Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(23)
“Excuse me, ma’am, a telegram has arrived for you.”
“Thank you.” She tucked the card into her leather portfolio before turning back to Silas, but he had a raft of excuses.
“I’m not a port engineer,” he said. “How would I know if the Hammonds were even telling me the truth?”
She tamped down her frustration. A skilled investment banker ought to be fluent in all manner of ventures, whether it was a steel mill, a railroad, or a construction project. If a topic was beyond her experience, she knew where to go for help.
“We have consultants here in New York,” she said. “Take one with you. I guarantee if you arrive in Seattle to inspect that project, their behavior will improve.”
His eyes narrowed. “You may be the most smug, egotistical woman in the entire state of New York.”
Her jaw dropped at the unprovoked attack. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. I have a college degree and had to claw my way through low-level clerkships while you bounced on daddy’s knee and waltzed into a corner office.”
She itched to point out that she had also gone to college and served in entry-level clerkships, but she wouldn’t let him put her on the defensive. “I’m sorry you find my presence here so intimidating.”
Tension crackled between them as they headed back into the conference room. Resentment still pulsed in her veins as she took a seat at the table, but she swallowed it back as their analyst handling the Boston subway began speaking.
“Good news,” he said as he flipped open a file. “The geologists report that the ground composition beneath Boston is going to allow the drilling of the subway tunnels to proceed faster than anticipated.”
The discussion was actually quite interesting, but the rim of the telegram peeking from beneath her stack of papers distracted her. She slid it out and flipped it open.
Dearest Natalia. Arriving on Pacific Star, March 25. Wire a thousand dollars to port of San Fran. Dimitri
The breath left her in a rush. Dimitri was the only person in the world who addressed her as “Dearest Natalia,” but this message made no sense. It didn’t sound like Dimitri. It was probably a fraud, and a cruel one at that.
She slid the card back under her stack of papers. She wouldn’t let herself be distracted from the discussion about the subway because of a nonsensical telegram. Soon there were questions from the other bankers, and she tried to put the odd message out of her mind.
But it was hard to concentrate, and she slid the telegram out to read it again. Someone was clearly trying to defraud her. Boris Kozlov, the hard-bitten policeman she’d hired to find news of Dimitri, was the most likely suspect. She’d never quite trusted Boris. He took bribes from the owners of local stores to stop by several times a day. He probably assumed that a rich woman like Natalia wouldn’t hesitate to wire money to a friend in need.
But how would Boris know about the “Dearest Natalia” greeting?
She thrummed her fingers against the card, one ear listening to the subway discussion while her mind was halfway around the world. Plenty of people knew that was how Dimitri addressed her. It was an open joke among the telegraph operators on the third floor, and Boris could have easily learned that detail.
Why would he ask her to wire money to San Francisco, though? If he was trying to impersonate Dimitri to trick her out of a thousand dollars, why send the money to the other side of the country? Granted, it would be harder to trap a fraudster in San Francisco than if Boris asked for the money to be wired someplace like Boston or Philadelphia, but still. . . .
“Natalia!” her father said, jerking her back to the present. “I asked about your plans for structuring the loan.”
She cleared her throat and supplied the answers, heat flushing her face. On the other side of the table, Silas Conner gloated at the way she’d been caught woolgathering.
She needed to concentrate on getting this loan finalized and waste no more time worrying about the unknown scoundrel trying to swindle her out of a thousand dollars.
12
Dimitri stepped off the ship and into the port of San Francisco, looking around in appalled amazement. It was huge! Dozens of piers crowded the port, where steamships unloaded people and cargo. Other ships waited offshore, ready to dock as soon as a pier was open. His own ship had been forced to wait six hours before it could claim a space on a wharf, all while Dimitri cooled his heels on deck, eager to get ashore and claim the payment Natalia had sent. The moment he had his hands on it, he’d buy a meal, a bath, and some decent clothing.
Except now that he was on land, the experience was overwhelming. Piers, wagons, warehouses, and drays cluttered the shore as far as his eye could see. To the south, dredging equipment widened the harbor, while on the north, dozens of railroads funneled into warehouses. And the noise! It made the chaos even more unnerving.
How would he find the telegraph office where Natalia had sent his money? He hadn’t expected San Francisco to be so big, and he kept walking down the harbor path, looking for sign of a telegraph station. It had rained this morning, and the damp soaked through his tattered lapti shoes, which had outlived their usefulness. The woven strips of birch bark began to fray during the voyage, but he had tied pieces of string around each shoe to hold them together.
The port stretched for miles in each direction, but the largest and fanciest building was straight ahead. It was a white, neoclassical building with two long wings on either side and a clocktower in the center. It seemed a logical place to start looking for a telegraph station.