Authors: Daphna Edwards Ziman
“Our screening program for mentors is rigorous: It requires background checks and interviews and a written application. We want to make sure people are doing this for the right reasons. In addition to regularly scheduled meetings, we sponsor group outings for the mentors and mentees—trips to baseball games, amusement parks, et cetera. The most important part is the bonding time. The mentors need to be consistent in their involvement—need to be like clockwork, because they’re often the only stable, predictable thing in the child’s life.”
Thinking about how a program like that might have helped her as a child, Kelly felt her eyes sting. She pushed the feeling back. “That’s all quite interesting, Deanne,” she said. “Let me ask you about funding. Does your state-funded system accept money from the private sector?”
“Well, that’s another of the problems with the system as it’s currently run. Because the state’s money goes to reward foster parents for taking on the most difficult cases, rather than toward preventing those children from ending up there in the first place, and because there is never enough money, there is room for people with a lot of money to throw it at the broken system. Some people use the platform and become spokespeople on behalf of the voiceless children who suffer most in our community. They receive a great deal of attention because the story is appealing to the media.”
“Have you heard of Todd Gillis?”
“Of course I’ve heard of Todd Gillis. He puts millions into the child welfare system.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Well, as I said, a lot of people get into the foster child business because they can get favorable press. The more kids they ‘help,’ and the more ‘difficult’ those kids are determined to be, the more kudos these donors get from the community. Especially politicians—saving kids pulls on the public’s heartstrings. It means political capital.”
“Are you saying you know Gillis personally?”
“No. But he has several PR companies pushing his kid-loving image. On the surface it’s all on the up-and-up. But in one of the group homes he supported, there was a scandal a few years back. A couple of the girls called the rape hotline, claiming they had been raped. They described a Gillis look-alike as the rapist.”
Kelly thanked Deanne for all the information and her time.
Then she sat still, staring into the corner of the room, her mind racing, as Jake exchanged a few more pleasantries before saying good-bye.
After he hung up, Kelly turned to him, a triumphant smile playing on her lips. “I have an idea. Here’s the plan for today …”
KELLY LICKED THE RIDGE OF FOAM FROM THE inside edge of the paper cup and touched her lips with a napkin. Through the window she could see the waves silently beating the rocks, puffing up spray. Fog still hung offshore like a ratty window sheer, making everything appear limp and gray. Kelly stuffed the napkin in the cup, gathered her three small shopping bags, and rose.
In a conservative, pale blue Escada suit, she was an utterly different Kelly, yet no more the real Kelly than Marilyn Monroe or Lydia Haines. She was all polish—exquisite and sleek, untouchable.
La Jolla’s business district was a tumble of quaint seaside streets boasting galleries and shops that catered to the very rich. Kelly walked a short block and a half and entered a branch of American Capital Investment Bank, leaving on her sunglasses so she could look around while her eyes adjusted to the softer light. Two tellers were on duty behind the bulletproof window. An accounts manager was behind his
desk on the floor. Two elderly customers were at the windows, and a surfer in board shorts was in line.
Kelly walked over to the accounts manager and spoke in a low, firm voice.
“Could you call your manager, please, Mr….?”
“Fox,” said the man, pointing to the sign on his desk.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Fox,” purred Kelly. “And the day manager is—”
“Lee. John Lee. I’ll just …” Fox trailed off and Kelly turned to see what he was looking at. A tall Asian man in a black suit and red tie had materialized behind her. His thick hair was short on the sides and brushy on top. His cheekbones carved two ridges out of his smooth skin.
“Can I help?”
Kelly looked him in the eyes. “Mr. Lee. I’m Mrs. Todd Gillis.”
The man’s jaw slackened while his eyes flicked back and forth between Kelly and the door of the bank.
From the corner of her eye, she could see the word spreading across the floor that the big boss’s wife was visiting the bank. If they asked, she had her credit cards and ID in her wallet, which still bore the Gillis name. But she knew they wouldn’t ask. Her acting and attitude were too good. The manager tried to regain his balance.
“What are you doing … uh … what can we do … Is Mr. Gillis here too?”
Kelly didn’t smile or give him any relief. She knew how to wield power over employees. Rule number one: Don’t put them at ease.
