by Peg Herring
“He’s dropping a client whose portfolio isn’t producing enough revenue, but he’s too busy to handle telling her himself. I get to drop the bomb.”
“Ouch!”
Abe shook his head in disgust. “I wonder how Tori managed to keep her sunny disposition around that guy.” He snapped his fingers as if that reminded him of something, “Hey, you wouldn’t by chance know the password for her computer here at the office, would you?”
“No,” Carmon answered. “We aren’t supposed to share them with anyone. The tech can get you into client files you need to access.”
“I was thinking maybe she had some things in her files that would help me do a better job, you know? Lists of how to do things or references to sites that give tutorials, stuff like that.”
“Ask one of the techs. They usually come in on Thursdays.”
“Right.” He scratched the bridge of his nose. “Think her password is written down in her desk somewhere?”
“Possibly.” Tori heard the chill in Carmon’s voice, felt her suspicion grow deeper. “I don’t know.”
Tori considered Abe’s rather odd request. Surely he had a good reason for asking.
Abe seemed reluctant to drop the subject. “No idea where Tori might write something like that down?” He seemed unaware of the question in her expression. “Maybe at home, or in her purse?”
“Why don’t you ask Mr. Falk?”
Finally picking up on Carmon’s mood, Abe backed off. “Sure. I’ll do that.” From the false tone of voice and the blank expression, he had no intention of following through. Sensing it, Tori also felt tension in her friend’s body and heard her silent objections. Not proper channels—Shouldn’t have come—No way out now.
They left the office together. Carmon, uncomfortable with Abe, retreated into prim silence.
Tori tried to tell herself Abe was just trying to do his job well, and Carmon was overly suspicious. She had often lectured her friend about it. “You’re gorgeous, Carmon,” she had admonished more than once. “Guys want to get to know you, but you don’t give them a chance!”
“I’m not good at the whole dating thing,” her friend always responded.
Now privy to Carmon’s thoughts, Tori knew she wanted to trust Abe, but her cautious side whispered he was different than he appeared. So what? Tori heard Carmon berate herself. So are you!
Now Tori wavered between her old ways and her new experience. She’d trusted all her life, but someone hadn’t been trustworthy, and she’d died for it. Maybe Carmon’s wary attitude was better.
Carmon and Abe picked up their order at the deli and crossed the bridge over the agitated Grand River to an inviting public area near two downtown museums, the Van Andel and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. With the grounds, the riverside walkways, and the grass-covered lawns, there were plenty of places to relax on a day that had warmed to the low eighties.
Tori found being outside exhilarating, and her doubts about Abe receded in appreciation of the day. How could she have forgotten how the sun felt on the top of a person’s head? Daffodils screamed their colors and lilacs wafted perfume at her. Gulls made rude sounds from high above, and mourning doves gossiped about passersby from the trees above them. It was life, normal, everyday life. Suddenly, her mood plummeted. She missed it terribly and felt the strain of imprisonment in someone else’s body.
Why did you do it, Judd Simms? Why did you send me away from the earth when I had so much living left to do?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Do You Want to Know a Secret?
Carmon followed Abe as he chose a spot on the grass a few feet back from the riverbank and set the basket down. Taking out a bright yellow plastic tablecloth for them to sit on, he laid it on the grass and spread the food between them. “I don’t want to mislead you, so I’ll admit I had very little to do with lunch,” he told her with a grin. “For the right price, Manzana’s on Pearl will pack up everything you need for a picnic, from tons of food down to the little packaged wet things you use to clean your hands afterward.”
It was an impressive display: warm bourbon chicken with small bowls of mixed rice and vegetables, and chilled bottles of iced tea stuffed into knitted tubes that kept them cool and dry to the touch. “Help yourself,” he urged. Carmon obeyed, covering her nervousness with activity. Tori shared with her the taste of the spices, the crunch of the vegetables, and the coolness of the tea.
An awkward silence followed general comments about the food. Abe’s too eager questions about Tori’s password were still uppermost in Carmon’s mind. Now he tried a few questions about her personal life, but her answers were terse, almost monosyllabic. Even inside Carmon’s mind, Tori felt the closed doors, refusal to even think about her past.
Watching Abe try so hard to erase the tension between them, Tori warmed to him again. He was just a guy trying to get it right, as when he had asked her a million questions about the workings at PLK. She yearned to scold Carmon for drawing negative conclusions without all the facts. People do suspicious things all the time for purely innocent reasons. Start over, Tori lectured silently. Give the guy a chance.
Almost as if she had heard, Carmon opened the bag of desserts she had brought and offered it to Abe, who groaned in delight as he peeked inside. After a brief argument about who would choose, he selected the blueberry and took a large bite.
Carmon made a weak stab at restarting the conversation. “Do you like working for Mr. Falk?”
