Chapter 32

Shelby wasn’t sure when she’d stopped thinking of herself as staying at the Loft and started to think of it as the place she was living for the summer. She clearly remembered sitting on her bed the morning of July Fourth, not exactly meditating, but clearing her mind of distractions so she could think clearly about what she’d been planning to do. Her father wanted her to embed herself into Nick’s group for reasons unknown at the time and Simon had given her the opportunity to do so. She had enough of a mental dossier on Simon Anderson to be confident she could turn her one-night pass into an extended visit and, she told herself, she disliked him enough that there was no danger that sleeping with him would lead to a sense of attachment or affection. She’d chosen to contact him first for that very reason. She would have tried Dennis next, then Nick. If neither of the guys she’d already slept with responded, she would have tried Max next. But she’d imagined she had the greatest risk of getting attached to Max of any of the young men at the Loft.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, nineteenth century architect of German unification, had famously said the no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Shelby accepted that, but she worried that her plan had been made up of too much wishful thinking. Wishful thinking, her father Sherman “Tank” Carson had less famously said, was the leading cause of death in Americans.

If she was ever going to be a spy - and she had every intention of becoming a spy even if her father couldn’t or wouldn’t help her - she needed to learn every lesson she could from this summer. Lesson one was that she couldn’t underestimate how much having sex with someone changed her perspective on them - particularly if that sex satisfied any of her particular kinks. She really should have learned that lesson from her time with Beck. In the course of a year, she’d gone from being smart enough to try to avoid him to making excuses to herself and others for his less acceptable behavior to needing distance and, God help her, Simon Anderson to give her enough perspective to wash her hands of him.

She’d been in New York City with Simon, Nick, and their friends less than a month and wanted to pretend that she wouldn’t miss them when she left for school in September. But that would be more wishful thinking. Particularly in the last week, she’d grown attached to being here.

She was walking towards Simon’s apartment, trying to figure out what had changed, when someone called out behind her. “Shelby, do you have a minute?”

She turned and saw Emily coming up the hall at a pretty good clip. The model had swapped her pair of wooden crutches for a single, metal one that she was more carrying than using. “Uh, sure. What’s up?”

“I need some advice.” Emily stepped up to her own apartment door and opened it.

“From me?” Shelby considered Emily an excellent case in point. They weren’t friends, but with no obvious, straightforward allies, Shelby had found herself surprisingly responsive to Emily’s friendly overtures. The blonde Australian had first approached her after their one session of Dungeons and Dragons to compliment her play. Since then, they’d had a couple of conversations of minor consequence.

“Yes.” Emily stepped into her apartment and Shelby followed. “I need a disinterested third party who’s relatively normal.”

Shelby frowned. “I’m happy to offer advice if I can, but I’m not so sure about being normal.”

“I did say ‘relatively.’” Emily hobbled to her refrigerator. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

Shelby didn’t answer because something small and fluffy had just come streaking out from under the couch and attacked her ankle. She let out a startled sound and looked down at a blue-furred kitten who looked back up at her with ears pinned back. When she reached down to pet him, he ran off. Emily laughed. “Sorry. Devo has learned the joy of attacking ankles.”

“You named him after the band?” Shelby asked.

Emily made her way back into the living room with a Perrier in one hand. “I named him Scratch. Devo is short for ‘Devourer of Worlds and Prince of Lies,’ which he earned for eating like a pig, then lying to the staff and pretending I never feed him.”

Even though she needed to get ready to go out, Shelby couldn’t help asking. “Is that a Dungeons and Dragons thing?”

“Not as far as I know.” Emily sat. “Those were two of the more colorful ways the preacher back home referred to Satan when I was growing up. I really don’t know much more about the game than you do.”

“I don’t really know anything.” Shelby protested. “I just treated it like improv and let Max figure out all the stuff with the dice.”

“That’s about where I am,” said Emily. “Have you ever thought about acting professionally?”

Shelby sat down across from Emily. “Not specifically, but I see the value in acquiring it as a skill, whatever I wind up doing.”

Emily twisted her bottle open. “So, you know about Clive. Right?”

“Clive’s ... your ex?” Shelby searched her memory. “I remember that he tried to crash the party on the Fourth, but that’s it.”

