5. Sweet Revenge Read online

  Isabelle got up from her chair, pushed it back under the table and prepared to leave the war room. Her gaze drifted to the corner where Julia’s chair was turned to face the wall. She offered up a snappy salute to her fallen sister.

  “It’s my turn, Julia,” she whispered. “I wish you were here to help. I miss you. We all miss you. I’ll never forget you, either.”

  Five

  Rosemary Hershey slammed on the brakes of her champagne-colored Mercedes, made an illegal U-turn, and headed for the elegant town house she shared with her husband. Shared was the key word here. The town house was hers, this car was hers. For the last ten months she’d tried to figure out a way to buy out Bobby’s share of the business without bankrupting herself. They both knew the marriage was over; all they did was squabble at the office and at home, too. When something was over, it was over. But the marriage was tied to the business in more ways than one. The big question was, did she seek a divorce first or make the buyout offer first?

  She had an excellent line of credit at the bank she dealt with. Maybe she should apply for a loan so that when they checked her finances, Bobby’s end of the business would show up on the P&L sheet. The bank didn’t need to know she planned to divorce him. She could use the loan monies to buy him out and keep her own funds intact. It was a given that Bobby would take his clients with him, unless her lawyer turned out to be smarter than his, which she didn’t think would be the case. For months now, she’d been toying with the idea of hiring a new lawyer. A female attorney. She could concoct some kind of story that would make the lawyer sympathize with her.

  Rosemary brushed at her hair in frustration. She’d thought her scrambling days were over. Now she could feel her world starting to teeter right under her feet and it was all Isabelle Flanders’s fault. She wouldn’t be one bit surprised if Bobby still had feelings for Isabelle. The thought made her furious. So furious that she almost ran a stop sign. She slammed on the brakes a second time and was rewarded with blaring horns.

  “Screw you!” Rosemary shouted. She drove another block before she barreled into her parking space opposite the town house. She sat for a moment staring at her house. It looked like a narrow, skinny building — and it was — but she’d purchased the building next to it, leaving the door intact. Inside, she’d knocked out walls and ended up with a 4,200-square-foot abode. She had four bathrooms, three fireplaces, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a huge family room and a huge home office that she shared with Bobby. She’d lucked out when she bought the building and had had the renovations done while the building was still under construction. Today, the house was worth almost two million dollars. She refused to even think about all the times she’d had to sleep with the contractor so he would whittle the price to what she wanted for both units.

  Rosemary locked the car and looked around. It was a lovely neighborhood, with huge trees, manicured lawns and colorful flower beds during spring and summer. A fitting place for someone like her. No children running and romping and no mangy dogs pooping and peeing on the pricey landscaping. Bobby didn’t like it; he said it reminded him of some sort of Stepford community. In the beginning, Bobby had wanted a house with a backyard so he could putter. Bobby also wanted a dog. He’d gotten over that notion in a hurry. Bobby was a stupid man. She’d only married him to get back at Isabelle Flanders. It was time to get rid of him once and for all.

  In her bedroom, which she didn’t share with Bobby, Rosemary took off her designer suit and hung it up. She wasn’t going back to the office so she pulled on a warm jogging suit. It was a beautiful room, a perfect backdrop for her delicate, beautiful persona, she told herself. She’d had it decorated in yellow and pale green with a white carpet. Bobby said it hurt his eyes and he always felt like he was sucking on a lemon when he entered the room. Bobby was a hunter-green, deep-burgundy, dark brown kind of guy. She always felt like she was on a hunting trip when she condescended to even enter his room. Once Bobby had suggested that when they got around to having sex they should do it in the hallway and then neither of them would have to enter the other’s room.

  Rosemary tried to remember the last time she’d had sex with her husband. When no date came to mind, she gave up because she simply didn’t care.

  In other words, Bobby who?

