Maddie shrugged. “I use the limo most days. It’s just…I don’t know, sometimes I like to take a drive and clear my head. I’m a damn good driver, too.” She didn’t tell the three at her table that her father had her learn to drive with the Formula One team he sponsored. She loved speed—and Jack Pruitt believed if you were going to learn to do something, you learned from the best. She took tennis lessons from the coach for the Davis Cup when she was fifteen.
On the small table where her glass rested sat her cell phone. She saw it light up and read the caller ID. Her father’s unlisted home phone flashed in digital numbers. That was odd. He rarely called her after nine. She looked at her watch. Twelve-thirty.
She lifted her phone and opened it, holding it to her ear.
“Hello?” she shouted above the nightclub din.
“Maddie?” her father shouted. “Can you hear me?”
“Not really.”
“Where are you?”
“Echo. A club.”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out now! I can’t explain. Get out and go home, and I’ll call you there and explain.”
“But—”
“Get out, Maddie!” Click. He hung up on her.
Puzzled, Maddie closed her phone and smiled at her friends, pretending all was good. “Um…something’s come up at the office, of all things. I have to run.”
She leaned over and kissed a perturbed-looking Ash on the cheek. Ash asked, “You okay, Maddie?”
She nodded. “Work. You know how insane my schedule gets when I’ve got a deal pending.” She smiled with an assurance she didn’t feel. Then Ryan kissed her goodbye as she slid past him, his lips lingering on hers for a fraction of a second. Maddie gave Rubi a peck as she stood up, and then grabbed her purse and cell phone and made her way through the crowded club to the street outside, trying to push down the nervous feeling in her stomach. Her father was considered one of the smartest, most coolheaded and absolutely toughest CEOs in the world. He wasn’t prone to emotional reactions—or panic. Not even when the bottom fell out of the stock market years before.
As Maddie exited Echo and walked east the two blocks to her car, a paparazzi photographer snapped her picture.
“Hey, Maddie, real-estate princess, how ’bout smiling for the cameras?”
She glanced over her shoulder and gave a smile, but then a chill ran through her. As if on cue, at the photographer shouting her name, ten guys with cameras suddenly went nuts. Yes, she was well known—but she wasn’t Kiki—and she wasn’t a supermodel. So the reaction was way out of proportion to her celebrity. Four of them started in a half jog toward her.
“Any comment, Madison?”
“Yeah, what do you have to say?”
She had no idea what the hell was going on—but she was getting out of there. She broke into a half jog, regretting the four-inch heels. She could hear the footfall of the paparazzi behind her, and the click-click-click of their shutters going off rapid-fire. She felt like a stalked animal in the wild. Spotting her two-seater Jaguar a few yards up, she pulled the keys from her purse and pressed the button to unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Just a half block ahead of them, she opened the door to her car, hopped in and thanked sheer luck that left enough room around her car for her to pull from the curb in one swift movement once the keys were in the ignition. Still, the photographers snapped away as she drove off down the street.
In her rearview mirror, she could now see two photographers climb into a black Jeep Cherokee and start to pursue her.
“This is insane,” she muttered to herself. She was smart enough to know something was up, but she remained utterly in the dark about what it was. All she knew was she didn’t relish the photographers catching up to her and nearly ramming her bumper for a better shot. She’d heard of it happening—she had mourned with everyone else in the world at the loss of Princess Diana. Maddie was American royalty, and she didn’t want to end up in a crash.
The streets of New York were still busy, but certainly quieter than the bustle of midday or rush hour. She drove several blocks until she pulled onto Fifth Avenue, a shopping mecca with wide streets. She decided she would take it until she could cut over a few cross streets and take a pass through Central Park. If the lights were in her favor, she just might outrun them.
Maddie gripped the steering wheel and spun, making a light and turning toward the park. She could see in her side-view mirror that not only had the photographers not made the light—they didn’t care. They blew right through it.
“What the hell is going on that makes me such a hot news topic?” Maddie mused aloud sarcastically. Her tires screeched as she rounded another turn, making an illegal right on red.
The photographers stayed on her, and she could actually glimpse the flash going off as one of them leaned out his window and snapped.
Maddie spied the park in the distance, by the Museum of Natural History entrance, and she tore around a corner, hit a pothole—a deep one—lost a hubcap and drove into the park.
“Yeah!” She smiled to herself. Her rolling hubcap caused the photographers to swerve and jump the curb. With the sidewalk empty at this hour, she was relieved no one was hit, but pleased she’d slowed them down.
Maddie was grateful she had learned to drive like a pro—and that she enjoyed it enough to have spent hours tooling up to one of her family’s estates in Saratoga Springs, speeding her way up the thruway and down miles of country roads in her first car—a shiny red BMW. Every year, on her birthday, her father used to surprise her by trading in one car for another. Of course, once she was on her own, she started choosing for herself. Though people often complained of the electrical systems in British cars, she was partial to the Jaguar—and hadn’t had one that disappointed her yet.
Maddie picked up speed in the park, passing the occasional nocturnal jogger, and swerving around a horse and carriage with a liveryman and two lovebirds in it.
She checked her rearview mirror again and could see the headlights of what she presumed was the photographers’ car gaining on her. She inhaled sharply, concentrating, though her mind was moving at warp speed, and her reflexes seemed to be in charge.
She sped through the night, illegally passing a Yellow Cab. The photographers did the same. As she came out the other side of Central Park, she could now see the flashing lights of a cop car bringing up the rear.
“Good,” she said aloud to herself, hoping the photographers would pull over. She sure as hell wouldn’t. And if she did, wasn’t stalking a crime?
Eventually, the photographers did pull over. Maddie guessed they felt they had enough pictures—and a hell of a chase story to regale the tabloids with.
She calmly pulled onto the street and cut down a side street—she didn’t even look at the sign. Then she got her bearings and made her way around the outskirts of the park to her apartment on Central Park West.
Maddie pulled into the underground garage. She climbed out and left the keys in the ignition.
“Hello, Eddie.” She smiled at the parking attendant.
“Hello, Ms. Pruitt,” Eddie said, his uniform crisp, his manner professional, as he held open her door and waited to drive the Jag to its assigned spot.
She nodded at him and took her purse from the passenger seat, grabbing her cell phone. “Oh…damn…um, I lost a hubcap. Can you call the dealer and arrange for a new one?”
“Sure thing.”
Maddie