“Okay. Short version.” Emily briefly explained her history with Clive - that he’d scooped her up from nowhere, set her up in an apartment first in Sydney, then later in New York, that they’d been lovers for six years, how it had ended. She wrapped up with, “Ever since he showed up here, I’ve been trying to call him every few days, but he’s been letting it go to voicemail. This morning, the number’s disconnected.”

“Are you worried something’s happened to him?” Shelby asked.

“To Clive?” Emily shook her head. “Clive’s like a cockroach. I’m just worried he’s going to pop up again at the worst possible time. I’m trying to get a hold of him to make sure he’s well and truly out of my life once and for all.”

“Oh.” Shelby shifted her thinking. “Are you looking for a way to track him down?”

“I think I have one,” said Emily. “Nick has access to this database of the whole Stone family and he gave me permission to ask his assistant to look things up in it about Clive. I’m trying to decide if I should. Am I a total stalker if I go look for his other contact information in the family registry and keep trying to make him talk to me?”

“Wait. Is Clive a Stone?” Shelby frowned, still catching up.

“Oh, yeah. He’s Clive Whitehall-Stone. I should have mentioned that part.”

Shelby considered the question. In Brownfield Mills, a lot of girls had come to her with questions like this - sometimes seeking a sanity check, sometimes looking for an affirmation of what they were damned well going to do anyway - an attempt to prejustify an action and lessen its social impact. Should I leave Steve and date Gary? Should I spend the weekend with Gary even though I’m kind of with Steve? Steve and I are broken up, but we’re still going to prom together. It’s cool to sleep with Gary. Right?

Often, the trick to finding the right answer was asking the right question. “Did you tell Clive you were here before he showed up?”

“No.” Emily frowned. “I ... hadn’t really told anyone I was going to be here on the Fourth - just my housemates and my boss. I posted some pictures on Instagram from here, but I didn’t say where I was.”

“Are you thinking about swinging by his house and confronting him?” Shelby prompted.

“No. His house is somewhere in Australia and I don’t particularly relish the idea of meeting his wife,” said Emily. “I just want to call him and make sure he goes away.”

“So, one to ten on the stalker scale, where do you think that would put you compared to him?” Shelby asked.

“Like a three maybe?” Emily shook her head. “I guess it’s not as bad as him showing up where I live and trying to bully his way in here. Is it?”

“Not even close.” Shelby shook her head.

“You’re good at this.” Emily gave her a broad smile. “Arwen and I were just comparing notes on how bad we both are at girl talk. Maybe we should be coming to you for lessons.”

“I’d be happy to hang out more and chat.” Shelby would have liked to sit and talk for a while, maybe forge a real friendship with the other woman, but she was on a timetable today. “Arwen and I on the other hand ... we didn’t get along so well in high school and I haven’t exactly been working to get her into the Shelby Carson fan club since I got here.”

After a few more pleasantries, Shelby was again on her mission to get ready for a night out. And it was undoubtedly a mission now. At some point this evening, she would need to talk to Nick about her father and facilitate a meeting between them. To that end, she should be playing to Nick’s painfully clear desire to make friends. But Simon had hinted he wanted her a little bit imperious and haughty this evening, the better to tear her down tonight. The idea tightened her core in sweet anticipation. If Simon could harness whatever darkness rode him into overwhelming her senses and feeding her kink, he’d be pretty amazing.

Still the mission needed to come first. If she had to choose between making Nick want to help her and making Simon want to beat her ass raw, Nick was her priority. She wished she knew for sure that she’d read the situation with her father correctly. As much as she tried to downplay it, Shelby was pretty damned sure her father was a spy. There were too many unexplained disappearances, cryptic conversations with other government employees, and friends with nonspecific or deliberately innocuous-sounding federal jobs. Even when living at various embassies, Shelby had come to realize that her father wasn’t like the other embassy parents. Moving to Brownfield Mills had reinforced that. Most of Shelby’s classmates had seemed at least vaguely embarrassed by their parents. She definitely didn’t think they went home to a daily lesson in geopolitics over dinner. She was also reasonably certain she was the only girl in her class whose father had taught her how to field strip, clean and fire a Sig Sauer P226, spot and lose a tail in a crowd, and identify different models of hidden security cameras.

