Chapter Forty

CHAPTER FORTY

A light rain had begun to fall shortly after Elin left the main highway on her way to Leon Golden’s estate. By the time she arrived at the main gate, thick drops were falling hard and fast, and she was forced to turn her windshield wipers to high.

There was no guard in the sentry box, but there was a speaker affixed to the stone wall on one side of the gate. Elin lowered her window. The wind blew thick drops into the car, and she leaned back after she pressed the button at the base of the speaker. No one answered, so she pressed the button again. After the third try, she heard static and Leon Golden’s voice. His speech was slurred, and she suspected that he wasn’t sober.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Golden asked.

There was a security camera mounted above the speaker. Elin looked at it and flashed a winning smile as she held up a business card she’d printed.

“Hi, Mr. Golden. I’m Elin Crane, Charlie Webb’s assistant. He wanted me to tell you about an important event that happened this afternoon.”

“What event?”

“Can I please come up? It’s raining cats and dogs, and I’m getting soaked.”

There was dead air for a minute. Then Elin heard a buzzing sound, and the gate swung open.

Elin had been prepared to see guards patrolling Golden’s estate, but the guards Max Unger’s National Security company had supplied were nowhere to be found. Charlie had told her that some of those guards had been killed or arrested at Guido’s farm. She guessed that the rest had left as soon as they learned that their employer had committed suicide.

After Elin parked in front of Golden’s house, she dashed through the rain to the front door. She had just ducked under the portico when the door swung open and Leon Golden stepped aside to let her in.

The only time she’d seen Golden was on news programs in the shots of his arrest at the Oscars. The man who admitted Elin to his mansion bore little resemblance to the nattily dressed sophisticate who had been interviewed on the red carpet. His face was covered with several days of gray-black stubble, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing a warm-up suit that was decorated with food and coffee stains. When he spoke, Elin had to use all her self-control to keep from ducking away from stale breath that reeked of alcohol.

“What’s this about?” Golden demanded.