“Max, it’s me. You’re in danger. When you leave your building through the deliveries entrance—which I’m guessing is in the back—a police officer will catch you there and beat you to death. So you need to either stay in the building or use a different exit or…I don’t know, just don’t go out that way. Actually, I’m coming to you now, so don’t leave the building.”
She hung up and ran to where she’d left her powered-down cell phone, atop the dresser in the room she’d slept in her first night at the house. After she turned it on, Val ran back to the guest house, snatched the keys to Max’s borrowed car from the kitchen table, along with the wastebasket that held Lester’s secret stash, then jumped in the vehicle. She estimated with traffic and stoplights, it would take her about twenty-five minutes to reach Carressa Industries Headquarters. She dialed his phone again; still no answer.
“Goddammit, Max,” she said as she peeled out of the driveway, “if you die today, I will fucking kill you. And then myself.”
Chapter Sixteen
The early afternoon sun peeked through dark clouds gathering in the sky outside Max’s corner office window, glinting off the crystal Better Buying Power awards lining an oak shelf against the far wall. He counted the angles that their refracted light projected across the ceiling like mirror shards, before the sun disappeared with the shifting of the wind. The counting helped him concentrate, refocus away from the grueling board meeting he’d squeaked through, withstanding a barrage of criticism through a delicate tap dance of vision statements and iron-clad confidence to barely keep his job. Michael Beauford, Carressa Industries’ chief financial officer, leaned back in a leather chair across from him.
“Charlene’s itching to divest of Quality Foods,” Michael said, resting his leathery hands on a once-toned stomach now sagging with age. “They posted a twelve percent loss this quarter. She’s concerned they won’t rebound from their organic spinach E. coli scare in July. Thinks their earthy-crunchy base demographic is too fickle to forgive. I told her if that were true, my wife would’ve divorced me forty years ago.” Through a gray beard he gave Max a warm smile that faded when Max failed to reciprocate. “When are you moving into your father’s office?”
Michael never ceased to amaze Max with his ability to cut to the heart of the matter with uncanny precision. Ever since Michael rose to CFO nine years ago, Max had trusted and respected him, in no small part because Michael’s keen observation skills quickly deduced where the real power behind the company lay.
Max shrugged. “I don’t know. Whenever I get around to it.”
Michael scoffed. “That means never.”
“I’m considering turning it into a janitor’s closet.”
The CFO folded his arms, another disapproving father figure Max didn’t need. “Ignoring the situation won’t make it go away.”
“That’s an interesting hypothesis. I’ll let you know how my trial run goes.”
“Yuk it up, buddy boy, but the board isn’t going to tolerate your antics for much longer. You put on a nice show in there, and they like you better than they did your father, but the leeway you’ve been given to grieve is over. If you don’t get your head out of your ass and start leading this company, it won’t be yours much longer.”
Max frowned at the far wall, avoiding Michael’s stern gaze. Since his father died and the pressure to pulse the future for business advice had lifted, he’d disengaged from the majority of his responsibilities, probably to an extreme degree, he now realized. He’d stopped attending meetings, canceled appointments, holed up in his office, came to work high—when he bothered to come to work at all. At least most of the board mistook grief as the cause of his maladjustment.
“And for God’s sake, get rid of the Red Raven in Moonlight.” Michael said the name of Max’s club like the words left a film of oil on his tongue. “It’s bad enough that the police are still investigating you over Lester’s death. If the press finds out about the place, it’ll be a PR disaster. The board will turn on you for sure.”
How the hell did Michael know about the Red Raven? The club was his sanctuary, one of the very few places he felt safe. He couldn’t give it up, but Michael was right; only luck had kept the Red Raven out of the public eye for this long. He had to choose: the Red Raven or control of Carressa Industries.
“Do you recognize this account number?” Max handed Michael the accounting slip Val had found with Dean Price’s name on it.
