Biloxi Blue (The Biloxi Series Book 2)

by Jerri Ledford

  Now that she was dead, however, everyone was crying. Some even took the day off because they were too upset to work. Greg was here, but he seemed too distraught. He barely knew Beth!

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, Jenna. What do you need?”

  Jenna walked into the office and took a seat in one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk. She could see out the window, but the office was behind her. She didn’t like not knowing who might be coming up as she was talking to Greg. She edged her seat around sideways.

  “I need to talk to you about…” She forced a hitch into her voice and worked up a tear. She felt it in the corner of her eye and imagined it glistening perfectly. “Beth. I need to know what she was working on. So, I can assess where she was with it and assign it to someone else.

  Greg stared at her blankly for a moment, then he shook his head and it looked like maybe a couple of his brain cells rubbed together.

  “We do need to do that, don’t we?” He ran a hand over his face. “So much to think about. Friday, she was here. Now she’s not and we have all these details we need to attend to.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry to have to come to you with this today. We’re all still trying to figure out how to deal with this. But the world doesn’t stop. Even for this.” She inclined her head to indicate the black visqueen and the mess that hid behind it. “I just don’t want us to get behind. You know how hard it is to catch up if we lose too much time.”

  In fact, they were far from being behind, but Greg didn’t need to know that. He mostly handled the incoming calls from existing and potential clients. He managed the budget and payroll hours. Beyond that, he only got involved when she was out of town or when there was a problem or a success that he thought might impact his career in some way. Greg wanted to be in upper management. Rumor was that he was being groomed to take over the Senior Financial Officer’s position within the next six months to a year.

  “Yes. Difficult to catch up. So many details.” He clicked his mouse a few times and then looked up at Jenna. “The police were asking for this same information. I can’t see where anything she was working on might have been the reason she…” He didn’t finish the sentence. No need to. Jenna knew exactly what had happened to Beth. And why.

  “I know.” Jenna choked up. Had to stop again and collect herself. She reached for a tissue from the box on Greg’s credenza, and plucked out two. She handed one to Greg and dabbed at her own mostly dry eyes.

  “I feel so bad,” she said when she figured she’d shown an appropriate level of grief. “But there’s so much to be done since I was out of the country last week. And now this.”

  “Of course. Our customers expect us to be here, and to be working. Most of them have no idea what is going on.” His voice cracked. Again.

  Get hold of yourself, you big oaf. You have a job to do here, and she was just an accounting clerk. Nothing. A nobody.

  He was being such a girl.

  Jenna sniffed. “I know. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s surreal. Like I’ll wake up from this nightmare any time.” She paused, made a show regaining control. “We just have to hold it together. Like you said, our customers expect us to keep going. That’s why I need to know what Beth was working on.”

  “You’re right.” He turned back to his computer, tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and a document appeared on his screen. “Her ordinary companies, which you know about. And she took several companies while you were out of town. Nothing major, but she was going to handle the invoices and checks for you. I asked her to. I didn’t want you to be swamped when you came back. We have that presentation coming up and…” He let the unfinished sentence hang in the air.

  He did this. He was the one that let Beth loose on the company servers. It still didn’t explain what she was doing in the depths of the server, or why she was collecting shipping information, but now it looked like it was possible that she just stumbled onto something she shouldn’t have. Inside Jenna, fury roiled like a hurricane slamming into the coastline. Outside, she maintained her calm, though her knuckles were white from gripping her notebook and pen so hard.

  “Can you send that to my printer, please?” It was so difficult to portray a calm, even voice. She wanted to wrap her hands around Greg’s throat and squeeze the life out of him. To feel the bones in his neck pop under the pressure of her fingers. To watch the life leave his eyes. He deserved to die.

  He had almost screwed everything up. What made him think she wasn’t capable enough to handle her own workload and the presentation they had coming up? It’s not like the presentation was any big deal. It was just cost analysis and budget balancing. Jenna could handle that in her sleep.

  Tap. Tap. Click. “It’s on its way. I hope you don’t mind me splitting your work among the clerks. I know we didn’t discuss it, but I thought it might make it easier when you came back from vacation. I didn’t know you were going to be back early.”

  “Of course, I don’t mind.”

  You idiot.

  “It was a very thoughtful thing for you to do.”

  I can’t believe you have so little faith in me.

  “I’m touched that you would be so considerate of me.”

  It’s going to cost you. Especially if any of these other morons figure out what’s going on. I will kill you!

  Jenna could barely contain her rage. Without another word, she walked back to her desk. The first thing she did when she got there was look over the pages that Greg sent to her printer. Sure enough, there was the name of three of the companies that she managed. Companies that no one else was supposed to deal with at all. They were special cases. None of the other clerks knew the details of doing business with these companies.

  Damage control. Now.

  She’d deal with the other later. She typed up a quick email to the other members of her group, requesting a meeting. Right now. She waited until everyone had left their section of the cube farm to follow. By the time she reached the conference room, they were all seated there, talking in somber tones. Sniffles echoed around the room.

  What was it with these people? Beth was one person. None of them were even her friends. The crying and mourning was getting on Jenna’s nerves.

