by Lisa Harris
Sienna gasped.
“I’ll keep you posted on the investigation.” Stella sighed. “Was he really only fifty-five?”
Sienna nodded. “He’s very healthy, and has no vices except for wine and women.”
Earl cleared his throat. He was too far away to hold her hand. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” Sienna said. “That’s three people from GOOP dead in one year. Anyone know what’s going on?”
“The GBI and FBI are working on it,” Stella said. “Since Mr. Ford died in Florida airspace, the FBI wants to know if it’s of natural causes or foul play.”
Sienna could only hope that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, along with their federal counterparts, would scour the company top down. There were so many things wrong with GOOP, from hiring and firing practices to the various transactions under the table.
“They would want to talk to me,” Sienna said. “At this moment, I’m missing.”
“You were supposed to be on the flight,” Stella said.
“Yes, sitting next to Earl in business class.” Someone else came to Sienna’s mind. “Is Agent Kimball involved?”
“You mean in the investigation or as a suspect?” Stella laughed.
Earl did not laugh. “What do you advise, Stella?”
Stella still did not sit down. “It’s problematic that you and Sienna fled the safe house. And then fled the Conyers crime scene. And then didn’t show up at the safe house or airport.”
“You’re saying we look suspicious,” Sienna said.
“Don’t you?” Stella asked.
“Well, you might have a point,” Earl said. “Three people have died—and two within twelve hours of each other. One is in WITSEC. On top of that, the safe house was compromised. It can be said that we don’t trust the FBI—with the exception of you—at this time.”
“By not disclosing that I know where you two are, I’ve allowed you two to put me in a bad position,” Stella said.
Sienna listened and agreed. She didn’t want Stella to tell the FBI where she was. Not just yet. Not when there were bad apples in the bureau.
And not when there was something she had to do. If Mr. Ford was really dead, then she had to carry out the instructions he had given her several months back after it had been confirmed that Rocco was murdered. Sienna wasn’t sure why Mr. Ford had trusted her so much. Perhaps her loyalty and the fact that she answered to God might have swayed his judgement of her.
“I have an out for you.” Earl leaned back against the sofa. “You can start looking into Agent Kimball. Something is off. She said Dana was at Grady, and then we found out she didn’t go there. She’s in WITSEC. Kimball is my handler, and yet the safe house was so insecure that Killjoy Burditt found it, killed Agent Perez, and took her place before anyone realized it.”
“And she let you play a role in the operation.” Cayson pointed to Earl. “You’re a civilian.”
“On the contrary, my being a civilian is an advantage,” Earl said. “I’m not an undercover agent. At Hu Knows, I’m already under the radar, so they won’t find my employment records anywhere. I’m perpetually in between jobs.”
“I can’t believe Mr. Ford is dead.” Sienna held back her tears. “Then it’s over—all this to-do that I have with the FBI. How could anyone testify against a dead man?”
“Well, he might have accomplices.”
“To be honest with you, I still don’t believe that Mr. Ford embezzled company funds. I was shocked when I discovered the transactions, but even that was something I stumbled on,” Sienna explained. “I was having lunch with Dana at her desk while she was working and it was on her screen.”
“Did she mean to show you deliberately?” Earl asked.
“That’s an interesting question.” Sienna wondered about that angle which she hadn’t thought of before. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“I’m sure the FBI is exploring all angles. I was only wondering if Mr. Ford was set up. Now that he’s dead, he can’t defend himself.”
Stella nodded. “Good point. Let’s say that Mr. Ford might not be the only person interested in siphoning off billions of dollars from GOOP.”
Cayson laughed. “Why on earth is it GOOP? They could have rearranged it to say POGO or something else.”
Sienna shrugged. “I wasn’t there when Gavard and Mr. Ford started the company with their inheritance money after their mother passed away. She handed them some old money, and the two of them multiplied it into billions with savvy investments. Word was, they both had a keen sense of where they should put their money.”
“They mostly buy commercial buildings, yes?” Earl asked. “And land. I remember that much from what Helen sent me.”
“GOOP buys and sells anything you can claim as real estate,” Sienna said for the benefit of Stella and Cayson. “Lately, they have sold a tremendous amount of land and buildings to people outside the USA. Unlike other countries, ours doesn’t have a rule that says you can’t sell to foreign interests.”
“And that’s where the FBI comes in,” Earl added. “Some of the sales are to shell companies or to government entities that aren’t friends of the USA.”
Sienna had nothing verifiable to say. Dana, Rocco, and Arun had been snooping around. “I just work there. They pay me a salary, plus Christmas bonuses—which I’m assuming I’m not getting now. All I know is that we have dead employees, plus an accountant in WITSEC.”
Stella shifted on her feet. “You called the FBI, though.”
“Because I saw things I probably shouldn’t have, and after I did, I felt threatened at work.” Sienna regretted seeing what had been on Dana’s computer screen. “I didn’t call the FBI until after Rocco was murdered.”
She wondered if she should start looking for a new job. But she had made a promise to Mr. Ford that if he died—especially suddenly—that she would do this one thing for him. Now that made her wonder if she had wronged Mr. Ford by talking to the FBI.
