When I Saw You

by Laura Branchflower

  “I would never be so lucky. You think he’s going to walk out? Just quit? He’s not that stupid. He likes the respectability of being connected to this firm. And I’m sure he’s become accustomed to these nice paychecks. If he went out on his own, it would take him a long time to get back to this level.”

  “Don’t you get it, Kevin? He doesn’t need this firm anymore. He’s working here because he likes to practice law. He doesn’t need the money.”

  “Neither do I, and I never have, but you don’t see me blowing off meetings.”

  “Joe has gotten to the point where he’s making a lot more money on his investments than he is working for this firm.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s in his office right now playing with fifty million of his own money. That’s right,” he continued when Kevin looked at him in disbelief, “fifty million.”

  Kevin quickly composed himself. “So what?”

  “So, maybe you need to decide what’s more important to you—having him around the way he is or not having him at all. I, personally, don’t want to see him leave.”

  “If he can’t start putting the firm’s needs ahead of his personal investments, he’s making his own decision. It’s only a matter of time before his clients start to notice. And for the kind of money he charges, they’re not going to put up with it.”

  Joseph came into Tony’s office a few minutes past 4:00 p.m. and, after pouring himself a glass of scotch, dropped down into one of the chairs in front of Tony’s desk. “I apologize if I was short with you earlier.”

  “It’s okay.” Tony turned down his mouth and shrugged. “You had a lot of money on the line. It’s understandable.”

  “Yeah.” Joseph blew out a stream of air as he crossed one of his legs over the other. “About the money. I, uh. I didn’t mean to tell you that way. It just came out.”

  “It’s none of my business. I admit I was a little shocked, but it’s none of my business.”

  “I’m making it your business. I’ve made some smart investments over the years and I’ve managed to accrue some money.”

  Tony laughed. “I’d call five hundred million a sizeable fortune.”

  “Actually, it’s more like eight hundred million.”

  Tony stared at him. “This money is from investments?”

  “Yes. Most of it is from the Angel investments, but also stocks and real estate.”

  “Jesus, Joe. This is hard to take in. How come you never mentioned it before?”

  “I was never pissed off, I guess. I tried to get you to invest.”

  “Did you really need to say that? I mean…” He laughed. “I can’t fucking believe it. You have eight hundred million? Since when?”

  “I’ve been accruing it since college.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me how much money you were making? Maybe then I would have taken more of your advice.”

  “You’ve always been conservative with your investments. I was willing to lose it all.”

  “What were you investing in today that was so important?”

  “Nothing in particular. A number of different companies I’ve been following.”

  “Do you manage this money yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  Tony linked his hands behind his head, his eyes continuing to study his friend. “You’ve impressed the hell out of me, Craig.”

  Joseph shrugged. “I’m the same person I was this morning.”

  “Not quite.”

  Joseph was sitting behind his desk in his study at 4:30 Monday morning, his eyes scanning articles in the Washington Post.

  “Fuck.” He reached for his cell phone. “Sam, it’s Joseph Craig. I want you to send the same information to the New York Times, CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX and ABC. Call and let me know you received this message.” He set his phone back on his desk, his eyes returning to the computer.

  Fourteen hours later, Joseph was in his family room watching the evening news, when his front door opened. “What in the hell?” He stood up, his eyes moving to the foyer.

  “Joseph?” Lia called. “Are you home?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I was going to surprise you and make dinner.” Her arms were full of bags. “I didn’t expect you home for a couple more hours. Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  “Of course.” He removed the bags from her arms and followed her to the kitchen. “Where’s Taylor?”

  “With my mom. There’s no school tomorrow, so she’s going to keep her overnight. Why are you home so early?”

  “I don’t know. I felt like coming home early.” He set the bags on the island in the kitchen. “What are you making?”

  “Shrimp scampi over linguini and a salad.”

  “Sounds good. I was watching the news.” He gestured with his hand towards the family room. “Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not, go ahead.” She watched him cross towards the family room. He was still preoccupied with the Zurtech information, she realized. He’d expected something to come out over the weekend and barely left his computer. Now it was Monday, and he was even more distracted.

  Twenty minutes later, the salad made and scampi warming on the stove, Lia walked out into the family room carrying two glasses of wine. “Wine?” She sat down next to him on the couch and set the wine glasses on the coffee table.

  “Hmm?” He turned away from the television. “Did you say something?”

  “Yes, I asked if you wanted wine.” She looked pointedly at the glass she’d set in front of him.

  “Sure. Thank you.” His eyes returned to the television as he raised the glass to his lips.

  “How was your day?”

  “Hmm?” He glanced away from the television momentarily before immediately returning his attention to CNN.

  “I asked how your day was.”

  “Fine.” He picked up the remote and began to flick between channels.

  “What are you trying to find?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Joseph, do you want me to leave?”

  “No, of course not.” His eyes didn’t leave the television screen.

  “You’re waiting for news about Zurtech, aren’t you?” She’d promised herself not to bring it up, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “No, I’m watching the news.”

