yes.” Calla wiped her hands on a napkin. “But he was right, wasn’t he? Fighting against the corrupt establishment? Helping people who’d been wronged and had no means or power of retribution? And I’m not suggesting we steal anything. I simply think we should take the law into our own hands. This investment scheme of Max’s had to have affected a lot of people. We should find them and talk to them. We should band together.”
“Shelby the Caterer and her Unhappy Retirees,” Victoria said sardonically.
“We get proof of his swindling,” Calla insisted.
“We get proof,” Shelby repeated, both skeptical and curious of this obviously crazy idea.
“Sure.” Clearly glad to have an eager audience, she leaned forward. “I’m great at research. How different could this be? We talk to his customers and his former clients. This new hotel gives us the perfect excuse. We could observe him, even interview him. I could pretend I’m doing a story on local entrepreneurs. We gather information and get proof that he’s a lying, swindling creep.”
Victoria’s expression remained passionless. “Something nobody in the entire NYPD has been able to do.”
“Only because they haven’t really tried,” Calla said, tossing a glare in her direction.
Shelby had to admit the idea of seeing that creep Max Banfield led off in handcuffs was appealing. But they all had jobs and businesses to run. Not to mention they had absolutely no authority to go poking around a criminal situation. What if Banfield had diplomatic immunity or something in America? Then the cops couldn’t touch him, and she and her friends would get thrown in the dungeon for pestering him. “I appreciate you trying to help, Calla. But I have to agree with Victoria. I don’t see how a caterer, a travel writer and a PR executive can solve a case the cops can’t.”
Calla stubbornly lifted her chin. “We can. We just have to—”
Victoria held up her hand. “Ladies, there’s an obvious solution to this problem. I’ll loan Shelby’s parents the money to get by.”
Shelby shook her head. “No. No way.” When Victoria looked on the verge of insisting, she added, “They can’t pay back a loan. The money they got from selling their dry cleaning business went to the down payment on the condo.”
“A beachside condo won’t be easy to sell these days,” Calla said in an I-told-you-so kind of voice.
Shelby scowled. “No kidding.”
“Our social lives are in a serious rut,” Calla continued. “We need an adventure to break the monotony.” She paused and grinned. “Plus, when is revenge against a creepy guy not fun?”
At this, even Victoria seemed intrigued.
Apparently, Shelby was staring desperation right in the eye, since the Robin Hood plan suddenly sounded like a viable option.
Victoria drummed her manicured fingernails on the table. “We’ve got one other problem.”
“What’s that?” Shelby asked, tensing.
“Robin Hood was a myth,” Victoria said.
Calla cleared her throat. “Well, yes. That’s a small wrinkle.”
Shelby resisted the urge to drown herself in her latte.
2
“MR. BANFIELD, YOUR brother is on line one.”
Trevor glanced up from the financial report he’d been reading to see his assistant filling his office doorway.
Hands planted on her ample hips, Florence Windemere scowled. “He’s very insistent.”
“I’ll bet.”
Max was, no doubt, caught in yet another mess of his own making. Who else could he call?
“Did he flirt with you again?” he asked Florence.
“Cheeky, that’s what he is. Unprofessional, too.”
Trevor smiled slightly at the flushed indignation of the woman who’d been his childhood governess after Max had gone off to boarding school at age eight—the year of their parents’ divorce. “So was I at one time.”
She drew herself to her full five-foot, one-inch height. “You were simply energetic, maybe a bit precocious and certainly a child. He’s a grown man.”
“He appears to be anyway.”
Florence gave him a sage smile. “There comes a time, my boy, when you have to push the baby bird from the nest.”
“Would you have given up on me?”
“He’s not you.”
“Which I, for one, am thankful. He is my brother, however.”
“Older brother,” Florence reminded him significantly as she retreated from the room.
Trevor understood her implication—the older sibling should be wiser, looking out for the younger. Somehow, almost right from the beginning, his family had been turned backward. And they’d all been paying for that quirk of fate ever since.
Bracing himself, Trevor lifted the phone receiver.
“Know anything about the hotel business?” Max asked him casually.
Way too casually.
Recalling the time Max had asked him about the hot-air-balloon business, only to have his ever-ambitious brother ignore his advice and buy four used ones with the ridiculous dream of them bobbing over and around the skyscrapers of Manhattan and/or Paris, Trevor knew he had to nip this blossoming idea in the bud. “It’s volatile, labor intensive, multifaceted and in no way, shape or form an industry you should be involved in.”
“Ah.” Long pause. “Uh … okay. What’d ya think of that Jets game on Sunday?”
Trevor got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
And not just because the Jets played football and it was the middle of April.
“What’ve you done?” he asked Max.
“Me?” he asked with affronted innocence that was well practiced and generally effective. “Not a thing. Though I did have a spicy dinner with a hottie from Venezuela last night. Maybe she’s got a sister, you could come with us next time.”
Max the Pimping Earl. Lovely. “I can get my own dates, thank you. Did you take Ms. Venezuela to a hotel?”
“No. My apartment.”
“Did you eat in a hotel restaurant last night?”
“Uh, well—Hmm … Let me think.”
He shared genes with this man. It was terrifying.
And
