Langdon and I headed to a nearby security and surveillance shop, one of several in Manhattan. It was a little disconcerting to see so many devices so readily available; tiny cameras and microphones, earpieces that really were invisible to the eye. It made me wonder who might be listening to me, watching me, because I really couldn’t be sure they weren’t. Ricardo had been followed, probably still was being tailed, by men probably using equipment very much like the stuff we were looking through.

Well, I thought, gotta fight fire with fire.

We bought a very small microphone that tucked under Langdon’s collar and transmitted via Wi-Fi to my smartphone, which we’d use to record the conversation. I clipped it in and set the collar flat, unable to ignore the thrill of what we were doing, getting a genuine rush from the daring of it all.

But there was also danger, and a lot of it, danger that was very real and could even be deadly. I knew John Alister had a gun in the top drawer of his desk; most executives did. If felt cornered, he could draw on us and shoot us both dead, take the phones and say we attacked him.

But it was too late to change our minds. Time to save Langdon’s company was running out, and bluffing John Alister into a confession or any kind of offhand admission was our last, best hope.

I hadn’t been in the offices for several days, and there was a feeling in the halls I couldn’t ignore, a certain tension, odd expressions on my coworkers’ faces as we approached the big office in the corner. People seemed to be scurrying around with particular hurry and nervousness, feet moving in little steps, eyes shooting at me and then quickly turning away.

I felt different too, like I wasn’t the same person I’d been when they’d last seen me. Langdon had changed me, brought out things in me that I hadn’t known were there, a person I hadn’t even realized existed. In the short week or so we’d been together, he’d revealed a world I could never have seen otherwise, a life I could only have imagined.

Now it was time for me to earn it, to pay the price, whatever it would be. My mouth went dry, but I was focused and my pace was even and steady. Langdon was just an inch or two behind me, strong enough not to have to lead. He let me take that position, and it wasn’t lost on a single person at Alister Fashions, least of all me.

I didn’t even bother to knock. John looked up at us, shocked, standing up from his leather wing-backed chair. “Sheryl, Langdon, thank God! When I heard about the accident, I went right out there, but you’d both gone. I called several times, even sent somebody around to your apartment…”

Langdon and I exchanged a knowing little glance, and my thoughts flashed to the people following me and Ricardo. It must have been John’s men, I realized. That proves it!

John walked around the side of the desk and wrapped his arms around me to give me a big, fatherly hug.

Or is he frisking me for a mic? Does he suspect? He’s terribly smart and probably on the alert.

I refocused as John shook Langdon’s hand. “Good to see you, Langdon. Please… make yourselves comfortable. Drink?”

“I’d like a water.”

“Nothing, thanks,” Langdon said, and I knew to follow his lead. Drinks could be drugged, or poisoned.

“Nothing,” I repeated. Only slightly confused, John shrugged and returned to his seat behind his desk. Langdon and I sat down in the twin chairs facing him. “Are you alright, Mr. Alister? You seem… flustered.”

John broke out in an unnatural little giggle. “No, just some… other business going on. There was a thing out in the hall, no big deal. Anyway, I’m just glad you’re both okay. And as for that kid, Flynn, I… I’m embarrassed for him, for my company. I’m just glad it all worked out as well as it did.”

Langdon just stared him down, and it was impossible to miss the growing tension in the room. Langdon finally made his move. “How much’d you pay that kid to take a swipe at me, J.A.?”

“How—? Nothing, Langdon, I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

But Langdon just repeated, “How much did you pay him?”

John looked from Langdon to me, but I remained resolute, as stone-faced as I could be. I said nothing.

John broke out with a little smile and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I gave the kid a couple bucks to sign a few NDAs and get lost. So what?”

I asked, “Why?”

“Because he was toxic,” John said. “Bad for business, bad all around. And Langdon, I didn’t want him to sue you, which he was lining up to do, make no mistake. I had to spend half the week negotiating with that little shit.”

“Why not just let Langdon be sued?”

“Bad P.R. for us, Sheryl. The kid sues Langdon, AussieGarb sues Alister Fashions, the lawyers get rich and the rest of us get screwed. It just wasn’t worth it. It’s a good lesson about office dalliances.”

He looked at me as if my being with Langdon was just such a dalliance. But I was past caring what John Alister thought of me or Langdon or our being together. He’d started it in the first place.