Abe seemed willing to take whatever gambit was offered, even if they were back to the topic of work. “Well, he hasn’t lost it with me yet.”
“Maybe he’s mellowing in his last few weeks on the job.”
Finishing his turnover, Abe wiped his hands on the grass. “Why did they hire him? He doesn’t get along with anyone, and a guy like that doesn’t help the company’s image much.”
Carmon knew the answer from working for Mr. Pollard, and she apparently saw no harm in sharing it. “In his former job, Falk pulled in lots of wealthy clients. Mr. Loomis was very excited when he got him to come over to PLK.”
“Well, he stands over me like I’m about to abscond with the company assets.”
“That’s understandable after what Daryl did.”
“Daryl was the intern who left suddenly, right?”
“They found some irregularities in his work.”
Abe nodded. “I met the guy once or twice, but I missed the details.” Looking toward the ducks at the river’s edge, he asked, “What did he do to get fired?”
“No one ever said. I think he neglected some paperwork required by the firm.”
Abe tossed a sandwich crust into the water, and two quacking ducks headed toward it like battleships homing on a target. “I can sympathize. There’s a lot of it.”
“But that’s what we’re hired for.” Carmon had no sympathy for sloppiness. “Mr. Pollard gave Daryl a wonderful opportunity, and he blew it.”
Watching from her odd vantage point inside Carmon’s head, Tori was pleased her friend had finally warmed to Abe enough to express an opinion, revealing bits of herself as people do when they begin a relationship. Suddenly Tori had a flash of recall. She hadn’t been attracted to Abe herself. She’d been trying to fix things up between these two!
By coincidence, Carmon thought of her. “It was bad for Daryl when he got fired, but that’s when they hired Tori, so it worked out well for me.”
“I could see you were good friends,” Abe replied. “You changed when she came to PLK.”
“Really?”
“Yup. You smiled more often and even made a comment from time to time.”
“I’ve never met anyone else like her,” Carmon said with an uncomprehending shake of her head. “Tori liked people, and she could ignore all the outside stuff.” Tears stung her eyes, and she moved abruptly to the river, rinsing her hands as she regained control.
When she returned, Abe said quietly, “Yeah. Like I said before, her death made me think about
what I might be missing.” He met her gaze squarely. “Carmon, I’ve wanted to get to know you, but things kept getting in the way.”
She took it as criticism. “I know. I’m standoffish.” Abe took a breath, perhaps to disagree, but she went on. “Tori didn’t let it stop her.” Rather than look at Abe, she watched the river as it bumped noisily along.
From the first, Tori had sensed Carmon longed to be part of the group but held back in fear that she was somehow not good enough. Reaching out to her in friendship, she’d found a friend who was intelligent and likeable, though Carmon never saw herself that way.
“How about a ride in the country this weekend?” Abe asked. “We could head over to Sleeping Bear and climb the dunes or drive up to Ludington and look around.”
Nice to get away. Tori agreed with Carmon’s thought. Her friend needed time in a setting where she wasn’t reminded of death every few minutes. Still, Carmon hesitated. Did Abe want to date Tori? Did she like him?
Now Tori understood the sense of distress she had felt all morning from her host. Without conscious intent, she answered Carmon’s thought. “Nothing. He’s nothing to me.”
Carmon jerked as if she had been stung.
“What’s wrong?” Abe asked.
She touched her forehead lightly. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
But she was not fine. She’d heard Tori speaking to her, as plainly as if she’d been beside her.
Abe sat there looking confident, certain she was going to say yes to his suggestion they go off together for the weekend. No. She was over-stressed, which must be why she thought she’d heard Tori’s voice. And Abe wasn’t what he appeared to be. Recalling his conversation with the now deceased Jennise at Martin’s, Carmon reminded herself how quickly he had changed from cold to charming. She needed to get a grip on her emotions.
“I don’t think I can make it this weekend.”
Abe looked down at his hands. Running a fingernail absently over the smooth plastic sheet on the ground, he said casually, “Maybe next weekend?”
“I’ll have to see what’s going on.”
He shrugged, keeping a casual tone. “I’ll have the Beast filled and ready, though at the price of gas, I may have to get a second job.”
“Your car?”
“Yeah. The red Ferrari?”
“Oh.”
He seemed surprised she hadn’t noticed. “The two-seater with the gull-wing doors?”
That rang a bell, though Carmon had never paid much attention to the conspicuous consumption that permeated PLK. She wondered briefly how an intern could afford such a car, and remembered Jennise’s sly mention that he had secrets.
Her discomfort with Abe increased. How had she missed his having an expensive car like that? The answer came swiftly. Because Abe worked part time, came after she did, and left earlier. Because she didn’t join conversations around the office where it might have come up. Because she kept to herself. Because I’m weird, she concluded.
