Chapter One
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 2014
Angela Falter Gala reception
The first sign of trouble is a woman wearing a linen suit and no expression.
You are standing at the opposite end of a stone courtyard. The sun is beating down on the back of your neck, because it is Los Angeles in July. A tram from the parking lot is beginning to bring guests as well as staff, and the central open-air space of the museum complex is getting crowded.
You are in the middle of managing a gala event with several hundred incredibly important guests.
But you still notice the woman and her vast, sinister calm. That woman is Charelle Jackson, assistant to the billionaire Angela Falter, who is bankrolling this entire event. Charelle is always professional. The greater the crisis, the calmer she gets.
Right now she looks like a sphinx.
Better See Charelle offers no preamble. “I need luxury transport for one from the Oceanea Resort, arriving here within half an hour.”
Tonight’s event is a gala fundraiser for a clean water charity. Your company, Platinum, has been refining the details for nine months. Angela Falter has personally given millions to the cause and is supposed to start her keynote in just over an hour.
Guest transportation has been locked in for monThis is all in a day’s work. You can do this. “What’s going on?”
“According to his car service, our introductory speaker never left the resort, and he’s not answering his phone,” Charelle says. “I’ve got resort staff scouring the place now, but even if we find him instantly, a car isn’t going to get him here in an hour.”
The resort is in Rancho Palos Verdes, south of Los Angeles International Airport. The event is at the Getty Center, more or less in Beverly Hills. At this time of day, that could be a two-hour trip.
Sounds like a job for a helicopter.
Nextths.What She Wants