I said, “What about all of your dalliances, John? Lisa Ling, some mysterious woman in Harlem?”

“I told you, Lisa Ling is insane. I never had an affair with her. And I certainly haven’t been carrying on with anybody in Harlem. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about… and by the sound of it, neither do you.”

“You keep popping out of the office,” I said. “Who are you secretly meeting with?”

“I wasn’t secretly doing anything. I meet with lots of people, Sheryl. You’re my personal assistant, not my mother.” He looked at us both, even more confusion overtaking his expression. “Anyway, as it happens, this month I’ve been popping out to St. John’s, to… to visit with my wife.”

“Your—?”

“Bailey’s mother. She’s buried out there. We met around Christmas. It was always a very special time for us. This year in particular, with things around the house going the way they are, I guess I just felt a little lonely for her, that’s all.”

“What about that man at the FTC, Sherman Mathers?”

John shrugged. “What about him?”

“You bought him off too. That proves you’re up to something!”

John huffed and shook his head, arms flopping at his sides. “I didn’t give them one red cent! If they’re finally backing down it’s because they don’t have a case and they’ve run out of taxpayer money to waste chasing me around. But I didn’t buy him off, Sheryl. If I could have, I probably would have, but honestly it just never occurred to me.” He looked me over, his eyes passing to Langdon and then back to me. “Just what the hell is going on here, anyway?”

“Your hostile takeover of AussieGarb, J.A.”

“Hostile—? I… I don’t know what to say. I’m thunderstruck… I’m… I’m flabbergasted.”

“Didn’t mean to thunderstrike or flabbergast you, mate, but your hands’er in the cookie jar, aren’t they?”

I said, “Sometimes a person sets out to do the right thing, but… but they get caught up in things, carried away by circumstance, corrupted by power.”

John shook his head, holding his hands out at his sides. “I honestly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

I said, “You’ve been buying up shares of AussieGarb stock. Then you lured Langdon here with that lame offer so you could send an operative out to Australia and buy out his board of directors.”

John thought about it from behind his desk, his hands hovering nearer to the top drawer. “It’s not a bad thought, Sheryl, really… I’m impressed. But I haven’t done anything like that.”

“RicTel International. Ever heard of it?”

“Nope.”

“J.A., it’s a shell company in your own portfolio.”

“So what? We’ve got hundreds of identities, little companies all over the place. You can’t expect me to follow every single one.”

“You sent us out in that helicopter,” I blurted out, “then rigged it to crash.”

John’s face went white. “You… you think I tried to murder you?”

I asked him, “Why did you send us out of town in the first place?”

“To get you out from under the microscope for a while, let things settle. Christ, Sheryl, when did you become so… so jaded and devious and paranoid?”

“I learned from the best,” I said to him with a cold, hard stare.

But John just shook his head. “You’ve got me all wrong, you both do. How… how could I sabotage a helicopter, anyway? My imaginary girlfriend in Harlem, I suppose.”

Langdon waved him off. “C’mon, J.A., you know men like us can buy just about anything. You got people.”

“Speaking of that,” I said to John, “who’s your operative?”

John’s eyebrows crept up high on his forehead. “My what?”

“Your man in Australia,” I said.

The adjoining bathroom door opened, drawing my surprised attention. Langdon and I stood and looked over to see Margaret Alister stepping out and into the office. I made the obvious assumption, glaring at John.

“You’ve had her listening in all this time?”

“She stepped into the bathroom just a moment before you burst into the office.”

Margaret said, “That’s right, sweetie. My husband and I had… other business.”

“But you’ve been listening?”

“Might as well. But you two couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.” She smiled and glanced at John. All Langdon and I could do was stand there and hear her explanation. “I was here to tell John that I was leaving him.”

This took me by surprise, and I asked John, “Is that true?” He nodded with a resolved expression, one corner of his mouth tucked into his cheek.

Margaret said, “You bet your little life it is. But it wasn’t just some impulse move.”

Langdon squinted. “What are you on about, ya daffy Sheila?”

“Daffy like a dingo,” Margaret said. “When John here says he didn’t know anything about all this, he’s absolutely right.” John’s attention was fixed on her, his eyes growing wide as his face went white, and I could tell he was hearing all this for the first time. I knew just how he felt.

