Instead of
going to Harry's office, Felicity decided to get a head start on her
surveillance of Alicia.
After Harry
had uploaded a small undetectable program that gave her administrative access
to the Walthenson servers and network, she was able to download Alicia's
electronic diary and email and take a country glance at her files.
Felicity found
nothing, but knowing Alicia, she would be very careful to not have anything incriminating
where people would be looking.
What was
interesting was the spreadsheet summary of the practice's financials, and it
was not as viable as it should be, and the fact the practice's offices and her
house were mortgaged to the maximum told her something was not right.
Alicia would
never put the wealth she had fought so hard for at risk. Not unless there was a bigger pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow.
A couple of
questions for Harry to ask his mother.
She had also
been studying up on her subject, such as was available from various searches on
the internet. There was not much, and it
had that sort of feel to it that someone had sanitised her profile and history.
She found
Alicia was one of seven girls born to farmers from Lincoln County Oklahoma, did
most of her formative education there and then moved to Philadelphia to live
with an Aunt and finish her education at Penn State.
Reading
newspaper archives, Felicity had picked up some details while there, a minor
scandal with a professor, and another with a married man within her aunt's
circle of friends. These were
advantageous liaisons, seed money to move to New You're, and perhaps to improve
her grades, or get prospecting employment opportunities
Even then as a
blooming teenager, Alicia knew what she had to do, fearlessly, to get
ahead. Perhaps in law, women had to go
that extra mile to achieve what they wanted.
And so,
Felicity concluded, it was not uncharacteristic of Alicia to find a man like
Walthenson senior and make him her own.
After all, she had a prestigious office and position within the
practice, and nearly all of the Walthenson wealth.
The only
obstacle she could not overcome was Elsie Walthenson, and there were a few
skirmishes over the years, all of which were won by Elsie. With her family and wealth, Alicia could
never hope to win.
But it did
pose the question of whether she had attempted to take Walthenson junior from
his wife. In that, given Walthenson
wandering eye, maybe Elsie would have handed him to her on a platter
Or just his
head.
It was an amusing
thought.
Felicity
flopped down in the chair behind the window that overlooked the Walthenson
office building and settled in with her laptop, coffee, and a bacon
sandwich. It was an English thing a
friend had told her about and got strange looks from the serving staff when she
asked for it.
No
matter. She was hungry and it looked
delicious.
She had timed
her arrival at the Cafe for ten minutes before Alicia usually arrived by car,
or on foot from the subway. Alicia was,
in one respect, a creature of habit, being places on time.
And a minute
after the hour, her car pulled up outside the building and the chauffeur got
out and opened the door. After a few short
instructions, she went inside, and the car re-joined the traffic.
This morning’s
diary was for a chamber meeting, then lunch with Alex Portman.
Alex Portman
was interesting in several respects, the first, a champion for same-sex
marriage and women's rights, and second, she worked for a prominent city
councillor but had ambitions of her own.
Reading between the lines, she had attached herself to the aging
councillor with the intent to get his endorsement when he retired or died.
It seemed the
latter was a more viable option.
There was no
real connection between the two women, none that Felicity could find, and
driving into their pasts found they came from the other side of the country,
and both ended up in New York.
So, that being
the case, it could only mean one thing.
That Alicia
had her sticky fingers in the portside block of land and was taking a
different path to find out about it. The
question was, how far was she willing to go?
© Charles Heath 2020-2022
No comments:
Post a Comment