Chapter 86
THE ELEVATOR WHISPERED Val upward, and twenty-seven floors later, the doors opened into a private foyer facing a closed mahogany door. Val tapped numbers onto a keypad beside the door, and a female voice asked her name.
“Valerie Fernandez.”
A buzzer sounded and the lock clicked and Val pushed open the door, stepped into both her false identity and an astonishing room. It was elegantly furnished in white leather and steel with marble floors and modern artwork, and a great wall of windows admitted all of the light in the sky.
A very fit woman in a smart geometric-print dress, her blond hair pulled up in a ponytail, crossed the room, shook Val’s hand, and said, “Hi, Valerie. I’m Norma Tiefel. I work with Mr. Olsen. Would you please fill out this form? I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Val took the clipboard and went to one of the handsome steel-frame-and-white-leather sofas with an unobstructed view of the gambling capital of the world.
A silver pen with her name etched on its side rested at the top of the clipboard. Val had to smile at the pricey party favor. She used the pen to complete the form with her phony background, addresses, career history, and net worth, which she listed at $294,000, including the value of her fictitious condo in LA with its $210,000 mortgage.
She was a young woman on the way up, right?
As she answered the questions with a straight face, three other women came in, one at a time, and took seats around the room. They were all attractive, all in their twenties, and all, apparently, had ten thousand dollars to give Mr. Olsen for the secrets to marrying up. Waaaaaaay up.
Back to the questionnaire. Val checked off boxes for the traits she most looked for in a husband, writing, I would be a great asset to a wealthy man: a social companion and intellectual peer in the form of a loving and attractive wife.
Ms. Tiefel collected the forms and left the room. The four women waited, made small talk, wondered if there would be an elimination round. And then, long, tense moments later, the door opened again and Ms. Tiefel came back into the room with a good-looking man in his midthirties. He was beautifully dressed in summer-weight wool, a blue jacket, gray pants. He had a clear, almost luminous complexion and remarkable long-lashed, copper-brown eyes. The one-word description that jumped into Val’s mind was winner.
Olsen clasped his hands together and Val saw that his fingers were twisted from the breaks he’d sustained. They still looked painful, but there was no pain on his face. Ms. Tiefel said, “Ladies, I’d like you to meet a man who changed my life, Mr. Lester Olsen.”
Olsen smiled, then addressed the small group.
“It’s my pleasure to welcome you all to Love for Life and a day that could entirely transform your future. Please come with me. It all starts now.”