A Billion Little Clues (4 page)

The man in the Lamborghini didn't even look at the other red-jacketed man who hopped into the car. Instead, he immediately strode in towards the house, not even bothering to glance over one shoulder as his car vanished with another squeal of tires and puff of smoke.

I was already starting to feel outclassed. Before any other million-dollar cars showed up, I decided to head in to the house.

As it turned out, that wasn't the best choice for my ego.

Before coming to this party, I had been picturing a rather upscale house party, maybe with some of those little plastic swords stuck into the cocktails. To me, getting a little plastic sword skewered through my martini olive was a sign that I was someplace classy. I also knew to look for other signs, like people actually ordering wine by type instead of just saying "white" or "red," and music playing in the background that hadn't been produced by some guy with a synthesizer in a garage somewhere.

But this party was far beyond any of those signs. Heck, this wasn't even a party any more. This was a full-on soiree.

The open front doors of the mansion led into a gigantic open area, a ceiling two stories above us and with twin staircases sweeping up to a second floor at the back. I felt like I had accidentally taken a wrong turn and wandered into some sort of royal palace. In the middle of the room, a massive fountain sent a jet of water nearly up to the ceiling.

Stepping closer, I caught movement in the pond at the base of the fountain. It took me a moment before I realized what I was seeing, and my mouth fell open. There were flamingos, actual live flamingos, wandering around in the fountain's water!

There was also music wafting in to my ears - live, performed music! I cast my eyes around the room and spotted four musicians sitting on a raised stage off to one side, each one holding a string instrument. They were rocking gently back and forth as they sent strains of soft, lilting orchestral music drifting through the air.

"Excuse me, miss, may I bring you a drink?"

I jumped at the sudden voice, which sounded as if it was about four inches from my left ear. When I turned, a waiter in a full-on tuxedo was standing beside me, a round silver tray balanced on one hand. "A drink, miss?" he repeated.

Oh goodness. I had no idea what I was supposed to order. "A martini," I finally managed to get out. I didn't really drink martinis. I preferred drinks with lots of little pieces of fruit in them. But this sort of party seemed like the type of place to sip on a fancy drink like a martini.

"One martini, very good, miss. And what type of gin would you prefer?"

This is where I'm supposed to know gin brands. Does Smirnoff make gin? If I say one that isn't right, the waiter will totally judge me. Probably won't even bring me any olives. "The best you've got," I finally say, unwilling to commit to my guess.

Fortunately, the waiter just nodded and scurried off, as if this was a perfectly acceptable answer. And maybe it was, for all that I knew! I was just glad not to be on the spot any longer. And as I stared around at the people all around me, conversing about all sorts of high society topics in their fancy clothes and sipping on their classy drinks (not in red plastic cups! In real glasses! Made of crystal!), I began to feel very alone and out of place.

One of the flamingos turned his head towards me and squawked. I nearly dropped my purse in the fountain.

#

I continued to stand near the fountain for another minute or so, before finally deciding that I had to go and talk to someone. I couldn't just remain next to the flamingos for the entire party! For one thing, I wouldn't be listening in case anyone bad-mouthed the marketing department, which would mean a tongue lashing from Keith. I had to go and socialize.

Unfortunately, I didn't recognize anyone. But that wasn't going to stop me! No, Melinda Gaines can totally handle herself at a fancy high society bash like this! I squared my shoulders, glanced down to make sure that nothing awkward or embarrassing was hanging out of my dress, and then trotted briskly over to the nearest group of people.

This group was clustered together into a rough little circle, but I managed to worm my way in between a couple of broad, black-clad shoulders. I barely even had to use my elbow at all.

In the middle of the group, a gentleman who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties was speaking very passionately. "We need to consider the overall fiscal environment in which we navigate," he called out, waving his own martini glass. I noticed that the glass was mostly empty, although I couldn't say whether this was because he had drank it all, or had spilled most of it out onto the ground from his gesturing. "Panther may be a rising star, but we don't yet have the strength to drive markets entirely on our own!"

Despite the man's yelling and gesturing, he looked very well put together. He was wearing a navy suit with a sweater over his shirt and tie beneath, and looked a bit like a senior college professor. His hair was almost white, but it was still thick and completely covered his head. He wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, further accenting that educated, professor look. He had a slight paunch, but was overall quite trim.

"Geoffrey, no one is suggesting that we can, on our own, budge the index!" called out another fellow on the other side of the circle of people. "But you're the chief financial officer - you should be doing everything you can to raise our stock price!"

This man must be the CFO of Panther Worldwide! I briefly boggled as I considered how many bosses separated him from me.

Geoffrey, meanwhile, had spun around to confront this newest argument. "But being the CFO is more than just short term profitability!" he insisted, holding one finger up in the air. "I'm the financial steward for this entire company, which means that I have to think about our long term good! And that leads to lots of tough choices, believe you me!"

I had absolutely nothing to contribute to this conversation. I didn't even own any stocks - for that matter, I wasn't quite sure where to even buy stocks! Was the stock market anything like the farmers market? Could one haggle down Panther Worldwide stock like a bag of turnips?

In any case, no one here seemed to be slandering the marketing department, so I gave a polite little nod to no one in particular and turned away, ducking my head. As I stepped out of the circle, however, another waiter popped up in front of me, making me jump. How in the world did they manage to move so quickly, yet smoothly?

"Your martini, miss," the waiter said, holding out his silver tray. A single martini glass was balanced on top.

