by Vivian Wood
“And?”
“It looks like…” she paused. “It looks like your father was the one who did it. He used his personal computer to move money from account to account within the company. He used an email address that is traceable to him to order the transactions. He used the same email to coordinate his cover up, using someone at Calloway Corp who he calls Stacey.”
He blinked. What she was saying… it wasn’t right.
“It can’t be,” he said. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is, Mr. Calloway. And that isn’t the whole of it, I’m afraid. There’s more.”
Smith felt hostile.
“My mother is dead, so if you’re looking for someone else to paint with the same brush, you’re going to have to look somewhere else,” he said, gritting his teeth.
Lindsay hesitated, biting her lip, then shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Calloway.” She opened the file and slid it over. The first thing in the file was a photo depicting Cameron, hurrying into a building.
He clenched his fists. “What is this?”
“Your executive assistant, Cameron Turner. We looked her up… her name didn’t match the records we found. It took some digging, but I matched her to a Cameron Parker, who is employed by The Daily News. According to my hacker friends, she appears to have been fired recently, but these photos are from yesterday.”
He picked up the photos, looking at them with disbelief. They showed Cameron going into the newspaper's building, and then into The Daily News’ offices. Behind the photos was some information about Cameron Parker, along with a staff ID from The Daily News with her picture on it.
He looked up at Lindsay, aghast. “What the fuck?”
“Apparently Ms. Parker was assigned to pose as a secretary and look into your business practices. There are quite a few emails setting up her backstory and checking in on her, but I didn’t think them worth printing.”
Smith was stunned. He stared down at his drink for a full minute, cracking his knuckles. It took him a moment to get his emotions under control, to hide them behind a mask of nonchalance once more. When he looked up, his expression was blank.
“Are you absolutely certain about my father and Cameron?”
She nodded. “I have been very thorough.”
“Thank you,” he said, standing. “That’ll be all, then.”
Pausing to throw some money on the bar, he walked out. His fists were bunched tightly as he strode down the crowded street, ignoring his waiting car.
The things Lindsay had told him…
He felt betrayed. His father was stealing money from the business, and expecting Smith to… what? Not notice? Not care?
What his father was doing was not merely illegal, it was wrong on so many levels.
And Cameron… he had no idea what to do with her. He didn’t know her at all, that much was clear. Apparently he didn’t even know her real last name. Any positive feelings he’d had for her, especially since they started sleeping together, were phony.
In his mind, he started replaying every minute they’d been together. The first night they met, at the bar. Was that a setup? Had she looked into what sort of girls he liked, dressed the part, and played the brazen vixen?
Even setting that night aside, because he’d been a willing participant, there was so much more.
From the minute she’d walked into his office, the second she began to beg for her job, he’d been manipulated. She outright lied to him, not just at that moment, but dozens of times since then.
At a loss for what to do, Smith walked for almost an hour. He needed to deal with both Cameron and his father, sooner rather than later. He’d have to fire them both.
But while he could free his father from his job and likely see him thrown in jail, Smith didn’t quite know what to do with Cameron.
27
Cameron had it all worked out in her head. She was going to explain what had happened to Smith, as calmly as possible. He probably going to yell, or at least do his quiet but furious thing, but she was just going to put up with whatever he dished out.
She was parked across the street from his penthouse, amping herself up for what was to come. She took a deep breath and got out of her car.
She would just calmly repeat the details of the situation until he cooled off. It would all be okay.
She walked up to the building and scanned her key card. The door opened, to her relief. She pushed her hair behind her ears and hurried toward the elevators. She pulled her key card out and swiped it next to the bank of elevators, attempting to call one down.
But instead of opening a set of elevator doors, swiping the card emitted an angry boing boing noise. She looked at her card, and swiped it again. Boing boing.
After trying a couple more times, she put the card away and pulled out her cell phone. She sent a quick text to Smith.
I’m downstairs. My key card isn’t working.
She chewed on her lip. Of all the days for her key card not to work… She jumped when her phone buzzed in her hands. It was a text from Smith.
Coming down.
She inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to center herself. She fidgeted with her dress. It was super short, made entirely of white lace. She’d spent a full hour picking it out, trying to look as innocent yet sexy as possible.
Not that she thought he would be so shallow and foolish as to be hung up on her looks when she had such devastating news, but a little reminder of what they had didn’t hurt.
Cam waited nervously for the ding of the elevator. When it came, she tried not to jump out of her skin. The door slid open to reveal Smith, dressed in all black, ready to go out.
The blank expression on his face made her smile falter as he got off the elevator.
“What?” she asked, already knowing something was wrong.
She moved to embrace him, but he turned away, pacing.
“I thought maybe you’d want to tell me,” he said, looking at the floor.
