“Thank you for coming this morning, Ms. Harrison, Ms. Boswell,” he said in welcome.
Marilyn stared back at him fiercely before flicking her gaze to Orson. Her expression softened immeasurably. “What’s this all about, Orson? We weren’t expecting you back yet. What’s going on?”
Orson looked across the table at his daughter, a wealth of sadness in his eyes. Kirk wished it could have been anyone else but Sally doing this to him. The betrayal that one of his own staff had sold out to the opposition was bad enough, but that it was his daughter?
* * *
Sally clenched her hands together in her lap to stop them from shaking. She felt as though something truly dreadful was about to happen. Her father hadn’t mentioned anything about this meeting last night, but then again, he had been a little distracted by her news. When Kirk had told her to come to a meeting this morning and bring an advocate, to say she’d been stunned would be an understatement. This was their usual protocol when someone was being brought into a disciplinary discussion or, worse, being notified of redundancy. Why would either of those situations apply to her?
What if she actually had to speak in front of these people? Already she could feel her throat closing up and the trickle of perspiration that ran down her spine. Next to her, Marilyn reached over and placed her hand over Sally’s.
“Everything will be okay, don’t you worry. Your father won’t let anything happen to you,” the older woman whispered reassuringly.
Sally couldn’t respond. Already her mouth had dried and her throat choked. Kirk rose to his feet and began to speak. He was a commanding presence in the room and everyone gave him their full attention. Or maybe it was that none of them wanted to make eye contact with her. Not even her father. The remains of the breakfast she’d eaten so hastily at her desk this morning, in deference to the growing child inside her, threatened to make a comeback.
The only one paying attention to her was Kirk, who seemed to be addressing her directly as he gave what he described as a summary of the information he’d shared with the board before her arrival. She listened with half an ear as Kirk listed a series of HIT initiatives that had been leaked to another company before the merger with Tanner Enterprises and explained the assignment that Orson had given him when he’d agreed to the merger. The lost contracts weren’t news to her. After all, she’d also been shocked at how they had happened.
“The only logical conclusion we could come to is that there was someone internally working against the company. After an investigation, we believe we know exactly who that person is.”
Sally looked around the room. All eyes were on her now. Realization dawned. They thought she was the leak?
No!
Ten
“Are you suggesting it’s me? That I’m behind all this?”
The words felt like cotton wool in her mouth.
“Based on the evidence presented to us, yes. Would you like to respond to the allegation?” Kirk asked.
“Damn straight I would!” Anger seemed to overcome her fear of speaking in a group like this, and she shot to her feet. “How dare you accuse me of this? Dad? How could you believe him?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t want to believe it, but the facts are all there. The information came from your laptop.”
Sally felt the world tilt. Her laptop? The one she carried with her everywhere? The one with double password protection? She slowly sat back down, shaking her head.
“It wasn’t me. Someone else must have accessed it.”
“Are you saying you shared your passwords with someone else?” Kirk pressed.
“Of course I didn’t. That’s against company policy.”
Giving access to her computer was almost as serious an offense as what they were accusing her of.
“I need a lawyer,” she said, her voice starting to shake again as her rush of anger faded as quickly as it had happened and reality began to dawn. Whoever had framed her had done a thorough job. There was no way out of this without serious consequences.
“Yes, I believe you do,” Kirk said firmly. “In the meantime, you will stand down from all duties and will forfeit all company property and passwords pending a full, externally run investigation.”
“Stand down?”
“Standard operating procedure in a case like this,” Marilyn said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure everything will be just fine.”
Sally begged to differ. Right now it seemed as though every facet of her life was in turmoil, and all of it tied back to the moment she’d met Kirk Tanner. Oh, yes, it was all too convenient, wasn’t it? She remained seated at the table as one by one, the board members and her father and Marilyn left the room, leaving her alone with Kirk.
“This is all very convenient for you, isn’t it?” she said bitterly when the last person closed the door behind them.
“Convenient?” He shook his head. “It’s anything but.”
“Tell me, then. When you met me that night at the club, did you already suspect me of this?”
She had to know, even though hearing the truth from his lips would cause no end of hurt.
“Everyone was under suspicion. But—”
“But nothing. I was under suspicion, and you seduced me, knowing who I was. Did you think I’d let something slip in the heat of the moment? If so, you were wasting your time. I’m innocent. Someone, or several someones, have set me up. I already told you that it was hard for me to prove myself here. Obviously that goes deeper than I thought if an employee is prepared to go to these lengths to discredit me.”
“And if that is the case, the investigation will show it and you’ll be reinstated. In the interim, there’ll be an announcement that you’re taking a short medical leave.”
