Silver Girl by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

a single thing about her personal life.
    Amy said, “I have money to invest. In the neighborhood of nine million. Do you think there’s any way I could get into your husband’s fund? I hear his returns are unbelievable.”
    “Oh,” Meredith said. She felt a bit deflated. She had thought that Amy Rivers had chosen to befriend her because she recognized Meredith as being in a category above the run-of-the-mill Palm Beach matron. While it was true Meredith didn’t teach anymore, she was extremely smart and capable. But now it seemed that what Amy had been after, really, was a way into Delinn Enterprises. The fact of the matter was, Meredith had no say in who was chosen to be an investor. People asked her all the time if she could “get them in” with Freddy; even the cashier at Publix, who had inherited money from her great-uncle, had asked. But when Meredith mentioned these people to Freddy, he always said no. He had some secret set of criteria for accepting investors that he wouldn’t share with Meredith, and quite frankly, she didn’t care. Still, for certain people, she agreed to ask. Although she felt a tiny bit stung by Amy Rivers, Meredith promised to lobby Freddy on her behalf. Amy clapped a hand over her mouth like she had just been named Miss America.
    “Oh, thank you!” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Here’s my card. You’ll let me know what he says?”
    When Meredith talked to Freddy about Amy Rivers, Freddy asked who she was.
    Meredith said, “A woman I play tennis with at the Everglades. She’s a consultant with Hackman Marr.”
    “Hackman Marr?” Freddy said, sounding interested.
    “Yes,” Meredith said. “And she went to Princeton, graduated in eighty-five. I had lunch with her today. I really like her.”
    “I’m sorry,” Freddy said.
    “Sorry about what? You mean you won’t take her on?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “We don’t take investors because we ‘really like’ them,” Freddy said. “We take them on for other reasons.”
    “What other reasons?” Meredith asked. “She said she has nine million dollars.” She handed Freddy Amy’s business card. “Will you please think about it? For me, please?”
    “For you, please? All right, yes,” Freddy said. “I’ll think about it.”
    And voilà! Freddy called Amy Rivers himself and invited her to invest, and Amy sent Meredith a huge bouquet of flowers. They became great friends, playing tennis and meeting for lunch, recommending books, talking about their kids. Amy never again mentioned Delinn Enterprises, Freddy, or her money. And then, of course, there was no money. Amy Rivers lost everything.
    Meredith looked at Connie. “I could tell you dozens of stories like that.”
    Connie wasn’t sure how to respond. She and Wolf, too, had been investors. She thought that all this talk about other investors might lead to an uncomfortable discussion of their own situation—but Connie was spared this by the knock at the door. It frightened her at first, and it certainly frightened Meredith, but then Connie realized it must be the power washer, and she hurried to greet him.

    The man’s name was Danforth Flynn; he told Connie to call him Dan. He was about fifty, with the lean body of a long-distance runner and a permanent sunburn. Again, Connie felt self-conscious. This was the second time this morning that she had a handsome man show up to help her.
    Dan Flynn regarded the front of the house and whistled.
    “Did the chief explain?” she asked.
    “He did.”
    “Can you get it off?”
    He approached the front of the house and touched a shingle that had been painted. He rubbed his fingers together. “I can,” he said. “What I want you to do is to go inside and close and lock all of the windows on this side of the house. This is going to take me a couple of hours, I’d guess. And it’s going to be loud.”
    “No problem,” Connie said.
    “Okay,” Dan Flynn said. “I’ll get started. The tank of my truck