“Well…” she said, biting her lip. “There is something I want to talk to you about.”
“Really? Does it have anything to do with the fact that you work for The Daily News?” he asked, challenging her.
Her jaw dropped. “I—”
“You want to know something?” he asked, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. The night I saw you going into your apartment with some guy…”
“Smith, I—”
“He works for The Daily News too, apparently. See, I got a private investigator to look into the people around me. I didn’t mean you, but she came back with this… this story. About you and the people you work for, really work for.”
She was silent. He chuckled mirthlessly.
“Nothing to say now, huh? No clever little lies?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“Yeah? When? When the paper pulled you back in to your real job? When you got tired of my cock?”
She felt desperate, her voice rising. “I was coming here to tell you!”
He stopped pacing a few feet from her. He looked at her, his face contorting with rage. “SO WHAT?!”
She blinked at his shouted words.
“I thought— if you have time to get over your father’s deceit—”
“Yeah? You thought that I would just stop being mad? That I— who never wanted this fucking business, I’ll remind you— would just forget that the one woman I confided in betrayed me? That would be so lovely, wouldn’t it? So convenient.”
“I never planned for any of this to happen.”
“Except you did! You had to have known, from the moment that you saw me, or at least from the moment that you gave me the woe is me speech, that this was going to happen. You’ve set a goal, and you mastered it,” he said, shaking his head. “And I was stupid enough to fall for it.”
“Smith, really, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I care about you.”
He gave a lopsided smile, and pulled a small velvet box out of
his pocket. He opened the box to show her a simple gold ring, no gemstones or bling anywhere. She looked up at him, confused.
“This has been in my family for generations. It’s for the heir to the family fortune to use to propose; its lack of adornment is supposed to emphasize that marriage is about more than the ring. I’ve been carrying it around for a couple of weeks now, trying to find the right way to broach the subject. See where you stand on marriage.”
He snapped the box closed. She stared at him, uncertain.
“Well, it’s a good thing that I never found the right way. See, I was foolish, I thought maybe there was a future for the two of us. And if I’d dangled marriage in front of you… we might’ve been engaged, or worse, when I found out.”
That final thought pushed her over the edge. She lost her cool completely, and started to cry.
“I’m so sorry, Smith. When it started, you were just a job… I never thought that I’d come to l—”
“Don’t!” he interrupted her. “Don’t say that. Don’t use that word.”
“It was an impossible situation—”
“You say that like I don’t have a whole company to run! Tomorrow, you go back to The Daily News, but I go back to all the people who trusted my father, looked up to him. I have to beg forgiveness, for something I didn’t even do!”
“Smith—”
“You know what? I might’ve been a demanding boss. I might’ve needed too much. But the only thing I ever asked of you outside the office was honesty.” He grimaced, walking over to scan his key card. The elevators opened. “Apparently, that simple thing was too much to ask.”
He headed inside the elevator.
“Wait! Smith, don’t leave!” she cried.
He crossed his arms, and the elevator doors slid closed. The front door opened behind Cameron, and she turned to find two security guards heading her way.
“No!” she howled.
“Ma’am, we need you to leave the property,” one said.
“If I can just see Smith, talk to him…” she said.
“We’re authorized to give you this,” the other guard said, handing her a packet. “Now we need you to leave.”
The guards each took an arm, carrying her out the doors and to the street. “Let me go!”
“Go on,” said the first guard. “Stay off the property.”
She flipped him off and ran to her car. Once inside, she let her poorly cloaked emotions out, sobbing and hitting the steering wheel.
She opened the packet the guard gave her with shaking fingers. It was a legal notice, terminating her position at Calloway Corp.
He was done with her. Really, truly done.
Once her crying jag was done, she felt strangely hollow. She started up her car and drove home, unsure what else to do.
She’d had it all worked out…
28
The next day at work, Smith was a complete wreck. Not only did his girl turn out to be a reporter, but his father was the one fucking with the company’s finances. And he’d done it by screwing the employee pensions, no less.
He honestly didn’t know who he felt more betrayed by right now.
Smith showed up to work late. He walked past Cameron’s empty desk as if nothing had happened, but it felt like a physical punch to the gut. Once he got inside his office, he shut the door and leaned his back against it.
He closed his eyes for a minute, trying to center himself. He had bigger things to worry about than Cameron. He was going to have to confront his father about the missing money today.
He was going to need to get the thoughts of her out of his head, though. The same few ideas were rolling around inside, like how she could have done this. She seemed genuinely distressed by the whole thing.
Maybe that was just an act, but if it was, it was a good performance.
His hands bunched into fists. How the fuck was he supposed to straighten out the rest of this mess, when he couldn’t trust himself to know whether Cameron really cared for him or not?
