Claire bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Such a cynic.”
“She’s probably right,” Marc said. “For the most part, this is a political event, not a lovefest.”
“Shhh.” Madeline put her finger to her lips as a few people spotted her and started to walk over. “We’re on.”
“Wait.” Casey touched Madeline’s arm, then pointed at an attractive, middle-aged woman with frosted blond hair who was flanked on either side by a young woman and a young man. Given the resemblance, it wasn’t a long shot to guess that those were her kids. All three of them were surrounded by attendees. There was an air of importance about her as if she was central to the occasion, and Casey could guess why.
“Is that Ronald Lexington’s widow?” she asked Madeline.
“Nancy Lexington, yes,” Madeline confirmed. “Those are her two children, Ron and Felicia. Not really children anymore. I think Ron is twenty-five and Felicia twenty-four.”
Casey took all that in. “I’ll need to meet the three of them later when the masses have left their sides.”
“No problem. I’ll make it happen.”
The next half hour was spent with Madeline introducing her “friends” and discussing her accident with what seemed to be an endless flow of people. Casey had suggested that Madeline get as many introductions as possible out of the way before the ceremony, so that the FI team could mingle comfortably and do their own behavioral analysis as the event unfolded, while Madeline paid the appropriate respect to Ronald Lexington’s memory. There was no point in arousing any suspicions of her motives for being here.
On the other hand, Casey had also instructed Madeline to be up front about who her FI “plus-ones” were. Much to their chagrin, Forensic Instincts team members had been interviewed too many times by TV media sources to assume that no one would recognize them. Candor was their best defense.
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” Casey said, quoting Mark Twain. “In this case, you’ll just tweak the truth to make it work for us. Explain that while you were a nurse in Bethesda, you treated Marc for an injury he sustained, and that, ironically, you ran into each other again in New York. And tell them that Claire and I were both recently patients in this hospital. We received excellent care and wanted to support the facility with a donation.” Casey stopped right there. The reasons for hers and Claire’s hospital admission were not things she wanted to discuss, nor did she need to. The details were no secret. The media had made sure of that.
“As for Emma,” Casey had concluded, “she’s fascinated by the medical field, and she loves helping people. She was hoping that by meeting someone in hospital administration, she could land a candy-striper job.”
Emma hadn’t blinked. She knew her dual roles in today’s visit.
Madeline didn’t, but she’d accepted Casey’s strategy at face value. “So, when you heard Marc was coming, you all opted to join him, each for your own reasons.”
“Exactly. We gave you a call, you offered to bring us as your guests, and that’s that.”
“Okay. That works.”
And it had. No matter how fascinating Forensic Instincts was, the crowd of hospital employees was far more interested in hearing about Madeline’s misfortunes and the severity of her injuries.
That gave the FI team the access they needed.
Their agendas had been laid out by Casey.
Emma headed off to begin her search for the right target.
Claire, keeping a low profile, moved about and stopped here and there to hover near clusters of people. Sipping her sparkling water, she listened, seeing if she picked up any negative energy. There was plenty to be had.
Casey noted the same thing as she chatted with the various employees. She listened to their feelings about Ronald Lexington, watching their body language as they spoke and assessing who was disingenuous and who was for real. The gist of what she heard was positive, and it was obvious that Lexington had been an affable guy whose only flaw was that he liked women just a tad too much for a happily married man. But if you played into his charm, all would be cool.
There was an entirely different vibe that came through when people talked about Jacob Casper. No matter how diplomatically people spoke, it was clear that there was no love lost between the staff and their interim hospital administrator. Listening to what wasn’t said as well as to what was, it was obvious that the hospital employees felt that Casper’s interests were totally self-centered, and that he didn’t give a damn about anything but money and power.
Casey wanted to form her own opinion. The employees were hardly unbiased at this particularly vulnerable time. There were anxious whispered conversations about the hospital merger—fears of job loss, reduced benefits, staff cuts and the resulting overwork for those who remained. The lack of job security and fear for financial survival was crushing—and naturally, those feelings were directly aimed at Jacob Casper. So Casey would have to meet him and decipher what he was for herself.
Multitasking as always, Casey glanced around, her expert gaze seeking and finding the specific individuals Madeline had named and provided physical descriptions of as being those who’d been closest—either in a professional or a personal capacity—to Ronald Lexington. She’d find a way to talk to all of them after the formalities were complete. She wanted to get a feel for who might have it in for Madeline.
Marc, for his part, was keeping a close watch on Madeline.
Periodically Casey would make sure to look around and check on the progress her team members were making. Everyone seemed to be gleaning something from their efforts. When her gaze found Emma, it took enormous restraint not to smile. Emma was busy chatting up the most stereotypical IT guy she could find in the group. He was tall, skinny and definitely dorky looking, with eyeglasses he kept shoving up on his nose and a tendency to blink furiously. Clearly he was awkward around people and, Casey suspected, far more at home hiding behind a computer monitor and a keyboard. On the other hand, he was over the moon about Emma’s interest in him, visibly entranced by her vivacious personality and her California-girl looks. As for Emma, she was standing close to him, head cocked as she hung on to his every word, asking question after question about his fascinating job. The more questions she asked, the more enthusiastic he got—and the more distracted.
Good girl, Casey thought. She’d been dead-on right to bring Emma here. If Emma ultimately accomplished her two goals, Forensic Instincts would have a clear shot at getting what they needed here.
The next step would be for Madeline to introduce Casey to Jacob Casper so that Casey could get an actual read on him. He represented the new regime, and talking to him was crucial, especially in light of how edgy the staff was around him, and how overall their dislike for him was. That could simply be the fear of losing their jobs, given that Casper was so pro-merger and would work hard to see the due diligence process succeed, or it could be more. As a necessary bonus, Casey would have Madeline introduce Emma to him—and put in a good word for her as a potential candy striper. That was going to have to happen fast to make Casey’s plan work.
Jacob Casper was a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy, solidly built and all about the bottom line. He was pleasant enough, but Casey could tell that affability didn’t come easily to him. He was trying to make people like him to ease his way, but doing that took a great effort on his part. His mind was on money, not relationship-building.
Casey let him chat with Madeline for a few minutes while she observed. Bottom line or not, he seemed genuinely saddened by Ronald Lexington’s passing and equally saddened by the effect it had had on Conrad.
“My greatest pleasure will be to see Conrad walk back through those doors and resume doing what he does best,” Casper told Madeline. “That man is a surgical genius.”
“I