been curious about why you don't look like a Hancock?”

“What are you talking about?” Bo asked. “I look like that cousin on Mother's side. The man in the picture she showed me just before she died.”

“So you look like a man in a picture,” Paul scoffed. “So what?”

“I don't understand,” Bo said, his voice wavering.

“That wasn't a picture of her cousin. It was just a picture she found somewhere of a guy that vaguely resembled you. It was her way of throwing you a security blanket as she was dying, just in case you ever had doubts.”

“Doubts?”

Paul laughed harshly and gave Teddy a victory glance. “You never knew, did you?”

Bo swallowed hard.

“You're adopted, you idiot,” Paul sneered. “They got you when you were a year old. Your mother died in childbirth. Adopting you was Dad's way of feeling good about himself. His way of giving something more back to society. He must have been going through his midlife crisis. That's the only answer I can come up with for why he'd want
you.
”

Bo's gaze flickered from Paul to Teddy, then he edged slowly backward until the wall stopped him. “It's not possible,” he gasped.

“It's fact, Bo,” Paul said.

“When we were young,” Teddy chimed in, “we used to take turns drawing what we thought your real father looked like. We'd use the bums in Central Park as our models.”

Bo clenched his fists. He could feel rage building as it had only a few times in his life. Building to the point that he knew he would not be able to control himself if he let go.

“Paul!”

Bo's head snapped toward the voice. Catherine was racing down the corridor toward them, her long blond hair streaming behind. Tom Bristow loped after her.

She pushed her way past Teddy and the bodyguards, then rushed into Paul's arms. “What's going on?” she cried. “I got a message from the hospital telling me that I needed to get here right away.” Her face was streaked with tears. “What's happened?”

“Everything will be fine, Catherine,” Paul said. “It's just . . .” His voice trailed off as the door to Jimmy Lee's room opened slowly and Silwa emerged.

“I'm sorry to have to tell all of you this,” Silwa said quietly, “but your father is dead.”

CHAPTER 7

R
aindrops spattered the windshield as the taxi sliced through heavy traffic on Park Avenue. When it had skidded to a halt at the curb, Bo shoved a ten-dollar bill into the driver's hand and thrust open the door. He sprinted through the spring downpour toward the Warfield Capital building, a copy of
The Wall Street
Journal
over his head as he darted across the sidewalk, dodging umbrellas. After leaving the hospital Bo had gone to the Yale Club, where he showered, shaved, and had his hair cut—leaving the ponytail he'd worn in Montana on the tiled floor of the club's barbershop—then caught a short nap on a secluded couch in a reading room. Refreshed, he was ready to take on Frank Ramsey.

At the building's revolving doors, Bo glanced back over his shoulder through the rain and noticed a woman standing on the sidewalk a short distance away. She was wearing a yellow top and had stark blond hair. Standing absolutely still beneath her umbrella while everything around her moved, she seemed to be gazing straight at him. Bo strained to keep sight of her as he was jostled into the doorway. When he had cleared the doors, he pushed past two men and sprinted to a tall window overlooking the street, but the blond woman had disappeared. He tossed his soaked newspaper into a trash can. She had looked so much like Tiffany.

Five minutes later he stood in Warfield Capital's lobby. “I'm here to see Frank Ramsey,” he announced to the receptionist, who wore a headset with a thin silver microphone curling in front of her lips.

The woman raised her hand to indicate that she was talking to someone at the other end of the line. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Ramsey?” she finally asked, after redirecting the call.

It seemed strange to Bo to have to wait in the lobby of Warfield Capital for someone to come and escort him. “Frank is expecting me,” Bo assured her. He had called Ramsey that morning from the Yale Club and demanded the meeting. Ramsey had tried to avoid the confrontation, but Bo had insisted, citing Ramsey's fiduciary duty to family members.

“What is your name, sir?” the receptionist asked.

“Bo Hancock.”

She looked up from her pad, recognizing the name. “I'll let Mr. Ramsey know you're here,” she said respectfully, gesturing toward a sofa and chairs in one corner of the lobby. “Please have a seat over there, Mr. Hancock.”

Bo watched the woman turn to the side, push a button, and speak softly into her microphone. She was new to the firm—at least she'd arrived since he had been exiled to the West—just as the Warfield Capital logo hanging on the wall behind her desk was new. Everything about the place seemed sleeker and shinier than the day he had been forced out, and this made him uncomfortable. Sleek and shine usually meant you were hiding something. “One more thing,” he said.

The receptionist covered the microphone with her hand. “Yes?”

