Need to Know (Sisterhood Book 28) by Fern Michaels (11)

Chapter 10

Henry Ballard felt like he had been kicked in the middle of his gut with a battering ram as he stared at the buzzing phone in his hand, a reminder that the call was over and he needed to hang up the phone. He did, marveling at how steady his hand was. He sat frozen in his custom-crafted ergonomic chair and chewed on his bottom lip. He wondered if he’d ever be able to move again. He also knew that with that one phone call, his life, as he’d known it, was never going to be the same again.

His mind moved then at warp speed. Fifty years he’d dedicated his life to the law, to this firm, fighting injustice every single day of those fifty years.

He and the partners had deliberately done things they shouldn’t have. Guilty as charged by the cockroach.

Henry Ballard was many things. The one thing he wasn’t was a fool. “I did it, I own it,” he muttered under his breath. It didn’t help his thought processes when he recalled how Alvin and Robert had jumped on board immediately. But only because he had asked them. This was smack-dab on his doorstep, and he knew in his gut that both men would remind him of that fact.

What was the admonition he’d used back then to intimidate them into agreeing with his proposal? Ah, yes . . . “Either you’re a team player or not. If you’re not, it’s time to walk out the door.” Neither of them had walked out the door.

Henry let his gaze circle the opulent office until his eyes came to rest on his old-fashioned Rolodex. He spun the wheel until he came to the S’s, flipping the cards until he saw the name Matthew Spicer, along with his address and phone number. He removed the card and placed it carefully in the middle of his desk. He stared at it with loathing.

His star witness in the Tram v Oden lawsuit. Bought and paid for. A brand-new Jaguar and one hundred thousand in cash. That was the day, Henry recalled, when he sold his soul to the Devil.

Henry almost jumped out of his skin when his phone shrilled. He really needed to get someone in here to make it buzz or chime. He pressed a button on the console to hear his secretary of thirty years telling him that he had a call from a Matthew Spicer. Did he want to take the call or return it later on?

“Put Mr. Spicer through,” he said in a steady voice that surprised him. Talk about timing. Unbelievable. Forrester was clicking on all cylinders.

“Mr. Ballard, this is Matthew Spicer. I was wondering if you had time to speak to me. Outside the office. I just received a very . . . um . . . unsettling phone call from one of your firm’s former partners. At least that’s what he said over the phone when he identified himself. He asked to meet me and said he would make it worth my while. What’s going on, Mr. Ballard? You assured me, swore to me . . . this would never, ever come up. I believed you and your partners. It looks to me from where I’m standing that rather than never coming up again, it is now front and center. So where would you like to meet?” Spicer asked, his tone belligerent.

Henry Ballard’s mind raced as his stomach muscles tightened into a hard knot. Instead of responding to the question, he asked one of his own. “This caller, does he have a name?”

“Of course he has a name. I don’t know if it’s an alias or not, but he said his name was Arthur Forrester. He wants to meet tomorrow morning at a Starbucks in midtown D.C. He said he’d call me when he got into the city and give me the exact location. Listen, this guy knows everything there is to know about me. He knows where I goddamn live, Henry! He had my home phone number, and he has my cell phone number also.”

Henry Ballard’s mind continued to race. “Where are you now?”

“Here at my condo. In case you forgot, I give music lessons here six days a week.”

“How long will it take you to cancel your students, say, for the next six months? How long will it take you to get in touch with your landlord, pay six months in advance, and take care of all your business as if you are going on a sabbatical for six months?”

“A few hours tops. Is this that serious?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Spicer. Can you have your bags packed and be ready to go by late this afternoon?”

“Depends on where you think I’m going. I do not have a robust bank account. I used the money you paid me to buy my condo, but I still have a mortgage. I have to pay garage rental plus utilities. Are you prepared to take care of all that?” His tone had lost none of its belligerence.

“Yes. How would you like to live in Maui, Hawaii, for the next six months? The firm has a house there that we use on occasion to entertain special clients. No one knows about it, but the name partners. It’s right on the ocean, if you like water. There will be no cost to you, and it comes with a housekeeper and caretaker. There is also an Audi in the garage you can use. We can discuss this when we meet later this afternoon. When you do come to meet us, have your bags with you, as you will be leaving our meeting and heading for the airport. Disconnect your home phone. Contact your mobile carrier and get a new number. Can you do all of what I’ve just outlined?”

“It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, now, do I? The way I see it, either I agree, or I go to jail. Along with you and your partners. I also want it understood that I am not blackmailing you. Yes, it’s all doable. I want it understood that when I get back, and if my students have found other teachers, that you will compensate me.”

“Yes, of course. The word blackmail never entered my mind, Mr. Spicer. You helped us out when we needed you. We will take care of you now. In the meantime, if your caller should call again, do not answer the phone. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Where do you want to meet and when? Please give me a precise time?”

