Chapter 25

Finn

I left the lake house early that morning with the sound of birds stirring. Spring had arrived, and the world seemed ready to celebrate.

I, on the other hand, was torn. I didn’t want to leave Elspeth or the quasi life we’d assembled with one another. Yet I knew if I lost track of my business, I would regret it and possibly even blame it on her. That wouldn’t be fair to her—she’d only done as I’d asked her.

There were several issues at the office that simply couldn’t be ignored any longer. I’d left Jerry and Leigh in charge and god knew, they needed a break. It was likely they’d been patching holes in the boat, awaiting my return.

I took my time driving downtown—the traffic made sure I never even approached the speed limit. I tapped my steering wheel to make a phone call and had two dozen red roses sent to the lake house. I knew she’d rather have me in person, and I’d have to give some thought as to how we could be together and me still keep my hand in the business.

That’s when I realized that in my mind, it was no longer a question of if but how. I couldn’t imagine Elspeth not being in my life. It would suck the air out of me and no doubt, I’d lose any interest in life alone. A shiver ran down my spine as I gave the thought of her being gone a moment’s thought. I forced it quickly out of my head and popped in a CD we’d listened to on the way up north earlier in the winter.

I hadn’t let anyone at the office know I was coming. I wanted to see how they ran business as usual compared to my version. Elspeth seemed so much happier out of the city. I knew I could never ask her to return and live in a world of glass and views while the grass and flowers were artistically arranged to enhance a landscaper’s design. No, it had become abundantly clear that I would have to set up a satellite office where I could both maintain control and yet keep her isolated. She seemed to thrive by the water.

I smiled to myself, thinking about the last time I’d sent a lady flowers. It had been to Mary Jane Simmons. She was the rather plain-looking daughter of Henry Simmons, of Simmons Manufacturing. He was anxious to find a husband for his only daughter and had dangled a partnership in his company for the golden winner. I had no intention of marrying his daughter, but had put on a good show so I could get close enough to decide whether his company was worth any trouble. I’d sent her one red rose for two weeks.

Fortunately, Mary Jane knew we had no future between us, and she accommodated my flirting with good humor. She’d found herself a better match in the person of Stanley, something-or-other—the golf pro at her father’s country club. The last I’d heard, she and Stanley were nestled in a little house near the club, and she was having their third child. Stanley was desperately waiting for his wife to inherit. I shuddered to think of having such few options in your future.

All I could think of was Elspeth. I pictured her puffy, sleep-moistened features in the early winter light and the toffee-colored cleavage that peeked from beneath her nightshirt as we pretended anger over a late-night game of chess. I loved her ass and watched it as she cooked. It was nicely rounded and high—her long curls lay atop it like a curtain blowing in the breeze. She always smelled so fresh and her perfect white teeth sometimes drew blood in my lower lip when I kissed her hard. I wanted to crawl inside her and hide from the world—keep her all to myself.

I’d already made up my mind. Once I got the company checked out, she and I would sit down and arrive at some conclusion about her future. I knew she would be in mine. I just didn’t know whether there was a husband or boyfriend out there that I first needed to dispose of. She was like the perfect fruit, just about harvest time. If I dawdled too long, she’d come onto someone else’s radar, and I’d have lost my advantage. I knew how that sounded, but I didn’t give a damn. She belonged to me.

I swept through the doors and heads popped up as I walked toward my office. Leigh must have heard the greetings as her head popped up over a divider and she was flushed. “Finn, I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

“Hello, Leigh. In my office in five and bring me a cup of something hot, if you will.”

“Uh, Finn…” She was scurrying around the divider and almost tripped to get close to me. “He’s in your office.”

I stopped. “He?”

“Jerry.”

“Why is Jerry in my office? What’s wrong with his?”

“It was his idea, Finn. He said it would be more efficient if he didn’t have to walk down from his own to find me. I didn’t like it—it didn’t seem right, but you know Jerry…” Her voice trailed off, and I felt a cold trickle of dread move over the back of my scalp.

“Hold the coffee, will you?” I asked, as if it was necessary.

Indeed, when I came around the corner and my office was in view, I hardly recognized it. I didn’t bother knocking, even though he was on the telephone with his back turned to the door. I could hear him speaking in a somewhat familiar tone with whoever was on the other end.

He had taken over—completely and utterly removing any of my personal belongings and furnishings from the room. I’d displayed several framed photos around the room – trophies of business meetings with world leaders. They were gone and in their place were hideous, cheap prints—even the one of the dogs playing poker.