He took slow, deep breaths, calming himself. He straightened and popped his neck, readying himself for combat. Then he headed back out of his office, ignoring the twist in his gut when he saw the empty desk.
He went downstairs first, to talk to the guys at the security desk. Stone-faced, he told the guards flat out that his father was probably embezzling money from the employee pension fund. He explained that he was going to confront his father immediately, and asked them to back him up.
Their response was what his had been. Something like shock, followed by agreeing that something had to be done.
When Smith went back upstairs, there were four guards following him, with two more sitting and watching the cameras in the building. Smith’s hands shook as they approached his father’s office.
“Smith,” the secretary said. She frowned at the security guards. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to go down to the fifth floor right now. Tell Stephanie I said she should keep you company,” Smith said. “I can’t tell you any more, except to say that you’re not in trouble.”
She stood, pale and shaking. One of the guards motioned for her to move over to him, and she went.
Smith walked up to his father’s door, hesitating. He adjusted his tie, although the thing was already constricting his throat.
I can do this, he told himself.
He reached out and pushed his father’s office door open, stepping inside. His father swiveled around in his chair. He was holding the phone on his desk to his ear. His father held up a finger, motioning for Smith to wait.
“Jerry, Jerry— listen. Forget about Thailand, okay?” his father said. “Okay. Alright. Listen, my son just walked in with a serious face, so I’m going to have to let you go. Alright. Send Natalie my love.”
Spencer hung up the phone.
“Jerry Newman wants to talk about contracting us to guard his Spanish interests. It isn’t a big project, but it could lead to something bigger,” his father said.
Smith frowned at his father, who took off his glasses and tossed them on the desk.
“What is it?” his father asked. “Did Europe fall off the map or something?”
Smith grew angrier.
“It’s over, Dad.”
“What is?”
“The scam. The whole thing where you ravage the employee pensions and then leave the rest for me to clean up,” Smith spat. “Not only do I know about it, but Cameron does, too.”
“Your office girl? Well, no matter. I can pay her whatever she wants,” his father said.
“It’s not about fucking paying people off!” Smith yelled. “Cameron, who you selected just for me, is working for The Daily News. I just found out that they’re doing an exposé on Calloway Corp!”
Spencer looked taken aback. “Well, we must stop them!”
“You don’t get it, Dad! There is no stopping, not anymore. Not that I even want to. The worst part of this whole mess is that you were going to leave me saddled with… well, who even knows how much debt! And the employees… the angry employees who’ve had everything stolen from them… they’ll look to me!!”
“Look. It’s my company. I can take what I want, when I want. You’ll recover the losses in less than five years,” his father said, rising from his chair.
“What…” Smith was at a loss. “What are you talking about?”
“Five years! That’s nothing. That’s the blink of an eye for companies,” his father said, turning toward the window.
“And the angry employees? How am I supposed to deal with that?”
“This is a great opportunity. You step into my shoes, reassure everyone you’ve got it under control, and deal with the money. In a year, you’ll be thanking me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Look. The board,” his father said, making air quotes around the word board, “they put me on a very strict allowance. I can only withdraw twenty thousand a month. Can you believe it? Me!”
Smith
narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“They said… back in the nineties, they said I was spending too much.” His father started to pace, agitated. “The board said I had to live on that… that ridiculous amount of money! They said that the company couldn’t stay afloat, otherwise. It was complete bollocks, I’ll tell you that.”
“What the fuck do you need more money than that for?” Smith cried, looking at his father with an incredulous expression.
“For women, of course!” his father shouted back. “They all need things, you know. ‘Buy me this, buy me that’. If I don’t have nice things around me, I can’t expect decent girls. Ever since your selfish fucking mother left me—”
Smith swooped in, grabbing his father by the throat.
“She committed suicide,” Smith snarled in his father’s face. “And I’m beginning to see why.”
He let his father go, pushing him away.
“She was just a selfish little bitch. And she made you a selfish brat,” his father said, straightening his suit.
“Don’t you fucking talk about her!” Smith screamed.
“Just you wait. Just you wait till you’re my age. I’ve seen you with girls, you’re fucking incompetent. Couldn’t pick up a woman to save your life.”
Smith just stared at his father, incensed. The older man leered at Smith.
“You’re going to be like me in one way,” Spencer said. “You’re going to end up alone, just like me.”
Smith turned toward the door, shaking his head with disgust.
“I’m nothing like you.”
He flung the door open, moving out of the office. He called to the guards.
“He’s not to leave that office. Pull the phone lines, and set up a cell phone signal jammer in there. I’m calling the police,” he gritted out as he walked away from his father’s office.
The guards hastened to do Smith’s bidding. Smith pulled out his cell phone, taking a deep breath. He dialed the number of the local precinct.
