Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money by Linda L. Richards

was that promise that did it. Or maybe
just her childlike acceptance of it. Just as she’d accepted my news
about Ernie and his stupid stock with the same trust. My mother believed in me. She always had. And I — inadvertently, sure,
and indirectly — had let her down. I loathed how it made me feel.
And the load it added to a day that had been careening downhill
almost since I’d placed the first cup of coffee on my desk.
    I needed action. I wiped the sweat off my
forehead and applied myself to my computer. I consulted several of
the databases I’d signed up for, scanning for information on the
Langton Regional Group. I was looking for, I don’t know, a hint, I
guess. Some kind of clue about whatever was suddenly going on with
LRG: whatever nasty thing I’d inadvertently stumbled into. It was
all information I’d gone over quickly and expertly on Friday and
over the weekend: financials, run downs on LRG’s corporate
structure and press releases and news items going back the last
couple of years. I’d looked through all this stuff before, but even
reading through it again now, with my newly jaundiced eye, it
presented the picture I’d come to prior to this morning’s disaster:
a quiet little company ripe for good things. Except, that wasn’t
what was happening. Not today.
    Before I thought about it too much, I picked
up the phone and dialed the number on the bottom of one of the
press releases.
    “Langton Regional, how can I direct your
call?” It was one of those bright, slightly nasal voices that, as
far as I know, answer telephones at large corporations worldwide,
though in regional accents and appropriate languages.
    “Martin Hewitt, please,” I said, reading the
public relations flack’s name from the release.
    I was on hold for a mercifully brief time
before a youthful male voice burst onto the line.
    “Hewitt!” He said briskly, practically
shouting it.
    “Hi Martin,” I started brightly. “My name is
Madeline Carter. I’m an LRG shareholder,” it was a recent event, my
becoming a stockholder. But it was still true. And I didn’t feel
the need to mention my mom or Clarissa. “Did you know that there is
a trading halt on Langton’s stock?”
    “I did... I do know that. Yes. It’s true.
There is.” It occurred to me right away that he was talking too
much. Of course, there are times when such a piece of information
can be useful. In a business negotiation, for example, when you’re
trying to pay less for something that costs more. If the other guy
starts prattling, you know you’ve got him on the run. Right here
and now, though, having figured that out wasn’t helping me much.
Public relations guys often spend their whole careers on the run,
or a reasonable facsimile. Prattling goes with that territory. In
the second place, unless I asked the right questions, I knew I
probably wouldn’t get Hewitt volunteering anything. PR guys just
aren’t built to blab. Probably part of the whole careers on the run
thing.
    I thought I’d try anyway. “Can you tell me
the reason for the halt?”
    “Well, um, Miss...”
    “Carter,” I supplied again helpfully.
    “Well Miss Carter, as you, um, can imagine,
these things can be fairly sensitive in nature, and...”
    “... and?”
    “Well no, sorry. I’m not at liberty to say.
At the moment. Right now. Maybe I will be later. But not now.
No.”
    “Well, perhaps someone else can help me? Mr.
Carmichael Billings, maybe? Will you please forward me to his
extension?”
    “No! That is to say, I’m sorry, I won’t be
able to do that. Our phone system doesn’t have that capacity.”
    “But he’d probably be able to answer the
question for me?”
    “Well, no, maybe not. That is, he might also
not be at liberty to say. As well. But... but if you can be
patient, we are confident that the matter will resolve itself.
Quickly.”
    “Well now, see,” I said, ultra-reasonable,
“I don’t want to wait for the matter to resolve itself. I want to
know