I almost choked. I could see Leigh hovering behind to my right, gauging the look on my face for the right moment to make Jerry aware I was there.

His arrogant posture indicated he felt like a king on a throne. He sat boasting and shooting rubber bands at my custom-woven wallcovering imported from France. His feet were crossed at the ankle and lying on the edge of a ratty-looking trash receptacle that reeked of rancid burgers and perhaps even vomit.

I walked over to the desk and as I approached, I saw Leigh retreat hastily and close the door behind her. I calmly leaned over and pushed a finger on the phone to disconnect the call. He hesitated, holding the phone out in the air, shaking the receiver as though a wire was loose.

“Hello, Jerry,” I said in a quiet, but steely voice.

Jerry whipped around, his crossed ankles slamming into the trash can and knocking its contents into a stream of filth onto the carpet. He snapped upright, and his jaw dropped. He opened his mouth to speak but must have gotten saliva down his windpipe because he began coughing furiously. He dropped the phone back into its cradle and rose to his feet, coughing and trying to tighten his tie. He had a two-day growth of beard and stains on his white shirt. This was not the man I’d left in charge, and I had a horrible suspicion why.

“Pull yourself together and meet me in the boardroom in five,” I ordered tersely and left the office, taking the coffee that Leigh proffered as I passed her. “When Jerry and I are done, I want to talk to you,” I told her and her eyes were huge as she nodded. I could tell she was on the verge of tears.

I sat at the head of the table, my laptop open and spreadsheets from my larger companies visible in layers on the screen. I could, at a glance, know the numbers weren’t right.

I had connections, and they wore uniforms. The Lieutenant knew me and reacted quickly. He connected to my laptop and sat, waiting and listening.

Jerry tapped on the door and came in. I motioned him to the chair next to me, but he ignored me and sat at the opposite head of the table. He was pulling a power play and this shit wasn’t going to work.

“I’m listening,” I stated plainly and waited.

He laughed—not just a short or casual chuckle but a canon burst of wild peals that was one step from a nut house. “Just what is it you want me to say?” he barked.

“You don’t intimidate me, Hanson.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I took you for.”

I tapped my finger on the table, not in a nervous way, but one that sounded like a countdown to an explosion. I cocked my head, sizing him up and calculating just how much of my hand I wanted showing.

“Why Marty?” I finally asked and his brows rose.

“I’m impressed, Finn. I figured we did a pretty good job of making that look legit.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Jesus! How god-damned stupid are you? The fucker got too close. He had to go.”

“Did you at least handle it personally?” I knew he wanted to brag.

“Naturally.”

I gave a few moments in Marty’s memory. “Who else is in on this in the company?”

“You think I need help? That bitch of a secretary of yours avoids me as much as she can, but I took care of her, don’t worry.”

“What are you saying?” I growled, fighting to keep my temper.

“You want me to spell it out? I fucked her, you shithead. I told her if she didn’t want to end up like your pal, Marty, she’d better jump to my tune.” He laughed again and looked at his nails as though fresh from a manicure.

“So, what do you want? To get out?” I finally asked in a resigned tone.

“Well, I sure as hell don’t need you to give it to me. We’ve already got what we want. From here on out, you’re going to play along and do your job, or I’ll fuck you, too, and I don’t necessarily mean in a business sense.”

I stiffened but fought not to let it show. So much was rushing into my head at that moment. All the things that hadn’t made sense. Marty’s suspicions and unexpected death. Jerry’s willingness to take on running the entire operation without a raise or equity compensation. I’d been so blind. So God-damned blind! “And just what does ‘playing along’ entail?”

Jerry stood up, opened his fly, and began pissing on the Aubusson carpet beneath his feet, guiding the urine to cover the path between himself and the door. There would be no way to avoid stepping in it. I was fuming inside, but not because of piss. I could see Leigh in the distance through the blur that had become anger in my eyes.

“You get the message?” He zipped up his fly and farted loudly. “I tell you to piss and you ask me where. I’m running this show, and you’re my dummy. You’re going to sit on my dick and squawk when I tell you, sign what I tell you, and you’ll keep your dummy mouth shut or I’ll put you… well, let’s say… in a box, shall we?”

“If something happens to you, who do I report to?”

“What makes you think something’s going to happen to me?” He grinned, his eyes like steel slits in the door of a blast furnace.