  Get over it already!

  “I know you’re all upset.” She laid her notebook and the stack of papers on the table, and took an imperial pose at the head of the conference table. “But the fact is, no matter how much we don’t like it, we have to get Beth’s accounts straightened out and divided between you. Our customers are going to expect that we continue being professionals. Not like a group of sniveling teenagers.”

  She couldn’t help it. The last comment was out before she could stop herself. That’s what these people were acting like. It was time to get to work.

  She cleared her throat. Dabbed at dry eyes with a tissue. She had to make a show of this to cover for her slip.

  That’s what happens when you don’t remain in control.

  “I’m sorry,” she made her voice sound small and weak. “I’m as upset as you.”

  Shut up, Mother.

  Heads nodded around the room. Lambs to the slaughter. “But we do need to get this figured out, so I’m going to ask you all to work with me, please. I know it’s going to be hard.” She allowed her voice to crack on the last word. Then sat down, crossed her legs and hung her head for a moment.

  She cleared her throat. “Let’s start with who has been working on my accounts.” She had to know what they knew. She had to know if Beth shared anything she found with any of them.

  “I had two of your accounts.” Paula, a dark-haired dumpy woman spoke up. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She named off the accounts, and Jenna wrote them down, her hand shaking.

  Two more.

  Her irritation grew. The physical strength it took to control her anger surprised her.

  “Anything I should know?” She breathed shallowly as she waited for the answer.

  “No. I haven’t had a
chance to work on them at all. I’ve been swamped with all the merger documents from Billings Distribution and World Corp. That should be complete in the next day or two. I was planning to catch you up at the end of the week.” Her voice sounded as if she had cotton stuffed up her nose. Jenna fought back the urge to slap her.

  “I appreciate that. Don’t worry about it, though. I can handle it.” That left two accounts unspoken for.

  “Who has the other two?”

  A mousy red-head spoke up. “I do. I paid one invoice for each company.” She read off the invoice numbers from a tablet sitting on the table in front of her. “There hasn’t been anything else come through yet.”

  Yes, there had. But the mouse wouldn’t know. Jenna had a special post office box set up for most of the invoices from those two companies. They came directly to her, so there would be no tracking inside the company. She only allowed one or two each month to come through the office so nothing would seem amiss.

  “Thank you. Send me copies of those invoices and checks as soon as the meeting is over. I’ll get them reconciled.” Jenna tapped her pen on her notebook and looked from one face to another. They all stared back at her, eyes red and sorrow written on their faces.

  She couldn’t be certain that no one was hiding anything, but she didn’t think they were. Most people weren’t capable of keeping a secret when looked directly in the eye. Something would give, whether they wanted it to or not. An eye might tick, or they might suddenly develop an itch and would look away. Whatever the tell was, she would have spotted it.

  She breathed a little easier and proficiently went about reassigning the accounts that Beth handled to the other clerks. When that task was completed, she dismissed them and headed back to her own desk.

  Greg intercepted her about half way. “Jenna, I realized something after we talked earlier. Beth sent me an email last week. She requested an urgent meeting with me, and Tiffany Joyner from Steel Mountain this week. We scheduled it for today. She never told me what it was about, said she would explain in the meeting. I had to clear my calendar for this afternoon to accommodate her.”

  The news stunned Jenna. Steel Mountain? This could be bad. Steel Mountain was one of the companies from which Jenna regularly took bonuses. That account alone had nearly paid for her $350,000 house.

  Greg didn’t seem to notice her shock. “Do you have any idea what she wanted to meet about? That’s one of your accounts, right? Is there anything wrong that you know of?”

  “I have no idea. Everything was fine when I left.” Jenna fought the urge to scratch his eyes out. “She didn’t send me any emails while I was away.” She narrowed her eyes. “I hope she didn’t screw something up. That’s one of our largest accounts.”

  “I know. I’m worried. That’s why I wanted to check with you before I sit down with them. I’m probably going to look like an idiot, but under the circumstances, I don’t know what else to do.”

  Jenna’s heart raced. This was not good. “I’ll come with you. Maybe together we can figure it out.”

  Greg’s face twisted in an emotion that Jenna couldn’t define. “You can’t. Robert asked me to send you to his office as soon as you finished in your meeting.” Robert Ingram. The owner of the shipping company. “He wants to touch base since you came back to all of this.”

  Panic nearly choked Jenna. Her mind raced to find alternatives to what she knew was coming. Greg was headed into a meeting with a company that was her responsibility. A company whose lawyers could have her thrown in jail for a very long time if they found out about the money she had embezzled. Robert wanted to chat, and he didn’t think she needed to be present for a meeting with one of their best clients.

  There was nothing she could do. Now who felt like the lamb to slaughter?

  She took a deep breath.

  Control.

  “Okay. I’ll go see him, and if I finish up soon enough, I’ll come join you.”

  “If not, we can talk about it after.” Greg headed for the larger conference room, completely unaware that Jenna felt like her whole world had shattered into a dozen tiny pieces.

  She started after him until he reached the exit, her brain churning for a solution. This wasn’t over yet. It might take some fancy maneuvering, but she could handle this. She was smarter than anyone in this office. She just had to out-think them. A challenge she knew she was prepared for.