“Café Davino, five o’clock. I’ll have your plane ticket with me. Thank you for calling me, Mr. Spicer.”

“I wish I could say it was my pleasure, but it isn’t a pleasure at all. I’ll see you at five o’clock,” Matthew Spicer said before he ended the call.

Henry Ballard dropped his head into his hands. At that moment in time, he knew that he was capable of killing. He wanted nothing more than to choke the life out of Arthur Forrester. He sat that way for ten solid minutes until he had his breathing under control and the knot in his stomach had dissipated. Then he sent off two in-house e-mails to Alvin and Robert, asking them to come to his office ASAP.

All it took was five minutes on the clock for Alvin Ballard and Robert Quinlan to appear in Henry Ballard’s office. “Follow me,” he said. “We’re going to the conference room. What I have to tell you has to be said in a soundproof room.” With that said, Henry led the way out of the office and down the hall to the conference room where he and the partners had met with Annie and Maggie and, later on, with Arthur and Nala Forrester.

Inside, he headed for his seat at the head of the table, then changed his mind. “Lock the door and sit down, please.” The next thing Henry did was to press a button to tell his secretary he was not to be disturbed and to hold all his calls. He looked at his two senior partners, hating the look of alarm he was seeing on their faces, a look that he knew would turn to one of outright panic the moment he shared what was going on. He motioned for both men to head to the far corner of the room, to the seating area reserved for clients when discussions got too intense at the big table and a break was called for. He felt sick to his stomach when he sat down.

“For God’s sake, Henry, what is it? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, and it has you by the hand,” Robert said.

“I have,” Henry said before he brought both of the name partners up to date. When he was nearly finished talking, he ended with, “Let’s not do the blame game here. That’s over and done with. I think what I came up with will work, but I am not one hundred percent sure. I think Matthew Spicer will be as good as his word. If Arthur can’t find him, there’s nothing he can do. Everything he threatened hinges on Matthew Spicer’s being available as a witness to what we did. Now, aside from us dropping all suits against Arthur, do we give him what he wants or do we fight him? He’s going to be calling back. We need a solid plan here, boys.”

Henry was not totally surprised when there were no recriminations from his senior partners. Still, he felt only relief. “I say we fight, but you have to agree. We can’t let this bastard blackmail us like this. If we do, it will never end till he has bled us dry. Arthur Forrester is a son of a bitch whose greed knows no bounds. We all know how that works. Look at what he tried to pull off with Garland Lee.”

“Are we absolutely sure we can count on Matthew Spicer?” Alvin asked.

“As sure as I can be at this point in time. If the monetary reward is sufficient, I think he will stay true. He hasn’t gouged us and was content with his original payout. He has every right to look out for his own skin. We need to make it worth his while to stay loyal. We can pay him out of our own pockets. Six months in Hawaii is a dream come true for him. This thing, whatever happens, should be over in six months, one way or the other. He’ll go back to his old life, pick up new students if his old ones leave. If that doesn’t happen, we will continue to subsidize him. It’s only fair.” The two other partners stared at Henry hard and long before they nodded their approval.

“Robert, call Maui, alert Consuela that she is going to have a guest for the next six months and to treat him like royalty. I’ll call Marta to arrange a first-class ticket to Honolulu for Mr. Spicer. He can take the puddle jumper from there to Maui. Alvin, arrange for certified checks so he doesn’t have a problem once he’s settled in. He’s going to be taking care of his end today and will leave as though he’s going on a sabbatical. Arthur will check, and that’s what he will be told. I’m thinking a hundred thousand each.”

“Does Arthur know about the house in Hawaii?” Robert asked.

“No one knows about that property but the three of us, our accountants, and the very few people we’ve had stay there over the years,” Henry said.

“What if Arthur checks with the airlines?” Alvin asked.

“They do not give out that information, you know that,” Henry said testily. “I grant you, he will almost certainly do a lot of blustering and blathering, but in the end, he’ll be forced to give up on Mr. Spicer. That’s not to say he still won’t make waves and a lot of noise. So what we have to decide right now is, are we going to drop the suits we threatened him with?”

Alvin and Robert both said they were okay with that end of it, but they still wanted to pursue realistic settlement talks with Garland Lee and still go to trial if the talks fell through. “Perhaps that will show him we’re being reasonable, but not the pushovers he was hoping for,” Henry stated.

The three men stared at each other across the round table, which was littered with magazines. “I’m not going to let this firm go to hell because of Arthur Forrester,” Henry said. “Our blood, sweat, and tears are tied up in this firm. We made one mistake. Just one, and, yes, we never should have gone down that road, but we did. We own it. We did our best to make it right during the following years, but we need to be honest—it was too late. We are guilty as hell, and no amount of money can change that.”