“Is Dale Stephenson in today?” Bo had been unable to reach Stephenson since the night Stephenson had relayed news that Ramsey was taking unacceptable risks with the private equity portfolio. He hoped it was simply because of the strict precautions they both took to keep their communication secret. Stephenson had been on a mobile phone that last night they'd spoken. As Bo thought back to the conversation, he recalled that Stephenson had sounded anxious, almost scared.

“Dale Stephenson,” the woman repeated slowly. “I don't believe I know him.”

“Don't know him?” Bo asked incredulously, an eerie sensation crawling up his spine. “Dale runs the private equity group. He's a senior executive here at Warfield.”

“Well, I've only been at the firm a few days,” she explained apologetically. “Maybe he's on vacation.”

“You haven't seen his name on anything? No mail, no memos?”

“No, I haven't. I, well, I . . .”

“What is it?” Bo said. “Go on.”

“I don't want to alarm you, Mr. Hancock.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I know that a senior person at the firm just died in an accident,” she said quietly. “I don't know who it was, though. I heard the name but I don't remember. People haven't talked about it much.”

The receptionist blurred before Bo's eyes as he processed her words. The awful car wreck he and Tiffany had driven past in Montana only a couple of nights ago flashed back to him. “I see.”

“I don't know any more about the situation.”

“I'll speak to Mr. Ramsey about it.”

“I think that would be best,” she agreed.

Bo walked unsteadily across the lobby, worried that Stephenson was the senior executive who had died, and that his death had not been accidental. Worried that their communication had been discovered and that somehow there was a connection between that and Stephenson's death. But that was crazy, Bo told himself. Not even Jimmy Lee would go that far.

Bo shook his head. It was the episode in the Jeep that had him unnerved enough to make him consider such extreme possibilities. That, and the thought that there were compromising pictures of him somewhere out there. It occurred to Bo as he sat down and picked up a magazine from the coffee table that Frank Ramsey would pay dearly to have those pictures.

The blond woman on the magazine cover reminded Bo of the woman downstairs. It couldn't have been Tiffany, he told himself. He had tried to contact her in Missoula several times, but no one at the strip bar where he had met her could say they had seen her since Saturday afternoon—around the time he had picked her up in front of the place.

He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. This morning he'd lost the man he had believed was his father. He'd found out that his name wasn't really Hancock, at least not by birth. And he'd been told all of that by people he had thought for more than forty years were his brothers. Paul and Teddy had probably known about the adoption since childhood—judging by Teddy's remark about using bums as their image of his father—but had been under strict instructions to say nothing. With Ida and Jimmy Lee gone, they'd enjoyed letting loose with the secret.

If there really was a secret. Bo realized that Paul was a master manipulator who might say anything to gain an advantage. He and Teddy would stand united to keep Bo out of Warfield and New York City. What better way to get him to back off than to make him feel he wasn't really part of the family. Bo let out a long, slow breath, trying to relax. Jimmy Lee's death would spark a flurry of activity as people battled for position, and there would be snakes in the grass everywhere.

“Good morning, Bo.”

“Hello, Frank.” Bo stood up and shook Ramsey's hand. It was a forced, uncomfortable greeting. They were like two local political combatants warily acknowledging each other for the cameras before a town hall debate.

“Follow me,” Ramsey directed, shoving his hands in his pockets and ambling confidently past the receptionist's desk.

“This was my office before I left,” Bo remarked as he followed Ramsey into the large room overlooking Park Avenue.

“Yeah, and it looks a lot better now. As you can see, I've had a lot of work done to it.” The furniture had been upgraded, expensive antiques adorned the tables, and Monets hung from the walls, which were now paneled in dark wood, far different from the dull gray painted wallboard of before. “Do you want any coffee?”

“No,” Bo answered as he sat down at a round, dark wood table positioned in one corner of the room.

Ramsey whispered something to his executive assistant, then shut the door after the young man had darted away. “Maybe I should have instructed my assistant to bring you something with a kick to it,” he said, taking a seat across the table from Bo.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means, Bo. It's nine o'clock in the morning.” Ramsey tapped the crystal of his Rolex. “Remember what you told me once? Never drink alcohol before eight in the morning and never screw a woman who lives within fifty miles of your wife. The eight-by-fifty rule.”

Bo silently rued the fact that he'd been friendly with Ramsey when the man had first come to Warfield. The remark, made after several drinks, had been intended only to evoke a response—to see if Ramsey agreed or disagreed. “Things have changed.”

“Sure they have,” Ramsey retorted sarcastically. “I guess the temperature outside must have dropped a few degrees since I came in,” he said. “You've got some real color in your cheeks, or maybe that's the ‘changed' scotch you've already been sipping this morning.”