Looking over the collection of evening dresses she’d accumulated over the last few weeks, Shelby discarded the idea of dressing down to seem less threatening and more familiar to Nick. Instead, she decided to go in exactly the opposite direction. The green and black dress with the asymmetrical hem and no back to speak of would remind everyone how little they knew about Shelby beyond the superficial and hopefully hint at the hidden layers beneath that surface. She would flaunt her beauty to paradoxically point out that she was more than a pretty girl.

Besides, she’d been competing for attention with Pilar Rodriguez-Stone and there was no way she was going to bring less than her A Game to that competition. It was probably standard operating procedure for spies to try to be inconspicuous, but going entirely unnoticed would probably never be in Shelby’s playbook. She would have to learn to hide in plain sight.

Having chosen the dress, she did her makeup to bring out the green in her eyes and the dress. The effect made her look alien and exotic. Shelby didn’t know her own genetic heritage, but the shape of her eyes suggested some soupcon of Asian blood in the mix. She elongated the lines at the corners of her eyes and added a touch of glittery green eyeshadow to complete the look. Her hair she wore loose and full-bodied.

If she failed to secure Nick’s consent to a meeting with her father, it wouldn’t be for lack of preparation. It would more likely be because she’d too heavily identified herself with a segment of the population he felt justified in treating harshly. So far, that seemed limited to lawyers and his fellow billionaires, but Shelby didn’t want to assume he wouldn’t create a special category just for her.

Still, Nick’s face lit up when he saw her emerge from the residential hallway. “Miss Carson, I hope it’s not inappropriate for me to say you look amazing this evening.”

Simon, whose back had been to Shelby’s approach, turned to look at her. “Don’t hit on my date tonight, Coyle. We have plans.”

“What sort of plans?” Pilar asked. She wore a bright red dress with gold highlights and had her hair piled ornately on top of her head. The net effect made her look like an Aztec sex goddess.

Simon opened his mouth to answer, then looked to Shelby for help. She said, “The sort of plans that will probably make us late for the performance if we stand here and try to explain them. Maybe we should go and, if you really want the answer, ask again in the car.”

In the back of the limo, Pilar crossed her legs and gave Shelby a little smirk. “So, what are the big plans? I’m dying to know now.”

If Shelby wanted to remind Nick how much of her personality he hadn’t guessed at while they were in school together, she couldn’t have asked for a better topic. She crossed her legs and looked sideways at Simon. “I couldn’t tell you. Simon’s keeping them a secret.”

Pilar and Nick swiveled to look at Simon. Nick looked amused and anticipatory - like he expected to have a good laugh at his friend’s expense. Simon actually reached up to pull at the buttoned-up collar of his white dress shirt by hooking a single finger under it - a universal pantomime for conversational discomfort, but he wasn’t pantomiming. He said, “They’re of a ... prurient nature.”

“I assumed that.” Pilar gave the smallest wriggle. “I wanted to know what they were.”

“I’d, uh...” Simon blushed. “I’d rather keep them a secret for the time being. The whole point of not telling Shelby is that I want them to be a surprise.”

“Oh.” Pilar pouted, then turned back to Shelby. “Well if you enjoy it, you’ll have to tell me all about it. Most of the things I’d like to try are a little too ... audible for the loft.”

“This might be too,” said Shelby. “All I know is that, whatever we’re doing, we need a proper gag for it. Simon wanted to use one of those contraptions with the red plastic ball that goes in your mouth, but I put my foot down. I enjoy a little bit of humiliation, but not from looking like a dork.”

As she spoke, Simon was pushing the rocker to close the privacy partition and glaring at her. Once it was closed, he said, “Christ, Shel. If I’d known the conversation was going in this direction, I might have fitted you with the gag before we left.”

Nick was clearly embarrassed by the conversation as well, but not as much as Simon. He said gamely, “Is that what you had in the Lululemon bag? I thought maybe you’d bought yourself some transparent yoga pants.”

Simon shook his head. “What kind of sex shop only has shopping bags with their logo all over them? You’re lucky Shelby had that sack or I would have walked right past your reporter advertising for the Pink Pussycat.”