Michael rolled his eyes at Max’s abrupt change of subject, but took the paper. “No.” He read the slip, raised an eyebrow. “Dean Price is your defense lawyer, right?”
Max nodded.
“Huh. Odd.” He turned the paper in his hand, looking for signs of fakery. “Where’d you get this?”
“From a stack of old papers in my father’s study.”
“I’ll run it down in accounting,” Michael said.
“Don’t bother.” Max took back the paper. “I’ll do it. I’m overdue for a walkabout anyway.”
Michael shrugged. “You’re the boss.” He drummed his fingers on the seat’s armrests and ballooned his craggy cheeks out in a puff of air. “Listen, it’s natural to have trouble reconciling conflicted feelings about the death of a family member when the relationship was…contentious. If you need someone to talk to, I can recommend a therapist who’s discreet.”
Max laughed at that. “Contentious” was putting it mildly. A therapist could write an entire book about his issues, right before she threw him into the insane asylum.
“I already have someone to talk to.” He had Val—sort of. He could tell her more than most people, though not everything. Maybe one day. Or never.
Her sense of right and wrong seemed…not absolute, though well developed. Better than his. She knew one of his most closely kept secrets—but only one of them. To expect her to understand, and then forgive him, was unrealistic. She’d eventually find her fiancé’s killer—of that he had no doubt—then leave him to go back to her normal life, find another normal man like Robby to love. Or she’d stay, and he’d have to tell her the truth someday, then she’d leave him. Either way, she’d never be his. He wouldn’t beg her to stay. He’d already tried that with Ethan; he wouldn’t embarrass himself again.
Max pushed away the black hole that threatened to swallow his thoughts, stood, and forced out a smile. “Thanks for the talk, Michael. I’ll tag up with Charlene about Quality Foods later.”
Michael nodded, an extended exhale betraying his skepticism. He paused on his way out the door. “Just promise me you’re not off to throw on tights and start fighting crime.”
* * *
Max stepped off the elevator onto the fourteenth floor. He walked through the cubicle farm that made up the accounting department, past number crunchers hunched over their computers who did double takes when he walked by. On his path to Dewey Dryer’s office, the head of Accounting, he greeted employees. “Hi, Linda, how’re you doing?” “John, how are the kids?” “Ben, finally housetrained that puppy of yours?” He liked talking to people about their normal lives, vicariously experiencing what it might be like to be a regular person. One man’s banal story about taking his elderly mother to the dentist was Max’s impossible dream.
Eventually he found Dewey Dryer’s office with the door propped open. He poked his head in and saw the middle-aged man at his desk, deep into an earnings report packed with spreadsheets. Max cleared his throat, and Dewey’s head snapped up.
“Mr. Carressa!” Dewey stumbled out of his seat.
Max shook his hand.
“Nobody told me you were coming down here. Um…How are things? Oh geez, that’s a stupid question. Dead dad and all. I mean—what can I do you for?”
Ignoring Dewey’s awkwardness, Max showed him the accounting slip. “I need to know more about this account. Do you recognize it?”
Dewey scrutinized the paper for a moment. “Hmm”—he rubbed his chin—“looks like an old one. Before my time, even.” He poked his finger in
the air. “I bet Georgie would know about this. He’s been here since the company’s beginning, I think. Have you met him?”
“No,” Max said as he followed Dewey to Georgie’s cube, tucked away in the corner. “I’m surprised we’ve never been introduced, if he’s been here all this time.”
“His name’s George McOwen, but everybody calls him Georgie. Not sure if it’s by choice, but he doesn’t complain. He’s a quiet guy, prefers to stay out of the spotlight. Real hard worker, though.” Dewey stopped beside Georgie’s cube wall and whispered to Max, “I mean, I assume he’s not secretly a gun-toting psycho, but it’s always the quiet ones, right?” He winked and chuckled.
Max tried to smile politely; it came out as more of a cringe.
