ERICA #2
But while Jeremiah is a pillar of morality, Dale is more… I dunno, a golden retriever, eager to please his friends. He just takes us all in staring at him, swings his lanky arms at his sides, and says, “What can I do to help?”
Everyone’s jaw drops.
“Ever drive a getaway car?” I say, half-joking, mostly stalling while my brain catches up to what just happened.
“I have a very clean driving record,” Dale says, entirely serious. “But I’m flexible.”
Tanya beams at him like he just proposed a second time. “Isn’t he the best?”
Dale plants his hands on his hips, smiling as he bobs his head, looking around the room like he’s planning to stay a while. Then his gaze lands on the scale model of the Four Seasons.
“Nice diorama.”
“It’s a scale model, Honey Bear,” Tanya corrects him.
“Did you make that, Pop Tart?”
Tanya nods proudly.
“Incredible,” he says. “You are so talented, Sweetie-boots.”
He kisses Tanya then settles onto a stool at the counter. Tanya gets him a coffee. He takes a few sips, then gives me that derpy smile.
“I just have one question. Why was the property seized in the first place?”
So I tell him. Simple as that. How in 1951, the Armitage patriarch signed away his family’s entire fortune without knowing what he was actually signing. How the company called it "Defaulting on the loan," then seized everything down to the furniture.
“I have the public record right here,” I say, finding my huge stack of papers I’ve collected over the years.
I’ve copied them in triplicate and scanned them into a digital archive of my own, but there’s something about the paper in my hands.
It makes it feel more like I’m connected to the historical facts.
I read an excerpt to Dale.
“The Borrower does hereby grant, bargain, sell, and convey unto the Lender, their successors and assigns, all of their right, title, and interest in and to the described property.”
Dale hums, thinking. “I’m no lawyer, but it does seem like classic legalese. And your ancestor signed that?”
“He thought he was getting fire insurance,” I say. “That’s what my dad told me.”
“And the company designed it to be unreadable to the average person on purpose.”
“Exactly. And after they took everything, running my family name through the mud, the necklace disappeared. I don’t actually know what happened to it for twenty years,” I admit.
“It surfaced again in the seventies when someone made an anonymous donation to the BMAH. But Mary Todd’s letters, Eleanor’s diary? Vanished.”
Dale lets out a long, slow whistle.
“They’re still out there somewhere,” I say. “And I’ve got my suspicions where.”
Dale is quiet for a second. Then he pulls a laptop out of the messenger bag and opens it without further discourse.
“Okay, there’s a paper trail.” He’s typing already. “Money doesn’t just disappear, even in fake books. The money always goes somewhere. What’s the company called?”
“Whitfield & Kane Trust Co.”
He pulls up their website first. I watch it load over his shoulder, all navy and cream and reassuring serif fonts. And then he’s off it almost immediately, clicking into something with a lot more columns and a lot less marketing copy.
“Public filings,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “Historical registrations, whatever they had to disclose even when they didn’t want to.” A pause. “These guys have been quietly reincorporating every fifteen, twenty years.”
“They seized dozens of estates in that era,” I offer. “Not just ours. I don’t have all the names, but there’s enough rumor to know we weren’t the only ones.”
“That actually helps.” He doesn’t look up. “If there’s a pattern, there’s a ledger somewhere that has to account for it, even if it’s dressed up to look legitimate. Companies don’t hide money by deleting it. They hide it by renaming it.”
He goes quiet again after that, clicking through screens while Tanya watches him with hearts in her eyes. This must be her catnip. The competence he displays. It’s kind of how I felt watching Jeremiah sweat all over the ice last night.
It’s a solid two or three minutes before he finally looks up. Not dramatic. Not urgent. Just mild, easy, like he’s about to ask what’s for dinner.
“So.” He pushes his glasses up his nose. “We gonna take these guys down or what?”
It catches everyone but Tanya off guard. She just beams harder.
“We don’t take down whole companies,” I say. “That’s not our code. Too many innocent people work there, people who need the paycheck and have nothing to do with what happened seventy years ago. We inconvenience the bad companies. We don’t demolish them.”
“Ummm, I wouldn’t rule out stock,” Dale says, already back to typing. “And bonuses. There are always bonuses that get unevenly distributed. You can do a lot of damage if you know where the money actually goes.”
Then he’s in a zone, hunched over the laptop, occasionally muttering things like “public filing, public filing, where’s the… there.” And then he starts singing under his breath, “Just follow the money trail…” to the tune of "Here Comes Peter Cottontail."
