“Yes. Exactly what he’d have wanted. She appointed family and friends to the board so she could keep an eye on everything. But aside from that and running the donation side of things, she’s hands-off on day-to-day decisions. And Harvey’s done a good job. He gets a few unorthodox ideas every now and then, like the time he thought we should have a Living Ruff toy line. That went nowhere.” She shook her head. “Or when he decided we should pretend we’re on the brink of folding every year.”
“Well, that one backfired,” Felicity said, “given I’m here investigating.”
“I’m extremely glad it backfired,” Cooper said, “or we’d never have met.”
Felicity smiled. “There is that. Anyway, so you’re saying he runs the charity well.”
“He’s a committed administrator, and between him and Mrs. Brooks, the place is like a well-oiled machine. There’s no excessive waste. Our office isn’t cutting edge. No latest tech or computers because he channels everything spare into our outreach programs.”
That explained a few things but not everything—like how bizarrely the foundation’s director was acting.
“He’s not blowing our money,” Cooper continued. “I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s not stealing. And before you ask, he hates drugs and gambling. The man is as vanilla as a milkshake.”
“Not so vanilla that he isn’t hiding something,” Felicity said. “Something that’s enough to make him panic. Is it possible he’s hiding something his wife’s doing? He’s covering for Rosalind? I mean, they clearly love each other. You should hear the way she talks about him.”
“And Harvey worships the ground she walks on, yes. But I meant it when I said she’s a brilliant businesswoman. I can’t imagine she’d ever lower herself to doing something underhanded.”
“Mm,” Felicity said. She didn’t get that vibe from Rosalind, either. Some people just radiated competence and cleverness. Her mind drifted back to Elena.
“But that’s not my primary concern anymore,” Cooper said.
“What is?”
“Felicity,” Cooper said quietly, “I think it’s time we got to it: why are you really here?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on. No one sends someone so senior in a global media corporation to check the books of a charity that a boss might donate to. That’s…insane. I know you’re not here for the reason you told us. So please, can you trust me and tell me?”
Felicity sighed. It had been much easier to fob off Rosalind when she’d asked the same thing. But Cooper deserved more. Felicity considered her options. She weighed up Elena’s need for secrecy and privacy against the fact she really needed Cooper’s cooperation to go any further. It came down to whether she trusted her. Surely Cooper couldn’t be involved in whatever her boss was up to, could she?
Those earnest, worried eyes looking back at her told her absolutely not.
“This must remain top secret,” Felicity said.
“Of course.”
“My boss already donated to Living Ruff. She’s the donor behind that $1.4 million last year.”
Cooper’s eyes widened. “Holy… That was her? I always assumed it was Warren Buffet or someone like that.”
“Elena makes a lot of private donations, usually to causes she thinks no one cares much about. Her red flags went up when she read that the charity she’d given the equivalent of three years of Living Ruff’s entire running costs to was about to close.”
“But we aren’t about to close.”
“Yes, but she didn’t know that. She tried to speak to Harvey about it the day the story came out, and he fobbed her off so badly and with so many bad lies that she became suspicious. She sent someone she trusts”—Felicity waved to herself—“to make inquiries on the down-low.”
“She could have called in the cops for a suspected fraud,” Cooper said slowly. “Why didn’t she?”
“Elena’s a very private person, and she’d like to keep who she donates to as her business. Besides, if Living Ruff wasn’t doing anything nefarious with her donations, she didn’t want to cause bad press by starting a public inquiry that could hurt the charity.”
“That’s very considerate of her.”
“It is. She’s forward thinking like that. Close attention to detail.”
“You admire her a lot, don’t you?” Cooper said after a moment.
“She’s an impressive woman.”
“I’ve noticed before, you know, every time you say her name, you get this look of”—Cooper waved her hand—“like Elena Bartell can do no wrong.”
“Oh, I’ve seen her do wrong.” Felicity shook her head. “Her choice of husbands is abysmal. Thank God her last one’s gone, and I don’t have to see his smug photo on her desk anymore. Not that the replacement photo is much better. I mean, Maddie is rather insufferable.” Felicity smiled at her own joke.
“Maddie is insufferable? Maddie Grey?” Cooper sounded astonished.
Oh right. She’d forgotten Cooper had met the affable Maddie. “I—no. Not really. It’s just a thing I do with her. I insult her. She laughs at me. I don’t really dislike her, but she must never know that. Do you understand? That’s a state secret.”
Cooper laughed.
“No, I mean it!” Felicity said, with faux dramatics. “Although I think by now she suspects my colorful vitriol is only surface deep. Look, I admit she pisses me off because she’s on the world’s longest lucky streak. Everything just keeps falling into place for her. It’s maddening. But I’m working hard at not blaming her for the fact that she’s impossible. People like her, with her genuine niceness and annoying, perfect luck, shouldn’t even exist. Ugh! Don’t remind me.”
“Ah.” Cooper smiled. “Okay, she’s a little lucky and it pisses you off. Got it.”
“A little? She’s a freak. She modeled at Australian Fashion Week. Did she tell you that? And she’s not a model, as proved by the way she grinned at the crowd like a hyena.”
“I— What?” Cooper sputtered.
“Exactly! It was a weird fluke of a thing—knowing the designer who was desperate. That just doesn’t happen to regular people.” Felicity thought about that for a moment, then added, “But Maddie’s also about the only competent reporter I’ve come across in the past ten Bartell Corp buyouts, and I respect her for it. She does the research, writes well, and has earned her reputation. I was enormously shocked that Elena didn’t retain her services when she shut down her paper.”
“She fired Maddie?”
“More than once.”
“More than once!”
Felicity rolled her eyes. “It’s a thing Elena does. Don’t read too much into it. They’re good friends now. She emailed and called when Maddie was on a travel assignment in Vietnam. Elena takes her as a plus-one for balls and introduces her around the industry as part of a deal they did when Elena wanted one of Maddie’s exclusives. Fewer balls now, though, since they’re both based in that antipodean armpit. I don’t think Sydney has one decent international-quality event I’d cross the road for.”
“Maddie’s moved back to Sydney?” Cooper eyed her in surprise.
“It’s her home. She was unhappy here.”
“What a curious basis for a friendship. From being fired to feted by the Elena Bartell.”
“Exactly,” Felicity slapped the table lightly. “I mean, why on earth? I cannot work that out.”
“You really can’t?”
Felicity peered at her. “You’re saying you can?”
