Taking Control (free sample)

TAKING CONTROL

Ken Casper

CHAPTER ONE

"CONGRATULATIONS, you are now each the proud owners of one-third of Satterfield Racing."

"Humph," Estelle Satterfield grumbled. "What could I possibly want with a race car? My Bentley is excellent transportation--"

"Not nearly as fast, though," her daughter, Ellie, reminded her.

"I assure you, darling, comfort and style are far more important than noise and speed."

Ellie wasn't so sure. Oh, she definitely liked her comforts. The last time she'd returned home to San Francisco she'd been forced to fly coach instead of first class and vowed never to do it again. As for style, well . . . there was style and there was style. She'd take Wally's Ferrari over her mother's Bentley any day, even if she wouldn't take Wallace Carmichael IV to have and to hold as her mother had so fervently wished. Estelle considered the quality of a man's cummerbund--silk was the preferred fabric, of course--far more important than its girth. In this case Ellie was thinking of Sylvester Agincourt, another one of her suitors. But she really didn't want to dwell on the Pillsbury Doughboy. Even if the dough part also referred to mountains of money.

"Race cars," Estelle huffed. "Your father liked them, too. I never could understand why. Noisy, dirty and driven by men to match. If your uncle wanted to leave us a legacy, why couldn't it be something more dignified or at least more marketable? A house. A tract of land perhaps. Stocks and bonds are always acceptable. But a race car! We'll probably have to pay someone to tow it to the junkyard."

For just a fleeting instant Ellie thought she spied an upturned curl at the edges of the family lawyer's thin mouth, but she must have been mistaken.

"How soon can you dispose of our interests in this jalopy?" Estelle asked him peevishly.

Rupert Hollingsworth pulled back his double chins as if he'd just been served with a subpoena to appear as a witness for the defense in the case against the Hollywood Madam.

"Estelle, really. Hollingsworth, Diddlemeyer and Hollingsworth is not a company of merchants. We don't broker business deals. Should you find a willing buyer, I will, of course, be most happy to draw up the contract and see to the legal details of transferring ownership--"

For a hefty fee, Ellie mused.

"But the sale of a NASCAR racing team," he continued, "must be placed in the hands of people . . . with those sorts of skills."

Ellie perked up. "Did you say NASCAR?"

"Satterfield Racing is currently competing, I understand, in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series."

Ellie let out a low whistle, earning a scowl from her mother.

"Surely you know someone--" Estelle argued.

"Mother, leave this to me."

"Sweetheart, what would you possibly know about selling an auto racing . . . whatever?"

"Team," Ellie supplied impatiently. And the answer was nothing, at least at the moment, but she was a quick study, and if her instincts proved right, this could be a very lucrative undertaking.

"Really, how difficult can it be?" Ellie went on. "You seem to forget, Mother, that I just received my Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University."

"Of course you did, dear, and I'm very proud of you, but managing a Fortune 500 corporation and selling cars, a used car at that--" she shuddered in a very ladylike way "--are hardly the same."