  In her office, Rosemary went straight to her custom-made desk. The safe she’d built into the floor right under the bottom drawer beckoned her. She hadn’t trusted the contractor to install it so she’d done it herself by going to a class on home repairs at Home Depot. While it was a sloppy job, the safe was intact and secured with bolts. When the desk drawer was in place, you couldn’t tell the floor had been cut up and a safe installed. Even Bobby didn’t know about it. Telling Bobby about the safe would have meant sharing herself with him. She wasn’t a sharing person. It took some people a long time to figure that out. When they finally did, it was too late.

  Rosemary ignored the urge to open the safe, opting instead to flick through the Rolodex. For some reason the name of the law firm she wanted eluded her but she knew she’d copied it down at one point and had added it to the Rolodex. It was one of those things you do with no rhyme or reason to it. Halfway through the Rolodex, Rosemary threw her hands in the air, unable to come up with the card for the law firm she had in mind. Then she started from the back and found the little card almost immediately. NBJ Legal Offices. She wondered why she’d put it in the back. She read her scribbled notes. A twelve-woman law firm. Women helping women. Sharks. Barracudas. Just what she needed, a female lawyer that was either a shark or a barracuda. She smiled as she dialed the number listed on the card. She hung up before the call could be completed. What did the NBJ stand for? Probably something to do with the original founders of the firm. Vaguely she remembered reading something at one time about the firm in the Lifetime section of the local paper.

  Rosemary was about to redial the number but she withdrew her hand a second time. Something niggled at the back of her mind. She’d never been one to ignore her instincts or her hunches. Maybe she needed to rethink this particular move. Or possibly do a little research on the firm. She got up from the desk and started to pace. She touched this and that, looked out the window, paced some more and then made her way to her state-of-the-art stainless steel kitchen.

  She didn’t want to lose any of this. Not one little thing. Not after what she’d gone through. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Still, she felt uneasy, the conversations at the Pioneer luncheon still fresh in her mind.

  Isabelle Flanders! She had thought she was done with her. For all intents and purposes, Isabelle Flanders was dead to her. But now Isabelle was rising from the dead with a big club in her hand aimed straight at her head.

  “Well, dearie, that isn’t going to happen!” Rosemary snarled.

  While the coffee dripped, she walked back to the office, calmly picked up the phone and called the NBJ law firm. She spoke quickly and confidently.

  “This is Rosemary Hershey. I’d like to schedule an appointment with one of your senior partners.”

  The chirpy voice on the other end of the phone said, “Miss Hershey, we only have one senior partner, Nicole Quinn. She’s booked through to the end of March. Would you care to schedule an appointment with one of our other fine attorneys?”

  The end of March! Isabelle Flanders could club her to death by then. “No, no, I need an attorney now. Where are the other senior partners? I was under the impression there were three partners.”

  “Yes, Miss Hershey, there were three partners when the firm was founded but two of our partners passed away. Miss Quinn is…is the surviving partner.”

  Rosemary didn’t know why, but the news stunned her. “I have to think about this. I’ll get back to you if that’s all right.”

  Rosemary walked back to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee she didn’t want. Normally, she allowed herself one cup of coffee in the morning. If she drank more, her nerves would twang for the rest of the day. But she wasn’t going anywhere
now, so what difference did it make if she twanged all over the place?

  She almost jumped out of her skin when the phone rang a few minutes later. She backtracked into the kitchen to look at the number on the caller ID. Bobby.

  “What?” she barked down the phone.

  There were no pleasantries. “You have three clients sitting in the lobby. Is this any way to run a business, Rosemary? Are you coming in or what?”

  “No, I’m not going back to the office. I have a blinding headache, one of my migraines. I can’t see straight. I called in and left a message that those appointments were to be cancelled. Fire that woman, Bobby, and do it as soon as you hang up. Then call the employment agency and get a temp until we can hire someone permanently.”

  “What brought on the headache, Rosie? Was it the Pioneer luncheon? Guess you heard more than you wanted to, eh?” Bobby needled.