“Then I guess we should get a move on it and do what we have to do,” Robert Quinlan said. “Wipe those sad-sack looks off your faces. We’ll get that bastard yet.

“I have an idea, so let’s get the ball rolling and order in some lunch. We’ll eat right here in the conference room. I have a bottle of fifty-year-old scotch one of my clients gave me for a job well done. I say we drink it up with our lunch.”

“Works for me,” Henry said with no enthusiasm.

“Yes, that will work,” Alvin said.

There was no backslapping, no handshaking, because all three men knew it wasn’t all right, and that things would never again be all right because they’d crossed the line and had been found out. Now it was time to pay the piper.

* * *

Twenty blocks away as the crow flies, Eileen Mellencamp felt like her eardrums were going to explode at what she was hearing in the conference room at Ballard, Ballard and Quinlan. To think that one little gizmo no bigger than a dime could give her all this information was amazing. She quickly uploaded everything and sent it flying through cyberspace to Avery Snowden, who, in turn, sent it flying to Charles Martin at Pinewood, who, in turn, summoned Myra and Annie to listen to the firm’s name partners’ conversation.

It was Annie who clucked her tongue, and said, “In the words of Jack Emery, ‘I did not see that coming.’ ” The others agreed.

“We have to tell everyone else. What time did Maggie say she wanted to have the conference call?” Myra asked.

“She said late this afternoon. But I think we should wait till after the partners meet with Mr. Spicer at Café Davino. We need to alert Avery so he can have his people at the café. We’ll want pictures and, if possible, dialogue. He needs to have the café surveilled to see if it’s even possible. I’m sure he can come up with something. The man has every listening device known to man, and some that aren’t, at his fingertips.”

“I’ll do it,” Fergus said as he tapped out a text to the superspy. “It’s short notice, but he’s been known to work magic for us before. Let’s hope he can do it again.”

“Find out who it is who will be following Mr. Forrester tomorrow, once he leaves his condo. Will it be Sasha or a male operative? Let’s all remember that she has the key to Mr. Forrester’s condo. If we take the last shuttle out tonight, we can stay overnight, and as soon as he leaves for the city, we can go in and wait for him to get back and do our snatch. When he gets back, he’s going to be like a wet cat on a hot griddle,” Myra said.

“I’m all for that,” Annie said, smacking her hands together in anticipation. “We can talk to the girls when we have our conference call later on.”

“I think you’re forgetting something, Annie. The roads are flooded, and you will not be able to get to the airport,” Charles said as he looked out the kitchen window. “The rain has stopped here and is headed up that way. It’s possible Forrester will get stuck in the city if Washington gets as much rain as we’ve gotten.”

Annie grimaced. “Then we’re right back to square one and a midnight entry at some point. What is Avery saying? What’s taking so long, Fergus?”

“Patience, love. Avery is one man. He’s doing the best he can on such short notice, especially since he is not in Washington now.”

“If Avery were a woman, it would have been done five minutes ago,” Annie snapped. Myra’s head bobbed up and down to show she agreed with Annie. Fergus sighed heavily; he knew better than to argue because he could never win. Charles was suddenly busy banging pots and pans and getting nowhere fast.

“Tell him to speed it up,” Myra said coldly. “We don’t have all day.” Charles dropped a heavy pot on the tile floor at his wife’s tone. He absolutely hated it when his beloved got testy like this. He, too, sighed as he set about washing the pot.

“All right, Avery said he’s got it covered. He will have a three-man detail set up at Café Davino by five o’clock. As well as a two-female backup. He said the feedback he’s getting is that it is raining heavily, which indicates there probably won’t be many diners. As a reminder to you, Avery is in Delaware with the boys.”

“I’m bearing that in mind, Fergus. The man left us flat to scurry off to aid the boys. That little decision is going to cost him dearly on the next go-round. We are not chopped liver here. You might want to clue him in, or we can do it ourselves in case our message gets lost in your translation, dear,” Annie said, a bite in her tone. Fergus sighed again as he tapped out another text. Charles continued to scrub the pot in his hands, which didn’t need scrubbing, for it already sparkled like a diamond.

Both men’s shoulders sagged in relief when Myra motioned for Annie to follow her into the sunroom and out of earshot of their significant others.

“This is not good, Charles,” Fergus whispered. “We gave Avery permission to go to Delaware to help the boys.”

“No, mate, it is not,” Charles said as he dried the gleaming pot in his hands.

* * *

In the sunroom, where there was not an iota of sun, Myra started to pace. “I hate this feeling of being marooned way out here on the farm. I hate feeling helpless.”

