by L. J. Taylor
He slammed a fist down onto the counter. They would pay for this. He would make sure of it.
***
Charles walked into the 11th Street diner where he had agreed to meet Tyler for lunch. Due to the late mid-afternoon hour, the place was relatively empty.
Tyler sat in a booth at the back of the diner. Next to him was a stuffed shirt dressed in a suit. He was a clean-shaven Caucasian man in his mid-forties, of average height and average build, with dark hair. Charles walked up to the booth.
“Hey Man,” Tyler said.
Charles nodded. “I see you’ve brought company. What? We can’t have lunch together without you bringing backup?” It was an old joke – one Charles made whenever Tyler showed up to the party with an uninvited guest. He knew it wasn’t a good sign when Tyler didn’t chuckle.
“Charles, this is Agent Michaels. We wanted to talk to you today about Peachtree Consulting – specifically, the article that came out in today’s newspaper,” Tyler said.
Charles forced himself to grin. “Yeah. I read that. Peachtree’s dirty laundry aired all over the front page of the newspaper.”
“Were you the source of the documents the reporter referred to in her article?” Michaels asked.
Charles weighed his options. If he told the truth, the F.B.I. would haul him in for questioning and try to force him to cooperate with its investigation by threatening him with prosecution for hacking into Peachtree’s files. They’d want him to settle or otherwise put his lawsuit on the back burner pending the investigation. Although having the F.B.I. investigate Peachtree was an integral part of his overall plan to destroy the company, putting his case on the back burner was not. He shrugged. “I have no idea where she got her information from.”
“The reporter referred to documents she could have only gotten from an insider at Peachtree or you if they were produced by Peachtree in your case. We can’t ask the reporter about her sources because she’s dead. She was murdered yesterday. We suspect Peachtree had a hand in that as well, but we can’t prove it yet. I understand you and she went to the same high school together,” Michaels said.
Charles looked at Tyler, who remained impassive. “Yes. We were friends. What information did you say you had regarding Peachtree having her killed?”
A ghost of a smile played around Michaels’ thin lips. “I didn’t say we had information on that subject. I just said we suspect Peachtree had her killed. Listen, the F.B.I. needs your help on this. We need to know what you know about Peachtree and what documents you’ve received from them in discovery. Surely, you want to help us bring Peachtree down. I know I would if I were in your shoes.”
Charles shrugged again. “I’d like to help you. I really would. But the documents produced by Peachtree are subject to a confidentiality order.
Michaels’ lips got even thinner. His cheeks reddened slightly. He leaned forward. “I could subpoena your documents and haul you in for questioning.”
Charles smiled at the agent. “Good luck with that.”
He sat back in his chair in a relaxed pose that appeared to infuriate the F.B.I. agent even more. He picked up a menu from the table. “I’m going to order some lunch. Anybody else hungry?”
He imagined steam coming from Agent Michaels’ ears and saw Tyler try to smother a grin. Agent Michaels slid out from the booth and stood up. “I am shocked and dismayed at your lack of cooperation. I’d think you’d want to help us investigate the company that killed your wife and your friend. But apparently, you’re only interested in getting as much money as possible from your lawsuit. You are playing a very dangerous game, sir. Take care that you don’t end up being just another one of Peachtree’s victims.” He looked at Tyler. “Are you coming?”
Tyler shook his head. “No, I’m going to grab some lunch and see if I can’t talk some sense into Charles here. I’ll see you back at the office.”
“Okay,” Michaels said. He stalked out of the diner.
Charles and Tyler burst into laughter as soon as the diner doors closed behind him. Charles was the first to catch his breath. “Man, that cat sure was pissed.”
“He certainly was,” Tyler said. “I can’t say I blame him though. You played him like a damned violin.” He paused for a moment. “Listen man. I know you and Judith were close. I’m sorry about that.”
Charles’ hands balled into fists. “They’re going to pay for that, Tyler. They’re going to pay for Patti and Judy and all of the other people whose lives they destroyed.”
Tyler looked worried. “Hey man. Don’t do anything stupid. Let us handle this before you get into something you can’t get out of. Speaking of which, why the resistance to assisting us with the investigation? I mean, I know you’re not holding out for more money. So what’s up?”
Charles briefly debated how much to tell him. In the end, he decided to play it straight. He knew he could trust Tyler with his life. “Okay. I’m talking to you now as a friend – not as an F.B.I. agent.”
Tyler twisted his lips, balled up a napkin and threw it at him.
Charles laughed. “I was Judy’s source for the article. Some of the documents I gave her were subject to the confidentiality order. The others, well . . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
“The others what?” Tyler asked. His eyes widened as realization dawned. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t go see our friend Darryl and ask for his assistance in this matter.”
Charles couldn’t quite cover the smile that came to his face. Tyler knew him too well.
“Ask me no secrets and I’ll tell you no lies, my brother,” he said. “So, you see, I can’t have the F.B.I. all up in my business right now. Besides, between the hacking and the confidentiality order, the F.B.I. won’t be able to use the documents even if I did hand them over. But if I can get Peachtree to produce clean copies of the documents in my case and get the jury to find that Peachtree was engaged in illegal activities at the time of the accident, then that finding will be public. The F.B.I. would have all the probable cause it needs to get access to both Peachtree’s files and the documents Peachtree produced in my case.”