  “Joseph.” She took the remote from his hand. “You’re not watching the news. You’re consuming the television.” She pushed the off button.

  “Hey!” He reached for the remote, his brows pulled together in a frown. “Turn it back on.”

  “No.” She shook her head as she held the remote out of his reach. “You’re so obsessed with Zurtech and Stan Hall, you can’t even give me a minute of attention. It’s ridiculous. I mean, I’m the one who should be obsessed with it. Not you.”

  “I was watching the news.” He threw his hand towards the television. “Fine. Keep it off.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the couch.

  “Joseph, will you please talk to me? Why is this suddenly so important to you? Until we ran into Stan Hall, you hadn’t even mentioned it in at least six months.”

  “I’ve invested a lot of my own time and money in this case, and I want to see it completed. I want to know it wasn’t all for naught. I want the information released. Is that so difficult to understand?”

  She was getting on his nerves, Lia realized as she met his eyes. For the first time in their relationship, he wasn’t thrilled to see her and certainly didn’t seem to want her in his house. “I’m leaving.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m leaving.” She was off the couch and headed towards the foyer. “And don’t pretend that’s not what you want. It’s all over your face.”

  He cursed softly under his breath before following her to the door. “Don’t go.” He reached out and took hold of the strap of her purse as she opened the front door. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Yes, you do.” She glanced
back over her shoulder. “I don’t understand this. Is this about revenge or something?” His preoccupation with Zurtech reminded her of the time he was so preoccupied with Ned’s time records.

  “Close the door.” He pulled back on her purse until she took a couple of steps backwards. “I’ll push the article from my mind and we’ll have a nice, quiet dinner—television free. I promise. I just want them to pay for what they did to you.”

  Joseph was wiping down the counters when the phone began to ring an hour later. He tossed the sponge in the sink before picking up his cell phone and looking at the display. “Turn on the television,” Tony’s voice said over the line. “ABC is reporting Zurtech was taking videos of female employees having sex with clients in order to run a blackmail scheme.”

  By midday Tuesday, Joseph was up by over two hundred and fifty million, and on Wednesday he cashed in, completely disassociating himself from the unfolding scandal.

  After working tirelessly from the day he found the letter from Richard Eastman in his mother’s closet twenty years earlier, he was close to the culmination of his plan.

  “He’s behind this Zurtech stuff,” Kevin said Thursday afternoon. He had just dropped down in a chair in front of Tony’s desk. “I’d bet a month’s salary on it.”

  “Come on.” Tony frowned. “What could possibly give you that impression?”

  “It’s obvious. He was preoccupied for days, and boom.” He threw up his arms. “Suddenly he’s on top of the world. You think it’s a coincidence that his entire disposition changed with the release of that story?”

  “Yes. I do. I mean, let’s be realistic, Kevin. Why would Joseph be behind this? What is his motivation?”

  Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Money. Nothing else motivates the guy. Oh,” he continued, raising his index finger, “and as an added bonus, he gets revenge for his fiancée.”

  “I’ll give you the revenge card, but you’re going to have to work a little harder to prove the money theory.”

  “Something on the stock market.”

  “Right.” Tony laughed. “He bought stock in Zurtech and then released the information so he could watch it tumble. Last I heard, they were down twenty-five percent. He’s not going to make a whole lot of money there.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he invested in one of their competitors, thinking their stock would go up as Zurtech’s went down.”

  “You’re reaching, Kevin.”

  “I don’t know what he did, but I’m sure he did something. There was a reason he initially called those women into this office after the two of you decided we weren’t going to take the case.”

  “Not this again.” Tony glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting in thirty minutes, and I don’t have time to sit here and listen to you throw out wild accusations about our partner.”

  “I know I’m right,” Kevin said. “And if he used this firm to gather information for his own financial gain, we could all be in trouble.”

  “Enough!” Tony stood up and buckled his briefcase. “I was serious the other day. I’ve had enough of the two of you, and I don’t want to sit around and discuss what-ifs about Joe. It’s a waste of both our time. If you have proof—actual evidence to back up your claims—then come talk to me. I’ve got to go.”

  19

  Tony’s Friday started out normal enough. He left his house at 5:00 a.m., stopped at the gym to work out and was sitting behind his desk with a large mug of coffee by 7:00 a.m.

  He opened his appointment book and began to scribble himself a note, but halfway through the message, his pen ran out of ink. He opened the left lower drawer of his desk and began rummaging through its contents in search of ink refills. When he pulled out a stack of manila folders, half of them spilled to the floor. Without the blunder, his day may have gone differently. As he knelt down beside his desk to put the papers back in their files, he picked up an invoice that had slipped out of one of the folders.

  He frowned as he looked at it. It was over a year old and from Malone Investigations for surveillance work at an address in Reston. His eyes centered in on the address and then moved to the sticky note, which read Give to Joe.