Bo forced himself to remain calm. “We need to talk.” He watched Ramsey blink very slowly, the habit he'd always detested.

“Talk away.” Ramsey made a sweeping gesture, letting Bo know who was in charge. “I can give you a few minutes before my next meeting.”

“You'll give me as much time as I require.”

Ramsey said nothing.

“As you know, I haven't made contact with anyone at Warfield Capital in more than a year,” Bo began, wondering if Ramsey knew about his weekly telephone updates from Stephenson.

“And I believe your decision to be hands-off during that period has benefited the firm tremendously,” Ramsey said. “We've made great progress since you've been away.”

“Warfield was already performing extremely well when I left.”

“I've taken the firm to a higher level,” Ramsey countered. “When you left last year, Warfield had a hundred billion dollars under management. Now we've got almost two hundred billion.”

Bo's eyes narrowed. Two hundred billion. During their last telephone call Stephenson had guessed that the figure was a hundred and fifty billion. “Where has the money come from?” Bo asked curiously.

“Insurance companies and commercial banks, mostly.”

“More cheap money.”

“Yes,” Ramsey said. “I had high-level contacts at those institutions before I came to Warfield.”

“All loans? We didn't have to give up any equity in the firm?” Bo asked.

Ramsey hesitated.

“Because if you've added another hundred billion dollars of debt on top of what we already had at Warfield without adding any equity,” Bo continued, “I'd have a huge problem with that. That structure would be far too risky. That would be too much leverage.”

Ramsey shifted in his seat. “There's some new equity,” he said. “But it was all done with your father's and Teddy's approval,” he added quickly. “I didn't do anything unilaterally.”

“I didn't say you did, Frank,” Bo replied politely. “Where did the equity come from?”

Again Ramsey hesitated. “Europe, I think.”

“You think?”

“I know,” he said firmly.

Bo scratched his head. “It doesn't make sense that Europeans would invest equity money into a U.S. hedge fund.”

“Oh?”

“The tax consequences would be terrible. Foreigners typically invest in offshore vehicles, which Warfield isn't.” Bo pointed at Ramsey. “You should know that.”

“Well now I do,” Ramsey said curtly. “The lawyers blessed it. That's all that matters.” He checked his watch for the third time since they'd sat down. “What do you want, Bo? Why did you come here?”

“Where is Dale Stephenson?”

Ramsey's eyes shot to Bo's, then a gloomy expression clouded his sharp-featured face. “Unfortunately, Dale has died,” he answered solemnly.

Bo's pulse jumped. Here was confirmation of the receptionist's speculation. “Died?”

“Yes. It was a terrible loss,” Ramsey said sadly, running his thumbs up the underside of his suspenders. “We were all devastated.”

“I'll bet.”

“What do you mean by that?” Ramsey snapped.

“How did Dale die?”

“He drowned. He was on a fishing trip out West.”

“Where out West?”

“Colorado, I think. You can check the police records.”

“Why would I do that?”

Ramsey smoothed his tie, choosing his words carefully before speaking. “You wouldn't,” he answered calmly. “It's just that there was some question initially about the possibility of foul play. But the police in Boulder have since ruled that Dale's fall out of the guide's raft was purely accidental. That's all.”

Foul play. The words echoed in Bo's brain. “Have we taken care of Dale's wife?”

Ramsey nodded. “Warfield held a standard million-dollar policy for him with his wife as beneficiary, and we have made further arrangements. She'll never have to worry about money.” Ramsey raised one eyebrow. “I noticed that you paid him very well.”

“Dale deserved what he got. He made Warfield a great deal of cash as head of the private equity operation.” Bo paused. “Who is running the operation now?”

“I am.”

“You have no experience with private equity investing.”

“I'll do fine, as I've done fine running the entire firm over the past year. I've got confidence in several of Dale's lieutenants in the private equity group. They can tell me what I need to know, and I'll make all final decisions based upon the information they provide me.” Bo tried to interrupt, but Ramsey kept going. “Now, did you come all the way from Montana to ask me about Dale Stephenson?”

“No.”

Ramsey crossed his arms. “Then what do you want to talk about?”

“My father died a few hours ago.”

Ramsey blinked several times, even more slowly than normal. “I know. Teddy called to tell me. I'm sorry. I should have said so before.” Ramsey checked his watch once more. “But that still doesn't explain what you're doing here.”

“I'm coming back to Warfield full-time, Frank,” Bo said bluntly. He saw Ramsey's jaw clench. It was the only visible sign of how vile the other man found this piece of information. “I will return as executive vice president and chief operating officer now that my father has died. You will assume your former duties as special assistant to Teddy.”