  “Shut up, Bobby, and stop calling me Rosie. You know I hate it. Stop slobbering all over yourself because I did not — I repeat, I did not — hear anything at that luncheon that I didn’t already know. This is what I get for doing you a favor.” Rosemary cut her husband off in mid-sentence by hanging up the phone.

  Maybe she didn’t need a lawyer after all; maybe what she needed was a private detective with lockjaw. Then again, the minute you took someone else into your confidence, things started to go wrong. She’d handle this herself. She’d done OK, going it alone, so there was no reason to think she couldn’t do it this time, too. For starters, she had to find out where Isabelle lived and where all this sudden new money was coming from. Isabelle had to bank somewhere and there were a lot of bankers listed in her private Rolodex. Right now, she had to go on the assumption that Isabelle Flanders was her archenemy. Rosemary knew a thing or two about damage control.

  She flipped through the Rolodex, pulling out card after card. What good was it knowing influential people if those influential people didn’t come to your aid when they were needed?

  The war room was silent, the only sound coming from the whirring fans overhead. Lady Justice stared down at the women from the three large monitors. In the center of the table were two glossy white boxes filled with invitations.

  “This box,” Myra said, “holds the invitations we’re going to send to every architect in the area, asking if they would like to be included in our project. There is an RSVP card with an envelope that will be included. The second box contains the invitations for our dinner at the Silver Swan. We will be addressing the envelopes for both boxes but will not messenger the dinner invitations until it is time. Did we make a decision in regard to Rosemary Hershey’s husband, Bobby Harcourt? Since Miss Hershey goes by her own name, they appear to work independently of one another, and I think we should send separate invitations. Mr. Harcourt will receive both. Miss Hershey will get the first one but her dinner invitation to the Silver Swan will arrive a day too late. Each person attending will have to show their invitation at the door. Rosemary will be turned away if she shows up without one.”

  “Sounds like a working plan,” Alexis said as she reached for an envelope.

  “How are you doing, Isabelle?” Kathryn asked.

  “Happier than I’ve been in a long time. I jumped in with both feet. Tomorrow Nealy Diamond Clay arrives, but she’s only going to be here for one day for the photo call. I’m really looking forward to meeting her and having our picture taken together. Rosemary will turn green when it hits the paper. I understand Nealy can’t stay long but will come back any time we need her. I am beyond excited,” Isabelle said.

  Nikki turned around to get Charles’s attention. “Any other news, Charles?”

  “Actually, there is a little news. I’ve managed, and don’t ask me how, to create a small problem with Miss Hershey’s credit cards.”

  “What exactly does a small problem mean, dear?” Myra asked.

  Charles allowed himself a small smile. “It means she no longer has them. I’m working on her driver’s license at the moment. I expect it to disappear from the system any second now.”

  Nikki turned all the way around in her chair, her expression full of awe. “Do you mean as in poof and it’s gone with no record of there ever being a license issued to her?”

  “Exactly,” Charles said proudly. “I’m toying with the idea of erasing her business license, too.”

  “Why?” Yoko asked.

  Charles laughed out loud. “Because I can. I’m quite confident I can erase the woman’s identity completely. She won’t be able to prove she was born. But only if we need to do that. Time will tell if such drastic measures are called for.”

  All the women could do was stare at the former MI6 operative in awe, simply grateful that he was working on their side.

  Isabelle blew Charles a kiss of gratitude.

  Six

  Maggie Spritzer’s nose twitched as she let her gaze sweep across the newsroom to where Ted Robinson was poring over a stack of photocopied material. She knew what he was looking at because she had the same material on her own desk. Page after page of the Post’s coverage of Isabelle Flanders’s trial years ago. Maggie covered the high-powered gossip that went on in the nation’s capital, and she had to wonder why Ted was interested since he was the in-house expert on political intrigue. He hated gossip, especially political gossip. She wondered if she could force herself to sink low enough to indulge in some pillow talk with him. She decided she could.