Abe finished the last of his drink and collected the remains of their meal, the dejected line to his shoulders revealing dissatisfaction with the way their lunch had gone. She almost felt sorry for him, but too many things stood in the way, too many questions.
Carmon remembered Jennise fuming a year ago because a second intern had been hired without her input. The office manager’s carefully made-up face had been taut as she told the secretaries, “He’s too old to be an intern, but someone wants him here, so we have to deal with it.”
Abe had been amiable and intelligent, and eventually Jennise’s ruffled feathers had smoothed. His good looks probably hadn’t hurt, judging from the way she’d come on to him at Martin’s.
Carmon didn’t want Abe to have guilty secrets. She wanted him to be the kind of man she could admire, like, maybe even… She stopped herself. Don’t go there.
Remembering Tori’s contention that innocent explanations could accompany strange circumstances, Carmon took courage and asked the question that might end her doubts. “How did you get hired at PLK? I know Jennise didn’t want you, and she was in charge of hiring.”
Abe looked embarrassed, rubbing the palm of one hand over the back of the other. “Look, nobody’s supposed to know it, but I’m sort of…connected.”
“Connected to whom?”
“To the partners.” His face reddened. “I got the job because someone wanted me to have it.”
“Who?” she asked. I need to know, she wanted to add.
As his gaze slid off to the side, Carmon sensed the answer would be a lie. “My parents knew Mr. Loomis pretty well. He offered me the internship, to be sure this is the work I want to do.”
The response made her angry. Even if it were true, how many deserving candidates who really needed the money and the chance for a brighter future had been rejected so this over-aged jock with wealthy parents and a red Ferrari got his wish? He probably didn’t need to work at all.
She stood, checking her watch, which Abe took as a signal that it was time to go. She watched while he folded the yellow drape and put everything back into the basket. He was attractive, with a born-to-it sense of fashion and ease with all kinds of people. He looked good, sounded good, even smelled good as he leaned toward her to gather the last of the trash, but all that didn’t make a man honest, or kind, or worthy of affection. Or trust.
Perhaps sensing her disapproval, Abe tried again. “I’ve tried to pull my share of the load and prove I can cut it, but I did have help stepping over the other candidates for the job, and that wasn’t fair.”
Carmon’s voice was flat. “Mr. Loomis has the right to hire whomever he wants.”
“’I’m grateful for the chance, but I know it looked odd to the staff.” Abe leaned toward her, and Carmon thought he might touch her cheek. When she stiffened, he turned brisk, rising to deposit their garbage in a nearby container. “I suppose we’d better get back.” He grinned ruefully. “You’d think with friends at the top I could relax, but I still have to prove I deserved the shot.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Everybody’s Talking at Me
Late that afternoon, Carmon was surprised to look up and see James Falk in her office.
“Miss Calley, I don’t suppose Mr. Pollard is in.”
“No, he’s gone for the day.”
Falk’s lips twitched with what was probably disapproval. “I thought I’d stop by on the chance he was still here, what with the death of Ms. Bowdlin and all.”
“Mr. Loomis is dealing with that. He can tell you about the arrangements.”
Falk waved a hand impatiently. “No, no. Although I will attend the funeral, I wanted to see Mr. Pollard about something else.”
Just then, Craig Loomis wandered by the office door, his thin frame and longs legs making Carmon think, as usual, of a sand hill crane in very expensive trousers.
“Craig, can I see you for a moment?” Falk called. He left Carmon without another word. As she shut down her computer and tidied her desk, the quiet of the empty building carried Falk’s voice clearly as he aired his suspicions.
“I’m concerned about Abe Gougeon,” he began.
“Who?” Loomis sounded, as Yvonne always claimed, clueless.
“The intern assigned to assist me.”
“Oh.”
“Was his background checked thoroughly when he joined the firm?”
“Of course it was,” Loomis rejoined, but he didn’t seem certain. “We’re careful about things like that.”
“Perhaps I’m leery after my experience with Talbert, but this Abe seems less than honest to me.”
“Gougeon, right.” Loomis had finally focused. “I don’t know him well. Seems nice enough.”
Carmon gasped. Abe said he was hired because of personal acquaintance with Loomis. Now the man claimed to hardly know him.
Falk wasn’t pleased with the response, either. “You hired him last year. He began doing cold calls and such, but he was assigned to me after Miss Van Camp’s…departure. S
ince then I’ve found him snooping in places he has no right to be.”
Loomis shrugged. “According to Amos, Kellerman wanted him on the payroll. Come into my office, and we’ll take a look at his file.”
The men’s voices faded as they moved away together. Although she had not meant to eavesdrop, Carmon now had a lot more to think about. Abe had indeed lied to her, and it appeared that more lies had been told. As she gathered her purse and car keys, her mind raced. She was attracted to Abe Gougeon, but there were serious doubts about his behavior at PLK. How was she going to deal with it? At least I didn’t commit to the date next weekend.
