Crescendo by Jeffe Kennedy

Author:Jeffe Kennedy [Kennedy, Jeffe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: eKensington
Published: 2013-12-13T05:00:00+00:00

5

The party was all it should be.

Carlton Davis, master manipulator, had managed to dovetail the “special celebration” with a planned cocktail reception for patrons while the public opening-night tailgating festivities ramped up in the parking lot. Tourists and locals alike set up folding tables by their cars, broke out the fine linens, silver, and crystal and ate and drank, enjoying one of the best sunset views Santa Fe had to offer.

It was surpassed only by the opera house loading dock, with its sheer edge dropping over the valley. Christine’s father had supplemented the catering with excellent champagne and a string quartet, bribed down from Taos. Quite the expense to assemble all the players in one spot, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.

Christine’s father handed her a flute of champagne. “Ah, and the Sanclaro clan arrives. All of them except the wife, who declined, complaining of a migraine. This is going to be fun.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Domingo Sanclaro, flanked by Roman, Angie trailing meekly behind, clapping shoulders and working the crowd.

“I’m surprised you call it ‘fun.’ I can’t wait for it all to be over.”

Her father chuckled. “You have to understand, when you’ve been in big business for a long time, it’s like a duel. You find better and better swordsmen—and women—” He interrupted himself to toast her. “—to pit yourself against. To test yourself. What has Sanclaro Corp. done? It’s the financial equivalent of going to the schoolyard and hacking up little kids with a machete.”

“Nice image, Dad.” Christine grimaced and he grinned, happy to have gotten her goat.

“Apt one, too. I despise fraud. Especially the kind that takes advantage of people who already have next to nothing. Taking Sanclaro apart before his peers will be sweet indeed.”

“It doesn’t bother you that they’re family?”

His face turned hard. “They are not my family, or yours. We share a genetic connection, nothing more profound than that. I was spawned by a coldhearted bitch who spread her legs, popped me out, and dumped me like an unwanted puppy at the pound. That’s not family. Never forget it.”

He didn’t have what she had, however—that racial memory connection to the tribal priestess who’d started it all. Christine wished she could share that with him; tell him that there was something meaningful and valuable in it all. But she kept the secret close.

Davis went on, not noticing her quietness. “If that Detective Sanchez can also nail him and his vile son for murder that will be a bonus. But it’s the financial ruin that will hurt him where he lives.”

“About the murder, I don’t think—”

“Carlton!” Domingo Sanclaro stepped up next to her, shaking her father’s hand and ignoring her completely, little tool that she was. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I thought we’d never get you out to our part of the world.”

Sanclaro wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo and scanned her father’s not-Armani suit with a barely veiled sneer, completely falling for his gambit. Never underestimate the power of seeming to be an idiot.

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