Sally barked a humorless laugh. “And doesn’t that fall right into your hands.”
“What do you mean?” Kirk paused in collecting the papers that had been in front of him on the table.
“You already made it clear you want to take care of me and support me while I’m carrying your baby, and I refused you. Is this your way of ensuring you get your way? You’re already proving yourself to be the son my father never had. How much more are you going to strip from me before you’re done?” She wished she could unsay the words she’d uttered, but maybe now that they were out, she could face the truth of them. The truth that she’d never been good enough, articulate enough, strong enough to be the person her father had truly needed.
To her horror, she burst into tears. Kirk rushed to her side, and she shoved him away from her.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again.”
She clumsily swiped at the tears on her cheeks. Kirk withdrew, but she could see the concern painted clearly on his face.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, her voice shaking with the effort it took to bring herself under control. “You already admitted you slept with me that first time, knowing who I was. Did you think it was me from the start? Was that why you didn’t disclose who you were when you first met me? Because you suspected me of being the person responsible for undermining HIT—was that why you slept with me?”
He didn’t say anything, and she could see her words had found their mark. It was a cruel reality to have to face that she’d been a target all along. For information and nothing else.
A shudder racked her body. And to think she’d even begun to consider what it would be like to be married to him. To build a family home together. What kind of a fool was she?
One who learned from the past, that’s who.
“Sally, that night wasn’t what I expected—hell, you weren’t what I expected—”
“No. Stop.” She held up her hand. “Don’t bother. I get it. If you hadn’t wanted information out of me, we’d never have met until the merger announcement.”<
br />
“I didn’t fake my attraction to you, Sally. From the minute you walked in that bar, you had my attention. But, yes, I realized that I’d seen you before, and it didn’t take me long to figure out it was from the files your father had supplied me. I’d been going through all the staff profiles, trying to get a sense of the people I would be dealing with and, to be honest, trying to see who might have the means and a reason to be supplying our rival with sensitive information.”
“Did my father suspect me?”
“No, he didn’t, but he had to include you in the profiles because not to do so would be seen as showing bias. You understand that, don’t you?”
She sighed heavily. “And now you think I’m it. So what now? You get security to escort me to my office to empty my drawers and then march me out of the building?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She felt a glimmer of hope that she wasn’t to be treated like a criminal, but then he continued.
“Marilyn will be instructed to remove your personal items from your office. As to the rest, including all your electronics and your cell phone, they’ll be retained as part of the investigation.”
Even though she knew she was innocent, the very thought of what was happening made her feel dirty somehow. Tainted. Would she ever be able to return and hold her head up high? Would her colleagues be able to look at her the same way? Trust her? Oh, sure. She knew that they were being told she was going on medical leave, but they were clever people. Her taking time off hard on the heels of the announcement by a competitor of an identical project to the one they’d touted to the senior management only two days ago? They’d put two and two together and links would be made.
She was ruined. Everything she’d yearned for, trained for and dreamed of had been torn from her by a traitor in this very building. She had to find some way to prove her innocence. Maybe then she could redeem herself in her father’s eyes and in those of her peers.
“I see,” she said with all the dignity she could muster. “Tell me, Kirk. Was I worth it?”
“Worth it?”
“The sacrifice of sleeping with me? Taking one for the team.”
Before he could answer, she slammed her cell phone on the table in front of her, swept out of the boardroom and headed for the elevators. She pressed the down button and prayed for the swift arrival of a car to get her out of here. All her life she’d wanted to prove herself here—to be a valued member of the team—and now she was a pariah. She couldn’t even begin to parse through her grief. And her dad? She’d seen the look on his face, seen the disappointment, the accusations, the questions. She hoped he would believe in her innocence once they’d had a chance to talk, but since Kirk so obviously already had her father’s ear, what hope did she have of him believing her over Kirk?
The elevator in front of her pinged open, and she stepped into the car and hit the button for the lobby level. The doors began to slide closed but jerked back as a suited arm stopped them from closing. Kirk, of course.
“What? Did you forget to frisk me before I leave the building?” she baited him as he faced her and the doors closed behind him.
“Don’t take this out on me, Sally. You know everything we’ve asked of you is standard practice while the investigation is being conducted.”
“Don’t be so pompous. You’ve lied to me from the moment you met me. Why not try being honest for a change?”
“You want honest?” he said tightly. “I’ll give you honest. You caught my eye the second you arrived in the bar that night. I didn’t recognize you immediately, but I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
She snorted inelegantly. “I may be a little naive from time to time, but don’t expect me to believe you on that one. There were any number of women, far more beautiful than me, in the bar that night.”