Zoe stares at him. Then at Tanya. Then back at him.
“I did not see this coming,” she says.
“Neither did I,” Ginger echoes.
I turn to Zoe, completely delighted. “Well, that could have blown up in our faces.”
“Ya think?” Zoe mutters.
I don’t have time to find out how it ends today. I’ve got a dress to find and about four hours before the good boutiques close for lunch.
So I grab my bag off the chair, dig out the Four Seasons key card one more time, and press it into Tanya’s palm.
“Here.”
She blinks at it.
“It’s for Capucine’s penthouse so nobody’s going to ask questions, and it’s paid up through the end of July to avoid suspicion. Consider it your pre-honeymoon.”
Tanya’s mouth actually falls open. “Erica!”
“Don’t make it weird.” I’m already at the door, already smiling in spite of myself. “No boys allowed in the girls’ fort. Go be disgusting somewhere with better room service.”
I leave before she can hug me, because if she hugs me I might actually cry, and I have concealer on that I’d like to keep intact for at least one more hour.
CityCenterDC is the kind of bougie place where the stores don’t bother with price tags, because if you have to ask, you’re already in the wrong zip code.
Hermès. Chanel. A Dior with what I’m fairly sure has its own private elevator.
And somewhere in the middle of all that marble, there’s me in jeans and sneakers.
I have no plan except for maybe something in black that doesn’t look like I borrowed it from a goth girl.
I’m three racks deep into my second boutique when a woman in a cream blouse materializes at my elbow. Her name tag says Bitsy, but going by the look on her face, it should read Disdain instead.
“Can I help you?” Bitsy says, in a tone that suggests she would rather pull out her own fingernails than help the likes of me.
She looks me over. The shoes, jeans, the army-green bag. It’s the kind of once-over that starts at your feet and ends somewhere around your soul.
“Just browsing,” I say, pleasant, because I’ve talked my way past far scarier people than a woman named Bitsy.
“You can’t bring that in here.” She nods at my bag.
“It’s my purse.”
“That is not a purse.”
“It has a zipper. It holds my wallet. I’m fairly confident that makes it a purse.”
“We have a strict no-bags policy on the sales floor.”
“I didn’t see a sign.”
“It’s implied.”
I could leave. That would be the sane, uncomplicated thing to do. Instead I make the mistake of raising an eyebrow, and Bitsy’s whole posture sharpens, like she’s been waiting all morning for someone to give her a reason.
“Perhaps,” she says. “This isn’t the right store for you.”
“Or maybe you could just let me look at a dress.”
“We don’t typically carry items for…” She pauses, just long enough to make it a weapon, “…persons of your demographic.”
A second saleswoman drifts over, drawn by whatever silent alarm summons these people, and the two of them close in slowly, incrementally, like sharks.
“Perhaps she got lost on her way to Walmart,” the second one says, and they both laugh through their noses.
“Or the thrift store,” Bitsy adds.
This one doesn’t even introduce herself, just plants herself at Bitsy’s shoulder and starts nodding along like a backup singer.
“We really can’t have people just wandering the floor,” the second lady says.
“I’m not wandering. I’m shopping.”
“I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for here,” Bitsy snarls.
I should just leave. Seriously, I can’t even with these ladies. But something defiant inside me takes over and digs her heels down.
“I’m actually shopping for a really fancy banquet,” I say. “I’ll let you know if I need your… help.”
Grrrr, these ladies irk me. Mostly because they remind me of high school mean girls. I’ve had to deal with more than a few of those back in the day. When I’d walk to school with holes in the soles of my shoes, and the same four outfits on rotation.
Both women snort at the word ‘banquet’ like I’m just shopping for a backwater prom.
“Miss, I’m going to need you to either check your bag at the front or leave.”
“Check it where, exactly? I don’t see a coat check. I see a blouse with florals straight out of the ’80s, one deeply regrettable haircut, and eyebrows drawn on with what looks like a Sharpie.”
Bitsy’s smile goes thin and brittle. “There’s no need to be difficult.”
“I’m not being difficult. You’re being—” I feel my back hit the rack behind me, the two of them somehow having closed the distance without either of them technically moving toward me, “snobby and rude.”
“Security can escort you out, if that would be easier.”
They have no security. I’m trained to notice these things. But I genuinely consider just leaving when a voice behind me cuts through the whole standoff.
“Excuse me. What is going on here?”