Poisonfeather (Gibson Vaughn #2)(3)
She started the digital voice recorder in the center of the table. “Merrick Capital was so different?”
“Merrick Capital was a work of art. Our investment strategies were entirely legitimate, and our returns to investors unprecedented.”
“Merrick Capital began falsifying returns as far back as 1998.”
He could feel the blood pounding in his ears. “My clients still got rich.”
“Not in 2008, they didn’t. You lost a fortune betting on nickel in Western Australia.”
“Ah, yes, the crash,” said Merrick. “If only the American people knew how to pay their mortgages on time.”
“It’s the American people’s fault you got caught?”
“You’re damned right it is. If the crash hadn’t caused the price of nickel to tank, then my bet, as you call it, would have paid off.”
“Well, that’s certainly a unique perspective,” she said, leaning in. “But it was still an all-or-nothing bet. You must admit at least that much. Economists have called it one of the most irresponsible gambles in modern finance . . . with or without the crash. Yet here you sit, confident of a different outcome. How can you justify such certainty?”
Some part of Merrick knew, even then, that he should have checked himself.
Instead, he answered her question.
CHAPTER TWO
A one-hit shutout was no way to hook your kid on baseball. A lesson Gibson Vaughn was learning the hard way, pitch by masterful pitch. The Nationals starter had superb control today, mowing down batters like milk bottles at a fairground. Meanwhile, the Braves rookie was a two-pitch flamethrower—mid-nineties fastball and a breaking ball that dropped so far off the table that if you wanted a taste, you’d be eating off the ground.
Ordinarily, Gibson would have been a happy man, basking in the April sunshine along the first base line, watching what was evolving into a great early-season matchup. This was why Sundays existed. But not this Sunday. This particular Sunday, he was rooting for the game to turn into a sloppy home-run derby. Anything to get his daughter excited about the game, because so far Ellie Vaughn was not exactly riveted by the American pastime, and conveying the intricacies of a brilliant pitchers’ duel to a seven-year-old hadn’t been covered in any parenting book he’d ever read.
Another frustrated Braves batter stalked back to the dugout after strike three nicked the inside corner. Just throw it over the damn plate, Gibson willed telepathically. What was one loss against the prospect of making a lifetime fan? Not very loyal of him, but the tickets had cost him an arm, a leg, and the better part of his ass. For this kind of money, he was entitled to be a little selfish.
His ex-wife, Nicole, would kill him if she knew what today had cost. He’d been job hunting for the last six months, and between child support and the mortgage, his savings were just about exhausted. A sullen knot had lived in his chest since the new year. As the weeks passed, it felt like someone had put first one, then both feet on his chest, until it was a struggle to draw breath. It had been hard to keep going, but it would all be okay after tomorrow. The two rounds of interviews had been smooth sailing, and now he had an honest-to-God job offer on the table—contingent, of course, on passing a polygraph in the morning. Since he’d taken plenty of polygraphs in the military, the test didn’t worry him. He would be working by the end of the week. Real work. Real money. The kind he’d expected to make when he’d left the Marines.
So, sure, maybe it was a little premature to splurge, but he expected to be buried for the next few months until he got up to speed with the new job. After that, he would start looking for a new apartment, one with a bedroom for Ellie, and maybe a dog. He’d really love to have a dog. Something big enough to run with him and sweet enough to let Ellie climb all over it. Gibson smiled into the sunshine. That was a dream for the future, the kind of dream that Benjamin Lombard’s vendetta had long made an impossibility. Well, as of tomorrow, those days were over, and today was a present to himself. He’d been looking forward to taking Ellie to her first game for a long time—the first of many father-daughter days at the ballpark.
He looked over at Ellie fidgeting in her seat.
Somewhere his dad was laughing at him.
Duke Vaughn had had four loves: diners, driving, baseball, and driving to a diner while listening to baseball. When Gibson had been Ellie’s age, Duke had shuttled him regularly between Charlottesville and DC, where Duke had served as chief of staff to then senator Benjamin Lombard. Listening to the Orioles on the radio had been a staple of those drives. To Gibson’s seven-year-old self, it had been incomprehensibly boring—listening to something you couldn’t see. What was the point? And of course there was his dad lecturing him on the history of the game.
“El, did you know DC used to have a baseball team called the Senators?”
Ellie stifled a yawn.
No one would ever accuse the Vaughn men of learning new tricks.
Gibson wished his dad could be here; Duke had always been good at coming up with silly games and contests, and kids had always loved him. Gibson caught himself. Since learning the truth about his father’s death last year, he’d become a nostalgia factory. It was nice being able to think about his dad without the memories being drenched in bitterness, but he also had to be wary of indulging in too much wishful thinking. Whatever else might be true, Duke Vaughn was still dead.