The Last of the Stanfields(70)

“Let’s sit down,” May said. “There’s a nice dinner just sitting there, and we can clear a spot on my desk.”

They sat down across from each other. Sally-Anne shook her head. “We can’t let this stand,” she whispered.

“We got double-crossed and now we’re ruined. What choice do we have?”

May thought about the weekend on Kent Island, just days earlier. She had been so happy, but Edward had ruined it. Sally-Anne, meanwhile, was peering across the warehouse at the part that had been transformed into a newsroom. Just days earlier, the Independent had been taking its first breaths, but her mother had killed it.

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to take back what’s ours,” she said.

“I think I’ve had my fill of your asshole brother.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean the paper.”

“You said it yourself: without funding, the paper is finished,” May said. She crossed the room and lit the stove burner under a pan of watercress soup.

“My father has a small fortune in bearer bonds in the safe in his study. It’s a favorite payment method of art collectors who want to keep some transactions tax-free. Officially, the painting is resold at cost, then all taxable profit is settled this way. No one’s any the wiser. The bonds are anonymous. They can be cashed at any bank, without any kind of proof of origin.”

“We’re not thieves, Sally-Anne. How do you expect us to break into a safe and steal all that money?” May sighed as she poured the warmed soup into a tureen and set it on the desk. It was far from the romantic dinner she had envisioned while slaving away in the kitchen earlier.

“Who said anything about stealing? The Stanfields built an empire on what had been left by my grandfather: his paintings and the legacy of his reputation. I’m the only one who seems to have inherited the man’s ethics. He’d be livid if he were here to see how his daughter was acting now. He’d be first in line to help us.”

“That’s all well and good,” said May as she filled their bowls with soup. “Claiming your inheritance wouldn’t be stealing, but there’s no way your parents are going to give it to you.”

“Right. Which means we’ll just have to help ourselves.”

“If your parents haven’t invited you to your own brother’s engagement party, what makes you think they’ll just let you into their safe?”

“The key is in a cigar box that my dad keeps in his office minibar.”

“Great,” May said. “So, what? You’re going to scale the roof and break into the house in the dead of night to steal the bonds while your parents and their entire staff sleep through the whole thing? Come on. This is real life, not a movie.”

“Night would be best. But we won’t break in; we’ll waltz right in through the front door and do it in style. And then we’ll steal the bonds out from under their noses and leave the way we came.”

May poured herself a glass of red wine from a bottle of Chateau-Malartic-Lagravière.

“Wow, a 1970? You weren’t messing around!” whistled Sally-Anne. “Well, at the very least, I’m glad I get to drink it instead of my brother.”

“You’re drunk already, the way you’re talking. You don’t need another sip.”

Ignoring this, Sally-Anne poured herself a glass and raised it in a toast. May downed hers in one swig.

“Okay, enough half-baked revenge plots,” May said. “When do we let the team know we can’t pay them?”

“We won’t even have to; they’ll get paid for the first issue and every one after it.”

“Enough is enough, Sally-Anne! Don’t talk crazy. You’re not going to walk out of there with your father’s bearer bonds, not if they turn you away at the front door.”

“They won’t even know who we are. Isn’t that the entire point of a masquerade ball? That’s when we’ll do it.”

“The masquerade ball that you aren’t invited to!”

“Not yet, but I can fix that. And I’ll need you to come along as my date.” She laid out the plan, step by step. May would infiltrate the manor and tamper with the guest list. She would be taking an enormous risk.

At first, May categorically refused to even set foot in Edward’s lair ever again. She remembered being smuggled out of the service door at dawn like a whore after their weekend on Kent Island. Yet, Sally-Anne proved to be quite adept at convincing her, her powers of persuasion rivaling even those of her mother.

As the night came to an end, May poured the last of the wine, and the two women clinked glasses. There was no turning back.





29

ELEANOR-RIGBY

October 2016, Baltimore

Waltzing into the police station and flashing my press card did not work out as planned. The cop at the front desk just couldn’t see why a nature magazine would be so interested in an obscure crime dating all the way back to 1980. He had a point, I had to admit. After losing patience with my thin explanations, he told me I could file a formal request with the appropriate department. I asked how long the process would take, all told.

“It could take a while,” he replied. “We’re a bit understaffed at present.” And with that, the cop buried his nose back in his book, just as we had found him. George-Harrison could tell I was about to explode, and put a gentle arm around my shoulders.