Nick allowed himself a small laugh. “Well, it’s probably just as well you didn’t. Thank you for sacrificing your masculinity on the altar of not letting New York magazine know I’m harboring a couple of perverts. No offense.”

The last was directed at Shelby, but it was Pilar who elbowed Nick in the ribs. “Only a couple?”

“Definitely,” said Nick firmly. “The conjugation is ‘I’m sex positive. You’re experimenting. They’re perverts.’”

“Well, if you hear what sounds like a pervert trying not to scream through a gag tonight, curtail your inner white knight, please,” said Simon. “It’s all consensual.”

Nick glanced at Shelby who gave a faint nod. Whatever she was getting into tonight, it was of her own free will. The idea was frightening and exhilarating at the same time.

“Well, maybe before Simon fits you with that gag, we should talk about whatever you wanted to talk about,” said Nick.

Shelby glanced back at the privacy shield, then nodded. “There’s a little bit of backstory. Is that all right?”

Nick sat back. “You have the floor.”

Shelby was glad they were having this conversation now. Her big moment, it was also exhilarating and terrifying. She said. “Before my father moved to Brownfield Mills, he was in the foreign service. I’ve lived with him at US embassies in Russia, Ghana, Angola, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. At each of those embassies, he held a role very close to the ambassador and was, by all accounts, highly respected in those roles. Two years ago, he left the foreign service and accepted the position deputy supervisor of prisons for Orchard County New York. Everything about that job suggests that it’s a lower middle management civil service job, paying about seventy two thousand dollars a year.”

Nick opened his mouth, but Shelby held up a hand to be allowed to continue. “My family has enough money that my father doesn’t ever have to work for a salary if he doesn’t want to. We’re not Stone wealthy, but we own enough property to comfortably live off of the rents. In spite of that, my father enlisted in the Navy out of high school and went into the foreign service. When I asked him why, he said it was because our family has always served.”

“Is he a spy?” Nick asked conversationally.

Shelby had been working her way towards that, wanting to warm Nick to the subject and planning to eventually lead him to draw that very conclusion. She hadn’t expected him to get there on his own quite so immediately. Still, she had an answer ready. “If he is, he hasn’t told me. But he probably wouldn’t.”

Nick considered that, then nodded. “I assume what you want to ask me is on his behalf?”

“Yes. He called me and asked me to facilitate a meeting between the two of you,” said Shelby.

There was a silence long enough that Shelby realized Nick was waiting for her to say more. Just as she did, Nick seemed to realize that was it. “I have no objection to meeting with him. I’ve met with a lot of people from Brownfield Mills. We should do it before I leave for Milan, though.”

Shelby had been afraid Nick would be reluctant to meet with her father. Now, she was concerned he wouldn’t take the meeting seriously enough. “Whatever he’s planning to ask you for, it’ll probably be pretty big - not just a fountain out in front of city hall or money for a hospital.”

“You don’t know what he’s planning to ask for?” Nick asked.

Shelby shook her head. “Before that call, I wasn’t sure he actually planned to ask you for anything. I only knew he wanted me to be in New York with you guys and figured he probably had a good reason.”

“Your father ... sent you here ... to Simon?” Nick asked.

“He didn’t send me,” said Shelby. “He strongly implied there would be advantages to my being here this summer and made no effort to get me to come home once I made it clear I was staying.”

“Still. Does he know about you and Simon?” Nick looked at his friend. “No offense.”

“Nobody’s more surprised than I am.” said Simon. “I wouldn’t let my daughter stay with somebody like me. But I’m not a spy.”

“Whatever he had in mind, he knows I’m staying with Simon now,” said Shelby.

Nick frowned thoughtfully, not speaking. Pilar and Simon stayed silent, apparently letting him take the lead. Finally he said, “Not to belabour the point, but did your father ever consider just asking to meet with me? I probably would have said yes.”

Shelby considered the question. She’d been so wrapped up in the question of why her father wanted her here that having an answer hadn’t immediately made her think about whether her presence was really necessary. She said, “For a proper answer, you’d have to ask him. I can speculate if you like.”

“Please do,” said Nick.

“It may be that ‘probably yes’ isn’t a sufficient answer to the question of you meeting with him and he assumed he’d get a better answer if you were sleeping with his daughter.”

