Crap, Riley thought. There was that word again.
She drove through the bustling streets of Washington, through the pastoral woods of Rock Creek, and up the long driveway to Mysterioso Manor.
“Would you like to take the Bentley home with you?” Emerson asked.
“Nice of you to offer, but no. The Bentley is lovely, but the Mini gets better gas mileage. It’s more environmentally responsible. It’s the car I picked out as the wisest for my new life in Washington.”
“I thought you bought the Mini because it was the only car that would fit in your assigned parking space.”
“That too.”
—
Riley’s apartment was on Monroe Street in the Mount Pleasant section of Northwest D.C. It was a tiny one-bedroom flat that occupied the entire third floor of a converted Victorian built in 1907. The plumbing sounded considerably older. The radiator clanged, the water pipes gurgled, and she lived in fear of the toilet exploding.
She stripped off her executive uniform and got into her sweatpants and big, roomy Batman T-shirt. She’d wanted to grow up to be a superhero, and in a left-turn kind of way she felt like she was on track. She was going to be a financial superhero, helping people invest in their future, safeguarding the country’s monetary system. At least she had been on track last week. This week she wasn’t so sure. This week she was chauffeuring a goofball around town.
She sat at her small kitchen table and unwrapped the turkey breast and Swiss cheese sandwich she’d picked up at Potbelly on her way home. She switched on her laptop and Facebooked her mother and brothers while she ate. When she’d caught up on her family she went into Oracle mode. Oracle had been her favorite comic book character when she was a kid. And truth is, Riley still loved comic books, and especially Oracle.
Oracle was Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. She was Batgirl first, but after the Joker put her in a wheelchair she became a computer whiz who could find any information about anyone with just a few clicks of her keyboard.
Riley could do almost the same thing. She typed in “Emerson Cranston Knight,” and sources of information flooded her screen. The Knights had been newsworthy for several generations, not just for their wealth but also for their eccentricities.
Emerson was described as an American business magnate, investor, inventor, and philanthropist, the only child of communications and aerospace mogul Mitchell Brown Knight. If Riley read every article on the Net about Emerson’s father she’d be up until dawn, so she skimmed Wikipedia and kept her research to articles that addressed Emerson particularly.
The Knight fortune stretched back to Emerson’s great-great-grandfather Lamont Knight, one of the legendary robber barons of the Gilded Age. Emerson’s father was a confidant to presidents and a close friend of Professor Bertram Grunwald, the architect of the U.S. economy in the post-Vietnam years.
Riley thought it was curious that the Knight-Grunwald connection went back two generations and yet there didn’t seem to be any warmth between Emerson and Werner.
Emerson’s mother, Sophia Delgado, was a supermodel from Spain. She and Mitchell separated when Emerson was two, and she went to live in Paris with soccer star Ronaldo Diaz.
Riley scanned some tabloid articles and found that Emerson was raised by a variety of stepmothers and went to a variety of boarding schools.
The most intriguing article was an extended obituary on his father that included a short paragraph on Emerson, the new heir to the Knight fortune. It stated that Emerson was best known for his dramatic disappearances. Following graduation from college he had sailed off on a luxury yacht for points unknown. The world lost track of him completely for a year. After that Emerson would resurface from time to time but always suddenly vanished again. The obit ended by saying that Emerson had returned to his Washington, D.C., home following the death of his father, and that his whereabouts during his absences remained a subject of conjecture.
At the risk of being cynical, Riley couldn’t help but speculate that maybe Emerson had been at home all along but in his cloud of invisibility. Or maybe Emerson had removed himself to an alien astral plane. Or maybe he periodically checked himself into rehab.
At six A.M. Riley finally gave up hitting the snooze button on her bedside clock and dragged herself out of bed. She had to be at Mysterioso Manor in an hour. She had no idea why. What on earth was Emerson going to do so early in the morning?
She took a shower and dressed down in skinny black slacks, a pin-striped fitted shirt, a little black wool jacket, and Jimmy Choo ankle boots she’d found on sale. She chugged a cup of coffee and ate some toast, brushed her teeth, swiped on some lip gloss, and was on her way.
At precisely seven o’clock, Riley parked in the paved area behind Mysterioso Manor and hiked her messenger bag onto her shoulder. The RV was still in the same location, and a big, impressively muscled guy was working on the engine. His dark hair was cut into a mullet, and his T-shirt advertised beer. She guessed him to be around thirty.
He stopped working when she walked by and gave her a big, good-natured grin.
“Howdy,” he said, with the same cheerful mountain accent as Aunt Myra. “You here to see Emerson?”
“Yes,” she said. “Are you Vernon?”
“That’s what they call me. My mom said you were here yesterday, and you were sweet as tea. And she was right. You sure are pretty.”
“Thank you. Do you live here with your mom and Emerson?”
“Sometimes, but mostly I live in Harrisonburg, Virginia. That’s about a hour from Charlottesville. I come up here when Emerson needs something fixed. I keep all his cars running spit spot.” He grinned again. “That’s from Mary Poppins.”
Riley smiled back. “One of my favorite movies.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “I like when that guy dances like a penguin. If you’re looking for Emerson, he’s probably out in the conservatory at this hour of the morning. Just go around the house till you see the zebras, then turn right.”