Dewey rapped on the thin partition wall. “Hi, Georgie!” he said to the pudgy man in a wrinkled white dress shirt and too-short tie, plinking away at his keyboard.
Georgie jerked so hard at Dewey’s voice that he knocked over a travel mug, spilling coffee onto the papers scattered across his desk top. “Dang it!” He struggled to his feet and grabbed fistfuls of other papers off his desk to mop up the mess.
“This is Mr. Carressa—Maxwell Carressa, I mean. The one that’s alive.”
Max righted the travel mug, stanching the flow of coffee, and smiled at Georgie. Georgie adjusted his Coke bottle glasses and swallowed hard.
“Oh, um, hi, Mr. Carressa,” he said in a voice barely audible.
“I’d appreciate your help on something, Georgie,” Max said. “Is it all right if I call you Georgie?”
Georgie shrugged. “Your father did.”
Lester was on a first-name basis with this guy? Max made an effort to be friendly and cordial with his employees; his father had not. Lester would never bother getting to know someone he considered a grunt unless that person had something he wanted. Why had Max never met Georgie before?
Max held out the paper. “What is this account?”
Georgie eyed the document. His face grew pale. “I don’t know.”
“Are you sure?” Max asked, ignoring his cell phone vibrating against his chest. “I found this in a stack of my father’s records. Dewey says it looks like an old account. Will you take another look, please?”
“I…I don’t know the account,” he mumbled.
Max’s cell phone vibrated again. As he reached into his pocket to check it, he froze when a plaque on Georgie’s cluttered desk caught his eye. Worn oak the size of a half-sheet of paper surrounded a copper plate that read: “George McOwen, Employee of the Month, August 1995.” Etched in the wood above the plate: “Bombay and Price Law Offices, LLC.”
“You used to work for Dean Price,” Max said. He looked at Georgie as the man’s face scrunched with the effort of holding in secrets he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to keep. “You’re sure you don’t know this account?”
“I’ve never seen it. Never seen it before.” Beads of sweat popped onto Georgie’s brow. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Why don’t you check your archives?” Dewey said, oblivious to Georgie’s growing anguish. “You’ve got all sorts of gems in there that’ve helped us out of a pickle. Like when we got court-ordered to hand over every record we had on Red Bell Ice Cream, and you dug up nuggets going back to its acquisition in like nineteen ninety-eight—”
A mother of a fart ripped from Georgie. His face turned red and he grimaced. “Oh, God!” he sputtered, “I have to go!” He barreled past Max and Dewey, leaving the rancid smell of his digested breakfast in his wake. His coworkers gawked and slapped hands over their mouths as he shuffled for the exit as quickly as his legs would go, a brown stain blooming on the rear of his pants.
“Sweet Jesus,” Dewey said, holding his nose. “That stomach bug is really making the rounds.” He pulled a tube of sanitizer from his pocket and rubbed a glob of it on his hands. “Sorry about that, Mr. Carressa. I guess we’ll have to wait until he comes back from his emergency sick day. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Max stared at the spot where Georgie had disappeared. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Thanks for your help.”
The fact that Georgie literally crapped his pants when Max asked about the account was a good sign he was on to something. And Georgie’s previous employment at Bombay and Price couldn’t be a coincidence, either. What in the world it had to do with Barrister, Max still had no idea. But Georgie might.
He could go straight to the source and ask Dean why his name was on this old account, but he should touch base with Val first—assuming she hadn’t already contacted Dean despite his objections. Actually, that seemed like something she would definitely do. Might as well head home and compare notes. His phone vibrated yet again; he finally checked it, and saw four missed calls from Val, though it was Kitty on the line this time.
“Have you talked to your lawyers yet?” Kitty’s silky voice had an edge of panic to it that immediately put Max on alert.
“Not today. Why?”
“Because a judge just issued a warrant for your arrest. The police are coming for you now.”