  SEVENTEEN

  Tiffany Joyner sat alone in a conference room at Ingram Logistics. She sucked deep breaths, trying to stop the tears that began to fall as soon as the door closed behind her.

  What made me think being here was a good idea?

  Beth was killed just a few days ago. Tiffany shouldn’t even be working, much less trying to meet with a client.

  Except Beth had set this meeting up. She had something she wanted to show both Tiffany and Greg Harrington; her boss. What was it? Had it gotten Beth killed?

  Tiffany tried not to think about the last time she’d spoken to Beth.

  “I’ll explain everything when I get there. I just need to finish uploading this file, Tiff. I’ll be there in about an hour.” What did Beth have to explain?

  Tiffany tried to push the guilt down. If she hadn’t gone to sleep she would know what was going on, and Beth might still be alive. She took a ragged breath. She just wanted to forget what might have been and focus on what Greg might know. What Beth knew.

  That was the whole reason she was here today, sitting in a conference room that smelled of mildew. It had windows looking out over the shipping port and the Gulf of Mexico. Tiffany would rather be home, buried in her covers, than watching the machinery transfer shipping containers from the port to cargo ships. Her heart ached at the loss of her best friend, even if they had been fighting prior to that last phone call.

  The fight was stupid, really. Beth was hiding something from Tiffany. She would disappear, not return calls or texts, and then just show back up like nothing happened. When Tiffany questioned it, Beth’s response was always the same. “Family business, Tiff. No big deal.”

  After these disappearances, Beth would insist that they go out. She would buy all the drinks and food, and once in a while she’d even show up with small, but expensive gifts. Tiffany rubbed at the diamond solitaire earrings that were the last gift Beth had brought her.

  When Tiffany questioned the money that Beth spent, Beth blew that off, too, and that was how they ended up in the last fight. Tiffany got tired of being kept in the dark, so she pushed.

  “What’s the deal with your family business?” she asked during one of their make-up drinking binges.

  “Don’t worry about it. Family obligations, that’s all.” Beth knocked back two quick shots of tequila and Tiffany saw something dark in her eyes. Anger? Something else? She couldn’t tell, all she knew was that Beth was unhappy.

  “So, like you have sick parents or something?” Tiffany pushed a little harder.

  Beth stared at her, but didn’t offer any information.

  “Tell me about your family,” Tiffany tried to change tactics.

  Beth swallowed another shot of tequila. “You know what?” She spun on Tiffany. “I don’t pry into your life. How about you stay out of mine?”

  Tiffany was shocked into silence. She’d never seen Beth like she was that night. The dark mood, whatever it was, made her seem like a stranger. But what came next was even more shocking.

  “I’m done.” Beth tossed a handful of bills on the table and left, leaving Tiffany to watch her walk away. Before Tiffany could even gather her wits to follow, Beth was gone. Tiffany ended up calling an Uber to get home that night. Alone.

  The next day, a delivery service brought a huge bouquet of orchids. They were Tiffany’s favorite flowers, and the bouquet had to have been expensive. There were at least a dozen varieties, in a rainbow of colors in a Swarovski crystal vase. It was stunning.

  The card with the flowers said only, “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk. B.” Tiffany ignored it, and refused
to answer the phone calls or respond to the texts that Beth sent.

  A few days later tickets to the sold-out Taylor Swift concert at the coliseum were delivered with the same note. But Tiffany was hurt and angry. She shared everything with Beth, why was asking about her family such a big deal? Tiffany continued to ignore Beth’s attempts at buying back their friendship for several weeks. She wasn’t sure which hurt more, Beth’s behavior or not having her around.

  So, when Beth sent a 911 text on Friday, Tiffany relented. She answered the call that followed. Beth had jumped right into what she had to say without even mentioning what happened, which irritated Tiffany but she was so happy to hear Beth’s voice, she decided to let it go. It was the last conversation they had.

  Tiffany was still gnawing on the guilt when Greg Harrington pushed into the room startling her out of her thoughts. Without a word, he pulled her up from her chair, and wrapped her in a long, tight hug.

  “I’m sorry.” He whispered in her ear. “I know she loved you. She talked about you all the time.”

  Greg held tight to her for a beat longer than Tiffany was comfortable with. Then he dropped his arms to his side and said, “I loved her, too.” His eyes pleaded for understanding.

  Tiffany felt as if she’d stepped onto a merry-go-round. For a moment, the whole world spun as her thoughts transitioned from guilt and grief to Greg’s words and the look in his eyes. Her mind struggled to make sense of it all.

  He loved her? What? Was there something between Greg and Beth, Tiffany didn’t know about? She glanced at his left hand. Married. Beth wouldn’t do that. Maybe Tiffany didn’t know everything about Beth, but she knew enough to know that Beth would never have an affair with a married man. It went against her “code.” Beth might occasionally go off-grid or whatever, but she would not date a married man. She once said that marriage was sacred, and if she ever found the right person, she would never cross that line. Beth looked down on men and women who cheated on their spouses. Worse, she despised them.