I reached out and took the drink, again feeling slightly guilty that I didn't carry any hundreds to tip the man with. But as soon as the glass had left his tray, the waiter was gone, vanished into the crowd.

I looked down at the martini glass. Sure enough, there was a sword piercing the olive. But this sword wasn't the bright, fun plastic color I was expecting. And as I swirled the glass around, it made a little "tink" sound against the side.

The martinis here came with real metal swords. I was definitely in over my head.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

This was all too much. The martini in my hand was like a little work of art, the metal (real metal!) sword that skewered the olive bouncing off against the slanted walls of the glass with tinkling sounds. I was afraid I was going to crack the crystal. I didn't know anyone here, and they were all far richer than anyone in my life. They were talking about stocks and things that I didn't even try to claim to understand! I could feel the flamingos in the fountain watching me, judging me for not knowing which gin went best in a damn drink!

I blinked my eyes, feeling as though the room was spinning. This wasn't good. I needed to get out of here.

Frantically, my mind tried to search for a solution. I remembered glancing up at the house as I had first walked in, marveling at the balconies and terraces that were in front of almost every window. Maybe I could find one of those, I decided. It would give me a chance to catch my breath, to get some fresh air.

I made my way through the crowd of people, heading towards the stairs. I did my best to try and avoid spilling my expensive drink on any expensive dresses or pieces of clothing, but it seemed like there was opulence everywhere I turned. The damn end table looked as if it was worth more than all the furniture in my entire apartment, combined! Was that real gold leaf on the carved legs?

Up the stairs, the house turned into a maze of corridors. I was almost immediately lost. I didn't want to go barging into any rooms without knocking - what if I interrupted some sort of international espionage deal? This would be the place where one of those would go down, just like in those James Bond movies.

There didn't seem to be any signs. Hotels, even the cheaper ones, had signs! What kind of crazy super-billionaire bought a house this big and didn't bother putting up signs to tell visitors where to go for the nearest bathroom?

There was nothing else for it. I eventually decided to just go for it. I grabbed the first doorknob to come to my fingers, gave a brief and fervent, albeit silent, prayer, and then pushed the door open.

Success! The handle turned smoothly, and on the other side, I saw the starry blackness of the night sky, lit in patches by those great big outdoor spotlights. I had found a balcony! I quickly stepped through, tugging the door shut behind me before another one of those silent ninja waiters found me and tried to hand me some insanely overpriced champagne.

When the door closed behind me, the conversation and hubbub of the party inside clicked off as if by a switch. I had almost become used to the constant low-level roar of many voices inside; now that my ears were hit with the silence of outdoors, I almost felt as though I had just been struck deaf. It took a minute for me to adjust.

I stepped forward, further out onto the balcony. This wasn't one of those little balconies that I had seen from the entrance of the house, I soon realized. This was an entire terrace, likely off the back of the house. Even this area was larger than my entire bedroom!

I took another step towards the edge, where an ornately shaped metal railing protected visitors from the edge. When I gazed over the edge, I saw a massive garden down a floor below this edge, the shaped bushes and shrubberies illuminated by soft lights hidden artfully throughout the area. Beyond the garden, fields of well-trimmed grass stretched off over the hills beyond the house.

This was insane. Roman must have bought up whole acres of land for this place. I couldn't even begin to imagine how overworked the poor gardener must feel.

Of course, that wasn't quite right, was it? A billionaire wouldn't have just one gardener. I stifled a hysterical little laugh at the thought. One gardener? Might as well be living among the peasantry! Roman probably had an entire legion of gardeners, all lined up with their branch trimmers slung over their shoulder like pikes. They probably had their own regimental uniforms with badges and everything.

"Awful, isn't it?"

At the sound of that voice, I must have jumped three feet in the air. It was probably good I wasn't walking forward, or I would have gone sailing right over the railing. I spun around, looking for the source of this voice.

I spotted him after a second; there was a tall man leaning against the railing on the far side of the terrace, gazing down at the gardens below. "Really, just awful," he repeated. "The flowers are all wrong for this area. There's no way that they'll survive the winter, but the gardeners will probably just end up replacing them."

The man sounded angry, but it appeared to be directed mostly down towards the apparently offensive garden below. He didn't sound as if he was yelling at me for trespassing outside the allowed party area. And besides, he was out here too, wasn't he? I crept a little closer to him.

He glanced over at me as I drew nearer, but his attention was still mainly focused down at the garden. "Here, look," he said, stepping up next to me to point down at one bush that was apparently especially disrespectful. "See that one? Those are hyacinths."

The flowers the man were pointing at had large stacks of blue flowers, almost like someone had dipped an oversized pine cone into blue paint. They actually looked quite pretty, like the centerpiece of a spring wedding bouquet. "They're... bad?" I ventured a guess.

I got a shrug in response. "Not bad, I mean," he replied. "I've got nothing against hyacinths, on their own. But here? With our winters? There's no way they'll survive till next spring, even though they're supposed to be perennials. What a waste."

I had no idea what a perennial was. Something that was supposed to be able to survive a winter, I guessed. But these ones weren't, even though they were supposed to be? I was already lost in this conversation.

Instead, I just nodded along, casting a sideways look at this man who cared so passionately about how bad Roman Wayland's garden was. He wasn't a bad looking chap, I couldn't help noticing. Quite tall, but still with broad shoulders and a decent frame on him. He had dark brown hair that was slicked back over his head, although I could see that it was slightly ruffled from where he must have absent-mindedly run his fingers through it. He might have been a couple years older than me, but he wore them well.