“That seems very ... mercenary.”

Shelby nodded. “It is, but it makes sense as part of the wider, harder-to-swallow theory...” She paused and Nick gestured to continue. “My overarching theory is that my father is a spy and that he’s giving me an opportunity to choose to be a spy as well or not ... but only if I’m suited enough to figure out what I’m being offered and take hold of it without being spoon-fed.”

Shelby wanted to say more - lay out her reasoning, present evidence, and try to head off the disbelief, scorn, and mockery she expected, but she decided to let them talk themselves out and give a minimal response right before they had to get out of the car. It was the best way to make people consider a theory that went against their basic assumptions.

“It doesn’t seem like much of a test,” said Nick. “I’ve already said I’ll meet with him.”

Pilar looked at Nick like she wanted to ask questions, but both Nick and Simon seemed ready to accept Shelby’s theory at face value and Pilar settled back to listen. Shelby offered. “He’s suggested I have a substantial vested interest in the meeting having a positive outcome.”

“He wants you to manipulate me?”

Shelby gave a half-shake of her head. “As I said, this is all speculation. We haven’t discussed technique, my role, or my mission. He only told me that he wanted me to facilitate a meeting with you and that whatever he wants to ask you for would allow me him to free up resources like the townhouse I was hoping to live in while at Wharton.”

“It would probably have been easier to manipulate me if you didn’t share all your theories with me.” said Nick. “Are you sure you’re cut out to be a spy?”

“There are a lot of things I’m not sure about. I suspect I’m being tested on my ability to handle ambiguity.” Shelby shrugged with one shoulder. “One thing I am sure of is that I don’t want my father to get what he wants at the cost of you feeling like I used and manipulated you. You may not be very good at wielding your wealth and the influence it brings yet, but I’d like to not be on your list of enemies when you figure it out.”

“That’s probably wise.” For the first time in the conversation, Nick met Shelby’s eyes and held them just for a second. His words were plain spoken, but the lack of any special inflection was chilling. Shelby immediately revised her assessment of Nick’s capacity to use his money as a weapon.

Nick sat back. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow or Monday with where and when.”

“I’ve been scouting possible locations for a meeting...”

“No. As far as I know, I’m just meeting with a minor government official from back home.” said Nick. “Until anyone definitively tells me differently, that’s how I’m going to treat this. I’ll let you know when I’m available and where I want to meet.”

Shelby wasn’t in any position to argue. “All right.”

Nick nodded. “For tonight, let’s just enjoy the opera. Since you’re the only one here who seems to know anything about it, maybe you’d like to tell me what it is we’ll be trying to enjoy.”

“Well, I hate to break it to everyone, but Delusion of the Fury isn’t actually an opera.” Shelby sat back and crossed her legs.

“We’re not going to the opera?” Simon turned to look at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t a hundred percent sure when you brought it up,” said Shelby. “I had to do the same basic research you did.”

“You did do the basic research. Didn’t you?” Nick smirked at Simon.

“I ... thought I did,” said Simon. “I called Ticketmaster and asked if there were any operas this weekend in New York. The lady I talked to recommended this.”

Shelby felt a little bad for Simon. He’d tried something outside his comfort zone and wasn’t going to get the results he hoped for. Shelby herself might have gotten away with presenting an outlandish theory unmocked, but Simon seemed unlikely to get the same mercy. “If you’ve never been to the opera, you won’t be able to judge how you feel about the form from this. I watched an old performance of it on YouTube. It’s very ... avant garde - part Japanese Noh drama, part Ethiopian folktale. There’s a lot of percussion and the singing is largely choral.”

“Are we going to be terribly overdressed?” Pilar asked.

“Probably not. It’s definitely high culture and it is City Center,” Shelby offered.

“That’s a relief. I’d hate to show up somewhere inappropriate wearing a suit.” Nick looked at Simon. “That would be embarrassing. Wouldn’t it?”

Simon seemed to regain a bit of his mojo from the comment. “I wouldn’t know. Suits are appropriate everywhere.”