Tyler stared at him in admiration and chuckled. “Now I see why you were the big dog in the Corps. As usual, you’ve thought of everything.”
Charles thought of the people who had died as a result of his plan and the situation with Kathy. He grimaced. “Not everything. I didn’t figure on them killing Judy or some of Darryl’s hacker buddies who helped him out. I also didn’t anticipate them trying to blackmail my attorney into getting me to settle the case.” He told Tyler about the videotape.
Tyler shook his head. “Michaels is right about one thing. You are playing a very dangerous game, Bro. You have feelings for this woman?”
Charles nodded. “I do, but I don’t see them going anywhere. Too much has happened. She’s going to be pissed when she reads the article. She’ll never trust me again if she ever did.”
“You were just trying to protect her the best way you knew how. Maybe she’ll see that.”
Charles shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
After Charles finished his lunch with Tyler, he headed back home. He kept an eye out for surveillance, but didn’t notice anyone tailing him this time. Maybe, now that the cat was out of the bag, Peachtree didn’t see a need to keep tabs on him. They probably thought he’d done all the damage he could. They were wrong.
CHAPTER XVI
After meeting a friend and retaining her services as an employment law attorney, Kathy headed over to Charles’ condominium. She’d gotten the address off the bills that were sent out by the firm’s accounting department for his legal work. She needed to speak to him and this conversation could not take place in the office. When she got to his building, however, the guard called upstairs and determined that he wasn’t at home. She told the guard she’d wait in the lobby until he returned.
By the time he walked through the automated lobby doors, she’d paced the tastefully decorated seating area for twen
ty minutes. He spotted her immediately and stopped short. She could see guilt and some other emotion she couldn’t define all over his face. It just made her more angry. She stalked across the lobby toward him at warp speed, her pumps clicking a staccato beat on the marble floor. She got a little satisfaction from the wary look he gave her as she approached. She wanted to deck him or at least curse him out right there in the lobby with the security guard as an audience, but instead, she summoned up all the control she could muster and spoke through clenched teeth.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Have you done the necessary exterminating in your apartment or do we need to go elsewhere?”
“We can go upstairs,” he said. “I’ll make sure it’s clean.”
She nodded. Good. She’d be able to kill him in the privacy of his own home without witnesses.
He pressed the elevator call button and they rode upstairs in silence. They got out on the Penthouse floor and headed left. It was a beautiful building located on the water in Key Biscayne. There appeared to be only two apartments on the Penthouse floor. Kathy could see the Atlantic Ocean from the windows they passed in the hallway. It was overcast. Dark storm clouds loomed on the horizon.
Charles extracted a set of keys from his pocket and let them into his apartment. He closed the door behind her, put an index finger to his lips and signaled for her to wait there. He took out what appeared to be a miniature version of one of the scanners she’d seen McKinley Consulting use to scan her office and made a thorough sweep of the apartment.
Kathy stood there, seething, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he came back into the foyer, dropped his keys and the scanner onto a small table by the door, and turned to her.
“It’s safe to talk. The apartment’s clean,” he said. “Please, come in and have a seat.” He gestured toward the breakfast nook. “Can I get you something to drink?”
He moved into the kitchen. She remained on the outer side of the breakfast nook. She didn’t trust herself to get too close to the chef’s knives set in a rack on the kitchen counter next to the large stainless steel gas range.
“I saw the article on Peachtree in the paper this morning,” she said. When he started to speak, she held up a hand, palm facing outward, and shook her head. “No, don’t even bother to deny that you leaked confidential information to that reporter because I know you did. My MIS department found that our network had been accessed by an outsider through the web shortly after you and I met to prepare you for your deposition.”
Pain flooded through her as she thought about how much she had trusted him and how he had violated that trust. She paused for a moment, struggling to get enough of a grip on her emotions to get out what she had to say. “I trusted you. I trusted you, you bastard and what did you do? You put this case and my career in jeopardy by leaking confidential information to a reporter. That was your plan all along wasn’t it? You wanted to expose Peachtree and the C.I.A.’s illegal activities to the public. You never gave a damn about the case. You certainly didn’t give a damn about me. What was that in New York – a little dessert on the side to go with your revenge? A little tension release?”
“No,” he said quietly. “That night was real. I never meant for it to happen, but it was real.” He took a step toward the breakfast counter - toward her. She took a step back.
He sighed. “Yes. You’re right. Publicly exposing Peachtree’s illegal activities was my agenda from the start. In fact, destroying Peachtree altogether is still my agenda. I was so hell-bent on revenge that I didn’t think about or care who got hurt in the process. I never meant to hurt you, but after Weisman threatened to release the video and file a Bar complaint against you, the only way I could think of to protect you was to take away their need to carry through with the threat. I knew that if Peachtree and the C.I.A.’s secrets were publicly exposed, they wouldn’t resort to extortion and more killings to keep those secrets.”