“What if Mr. Ford was set up and I played right into it?” Sienna asked.
“Did you just call the FBI hotline?” Stella seemed to be still asking about the whistleblowing.
“No. Dana gave me Agent Kimball’s name. In fact, Kimball was the same contact for Rocco.” It was starting to make sense.
A movement made Sienna look up. She glanced over at Cayson, who had to leave.
“And Arun?” Earl asked. “Was Arun a whistleblower too?”
“I have no idea.” Sienna looked at Stella.
“I’ll find out.” The FBI agent made a note on her phone as she followed Cayson. “All right. I better get back to the machine room. I’m supposed to shadow Cayson. See? He’s gone.”
Chapter Eleven
When they were alone again, Sienna and Earl looked at each other.
“Do you think someone killed Mr. Ford?” Sienna asked.
“If someone did, then your life is in graver danger than we thought.”
“What should I do?”
“I don’t think you can go to the conference now.”
“I’m sure it’ll be canceled. I need to log in to my work computer.” Sienna eyed Earl’s laptop which he had left on the coffee table while it was being charged the night before.
“Let me ask Cayson to give you a secure laptop.” Earl got up from the sofa. “More coffee?”
Sienna peeked into her coffee mug. She could see the bottom. “Did I drink all that?”
“While we were conversing. It was probably automatic.” Earl chuckled.
“Probably. Well, I don’t need more coffee. I found the women’s locker room. Did you say you have a spare shirt and a pair of shorts?”
Earl nodded. He retrieved his backpack from near the sofa. “Black or gray?”
“Gray.”
Earl tossed her the tee shirt. It was crumpled, but smelled of fabric softener.
“Gym shorts or cycling shorts?” Earl lifted them.
The gym shorts looked too large for her, but the b
ike shorts looked like they were made of spandex. They would be snug on Earl, but probably loose on her. She pointed to the bright tangerine cycling shorts.
“Good choice. It’s stretchable.” He tossed her the pair of shorts.
“I’ll be right back.” Sienna headed for the shower.
“Meanwhile, I’ll ask Cayson for a spare laptop—or two for both of us.”
“Thank you. You’re so sweet.”
“I wanted to say I get paid to do this, but even if I wasn’t, I’d still do it,” Earl said.
It was touching. “I appreciate it. Hopefully, it will be over soon and we can get back to our own lives.”
“You know, I kind of like our friendship.”
“Without the deaths around us,” Sienna said quietly.
“Right.” Earl sighed. “If we didn’t have any of these dark things happening, and we somehow met, would you have gone out with me for coffee or something?”
“If we lived in the same city, sure.” Sienna meant it. “Considering we both know Helen and could have met through her, I don’t see why we couldn’t have coffee.”
“Or lunch.”
“Yeah. Why not?”
They stood there, wordlessly.
Sienna broke the impasse. “Would you please tell Cayson I want a light laptop?”
“Yes. I’ll do that.” Earl drew a deep breath.
Sienna had no idea what was on his mind, but something had changed between them. They had been with each other twenty-four seven since Thursday, and had known each other for one week since he arrived from Savannah for their “dress rehearsal.”
Whatever it was, she felt that they had built a rapport, in spite of the dire circumstances in which they had found themselves. They were both still alive, and had survived Dana’s house, Kimball’s safe house, and Arun’s house.
God had protected both of them.
For a reason.
Sienna found a shower kit in the bathroom. It had a clean towel, a hand towel, and a face towel in it, together with a new bar of soap, hotel-size bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and a thin pair of disposable sandals for the shower stall.
Someone had thought about all that.
The water pressure was excellent and the rain shower was a luxury. Sienna figured Binary Systems employees practically lived in the building. That explained the lounge area looking like a sprawling day hotel at some airports in the world, next to a full-size kitchen, where employees could cook meals—if they had time at all.
Standing under the pulsating streams of warm water, Sienna could not see her way through the mess she was in. GOOP was living up to its name, after all.
What had they wanted from Rocco? Arun? Mr. Ford?
Or had it all been a great big lie? Were they really dead? Sienna hadn’t seen any of their bodies. Where was the proof?
Perhaps they were all alive somewhere in the world, away from the woes of working at a multi-billion-dollar venture capitalist firm that probably had more enemies than friends. At least, Mr. Ford had told her so.
He had said many things to her in the privacy of his office that she could not tell anyone else. Granted, there were things she would never say to anyone because they pertained to his estranged wife before their messy divorce.
Interestingly, Melissa Ford had zero interest in her then-husband’s company. She had focused on raising her two daughters, who would rather be social-media influencers than go to business school like their dad. After the divorce, she had sold her settlement shares to GOOP investors, and then moved the daughters home to Missouri.
That had been the last time Mr. Ford had spoken about his family. Shortly after the divorce, he started going out with his accountant—who was also Gavard’s accountant.
Sienna wondered if Dana and Gavard could have…
Nah. Impossible. They disliked each other. Dana avoided talking to Gavard if at all possible—except at accounting meetings.