Margaret strode across the office to the cocktail cart and slowly poured herself a whisky. “I established RicTel. I named it after your little fairy friend after meeting him at one of the shoots.”

“Why?”

Margaret shrugged. “Just my little joke, honey. I had to call it something, right?” She made a slight gesture with one hand in John’s direction. “I knew numbnuts here wouldn’t pick up on it. They say he’s so intelligent, but really he just thinks with his dick like any other man.”

My mind was swimming with this new information. Images returned to my memory of Margaret following us through Central Park and visiting me in my apartment. “That’s why you were following us?”

“Of course, dear. Had to hire a bunch of other guys to pick up the slack, had ‘em following your fag buddy too. They were easy enough to find, and they’re quick to disappear.”

Langdon presumed, “You had to know I was… adequately distracted.”

Margaret raised one eyebrow. “Couldn’t have you going back home and ruining my buyout.”

“So all that stuff about you being jealous,” I said, “‘stay away from my man’… and that meeting to get me fired!”

Margaret chuckled and took a sip of Scotch with a mean little chuckle. “Yeah, you fell right for all that! Well, don’t feel too bad, honey, you’re young yet. You’ll learn.”

Langdon said, “What about the kid? You put him up to that row in Central Park?”

Margaret shook her head. “Nope. Call that a happy accident. Sure bought me a little extra time, though, I can’t lie. Well, I can, actually, and it turns out I’m quite good at it.” She raised her cocktail glass as if in a toast. “Anyway, I’m much obliged.”

John sighed from behind his desk, turning to me and Langdon. “Sheryl, Langdon, I… I’m so sorry about all this.”

“S’not your fault, mate,” Langdon said.

I said, “We shouldn’t have assumed it was you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“Hey, what’s going on up here?” We turned to the big doors that opened to the hallway and saw a familiar woman stepping into the office. She had long, black hair and an olive complexion. She looked at me and Langdon and John before finally fixing her attention on Margaret. “I saw these two come up, got a little worried.”

I knew her from somewhere, but I just couldn’t place it.

Margaret said, “Gentlemen…” she glared at me and said nothing, instead going on to introduce the woman as, “Beverly Pantucci.”

It was Langdon who said, “You’re that reality show producer, Adrienne something.”

“Devereaux, dear,” Beverly said. “Was that the name I gave you? Honestly, I find it hard to keep track. What’s the difference?”

I said to Margaret, “Wait, this is your operative?”

“Among other things,” Margaret said with a knowing wink and a little kiss blown my way. “I had her go to Australia and make the deal with the AussieGarb board members… enough of them anyway.”

Beverly said, “That’s right.” She took a long index finger and, pinky out, exaggeratedly wiped an imagined droplet from the corner of her mouth. “It was a lot easier than I expected.”

Langdon looked on in stoic silence, his eyes fixed on Beverly. “The ones you couldn’t buy out, you serviced in other ways.”

“Like a pro, big man. Made most of the arrangements in advance, then flew over to, um, seal the deal.” She looked at me, reading the contempt in my stare. “Don’t get all judgmental with me, sweetie. I know what you two have been up to.”

“We’re in love,” Langdon said.

“That’s your problem,” Beverly said with a knowing smile, crossing to the cocktail cart to take sip of Margaret’s drink.

I had to ask, “Why did you introduce yourself to us like that, as a reality show producer?”

Beverly and Margaret glanced at one another and broke out in a mean, girlish giggle. Margaret said, “That was my idea, hon, a little private joke. I just couldn’t resist.” They went on laughing, ridicule heavy in their voices. “I love my little pranks, as you can see.”

“Anyway,” Beverly went on, “it’s too late now. We’ve got all the proxies we need and then some.”

Margaret added, “Combine those with the stocks we’ve got with RicTel, and we’ve got a controlling position in AussieGarb.”

Beverly turned to John, who was fuming behind his desk. “And with Margaret divorcing you, you can kiss goodbye to half your company as well, and we won’t have to spend a single dime.”

“Not to mention the damage it’ll do to your reputation,” Margaret said to John. “When word gets out that I pulled this off behind your back, you’ll be finished in New York, Chicago… even Los Angeles won’t be interested.”

Beverly added, “Check and mate.”

But John slid open the top desk drawer and pulled out a small, nickel-plated semiautomatic handgun. “Game’s not over yet.”