As it turned out, their group weren’t the only ones who’d dressed up for the evening. As they disembarked at the curb, camera flashes were going off. Once they realized they weren’t the immediate center of attention, their eyes tracked to where the cameras were clustered. It took Shelby a minute to realize why she recognized the young man in the charcoal gray suit being photographed alongside his glamorous blonde date in her slinky black dress. In that minute, Nick was moving through the crowd, drawing his group with him.

“Jesse, I didn’t know you’d be here.” Nick held out a hand to shake.

“I ... didn’t know you’d be here either.” Jesse shook Nick’s hand, then turned to his date. “Did you know Nick was going to be here?”

“I might have heard something.” The blonde woman leaned in to kiss Nick on the cheek. “I am delighted to finally meet you, though.”

“Nick, may I introduce our cousin Threnody Ferrari-Stone.” Jesse said formally. “Threnody, this is our cousin Nick Coyle, Colin Grayson-Stone’s son and Nick’s date is our cousin Pilar Rodriguez-Stone, who I also didn’t know would be here.”

Threnody kissed Pilar on the cheek and took her by the shoulders as she drew back, examining her from head to toe. “Pilar, how is it we’ve never met?”

“I ... haven’t spent much time in Europe?” said Pilar.

Nick introduced Simon and Shelby as his friends. Threnody’s eyes passed over Simon so quickly, she might not have seen him at all, but they traced over Shelby from foot to eye in a single motion. Shelby had been checked out enough times to recognize it even when the person looking was as subtle about it as Threnody. As she reached out to take Shelby’s hand, the blonde woman’s eyes flickered back down to Shelby’s throat. Her raised eyebrow told Shelby the faded finger marks around her throat had been noticed as did the look of increased interest in Threnody’s eyes. She leaned in and kissed Shelby once on each cheek. “Delighted.”

She gave Shelby one more meaningful look - one that suggested they would be talking later - before she turned back to Nick. “I had hoped you and I could speak before a small misunderstanding could blossom into real unpleasantness.”

“Has there been a misunderstanding?” Nick was smiling, but Shelby had spent enough time with him now to recognize that it wasn’t a good or a friendly smile. It was the same smile he’d given her the morning after the Fourth.

“I certainly never meant for my assistant to be so rude to you.” Threnody’s tone suggested the notion was almost too absurd to even mention. “Of course you would want to know my reason for such a request before agreeing to it. As soon as you asked, Fenfang should have put me on the phone so I could explain. I am so glad Jazz called me to clear things up before they got too complicated.” She laid a hand on Nick’s arm. “We should speak more inside. Shall we?”

Cameras had been clicking the whole time they were speaking. As the four Stones turned to head inside, there was a quick fusillade of flashes capturing them as a group with Simon and Shelby in tow.

Inside, Nick and Threnody stepped off just far enough that Shelby couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could watch the body language. There was something regal about Threnody’s bearing. Watching her with Nick and Jesse was a lesson in self-expression. Shelby watched her go from apologetic to flirtatious to cajoling into magnanimous without losing the air of regal composure.

“Do you think one of those kisses she gave you was meant for me?” Simon asked dryly.

Shelby could hear the hurt in his voice for having been overlooked. She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Did you want one to be for you?”

Simon frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe not. I don’t think I like her. Still, it’s nice to be acknowledged.”

Since her words were unlikely to salve the wound to Simon’s ego, Shelby did her best to change the subject. “Do you know what her relationship with Jesse is?”

“Well ... I hear Jesse has a playroom.” Simon said slowly. “She ... doesn’t look like the submissive type, though. I’m not sure I’m the best judge of that. I didn’t guess it with you, but...”

“I think you’re right.” Shelby nodded. “And I’m glad my effort to not announce my particular kinks to the world just by walking into a room has been at least partially successful.”

For a couple of minutes, they stood and watched the four Stones interact. Most of the interaction was between Nick and Threnody. Pilar stood at his side, one hand hooked into his elbow, smiling and being beautiful, but not saying much - more a supporting character than a major player. Jesse stood at Pilar’s side, hands clasped behind his back, also not saying much.

Just as the thought occurred to her, Simon voiced it. “Do you think Jesse’s the submissive?”

“It’s not unheard of.” Shelby said after a moment. “She’s ... older, very sophisticated...”