“What? Fuck.” Max rubbed his forehead and tried to shield his crestfallen face from onlookers. For a second he considered asking Kitty how the hell she’d come by this information so quickly, but Kitty worked in mysterious and very effective ways that he preferred not to question.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.” He walked back toward the elevator, trying to appear calm as his thoughts raced. “Call my lawyers. Make sure they know what’s going on. And keep them away from the Red Raven, if you can. I’ll…be in touch.”
He hung up and dialed his secretary. “Nadine, please have the valet bring my car around front.” He pushed the “up” button for the elevator. “I’m going to swing by the office to grab my things, then I’m going home for the day.”
“I’ll do that now, Mr. Carressa,” Nadine said.
After he hung up, he cut right, away from the elevator and into the building’s stairwell. Hopefully the appearance that he was leaving out the front with no clue he was about to be arrested would throw off the police for a few precious minutes while he made his escape through the back, an area that’d been closed off due to construction in the parking lot. He didn’t have a plan other than getting the hell out of there. He couldn’t trust the cops, not after they’d tried to kill Val—
Shit, Val.
If they had a warrant for his arrest, they’d soon have a warrant to search his house, where they’d find her. The crooked cops who’d tried to end her life once might finish the job. He needed to escape, at least temporarily, to warn Val. Maybe ask her to meet him somewhere, if he could evade capture for that long.
As he bounced down the stairs, he tried to dial Val, then again, and again. Each time the call dropped. No reception in the stairwell. Damn—he’d have to wait until he got outside to call her.
After descending thirty flights of stairs, he reached the basement and jogged through a corridor used for equipment and supply deliveries, dark and deserted at the moment. No sign of police. When he reached the solid metal door that offered him egress, he pushed it open a crack and listened for sirens, car doors, or voices—nothing. He peered through the slit at what he could see of the back parking lot, a light rain beginning to darken the pavement—empty. Across the lot was a patch of woods with a short nature trail employees liked to hike through during their lunch breaks. On the other side he knew there was a gas station. He could make it. Play it cool, walk away like he had nothing to fear. Max took a deep breath and said a silent prayer for a clean getaway, then pushed the door open and walked outside.
“And where are you going?”
Max nearly jumped at a voice to his far left, an area he hadn’t been able to see through the door crack. A plainclothes policeman in a gray hoodie and jeans, a badge around his neck, leaned against a backhoe with his arms folded across his chest. His mouth twisted into a shit-eating grin below a bush of a musta
che.
“Don’t you know that when you fight the law, the law wins?” the cop said as he walked toward Max, his gait casual despite a hand on his holstered gun. “You should trust the Clash.”
Max gritted his teeth. There went his slapdash escape plan. He scanned his surroundings and noticed that he and the cop were the only people in the parking lot. How did this asshole know Max would come out this way, at this moment, and why didn’t he have backup with him?
Goddammit. Val was right—there was a conspiracy. Only someone with their abilities could maneuver against them with this kind of clockwork precision. And this guy was part of it.
Max tensed up, ready to run. The cop noticed and pulled his gun.
“I’m no scientist, but I’m gonna guess you can’t outrun a bullet,” the cop said. “I think I learned that in high school physics class. Or maybe chemistry, I forget.”
Max balled his hands into fists but didn’t move. This bastard was itching for any excuse to shoot him in the back.
The cop got close enough for Max to read the name on his badge—Sten Ander. Sten pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back, pretty boy.”
Max eyed Sten’s gun. Though he seethed with the desire to bash the dirty cop’s face in, it came down to fists versus guns, and the odds weren’t in his favor. Clenching his jaw so tight his teeth nearly cracked, Max did as he was told. He felt the metal snap across his wrists and winced at his helplessness. Sten dragged Max back to the backhoe, then spun him around and shoved his back against the cab door. He grunted as his hands were crushed between wet metal and the small of his back. The cop paired a friendly smile with a sadistic glint in his eye that made Max shudder.
“Where’s your new best friend?” Sten asked.
Vengeance Page 11
