Page 1 of Fool’s Gold

CHAPTERONE

Matt yawnedand stumbled out into the main area of the apartment. The place didn’t feel like a home. Considering it took an entire floor of a high-rise building, it would probably never feel like a home.

At least it had air-conditioning. Whatever other messes might be going on in Matt’s life, he could go out saying he’d given his grandmother cool air at last.

Norah, the grandmother in question, was already up. She stood behind the marble island in the kitchen, two plates of scrambled eggs and toast in front of her. One plate held bacon. The other had fresh fruit. Her walker waited behind her like a faithful, gleaming steed.

He pulled himself together, swooped in, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Gram, you know you don’t have to make me breakfast every morning.”

“I know I don’t have to, sweetheart.” She hugged him close and nudged the plate with fruit toward him. “I want to. Plus, it’s a privilege. I’m ninety-four years old, Matthew. Every day that I can move under my own power and keep speaking my own mind is a gift, and I intend to celebrate every last one of them.”

Matt’s smile softened. He wasn’t going to argue with her logic, but the reminder of her age gave him a pang. “Well, I’m sure not about to turn down your cooking. Why don’t we sit down?” He grabbed both plates and brought them over to the kitchen table.

The table was one of the few pieces of furniture they’d salvaged from the tiny farmhouse near Athens. Matt had grown up eating around this table. So had his mother, his aunts and uncles, and his grandmother and her siblings.

He didn’t know how old it was, when he got right down to it. Someone had carved the initials SVT into one of the legs at some time during the table’s journey, and the last ancestor with those initials anyone could document had lived before the Civil War.

He liked sitting at the table every morning. It was a comfortable touchstone, a reminder that amid all the chaos some things were still solid.

He and Norah made small talk as they ate. She brought up his cousin Janice and her three kids. They were all doing well for themselves in Florida, even though one of the kids had caught the wretched flu.

They all knew the truth; Matt wasn’t responsible for that mess. Or rather, he hadn’t caused it or known about it. He was responsible for overseeing the cleanup.

Whatever. The rest of the Taggarts didn’t hold anything against Matt for what had happened, even though the flu had hit them hard. It was a comfort, if a small one.

Samaira, Norah’s weekday care assistant, arrived at eight. Matt let her in with a hug because Samaira was a hugger, and it was hard to turn down her easy, open, and affectionate nature.

She’d been working with them for five years now. She was family, more than Matt’s mother had ever been.

“You’re looking well, Matt. Anything new going on?”

Matt shook his head. “Just happy to be here with Gram. She’s in good spirits today.”

“That’s good.” Samaira beamed for a second, glanced over at Norah, and then lowered her voice. “I hadn’t wanted to say anything, but I took the liberty of going through her mail and moving anything disturbing into that folder you set up.”

Matt’s stomach sank. “I’ll set up a filter for that as soon as I get to the office. Thanks for letting me know. How bad was it?”

She glanced back over at Norah and fussed with one of her long braids. “It was pretty bad. She had one hundred and thirty new messages. Four of them were from family. The rest were threats. I didn’t bother going into the spam filters.”

Matt fought down a spike of rage. It was fine if people wanted to threaten him. Besse Pharma had done something vile, and millions had suffered. Thousands had died. If threatening Matt made survivors feel better, more in control, he was happy to let them do it. Threatening Norah, on the other hand, was something else.

He pushed it down. Samaira couldn’t do anything about the threats, not more than she’d already done.

“Thanks, Samaira. I’ll... do something. I appreciate you filtering that stuff out. She doesn’t need to see it. Not at her age.”

Samaira raised an eyebrow. “You don’t need to see it either. But you’re working with the Feds, and they’ll help you out.”

Matt pulled up his best, most confident smile and nodded. “Of course.” He grabbed his briefcase and went to give Norah a kiss. “I’ve got to go to work now, Gram. I’ll check in around noon, and I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“You bet. Are we still on to watchJeopardy?”

Matt took her hand and gave it a squeeze.Jeopardyhad been a tradition between the two of them ever since the social workers had dropped him off at the farmhouse when he’d been all of six.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Gram. I’ll talk to you later.”

He took the elevator down to the garage and drove out to Besse headquarters. The usual crowd of protestors were there as he pulled up to the (new) security gate. He sighed, showed his ID to the guard, and pulled over once he’d gotten through. Then he opened his trunk and pulled out several cases of water.

The guard gawked. The protestors gawked. Even part of Matt gawked. The rest of him got on with things and carried the cases over to the protestors.

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