The Golden Girl. Erica Orloff

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Maddie shut her eyes at the memories. That Monday, at the office, Claire had desperately tried to see her. She’d dropped by Maddie’s office, her dark eyes welling slightly when she looked at Maddie’s desk and saw that all the photo frames of the two of them—and Maddie’s father—had been put away. Maddie had cut her friend from her life. Her father, she had to deal with professionally. But even that relationship had grown chillier. Of course, the ever-confident swagger of Jack Pruitt never faltered—and he never apologized or raised the issue with his daughter again. He and Claire became a visible couple, and all of the city—especially the gossip columnists—had buzzed. Had the beautiful corporate attorney, decades his junior, finally snagged the most eligible bachelor in New York? Could Maddie’s closest confidante end up her stepmother?

      Maddie winced at the memories and rose from her bed and went to the bedroom window, looking out on Manhattan, the city whose skyline she was helping to shape with her real-estate ventures. The waterfront warehouse where her father said Claire was killed was in New Jersey—and it offered a spectacular view of Manhattan across the waters of the Hudson River. Maddie had been bidding against Ryan Greene, her real-estate nemesis and flirting friend, for the land. But there was no reason for Claire to have been there. In fact, aside from Madison and Jack Pruitt, few ever knew for sure of the hush-hush dealings of Pruitt & Pruitt’s real-estate division. They were secretive because as soon as word got out as to what they were bidding on, competitors rushed to vie for the same building or land. But whoever had murdered Claire knew about the warehouse—and Claire knew about it, albeit without her needing to visit it.

      Maddie puzzled over this. Who would have suggested meeting Claire there? Who did Claire trust enough to meet in an abandoned warehouse? Though Maddie thought her father was capable of many things, murder wasn’t one of them. But she knew that wouldn’t stop him from being suspect number one when the police looked into the slaying of the beautiful Claire Shipley, his much-younger lover.

      Chapter 3

      “Madison, darling?”

      “Yes?” Maddie said into her private cell phone and sipped her coffee. Her voice was raspy from lack of sleep.

      “Renee.”

      “Hi, Renee…” Madison said a bit unsteadily. Renee had recruited her into the prestigious Gotham Roses, appealing to her sense of philanthropy. The Pruitt Family Trust was known for doling out millions of dollars in charity each year—and Madison was instrumental in choosing the charities. But Gotham Roses was more personal—a chance to actually go out and do something for the charity of her choice. Nonetheless, she and Renee were acquaintances only. And now, Madison guessed that she quite possibly was about to be kicked out of the Gotham Roses for dragging their name through the mud. Already the front pages of the two major New York daily papers were covering the murder—and her father’s affair with her former best friend—in gory detail.

      “I’m so, so sorry to read of your friend’s murder.”

      “Thank you,” Madison murmured.

      “Is there anything I can do?”

      “No. I’m skipping the office today and working from my home—the better to avoid the phalanx of reporters outside my place. Two nearly ran me off the road last night.”

      “They can be awful…. I felt like they were a school of sharks encircling me during Preston’s trial six years ago,” Renee said sympathetically, referring to her husband who Renee always maintained had been framed for financial misdealings at his family’s investment СКАЧАТЬ