Mistress полностью

My office is in the back, the only one with actual walls, though they’re all clear glass, so there’s not much privacy, anyway. The door reads BENJAMIN CASPER, EDITOR. I don’t need a title with “chief” or “executive” in it. At least an “editor” sounds like he works for a living. Of course, since Diana…well, one of the perks of owning the business is that I can count on Ashley Brook to run it for me while I’m away. I’ll need that perk for now.

Everyone wants to talk to me about the plane crash-my phone exploded with e-mails and texts after the news leaked out-but I brush them off because I’m tired, and it’s only a fraction of the story of my life over the last week.

I called ahead and had my secretary buy me some shirts, pants, underwear, and toiletries-on the company card, of course, which means on my dime-so I could stay mobile. I pick up a set and head for the bathroom.

When I turned this place into a newsroom, I blew out the walls in both bathrooms and added showers, a feature that suits the lifestyles of employees with irregular hours. Good for me now, because I need a hot shower. I’m going to wash up, change, and get the hell out of this office before whoever’s chasing me finds me here and shoots up the place. I’m radioactive right now.

When I’m done, I feel better, refreshed, and I wish like hell I could put my feet up in my office and snooze.

The buzzer on my intercom cries out. It’s the new person up front. Our last receptionist would just turn and yell back to me across the entire space.

I’m not sure I even remember how to use this thing, but I push a button and say, “Yes?”

“Mr. Casper?”

Who else would it be? “Yes.”

“Someone named Anne Brennan to see you,” she says. “She says it’s urgent.”

Anne Brennan is Diana’s best friend.

“Send her back,” I say.

I greet Anne Brennan at the door of my office and offer her a chair. She looks like she could use it. She looks tired and out of sorts-frazzled, as Diana used to say.

I don’t know Anne very well. I met her just a handful of times, but other than Randy she was the only person Diana ever talked about in terms of personal intimacy. So I feel like I know her through Diana.

Anne is cute, a petite woman with curly brown hair to her shoulders, attractive in a warm, nonthreatening way. Mary Ann to Diana’s Ginger. That would make me Gilligan.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” she says. “I’m not sure where to go. Diana trusted you so much.”

“Tell me,” I say. I’m debating what I might tell her. She should go first.

“I mean, first it’s Diana, and now people are coming around, asking me all kinds of questions about her.”

“What people?” I ask.

“The CIA,” she says. “They want to know what I know about Diana. Why she would kill herself. Was she romantically involved with someone? Things like that.”

“What did you tell them?”

I admit, I’m hoping her answer will be, You, Ben. She was romantically involved with you.

“I-I didn’t-” She gets out of the chair and starts to pace. She’s been shaken up by the feds. They have a way of doing that. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell them, y’know? I wanted to keep her privacy. But it was like they knew I was holding back. And then they start threatening me. They say they’ve pulled all my tax returns for the last ten years and they’re sure they can find something wrong with them. ‘You can always find something,’ they said. They said I could lose my home and my catering business and-”

“Anne. Anne. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

She bursts into tears, her face in her hands. I put an arm around her shoulder and help her back into the chair. I fetch some water from the tiny fridge behind my desk and hand her the sweaty bottle.

She finally composes herself, taking a couple of sips and some deep breaths. “This is really embarrassing, coming unglued like that.”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about. They rattled you. It’s their specialty.” I squat down next to her. “Listen, Anne, they’re not going to do anything to you. They just wanted to make sure you didn’t hold back. Did you hold anything back?”

She doesn’t respond. A nonanswer that is, in fact, an answer.

“I didn’t tell them about…a friend of hers.”

“Jonathan Liu,” I say.

She looks at me. “Jonathan Liu they knew about.”

I recoil. “There was another friend?”

Her eyes part from mine. She inhales and exhales slowly.

“The Russian,” she says. “I didn’t tell them about the Russian.”

“His name is Alex,” says Anne. “I only met him once. I ran into Diana with him and they looked-very cozy. But then a few weeks later, I saw an article about him in the Post. I recognized his photograph. His name is Alexander Kutuzov. He owns a soccer team in England and a bunch of specialty bookstores around the world, including one here on Fifth Street. I’ve actually been in it. It’s called AK Collectibles. Anyway, he’s made billions in oil in Russia and he flies all over the world, that kind of thing.”