  Maggie meandered her way around desks and cubicles before she found a straight path that would take her to Ted’s desk, which just happened to be on the way to the bathroom.

  “Hey, sweet cheeks, whatcha up to this morning? Looks like a slow day today. Want to get together this evening? I was thinking I’d split early and make a nice meat loaf with mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits and some fresh string beans. I might even whip up a peach pie if I can find some fresh peaches at the market. You can bring the wine.”

  Ted looked up, his eyes suspicious. “Is this in lieu of the phone call you never made? Just because we sleep together from time to time doesn’t mean I’m easy. OK, I love meat loaf. But if you have any ideas about picking my brains, give them up.”

  “Baby, baby, baby, I wouldn’t dream of poaching on you. If you want my opinion, the system shafted Flanders. Sounds to me like someone is giving her a second chance and I’m all for it. I heard she was a kick-ass architect until that Barbie doll, Rosemary Hershey, took her to the cleaners. I’m going to try and get an interview with her today.”

  Ted leaned back in his chair and then propped his feet up on the desk, Jack Emery’s words ringing in his ears about how women went through a guy’s things after sex when the guy was sleeping. He made a mental note to buy some No-Doz on his way home. He wondered if he talked in his sleep. “I’m just feeling guilty with no news to work on. She’s all yours,” he said, pointing to the clippings on Isabelle Flanders. “Good luck on the interview. What time tonight?”

  Maggie pretended to think, crunching up her face, her freckles forming a tight bridge across her nose. “Seven-thirty should do it. If you can’t make it, call me.”

  Ted waved airily, his thoughts on where he was going to stash his backpack when he arrived at Maggie’s. There was no way in hell he was going to ignore his buddy’s sage advice when it came to women. No sireee.

  He went back to Isabelle Flanders. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Maggie go out of her way to avoid walking past his desk again. Devious. She was definitely up to something. He preened at his sharp instinct. Jack Emery 101 on women.

  He started to make notes. He scribbled furiously. IF says falsely accused, lost everything, including fiancé, BH. One of seven women. Pinewood. Ted made a long line of question marks. LOP. Ladies of Pinewood. More question marks followed. Next to the question marks he made a second row of dollar signs. Myra Rutledge buys horse farm next to her own. More question marks. Even a rookie reporter would come up with the obvious: that Myra was funding whatever Isabelle Flanders was up to. But what was sh
e up to? Vengeance. Of course! Ted reached for a red pencil and circled the word. Then he made a crude red star next to the circle.

  But she couldn’t extract vengeance on her own. Oh no, she needed help. Who better to help her than the ladies of Pinewood? LOP. Aha!

  Ted leaned back, gave his chair a solid push, and whirled around three times before his feet could hit the floor. The ladies of Pinewood were going to go after Rosemary Hershey. That’s where he had to start. Never start with the result, start with the cause. Hershey was the cause of Isabelle’s demise and she would ultimately…what?

  He gathered up his papers, stuffed them in his bedraggled backpack, shrugged into his jacket and left the newsroom. He could feel Maggie’s eyes on his back. He made one stop in the paper’s library, where he spent an hour printing out everything he could find on Rosemary Hershey. When he was finished, his stack of papers was a half-inch thick. They also went into the backpack.

  Ted hit the lobby at full throttle and then sailed through the revolving door to wind, rain and cold air. Christ, how he hated February. He should be on some warm island sunning his ass off. Preferably with Maggie Spritzer. For one wild moment he envisioned himself rubbing coconut oil all over her freckled body. The thought, while titillating, and giving him a hard-on, had to go. He was on the hunt for a story and there was no room for suntan oil, freckles or lustful reactions.

  Twenty minutes later, Ted breezed through the security and made his way to Jack Emery’s office. What he didn’t see was Maggie Spritzer trailing behind him in a dark-colored poncho.