“May I show you around, Mrs. Gillis?” Lee offered when she didn’t answer his other questions.
“I need to use a private office for a few minutes,” stated Kelly, ignoring his hospitality.
Lee recovered quickly and started acting to help, falling all
over himself, as she knew he would. “Of course. Is that all? You can use mine.” He swiped a plastic card through a reader and pushed a code into a wall lock. The door buzzed and he held it open for Kelly. “This way.”
A short hallway led to his office. It was lined with framed photographs of the bank’s management: Mr. Lee himself, regional managers, national VPs. In the center of the hall was a larger portrait of Gillis, handsome, tan, in a white French shirt and dark jacket and tie. Kelly looked in his eyes as she passed the painting, and they seemed to follow her. To the right of the portrait was a photo of Gillis shaking hands with the president of the United States. Below hung a photo of Gillis shaking hands with Congressman Dennis Cardoza. Kelly saw Lee glance at the photos, but he didn’t look back at her.
Lee’s office was absolutely free of clutter. Not a single sheet of paper was lying around, nor were any Post-it notes stuck to the computer. This was going to be harder than she thought.
“Thank you, Mr. Lee. I need to make a few phone calls and check my e-mail. Do I dial nine to get out?”
“That’s right. Let me get you into the computer system. This is the code the managers use. Put it in at the prompt.” He wrote down the successive numbers
12345.
Kelly paused, amused at how many people traded off security for easy recall.
“Mr. Gillis wanted me to check into a few things. I’ll need to get into some of our accounts.” Kelly arranged her shopping bags on the desk as she spoke—the small blue Tiffany’s bag in front—and purposely did not look at Lee. Rule number two: Make extraordinary requests in the most mundane way possible.
Lee hesitated, caught in the limbo between deference to the boss’s wife and upholding the bank’s security rules. “Well, uh, I don’t have Mr. Gillis’s password—”
“I have that,” Kelly snapped, “of course. But this code gets me into the system, right?”
Lee nodded.
Kelly purred, “If you could just allow me some privacy, then.” Turning to the computer, she slid her hand surreptitiously into her purse.
“Certainly, of course, Mrs. Gillis.” Lee nervously tapped the keys, and a series of screens flashed by on the monitor.
Kelly pressed a button on her cell phone, and it rang in her purse. Lee stepped away discreetly.
“Hello?” She didn’t turn away, didn’t signal to Lee to continue working, didn’t acknowledge him at all. Rule number three: When someone works for you, they don’t exist until you want them to. “Yes, darling. No, I’m here right now. A Mr. Lee”—she smiled enchant-ingly at Lee, who grimaced in return—“is helping me. I don’t know. Twenty minutes? The plane can wait, can’t it? Alright. Love you, too.” She folded the phone and dropped it back in her purse. “Are we ready now, Mr. Lee?”
“Just about.” Lee leaped back to the keyboard and clicked away. He left it with the cursor blinking in an empty rectangle labeled
PASSWORD
. He closed the door soundlessly.
Kelly took a deep breath and typed in
12345.
The screen flashed, the hard drive hummed, and the system opened. She typed quickly, calling up the account information on Gillis’s charity sponsorships. The list was huge, but two caught her eye. One was the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, to which Gillis had donated several million dollars. She knew there would be something fishy about that money. The connection to Libby’s diabetes was a giveaway. Nothing about Gillis’s dealings with her or her children was ever straightforward.
The other sponsorship she noticed was Casa de los Niños, a
group home Gillis donated to personally, through the Gillis Foundation, in addition to professionally, through a joint sponsorship with his own bank.
She searched for files having to do with Casa de los Niños and opened the first one. A long column of numbers scrolled down the screen. Kelly scanned it, looking for anything she could use. She knew she didn’t have much time. Looking around casually, even though she was in an office with a closed door, Kelly slid a flash drive out of her purse and popped it into the computer’s USB port. She downloaded everything from the Casa de los Niños accounts.
When she was done, Kelly moved her fingers over the keys again and opened up a file labeled
CONTACTS
within the Casa de los Niños folders. Listed there were the names and numbers of the organization’s office staff and board members. Kelly scrutinized the list as she downloaded it. She focused on the name of one of the board members, Louise Orlean, noting that she lived in Rancho Santa Fe, about an hour’s drive north toward Los Angeles.