“And yet I only had eyes for you.”
The look she gave him was skeptical. “A little clichéd, wouldn’t you say?”
“Sally, stop trying to put up walls between us.”
“Me?” She was incredulous now. “You’re the one accusing me of corporate espionage!”
“Look, I feel sick to my stomach about this entire situation. We have to investigate further and we have to be seen to be dealing with this in the correct manner. I don’t want to believe you’re the culprit, but the evidence is too strong to suggest otherwise.”
“How sweet of you to say so,” she replied in a tone that made it quite clear she thought it anything but.
Sally held herself rigid as the doors opened to reveal the lobby. She had to get out of here. Out of the elevator, out of the building and out of Kirk’s sphere. She started to walk, barely conscious of Kirk walking beside her.
“Sally!” he called as she strode out the front doors and onto the sidewalk.
She stopped and turned around. “You have no power over me out here. I’m just a regular person on the street right now. Remember? I don’t answer to you or to anyone else.”
“Where’s Benton?”
“Right now, I don’t know and I don’t care. Maybe the decision has been made that I don’t need a bodyguard anymore. I’d say my commercial value has dropped given this morning’s revelations, wouldn’t you? Don’t worry your handsome little head about it.”
Kirk took a step forward and took her by the arm. “You’re still carrying my baby,” he said coldly. “I have a duty to care for my child.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Of course. The baby. There was always something or someone else that would take precedence over her, wasn’t there. She opened her eyes and stared at his hand on her arm then up at his face. He wasn’t holding her firmly, but he wasn’t letting go, either. It drove it home to her that the life she thought she’d had was not her own. Never had been and likely now never would be.
Sally looked very deliberately down at his hand and then up to his face. He let her go. Turning on her heel, she walked briskly away from him and headed for home.
* * *
She’d been stuck at home for a week. The weather, in true Seattle fashion, had been gloomy and cold. Thanksgiving was only a week away, and Sally was finding it darn hard to be thankful for anything right now. The lawyer she’d spoken to had told her there was little they could do until charges were officially brought against her, if that indeed happened. In the meantime, she’d had dinner with her father a couple of times but the atmosphere between them was strained, to say the least. The good news was that he’d recovered enough to begin working again. He was doing half days at the office three times a week, and she had a suspicion he was also working a little from home. Not surprising, since his work had been his key focus all his life.
Medically he was hitting all his markers, and his cardiologist was pleased with his recovery. For that, at least, she was grateful.
Sally had caught up with her leisure reading and, wrapped up warm, had gone for several walks in the park over the past few days, but she itched to be able to use her mind to do more. Being inactive didn’t suit her at all. And, all the time, it bugged her that whoever was truly behind the leaks from the office continued to work there. Obviously lying low for now.
She had spent a lot of her walking time thinking about the situation and what she could do to prove her innocence. Since her own access to the internet had been restricted by the confiscation of her equipment, she decided that she would have to use public means to conduct her own investigation. And that investigation would start with Kirk Tanner.
Last night she’d booked time for a computer at the Bellevue Library and when the cab dropped her off at the building this morning, she felt a frisson of excitement for the first time in days. She had a maximum session length of only two hours. She’d have to work fast.
Sally had always loved research and delving deeper into problems. Now she had something she really needed to
get her teeth into. She started with Kirk. After all, wasn’t he the epicenter of the quake that had shaken her life off its foundations?
It didn’t take too much digging before she began to bring up information that related to Kirk’s family. Thanks to the digitization of the local papers, there was plenty of information readily available about Frank Tanner, starting with a photo and article of him and her dad excitedly announcing their start-up IT company.
She stared at the photo of the younger version of her dad and a man who looked a lot like Kirk. The men’s pride in their achievement was almost palpable. Sally sent the article to the printer and moved on to the next news story. This one was a lot less joyful. It described the arrest of a man under the influence of substances after police had been called to a domestic violence incident. The man was Frank Tanner.
A chill shivered down her spine as she read the brief report of his court appearance. A few years later there was another report—again with substance abuse, again with domestic violence. And then, finally, a brief report of Frank Tanner’s death from a fall from Deception Bridge. The autopsy had reported that he had enough drugs in his system to cause multiple organ failure, even if the fall hadn’t killed him.
Sally looked at the first picture she’d printed. Frank and her father had been so young then, so full of hopes and dreams for their future. Sally felt a pang of sympathy for Kirk, wondering what it must have been like for him to watch his home disintegrate, and at the same time grateful that she’d never have to truly know. Her father might have been focused on business, but at least he never raised a hand to anyone or ever let his family go without.
Little Secrets--The Baby Merger Page 10
