Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries) by Diane Patterson

father. Now there were two people he’d have to hide his true nature from for thirty years. And, to no one’s surprise, he couldn’t do it. When I was five years old, he introduced me to my little sister Stevie. Her mother was our former ski instructor. That was the end of his marriage and the start of a very complicated trans-Atlantic custody arrangement.  
    Ida died two years after I disappeared. I wished I’d been able to say goodbye to her.
    Stevie was not only the reason for my parents’ divorce, but also the reason I had not yet returned to New York despite Roberto having found me. My mother hated Stevie from the moment she was born. My return to New York was going to make all hell break loose on its own. Stevie accompanying me was an absolute no-go.  
    The project was to get Stevie standing on her own so that I could leave her.  
    Roberto hadn’t even told my mother he’d found me alive and well after eleven years of not knowing. The consequences of that omission on their relationship were going to be bad enough. Bringing Stevie along with? No.
    “It’s not going well. I think I told you last week we were going to see another psychiatrist. Complete bozo. Ten minutes in, he starts discussing medication.”
    “There are several medications which can assist—”
    “Roberto, I don’t have any concerns about why someone might want to take drugs. The more the merrier. But he didn’t even know the reasons why yet. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist?”
    He answered a tad too quickly. “I have not.”
    Ooo. Liar, liar. “Then let me tell you how this works. The first session is a get-to-know-you kind of cocktail party thing. The two of you chat, but you stay vague on the particulars until you get to know one another. The three doctors we’ve seen have been bozos, giving diagnoses right off the bat. And they’re also expensive. Maybe I should become a therapist. There’s really good money there.”  
    “Yes, but therapists have to listen to people,” Roberto said. “Your skills lie elsewhere. Which brings me to the subject of this chat. You need to start developing the expertise you’re going to need in New York.”
    “Doing coke at parties in Tribeca?”
    Roberto did not laugh at that. On the up side, he didn’t get angry and end the call, either.
    He finally responded with, “No. That is not what I meant. You will have family responsibilities.”
    “Don’t we have fleets and fleets of top MBAs to handle things for us?”
    “Yes. But at best they don’t care about whether your properties thrive or die. They move on to their next challenge no matter what. At worst, they’re amoral thieves who plan on robbing you blind.”
    “You’re an investment banker, you ought to know.”
    He waited a second. “Yes.”
    In case I haven’t mentioned this, Roberto the investment banker is the least avaricious and most normal and reasonable person in my family. More than once I used to wish he’d been my real father. My life would have improved immensely on Day One, starting with me being a different person.
    “What’s Chance doing?” I asked.
    Chancellor was my brother, younger than me by fifteen months. Everyone talked about how close we ought to be, us being practically Irish twins and all. Everyone would have done better to discuss how we were different species created out of the same genetic material. Chance was the kid everyone hated in school: he was smart and he worked hard, with excellent grades and a focus on being the top at everything he did.
    The last time I spoke to him was shortly before my entire life went to hell in London and my father had plans to ship me off to boarding school in Switzerland. Chance’s response: “Maybe you’ll learn something for once.”
    “Chance is doing excellent work. He has a JD/MBA from Harvard. Did you know that?”
    I’d never even heard of a JD/MBA degree, although I could parse what it was from the initials. That seemed about right for that