She tabbed through each information field on the other board members, paying close attention to the
Spouse
entry. Each person had a name listed under
Spouse,
until she reached the name
Theodore Henckle.
She did a double take.
Theodore Henckle?
He was a Nevada senator, the right-wing conservative against whom Porter had been running—and who would now face Porter’s widow, Suzanne, in the election. Senator Henckle was campaigning as a widower who had lost his wife to breast cancer. It got him some mileage with women.
For Henckle’s entry, instead of a full name in the
Spouse
field, the word
Goldy
appeared beside the politician’s name. Kelly smiled. She knew Gillis too well for his own good. It fit perfectly with his motto:
The man with the gold makes the rules.
She didn’t know why Henckle was on the list, but she knew she had gotten what she needed.
When John Lee knocked on the door twenty minutes later,
Kelly had her phone pressed to her ear, pretending to give orders to her housekeeper. She thanked Lee with a smile and, still talking on the phone, strode out of the bank into the lifting fog.
* * *
Two hours later Kelly and Jake were astride horses, urging them gently through the sage-scented chaparral of the mountains of Orange County. Jake, in the lead, held up his cell phone, periodically snapping pictures of the landscape and of Kelly with the camera. Mostly, though, he kept the camera trained on the rider about twenty-five yards ahead of them, a woman in her early fifties guiding a bay mare along the trail.
The woman was Louise Orlean, and she was a Gillis Foundation board member. After leaving the bank in La Jolla for Ms. Orlean’s address in Rancho Santa Fe, Kelly and Jake had followed Ms. Orlean’s Range Rover from her home to the Henderson Corral and Riding Trail. They’d waited in Jake’s Mercedes until Louise had, after much flirting with the stable hand, saddled up and headed up the mountain. Then they had approached the groom themselves and lied about Louise Orlean having invited them to go riding with her that morning. The young man looked doubtfully at their clothes—Jake was still in jeans and Skechers from the night before, and Kelly was in Jake’s old T-shirt, her own scruffy jeans, and one of his sports jackets—but he seemed to change his mind after he saw Jake mount and walk a horse. Even Kelly was impressed by his grace and power in the saddle and his gentle yet firm way with the animal.
They’d been riding about five minutes along the trail Louise Orlean had taken when Kelly called quietly up to Jake.
“Can I add ‘private eye’ to my résumé now? I’ll put it just below ‘bank robber.’”
Jake grinned. “If you ever wanted to make that a profession, I’d hire you on the spot. I don’t know anyone who has a better feel for it.” He snapped a few more clandestine photos of Louise Orlean, then pulled up to let Kelly pass him.
“You go ahead, get a better view. Stay out of sight, though.”
Kelly prodded her horse to ascend the trail, flashing her smile at Jake as she went by. He had been thinking of little else besides Kelly Jensen for more than a week, but the sight of her on that horse, with the sun in her ponytail and on her lean, straight back, nearly undid him. He smiled back.
It had also been fascinating to watch her work. They’d been waiting outside Louise Orlean’s gated estate. The minute Louise had pulled out of the driveway in her Range Rover, Kelly had begun to meticulously catalogue things about her.
“Late forties, early fifties. Fit. Nervous driver. Probably not from California. Trendy sunglasses. Trying to act younger than she is. Most likely has teenaged kids or is worried about her husband’s wandering eye. Her hair will be easy. I’ve got a wig I can comb just that way. I need to see her walk.”
Later, seated in the Mercedes at the Henderson stables, Jake had watched Kelly while she studied Louise, mirroring the older woman’s head and hand movements as she flirted with the stable hand. Kelly was like a caricaturist working in three dimensions, quickly sketching the outlines of Louise Orlean’s personality, desires, and look with her own body and voice.
Back on the trail, Jake watched as Kelly pushed her horse harder up the hill. As she neared the top, he could see that Louise had stopped and was looking around at the view. Kelly was getting too close; any closer and Louise would see her—possibly both of them. But suddenly it occurred to him that this was just what Kelly intended.