Chapter 3 - The Cold Suite
At 6:14 a.m., the Liberty Hotel’s heating system made a low, hydraulic wheeze that woke Cole Sterling from the deepest sleep he had known since the October bond auctions.
The linen on his side of the bed was hot and smelled of almond body oil and the heavy, musky residue of forty-year-old cognac.
He rolled over, his arm reaching out by habit to pull the secondary pillow under his jaw, but his hand encountered the cold, smooth expanse of a bare shoulder.
Sierra was still asleep, her mouth slightly parted, a faint line of grey mascara smeared across the bridge of her small, surgically refined nose. Her left hand was flung across his ribs, the diamond baguette band catching the cold blue light that was beginning to seep through the tall granite-framed windows of Room 412.
Cole smiled. It was the tight, satisfied grin he used when an underwriter conceded the half-point spread during the final conference call.
He reached for his iPhone on the nightstand.
The screen was black.
He pressed the side button. Nothing.
"Dead," he muttered, tossing it onto the duvet. "Typical."
He sat up, his bare feet touching the cold wool rug, his head throbbing with that sharp, dry ache behind the left eye that always followed unmeasured champagne. Across the room, on the walnut luggage bench, his navy trousers were draped neatly over the hanger, his cufflinks gleaming from the small brass dish beside his leather shaving kit.
"Sierra," he murmured, nudging her heel with his toe. "Wake up. Julian’s flight from LaGuardia lands at nine. If you’re not back at the townhouse on Beacon by seven-thirty, the staff will start texting his assistant."
Sierra stirred, letting out a petulant groan, pulling the sheet over her face. "Tell them the driver was delayed by the salt trucks. What time is it?"
"Past six. I need to get back to the hill. Lauren was having one of her episodes last night about the children."
He stood up, stretching his wide, gym-hardened shoulders until his scapulae clicked. He walked to the mirror above the lowboy, examining his tongue, checking his teeth for red wine stains.
"Did she text you?" Sierra asked from beneath the down.
"She always texts," Cole said, reaching for his crisp white shirt from the dry-cleaner’s bag. "Three or four times. 'The temperature is up.' 'The pharmacy is closed.' She thinks if she manufactures enough domestic panic, I’ll stay in the nursery and balance the household checkbook like her father used to."
He buttoned his cuffs with swift, rhythmic snaps.
"The woman was born to be an invalid, Sierra. Her mother spent twenty years in private rest homes between Nice and Zurich, writing letters about her nerves to the trust committee. It’s in the marrow. By thirty-five, she’ll be living in the north wing with three spaniels and a private nurse, and I’ll have the full proxy vote on the manufacturing shares."
Sierra sat up, the white sheet falling away to her waist, her eyes narrow and assessing in the cold grey light.
"And the foundation shares?"
"The foundation shares follow the operating entity," Cole said, reaching for his navy trousers. "Harris tried to build in some kind of reversionary trigger during the merger, but the old man hasn't looked at the Delaware corporation code since the Carter administration. My team restructured the board seats in September while Lauren was busy choosing organic crib paint."
He pulled on his trousers, fastened the horn button, and reached for his leather belt.
"Where are my keys?"
"On the tray," Sierra murmured, leaning back against the pillows, her bare arms behind her neck. "Cole... did you bring the necklace?"
He froze.
His hand paused on his buckle. "The necklace?"
"The one from the boutique on Newbury. The yellow diamond. You said you’d have it before the Christmas dinner at the Somerset."
"It's in my coat pocket," he said, turning toward the door. "I had to drop by the penthouse first to make sure Lauren hadn't called an ambulance just to get my attention. It’s in the cashmere coat in the hall closet. I’ll bring it to the club at one."
He leaned over the bed, kissed the tip of her shoulder with the quick, unthinking familiarity of an owner checking a leasehold, and picked up his leather wallet from the dresser.
"Take a cab from the side entrance," he added, adjusting his silk tie in the mirror. "The valets know Julian’s driver."
"Cole."
"What?"
She was looking at the small table near the window where his phone lay.
"Your watch," she said.
He looked down at his wrist. The platinum chronometer was running, its second hand sweeping with that silent, four-thousand-dollar-a-minute precision.
"What about it?"
"The time. It's not six-fifteen."
Cole frowned, looking from his wrist to the bedside clock.
The bedside clock read 7:42.
"Damn it," he hissed, grabbing his coat from the chair. "The power must have flickered during the storm. I’ve got forty minutes before the partners call the international line."
He didn't wait for the elevator. He took the iron stairs three at a time, his leather soles loud against the historic brickwork of the old jail, his mind already composing the three sentences that would settle Lauren into her morning routine of quiet, self-reproaching compliance:
“You look exhausted, darling. Go lie down in the guest room. I’ve instructed the concierge to hold all packages until your nerves settle.”
Outside, the air on Charles Street was twenty-two degrees, the wind whipping off the frozen river with the bite of an open freezer.
His black Porsche Panamera was parked in the hotel courtyard, its windshield clear of snow—the valet had wiped it down twenty minutes earlier, knowing Mr. Sterling’s tip was usually fifty dollars if the leather was warm.
The valet—a young kid with red ears—didn't offer the key with his usual deference. He stood by the driver’s door, his hands clasped behind his back, looking at Cole with an expression of sharp, illicit curiosity.
"Mr. Sterling," the boy said.
"Give me the fob, Tim. I’m running late."
"There’s a gentleman waiting by the curb, sir. He’s been there since five-thirty."
Cole turned.
Standing by the iron gate that opened onto Cambridge Street was a man in an unpressed brown tweed overcoat, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a battered thermos tucked between his elbow and his ribs.
Arthur Pendelton.
The junior clerk from the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds. A man whose pension Cole had personally voted to reclassify during the state board hearings eighteen months ago.
Pendelton stepped into the courtyard, his boots crunching on the fresh salt.
He didn't tip his hat. He didn't offer a Christmas greeting.
He pulled a heavy, legal-sized envelope from under his coat—the dark blue paper of the Suffolk Superior Court, stamped with the red wax seal of the emergency duty magistrate.
"Cole A. Sterling?" Pendelton asked, his breath plume-white in the freezing wind.
"Arthur, what the hell is this? If this is about the zoning appeal on the waterfront parcel, my lawyers—"
"It isn't about the waterfront, Cole," Pendelton said, his voice flat, dry, and thoroughly Bostonian. "It’s about your residence. And your firm."
He pressed the blue envelope against Cole’s crisp white poplin shirt.
"You’ve been served, counselor. As of six o'clock this morning, you are excluded from the premises at 84 Mount Vernon Street under an emergency protective order. And the sheriff’s department is currently changing the lock barrels on the third floor of the Financial Center."
Cole stared at the blue paper.
A single drop of sweat, cold and greasy, broke out along the rim of his starched collar.
"That's impossible," Cole whispered. "My wife is at home. She can't even get out of bed without her inhaler."
May you like
Pendelton looked at him for four seconds, his eyes like two pieces of chipped grey granite from a Quincy quarry.
"Your wife isn't on Mount Vernon Street, Cole," the clerk said, turning back toward the gate. "Your wife hasn't been on Mount Vernon Street since three o'clock this morning. And if I were you, I’d check the balance on that Panamera’s transponder. The repossession order was logged with the state police at zero-seven-hundred."
