“You’re treading on very dangerous ground. Very dangerous. You’re going to want to take great care with how you proceed.”

“You’re the second person from Sterling to threaten me today. What kind of company are you running?” His eyes seemed to cut right through me; then he quietly turned and walked away.

“Good day, Ms. Raines.”

“Not yet it isn’t,” I called after him. He wouldn’t discuss Peter Langham, citing privacy issues, which confirmed that Langham had been a Sterling client. Just like Tim. Now both were dead, both connected to an ex-con, and all three connected to Nicholas Spada, self-proclaimed godsend to the terminally ill. How had Langham died? Who stood to gain by Tim dying when he did? Did Stephen Ayers have anything to do with Spada? I gripped the folder in my hands and watched as the wealthy man with the designer tan walked away from me; then I turned and hustled off.

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

I ducked into a Starbucks to call Lucy Earles. She was an investment analyst I knew, one I called whenever I had to unravel high-finance issues that made my head hurt and my eyes glaze over. I needed the facts on this whole policy-selling thing, not Spada’s high-voltage hard sell, and Lucy was the one to ask. I got a muffin and started in on it at a corner table, Spada’s folder of goodies open in front of me. Then I dialed Lucy’s number.

“I get the concept,” I said. “But how exactly does this thing really work? And what’s wrong with it?”

I could feel Lucy’s judgment oozing over the line. She had zero sense of humor where money and investing were concerned. She knew money like nobody’s business and probably had the first dime she ever made firmly tucked into a vault in her basement, as well as a cadre of little money trolls on call to help her count the stacks.

“Why do you assume there’s something wrong with it? These settlements are a legitimate short-term investment option. Are you looking to invest?”

I pictured Lucy sitting in her small office surrounded by calculators and actuary tables, her crisp little banker’s suit neatly pressed, her black hair pulled back in a librarian’s bun, the Wall Street Journal spread out in front of her.

Investing and speculating all seemed a little too nerve-wracking for me. I put my money in the bank, where it grew by pennies a day, but at least I knew where it was and I could get at it if the sky caved in and the zombies showed up. I’d likely die a pauper, but it wouldn’t be from stress at watching red arrows rise and fall on the NY Stock Exchange. I popped a piece of muffin in my mouth, swallowed.

“Why are you always trying to get at my money?”