Kathy stared at him. “Trying to protect me? How convenient. You get to further your revenge agenda by leaking confidential information to a reporter and protect me at the same time.” She crooked two fingers on each side of her head to simulate quotation marks when she said the word “protect.” She shook her head, slowly. “I don’t understand. If you really think I’m so stupid as to believe that bullshit, why did you hire me to represent you?” When he opened up his mouth to answer her, she held up her hand again. “Don’t answer that. I’ve had all the bullshit I can stand for one day.”
She took a step forward and slapped her hands down onto the breakfast counter. He took a step back.
“This is the deal,” she said. “First, if you were harboring any fantasies of ever touching me again - in life - you can forget them. I don’t trust you and I damn sure don’t like you very much right now. I don’t care whether you fire the firm or not. In fact, it would be better for me, and for you, if you did. The firm will probably insist we file a motion to withdraw from your case anyway when Weisman files the Bar complaint.”
“Second, your little stunt did more harm to your case than you realize. If I were Weisman, I’d file a motion to have the case dismissed as a sanction for violating the confidentiality order. While the Judge probably won’t throw the case out, she is likely to impose a lesser sanction.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like barring you from being able to use any of the leaked information in proving your case. She’ll probably hold this against you when making other rulings in the case too. So, you have to decide whether you want to proceed with this case or not. If you do, then you have an uphill battle. And I doubt, very seriously, that Peachtree’s last settlement offer is still on the table.”
Charles was quiet for a moment. He looked down at the floor and appeared to be, well, sad. There was no other way to describe it. She wondered what he was sad about – that he’d probably messed up his case? That Peachtree’s settlement offer was probably off the table? That he’d never get to touch her again? Or was he only sad that he had gotten caught? Who knew? And why did she care?
He looked up at her, his eyes filled with pain. “More has gone wrong with my plan to bring Peachtree down than you know. The reporter who ran that story was a good friend of mine. She was killed last night. The F.B.I. thinks it was Peachtree, but they can’t prove it.”
Kathy slumped against the breakfast nook and stared at him. “Oh my God.” What had he done? She hadn’t expected to feel anything but anger toward him. But now, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the guilt and loss he must feel over the death of his friend.
“I was hoping to be able to assist the F.B.I. in its investigation of Peachtree by getting the documents into evidence and getting the jury to make a special finding on the verdict form that Peachtree was involved in illegal activities at the time of the accident. But, from what you just said, that’s not very likely to happen,” he said. He lowered his elbows onto the breakfast counter and put his face into his hands.
He looked so tired, so utterly defeated, that, despite her anger, the fighter in Kathy kicked in. She hated bullies – especially corporate ones – and she’d be damned if she’d let Peachtree win this lawsuit using murder and blackmail as its legal strategy.
“It’s not very likely the Court will let the documents in, but it’s not impossible,” she said.
Charles looked up at her. “What?”
She backed away from the breakfast nook and began to pace as she thought it out. “Even if we can’t get the documents that were leaked into evidence, we may be able to get the Court to compel Peachtree to produce clean copies of other documents we could use to prove they were conducting operations for the C.I.A. on U.S. soil at the time of the incident. Yeah, we could file a motion to compel.” She waved a hand. “That is, unless I get disbarred first, then your new attorney could file the motion.”
She looked at him and thought she saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. Why did that make her feel better?
***
<
br /> Kathy went back to her office and assigned Erin to work on the motion. Erin tried to get details about Kathy’s confrontation with Charles, but Kathy evaded since Erin only knew half the story. She’d learn the rest of it soon enough when and if a Bar complaint was filed and the news of her affair with Charles became public.
In her e-mail in-box was a copy of Peachtree’s motion requesting to have the Court dismiss the lawsuit. Weisman had wasted no time. According to Annette, the papers had been hand-delivered to her office just before noon. As she read through them, she got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The motion was pretty sound. Despite all the assurances she had given Charles, she wasn’t sure how Judge McCarthy would rule on it. If the Court granted Peachtree’s motion, the lawsuit would be over. Peachtree would win.
She sighed, put the cap back on the yellow highlighter she held in her right hand and tapped it on her desk. She sat back in her chair. There were too many issues she had to deal with at once. She didn’t even know whether the firm would allow her to remain on Charles’ case after Weisman filed the Bar complaint. Had he filed it yet?
She turned to her computer and accessed the Web to check the Florida Bar website. Once there, she typed in her password and entered the “Members Only” section. She then pulled up her record. Even though she had half expected to see it, the breath whooshed from her body and her right hand rose to cover her heart when she saw a notation on her previously spotless record that a Bar complaint had been made.
That was it. She had to talk to Steve and she had to inform the firm before the Bar complaint became public knowledge. Steve defended lawyers against Bar complaints all the time. He was usually successful. As a past President of the Florida Bar, he still commanded the respect of the organization. She wanted to die with shame at the thought of having to tell her mentor about the videotape and the complaint. She’d put this moment off for as long as possible because she knew he was going to be so disappointed in her. She hated to disappoint him. In some ways, he was like a father to her.