“Just like to know whose team I’m on.” I was holding myself in check.

“Big Russ will take care of you, don’t you worry about that. You can try and knock me off, but there’s a dozen more just like me waiting in line to make it right, if you get my drift.”

I nodded, the tapping on the table continued. “Okay, I guess that’s enough.”

“Enough what?” He pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket and lit it with a lighter, drawing deeply and blowing the smoke into the center of the room.

I calmly and slowly leaned forward and tapped a key, rotating the laptop so he could see the screen. The spreadsheets were gone and in their place was a Skype screen.

“Did you get all that, Lieutenant?” I asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

The door to the boardroom opened and there stood a half dozen uniformed officers. They looked at the soaked carpet and back up to Hanson. One curled his finger to Hanson to come toward them but he was looking desperately for a way out.

The windows of the boardroom were high. He leapt through the air toward me—I assume he intended to take me hostage. He landed short and when he looked up, it was at the barrel of the .32 revolver in my hand. No one in the company knew, but I always carried when I came into the city—anyone would be a fool who didn’t.

“Officer?” I called out. “I feel as though my life is in danger. Okay to shoot him?”

Jerry’s face crumbled, and he held up his hand, as though to stop the bullet he believed was coming.

“You can if you want, but we don’t want to upset all those nice ladies behind us. What say you just walk him over in this direction and we’ll take him down to the precinct and have a talk. I’ll send somebody in with a long doormat,” he added.

I nodded my thanks and motioned to the door. Hanson put up his hands and sloshed over to where the officers waited. The group cuffed him behind his back and efficiently moved him out of the building. A custodian was rolling out a rubber-back runner, and I left the boardroom. I’d already re-holstered my gun, and I was fairly sure that there had been few witnesses.

I slid by Leigh’s desk, pulled her coat off the rack, and held it out for her to pull on. She was crying openly. “Shhh…” I said under my breath. “You’re fine. We’re getting you out of here,” I told her in a whisper and waved to a few of the staff. “Everyone back to work now. Thank you all for remaining calm.”

Once I had Leigh downstairs and onto the street, she bent over and began sobbing.

“Hold on a little longer, honey,” I told her and flagged a cab. I put her in the back seat and crawled in beside her. “What’s your address, Leigh?” I asked and she managed to get it out enough that I could relay it to the cabbie. We pulled up outside a modest apartment building downtown a few minutes later. She truly was a working girl—even lived close to the office.

She handed me her keys, and I got her up to her apartment. “Now, you’re going in there and take the hottest shower you can stand, and I’m going to hunt through your cupboards for a bottle of something.”

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Cupboard on the end, over the dishwasher,” she said and went into the bathroom.

I found a bottle of brandy and poured two snifters that were shelved next to the bottle. When she came out, at last, she was wearing a sweat suit and had a towel wrapped around her wet hair. I handed her a glass and we settled down. She sat on the sofa, and I noticed she pulled her legs beneath herself—a gesture that told me she was feeling vulnerable and scared.

“He told me,” I began.

“Finn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I knew you wanted to be left alone and as soon as I realized what was going on, it was too late for me to get out. He threatened awful things…” She was sobbing again.

“Shhhh… Leigh… It’s over, and I’m here now. It’s all over. You don’t have to worry about Jerry. He’ll never see the light of day again outside prison walls. It’s you I’m concerned about.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“Victims never apologize. You did nothing wrong—the wrong was done to you. Now, let me ask you a couple of questions. To your knowledge, is anyone else with the company involved?”

She shook her head. “No, not that I ever heard or saw. He only talked to his people. He played the game a few days to make sure you were really out of town, and that’s when he turned.”

“Shhhh… okay, then we’ll just hope that’s the case. In the meantime, we’ll have security review the surveillance and track his comings and goings from the building, as well as his phone records, etc. That’s my job, not yours.”

She nodded and reached down to the lower shelf of her side table to pull up a box of Kleenex.

“Next question. Where did he take you when…?” I let the question drift away. Her eyes flew to the bedroom door.

“I figured as much. What I want you to do right now is go in there and pack a big suitcase with your clothes. I’ll send someone over later to pack up the rest of your things and put them in storage. I’m putting you on a plane for the islands for a couple of weeks—on me. You can take anyone you like, but you’re not going alone. When you come back, you’ll have a new place to live and you can pull anything from storage you want to keep, but the rest of the memories go to the dump. I’ll give you a decorating allowance, and I want you to buy yourself new everything. Got that?”

