Diana Racine 02 - Goddess of the Moon

Interesting,” Diana said. “Not the average right-winger. What about family?”
    “Married in 1971 to Eliza Fannon , daughter of Gault Fannon .”
    The name struck a familiar note. “The senator?”
    “Same. She and Compton had three children, two girls and a boy. The boy was retarded. He drowned in the family swimming pool at age five . Shortly after, Mrs. Compton committed suicide. The articles written at the time implied the guilt was too much for her . Nothing suspicious, but that didn’t stop tongues from wagging.”
    “What do you mean?” Diana asked. “Did the articles imply that Compton had anything to do with his wife’s suicide?”
    “No, but not long af ter he appeared in the society columns with Selene Crane, daughter of Phillip Crane. Name mean anything to you?”
    Diana whistled through her teeth. “I’ll say. Looks like Compton knows how to pick the women in his life. Crane’s a multi- gazillionaire .”
    “Yup. His grandfather struck oil. Crane was raised in enormous wealth, as were his children, and both he and his father increased the fortune tenfold. He’s not only Compton’s father-in-law, they’re best buddies.”
    “This is getting more interesting by the minute,” Diana said.
    “When they married, Compton was thirty-nine, Selene Crane twenty-one, with a degree in philosophy from Harvard. Early photographs show a beautiful young woman. Reading between the lines, Phillip Crane brokered the marriage.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “ Tabloids show the three of them before Compton and Selene were married. If his daughter marrying a much older man bothered Crane, it didn’t show in the photographs.”
    “Hmm, this is getting better with every revelation . Do these two have any children?”
    Jason hesitated. “Um, I don’t know.”
    “What do you mean? Do they or don’t they?”
    “The second marriage is where Compton’s private life gets really private. Selene is rarely seen in public and there’s no record of any children.”
    “How does he manage to keep that under the radar? They’d have to have social security numbers and all that.”
    “There’s a doctor on staff. Maybe everything happens in house , so to speak. I don’t know , but if they have kids, he’s found a way to keep their existence secret . Researching unearthed plenty of Comptons , but none trace d back to Silas, other than the two daughters from his first marriage.
    “ W hat about them?” Diana asked.
    “Maia and Dione. Both graduated from LSU, but while there, they returned to the Compton compound every night like good little girls. Compton keeps his family close. The daughters are said to be smart, beautiful, and unmarried. They hold positions in his companies but still live at home , except for the times they travel as troubleshooters for their father’s business. They go overseas for months at a time to take care of foreign investments , both in the Middle East and Europe. ”
    “Boyfriends?” Diana asked.
    “Not that I found. Compton owns houses all over the world, and they’re like fortresses. State of the art security systems keep out trespassers. Compton International maintains a fleet of private jets, so he never avails himself of public transportation.”
    “So no one sees the wife or knows anything about offspring?”
    “Selene Compton does a lot of charity work. She ventures out occasionally, mostly to a play or an art exhibit, an occasional shopping spree in Europe, but she’s not the social butterfly she was before she married. I dug up a recent picture of her at the symphony, alone, by the way. It’s pretty grainy, but she’s still a knockout.”
    Diana was always amazed at how much information Jason unearth ed . Whatever floated around in cyberspace or in someone else’s computer, Jason would find a way to access it. If he couldn’t get the information, no one could.
    “Good job, Jason. Now Slater?” He was the one she was really interesting in.
    “You were right. Those ten years were tough to research. Shortly after dropping out of divinity school, he stacked up major medical bills. I hacked into the hospital accounts, but his personal records are probably on microf iche in the hospital’s archives. Even though h e was still insured by his parents because he was in college at the time, t he bills were astronomical. I hacked into the insurance company but like the hospital, records that old aren’t accessible. ”
    Diana knew what cost so much, and she