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

stuck-up prick. “Good for him.”
    “Currently he’s senior vice president of sales and marketing at van der Laan.”
    My mother’s family giant cash cow. “Then the family’s taken care of.”  
    “You really want to leave your future to your brother’s care?”
    Oh.
    Excellent point.  
    Once Chance was in charge, my future would look very sketchy indeed. I would inherit my half fifteen months before he got his. Chance was both educated better than I was and had real-world business experience. I was doomed.
    “You have some work to do to get ready. While you seek out help for your sister, you need to work on a few things for yourself. I have the name of someone I’d like you to work with.”
    “Roberto, I’m never going to be much of a reader.”
    “No. But you can be functional. Next.”  
    Functional . Fuck you, Roberto.
    “You need to buckle down and find someone to help your sister process past events. This should be your full-time job. You need to put everything else aside.” He smiled. Maybe it was a smile. Debatable. “Including motorcycle rides from men named ‘Raven.’ Or this other adventure, last week, a visit to an imprisonment camp for Cambodian illegal immigrants? Did I read that correctly?”
    He knew about Anne and me going to Baldwin Park. Was he following Anne’s career? He must be.
    Whether he was or he wasn’t, I was absolutely certain now that Roberto knew the motorcycle story was bullshit. And it wouldn’t be long before he found out what had happened.
    “Visiting doctors is expensive, Roberto.”  
    He nodded. “That’s why you’re going to start working for me, Drusilla.”  
    “Amongst the things that are never happening—”
    He sighed. “It’s money. Of course you’re going to do it.”  
    On the one hand, I clearly needed money. Unlike most people, I admit freely that money is a great motivator in my life. Money, after all, was the main reason I’d gone with Anne to interview Courtney at a crappy motel in Koreatown. On the other hand, working for Roberto was a very bad, terrible, awful avenue to take toward even greater financial dependence on him. Money is control. Always has been, always will be.
    “I want to help you out, Tru—Drusilla. You know this to be true. The sooner you can figure out a stable situation for your sister, the sooner you will return home to where you belong. And the real work can begin.”
    I stared directly into the tiny black hole that marked the computer’s built-in camera.  
    He was right, of course: either I figured out how to set Stevie up to become stable and happy on her own, or Roberto would get tired of waiting and take over the problem for me. Stevie would vanish off my radar forever. He was being generous in allowing me to give it the old college try.
    “What do you want me to do?” I asked.
    “Nothing immoral or illegal,” he said.
    I shrugged. My definitions of acceptable morality and legality are adjacent but not identical to the widely accepted ones.
    “Or even difficult,” he continued. “This doesn’t even involve falling off the back of anything.”
    I waved my hand in the air. “Stop telling me what it’s not and start telling me what it is.”  
    “A friend of mine—”
    My face may have betrayed my doubt in that description, because Roberto nodded.
    “A gentleman of my acquaintance, who I’ve had the pleasure to get know, is setting up a charity venture in Los Angeles. He has asked for my help. I am sending him two things: money and you.”
    A million possibilities ran through my head: Perhaps Roberto had a mistress. (No. My stepfather had issues, but despite being Spanish he despised men who cheated on their wives. I wouldn’t believe he had a mistress if he showed me pictures of her himself.) Or maybe Roberto had a drug dealer. (Who he kept stashed away with the mistress. Not a chance.) Gambling, corporate espionage, corporate sabotage, international political spying, jewel thievery, or