Annie held up her iPhone. “We can still communicate with the outside world. We know what we know, so let’s spread the word. Why wait for a conference call? I’ll start with Maggie. I want to see what she’s written for tomorrow’s edition. That fact alone could change what goes down in the morning with Mr. SOP. Once he sees the morning edition, I think he’s going to go flat-out berserk. What do you think, Myra?”

“I agree. The . . . um . . . men seem to have forgotten about that, which just goes to prove, yet once again, that women are the superior force. I’ll call Yoko to see how she made out at the nursery with all the plants and this heavy rain.”

Lady appeared in the doorway and woofed softly, a signal she needed to go out. Her offspring behind her, they formed a parade to the back door. Annie motioned for Myra to go ahead, that she would make the calls.

Myra opened the kitchen door, and admonished her charges, “Don’t go in the mud, don’t roll over in the water, and make it quick!” Lady looked up at her as much as to say, Seriously, Mom? In spite of herself, Myra laughed. “Go!”

Ten minutes later, Myra opened the door and stood aside for the stampede. “You know the drill. Go into the laundry room, and I’ll dry you off. Then you get the treat.” The dogs obediently did as they were told and suffered through the brisk rubdown. They waited for the words that would signal the treat was forthcoming. “Okay, guys, we are good to go. Five greenies coming up!”

Back in the sunroom, Myra was happy to see the smile on Annie’s face as she read whatever she was seeing on her phone. When she ended the call, she looked at Myra and said, “Maggie did a good job. She said she had just finished when I called. Earlier, she sent Garland the rough draft, which she approved. I think it is safe to say Mr. SOP is going to pee green when he sees it tomorrow morning. Then, when he gets into the city and calls Mr. Spicer to find out he’s flown the coop, he is going to pitch a fit. It’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do at that point. Don’cha love it, Myra?” Annie exclaimed exuberantly.

“I do, I do. What do you think he’ll do, Annie?”

“Well, for starters, after he sees the morning paper, he is going to be one angry man at all the money he could have had and lost. That’s going to make him crazy. He’ll be in a real state by the time he gets into the city, only to find out his secret weapon is nothing more than wishful thinking. So he’ll head back home to plot and scheme some more. That would be my guess. I don’t think he’ll go to the firm. What would be the point? Without Mr. Spicer, all he has are empty threats that will get him nowhere. Is that how you see it, Myra?”

Myra nodded. “Too bad we aren’t in the blackmail business. With everything we know, we could make a killing here.” Myra laughed. “Weather permitting, I think we should plan on heading to Riverville later tomorrow afternoon. We either do the snatch tomorrow night or the following night. We really should put it to a vote. Are you okay with doing that, Annie?”

“Should we take the shuttle or should we take the Post van? Personally, I think we should take the van, since we’re all going to be in attendance. We can switch up the license plates. Maggie knows how to do all that. We have a bunch of them in back of the van for . . . um . . . such things. We also have a box of magnetic decals. You just never know who is going to remember what. Some little old lady walking her dog might remember a white van with out-of-state plates, yada yada yada.

“Once we snatch him, we change the plates and the decals, and we’re good to go. It’s always worked before for us, so there is no reason to think it won’t work again. Let’s just think positive,” Annie said, her eyes sparkling with the thought of the coming action.

“Avery’s nose is going to be out of joint when he finds out we’re doing this without his okay and his expertise,” Myra said.

“He should have thought about that before he left us hanging to go to Delaware. He needs to know who is in charge here. I think he forgets sometimes,” Annie snapped again. Suddenly she was feeling meaner than a junkyard dog.

“Reminders are good sometimes,” Myra said, laughing.

“Of course, there is still that pesky problem of disposing of... what I mean is relocating... the package. Meaning Mr. SOP. That’s spook speak, Myra. The package is another name for Mr. SOP.”

“I get it, Annie. The plan is to snatch him, bring him here to the farm, and put him down in the dungeon. We don’t need Avery for that. We can keep him forever in that cell we outfitted, if we want to. When we get tired of playing with him, we can tell Avery he’s all his. By that time, Mr. Snowden will know better than to trifle with us.”

“Myra, I just love and adore you when you think like that,” Annie gushed. Myra beamed at Annie’s effusive praise.

“Let’s join the gentlemen in the kitchen. Charles should be done scrubbing that pot by now, and he and Fergus will both be looking to do something nice for us, like serving up that apple pie he baked earlier. Fergus made some ice cream in that fancy-dancy ice-cream maker you bought at Target last month. A good cup of coffee and pie à la mode might make me almost agreeable. What do you say, pal?”

Myra linked her arm with Annie’s. “I think that’s the second-best idea you’ve had all day, pal. And I’m really hungry.”

Lady and her pups got up and followed the two women into the kitchen, because the kitchen was where the treats were.