  He left his office, invoice in hand, and crossed to Joseph’s office. “Is he in?” He stopped at the secretary’s desk.

  “He’s in court today.”

  Moments later, he was in the office of the firm accountants. “What account was this charged to?” He held out the invoice to the lead accountant.

  “This is over fifteen months old,” the man said, looking up from the invoice.

  “I know the date,” Tony said shortly. “Can you plug in the name or invoice number or something to let me know what client it was charged to?”

  “Sure.” He set the invoice off to the side of his desk, his eyes returning to the spreadsheet on the computer screen. “I’ll let you know when—”

  “Now.” He put his hand on the sheet and slid it back towards the accountant. “I need to know now.”

  Within a minute, he held the sheet out to Tony. “It wasn’t charged to a client. Mr. Craig paid it himself. He said it was personal business.”

  “Personal business?”

  “That’s right.” The accountant nodded. “I remember, because I’d charged it to another client, and he told me to transfer the charges to him. He wrote out a personal check. See?” He pointed to the monitor where, next to the charge, was a note reading, Paid—J. Craig by personal check.

  Tony met John Bianchi for a lunch meeting to discuss the mechanics involved in setting up a trust for his son. When the business concluded, John turned the conversation personal. “I made a killing on the stock market this week, thanks to Joe’s advice.”

  “Is that so?”

  “As soon as I heard the news break on Monday night regarding Zurtech, I put a call in to my stock broker and had him sell three hundred shares short. By yesterday, I’d made over thirty thousand dollars—”

  “Joe told you to sell Zurtech stock short?” Tony sat up straighter in his chair.

  “Not specifically. I had lunch with him a few months ago, and he gave me a short course on investment strategies. He told me you could make as much money when a company is losing value as you can when it’s gaining. He explained the whole ‘selling short’ strategy to me. I took his advice. I knew Zurtech wouldn’t be going up this week, so I did what he said and made a bundle. He probably did too.”

  “Probably,” Tony said.

  When Joseph walked into his office at 5:30 p.m., Tony was sitting behind his desk, a highball glass full of scotch cupped in his right hand. “Hello.” Joseph hesitated briefly before setting his briefcase next to the door. “Are you waiting for me?”

  “Yes.” Tony made no move to vacate the chair. “Close the door.”

  Joseph pushed the door closed before crossing the room and lowering himself into one of his club chairs. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know.” Tony met his eyes. “I was hoping maybe you could tell me.”

  Joseph leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and linking his hands. “I think you need to tell me what’s on your mind. You’re the one sitting in my chair, and I’m assuming there’s a reason.”

  “I want to know what your involvement is in this Zurtech story.”

  “What?” Joseph sat up. “How could I possibly have any involvement with that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.” The set of Tony’s jaw was the only indication he was angry.

  “I’d expect this from Kevin, but not from you. I didn’t have any involvement.” He was out of his chair and crossing to the bar.

  “Is this the first time?”

  “I have no clue what you’re talking about. Did Kevin put you up to this?”

  “I figured it out myself.”

  “Figured what out?” Joseph asked shortly.

  “You’re going to stand there and lie to me? Like I’m just anybody?”

  “Well, you’re sitting there accus
ing me of who knows what, like I’m just anybody.”

  “I know you met with Lia and the other woman after this firm and, in particular, you and I decided we shouldn’t take the case. I know you paid to have surveillance on the house at 52561 Orange Avenue in Reston and I know you came to a meeting forty minutes late a few weeks ago because Malone stopped by the office. Who, as far as I can tell, isn’t involved in any of your cases with this firm.” He stood and walked around the desk, stopping just feet in front of Joseph. “Don’t lie to me, Joe. I want to know what you were doing.”

  “This has nothing to do with you or this firm. And I have a problem with you coming into my office, sitting behind my desk and acting like you’re sitting in judgment over me. Zurtech and my involvement in it, or lack thereof, is none of your business.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. The Zurtech case was brought to your attention because of your involvement in this firm.”

  “So?” Joseph crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

  “So, you used insider information for your own gain.”

  “And how did I use it for my own gain? Even if I am responsible for leaking that information to the media, which I’m not admitting, how does that benefit me?”

  Tony stared into his friend’s eyes. “I’ve been defending you to Kevin for years. And he was right. You’re standing there, looking me in the eyes, and lying to me.”

  “And you stand there in judgment over me, accusing me of God knows what!”

  “Damn it, Joe! You better answer my questions, or so help me, I’ll turn you in to the SEC and the bar association.”

  Joseph took a step backwards, his cheeks turning red. “What are you talking about?”

  “You!” Tony closed the distance separating them, their faces inches apart. “You betrayed this firm and me.”

  “What are you talking—”

  “Stop fucking lying to me,” Tony growled. “Don’t you get it? I know what you did. You gathered the evidence and then, last Friday, while you were holed up in this office too busy with your portfolio to deal with firm business, you sold stock of Zurtech. Then you leaked the information you gathered to the media and waited to cash in.”