Sienna turned off the shower. In the changing zone, she found a hairdryer.
She still could not believe that Mr. Ford was dead. The embezzling investigation was still continuing. Would it ever get to court now?
To begin with, why would anyone accuse the soft-spoken Mr. Ford of embezzling money from his own company? While Gavard lived a lavish lifestyle with his superyacht on the Atlantic Ocean and his numerous vacation homes all over the world, Mr. Ford had been the opposite. Living frugally and driving his old Saab, he could have easily been mistaken for one of the executives rather than the CEO and part owner of the private company.
If anyone needed money, it would be Gavard.
However, how much did he want? With a personal fortune of at least fifty-billion dollars, Gavard could do anything he wanted.
His wife Celestia was one of the sweetest people Sienna had ever met. She was kind and generous, and still believed in sending handwritten Christmas cards year after year.
Sadly, the Gavards didn’t have children of their own, and neither wanted to adopt—according to Dana, who was in the know. So there they were, in their late fifties, with no heirs to hand over their fortune to.
Earl’s gray tee shirt was a hundred percent cotton. So soft and comfortable that Sienna could sleep in it. However, she couldn’t. There was work to be done.
The shirt was long because Earl was tall. Sienna was pretty tall herself, at five foot nine, but his shirt still covered half her thighs, and therefore half of the tangerine shorts, which fitted her loosely.
By the time she came out of the locker room, Earl was sitting at a table with two laptops in front of him, and another guy, who was dressed in all black.
He didn’t look up when Sienna approached them.
“Hey, you look great.” Earl smiled. “I like my clothes on you…uh… That came out all wrong.”
“I’ll be sure to launder and fold them before I return them to you.”
“I’ve set it up so the VPN comes on automatically,” Computer Guy said. “Make sure that’s the only route you take.”
“Okay. What’s my password again?” Earl wrote it down on a napkin.
“Don’t write it down,” Computer Guy said.
“How else am I going to remember it?” Earl grinned. “Sienna, this is Kelvin. He works in the computer room.”
Kelvin waved without looking up. “Hey.”
“Kelvin, this is Sienna,” Earl said.
“I’ll be done in a minute.” Kelvin’s eyes were on the laptop screen.
“When you’re done, I need to talk with you,” Sienna said to Earl.
Earl nodded. He seemed to be trying to read her expression.
Sienna kept a poker face. She didn’t know who Kelvin was, and she wasn’t about to say something he shouldn’t hear.
Instead of waiting there, Sienna went to the kitchen to forage for breakfast. She found a box of smaller packets of oatmeal. Almost all of them had high sugar content and none of them were organic.
Then again, she might not live long enough to deal with the repercussions of the above.
She found a paper bowl, and heated the oatmeal in one of the two microwaves in the kitchen. While waiting for her oatmeal, she poured herself another cup of Kona black coffee.
She watched Kelvin walk out of the lounge.
Earl followed him but stopped at the kitchen. “You wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Is anyone else around?”
“All working.” Earl poured himself another cup of coffee. “What is it about?”
Sienna kept her voice down. “You don’t want me to run off and do my own thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I have to make a trip,” Sienna said.
“What trip?”
“Side trip. I promised Mr. Ford that if he died suddenly, I’d do this for him.”
“Do what?”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
Earl frowned. “Doesn’t sound safe.”
“I think he knew someone was coming after him. I felt bad w
hen he told me that.”
“Before or after you talked to the FBI?”
“After.”
“Then I wonder if he was only trying to elicit sympathy out of you,” Earl suggested.
“I’ve worked for him for ten years. I would’ve spotted it if he tried to manipulate my emotions.”
“Would you? If you worked for him that long, could you have lost some perspective?”
“Well…” Sienna wasn’t sure.
“Tell me I have a good point.”
Sienna nodded. “Still, I promised him I’d do this one thing for him. I’m the only one who knows the combination of the—uh, never mind.”
“Of a safe, perhaps?” Earl waited, as if he was the calmest person on earth. He drank coffee while he listened to Sienna.
“I’m not sure if I feel safe. I would feel better if you come with me.”
“You know where we’re going.” More sips of coffee.
“Yes. I’ve been there before.”
“And you want me to go with you.”
“We might need your tow-truck friend if you can spare him.”
“Because?” He put down the coffee mug.
“Because we could always use a third person.”
“To?”
“To keep us safe.” When we get to the safe.
“When do you need an answer?” Earl remained standing where he was by the counter, about four feet away from Sienna.
“Now.”
“And when do we leave?”
“After we find out what’s in the USB drive.”
“That could be whenever.”
“Then whenever it is,” Sienna said. “I can’t leave without the whistle.”
She waited for Earl to respond. “Say something.”
“Once we have the whistle, we can go,” Earl said. “No reason to stay here all weekend.”
“Do you think they’re getting close?”
“Yes. When I asked Cayson for the laptops, he said they were close.”
“How close?”
Earl shrugged. “We could be here all weekend.”
“Am I safe here?”