“Finn, I can’t let you do that.”

“It’s already done and you’re not to argue, hear me? When you come back, I’m also putting you in the hands of professionals and you can get some time to talk about what happened. I don’t want you coming out of this thing scarred. You have nothing to worry about. I will see to it that you are guarded until this is over. As a matter of fact, stay in the islands for a month. By then, the dust should have settled, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

“Finn, you’re wonderful.”

“No, Leigh, you’re a hero, honey. Now get in there and pack up that suitcase. Give me a shout when you’re done, I’ll carry it down for you, and we’ll get another cab and head to the airport.”

She nodded, wiped her nose, and disappeared into the bedroom.

I took that time to step into the hallway and make a few calls, beginning with Elspeth.

“Hello?”

“Hi, sweetheart. Everything okay there?”

“Yes, but quiet. It feels strange.”

I hated to hear that but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment. “Elspeth, I’m afraid I’ve got a situation here at the office.”

“What’s wrong?” She sounded concerned, and I didn’t want her worried.

“Nothing for you to worry about but there’s been a bit of treachery while I was gone, and this is going to take me a few days longer to clean up. How would you feel about my being gone an extra week or so?”

There was a short silence at the other end and then she responded, “It’s fine. I’ll be fine. Stay as long as you need.”

“You sure? I could come back over the weekend but if I stayed and worked straight through, I can be back that much sooner.”

“Of course. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

“Okay. I appreciate you understanding. This wasn’t something I expected, and there’s no one to cover for me. I have to stay.”

“Are you ready to go, Finn?” Leigh asked from behind me in the doorway.

“I understand. See you when you’re back,” she said and the line went dead. Since this was the first time I’d really spoken to her on a phone, I wasn’t sure whether her brevity was normal or if there was a problem.

I had my hands full at the moment, however, and I knew she was safe. I had to get Leigh out of the area and stabilized, and then deal with the charges that would be filed against Jerry Hanson. I needed to find a new workspace until my office and boardroom were restored.

“I thought maybe you’d left,” Leigh said lamely, as she joined me in the hall, the suitcase in her hand.

“Are you kidding? You’re my right-hand gal – not about to take a chance losing you. Here, you give me that suitcase and your apartment key. Then, let’s get out of here and let you find a plane that takes you to sunshine. Did you find someone to go with you?” I asked.

She nodded. “My friend, Kathy. Her husband’s always out of town on business and she has no kids. She just lives a couple of streets over and she’s waiting. Can we pick her up?”

“You know it,” I replied, locking the door, picking up the luggage and holding out my hand to her as we headed for the elevator and down to the street.

I had the cab waiting, and she gave him directions to Kathy’s apartment. I felt embarrassed that I never even asked about her family, or who she hung around with before I came along. She’d dedicated her entire life to me and my company, and I’d been too self-involved to even inquiry about her personal life. I knew I’d done it for a reason, but maybe, just maybe, my reasons weren’t good enough.

An hour later, she and Kathy had boarding passes in hand and were waiting to be seated on the plane. I stood on the concourse and waved good-bye before I took the cab on back to the office.

I tapped one of Leigh’s assistants on the shoulder and found an empty office. I offered her a promotion and a raise without explaining all the details and gave her a preliminary list of things to do. It included the redecorating my office, the boardroom, and any other room he might have used. I wanted every trace of him removed from my life.

I thought about Elspeth and realized she was probably very confused right about then. The new assistant, Pam, called my name and told me there was a lieutenant on the phone for me. I set up a temporary command center in the empty office and had all my calls forwarded there. They were charging Hanson with several felonies, the first of which was the murder of Marty.

He told me to let the state get their piece of him first and then if there was any left, to file whatever civil suit I wanted taken care of.

I told him I’d sent Leigh to the islands to heal and he thought that was a good idea.

“We have his confession recorded, thanks to you. That was fast thinking on your part,” he commented. “Especially putting him on the rear camera—we looked at the footage and have not only his words, but everything he did,” he added, and we both knew to what he was referring.

He asked me to keep myself available and we hung up. I decided to let the state have Hanson for now. If, for some reason, he outlived his sentence, I knew whoever would be pitch-hitting for ‘Big Russ’ would finish up the job.

So much to do, and despite the havoc, it felt good to be in charge again. I still hadn’t dealt with my emotions about Marty—that would have to wait until I was alone.