20
Damian
I walked slowly back towards my house, barely even noticing anyone along the way as I tried to figure out what was going on. Kelly didn’t even give me the chance to find out facts about whatever letter she was talking about, and apparently when she saw me hugging Shannon, it was just the icing on the cake. I had to get the opportunity to talk to her more about what she saw, but she was not going to let me do it when she was as distraught as she was.
I tried to run through my head just what she could be talking about and how things got dismantled so quickly, and by the time I reached the house, I knew I had to start sorting through what facts I did know.
I walked through the door and lumbered up the stairs, lost in my thoughts. I went right past James on the second floor as he was coming out of the pool area.
“Everything okay, Boss?” he asked me.
“No… no, it’s not.”
I got up to the top floor and sat down on the couch, pondering everything that Kelly had said. James and Shannon both appeared, wrapped in towels from their swim.
“Damian, what’s going on?” Shannon asked.
“That was Kelly in the house before. She’s very upset. Something about a letter she got from our company saying we had bought the property on the boardwalk and were evicting her and the other businesses. Then she saw me hugging you, and I think the combination of the two was more than she could take.”
“What property? I don’t know about us buying anything,” Shannon said with a confused look on her face. “Did you tell her who I was, or why we were hugging?”
“I never even got the chance to get a word in edgewise. Every time I tried to say something, she cut me off, and it just made things worse. I have to find out what is going on so I can straighten this mess out.”
I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket and tried to call Paul at the office. His cell phone went right to voicemail, and I left him a message to call me back right away. I then tried his office phone and got his assistant, Miranda, on the phone.
“Miranda, it’s Damian. Is Paul in his office? I need to speak with him right away.”
Miranda could sense the urgency in my voice.
“No Mr. Woods, he’s not. He took today off to relax. He said something about you telling him to relax more, and then after this big deal he wanted to celebrate.”
“What big deal?” I raised my voice more than I normally would have, and I think it shocked Miranda on the other end.
“The purchase that he… he just closed on. The property in Delaware for the new office. He said it was just what you would have wanted and that he got it for a great deal.”
I sighed deeply, trying to hold back my anger.
“Miranda, do you have copies of the paperwork of the deal? I would like to see it.”
“Yes, I have the hard copies here, but the electronic ones are only on Paul’s laptop, and he has that with him.”
“Scan the pages in and send them to my email,” I said gruffly. “And do all you can to get a hold of Paul. As soon as you reach him, tell him to call me, or you call me and let me know what’s going on.”
“Did I… did I do something wrong, Mr. Woods?” Miranda said with hesitation.
“No,” I told her. I tried to regain my composure as best as I could. “You didn’t do anything. Thanks for your help, Miranda.” I hung up the phone abruptly and sat down on the couch.
“Paul closed some deal this week for the property. Miranda is sending me the paperwork so I can see what this is all about.”
“Can he really do that without getting your approval first?” James asked me.
“He can, but he’s supposed to let me know about it before he goes ahead with anything like that.”
Shannon sat on the couch next to me.
“He has been trying to reach you for days,” Shannon said quietly.
“I know, but he also knew that this was time away from work for me. He couldn’t wait to try to do this deal until after my vacation was done so I could say no? What was the big rush to do this? I don’t get it. And now things are royally screwed up with Kelly. She thinks this was all my doing like it was some devious plan on my part to get the property.”
I got up and paced around the room a bit, trying to figure out what I could do to convince Kelly that this wasn’t any of my doing. Accomplishing that seemed impossible at this point, especially since it was my company that did all this, and she did see me with Shannon without knowing who she was or why she was in my house so early in the morning.
I heard my email ding at the arrival of a new message and saw it was the scanned files from Miranda. I opened them quickly and began to study them, looking over the contract and then the sample of the letter that was sent to all the business owners that were being forced out of their locations so quickly. After reading everything I sat back on the couch, resting my head on the back cushion and staring up at the ceiling, trying to decide my next move.
“How’s it look?” Shannon asked me, handing me a cup of coffee that she had just made.
“It seems pretty cut and dry as far as a real estate deal goes. There’s nothing special about it. It’s a good chunk of that area of the boardwalk. It’s going to force out about a dozen or so businesses. There’s a cash incentive there for businesses to vacate quickly that some may have taken advantage of already. I don’t know how he managed to get this done so fast. It’s not like he knew about the house I had down here already or my plans, and we’ve only been here for a few days. Something’s not right about all this.”
I closed my laptop and tossed it into my briefcase, and then picked up my phone and tried to reach Paul again, without any luck. I slammed my phone down on the table in disgust.
Shannon came over and put her hand on my shoulder.
“What can we do to help?”
“At this point, I don’t know what anyone can do. The contracts have been signed and filed. Technically, the business owns the property right now, and with people already taking the incentive cash, I don’t see a clear way out of all this. No wonder Kelly was so mad. God, she must really hate me right now, and I can’t say I blame her.”
The sun was up and shone brightly now, and I looked out the windows, out over the ocean, and tried to imagine what had been running through Kelly’s head after we had spent the past few days together. The time I had spent with her was better than any I had spent with anyone else, and to see all that tossed away so suddenly was devastating to me. I had to do whatever I could to try to make things right, to see what had truly occurred. Even when I ran over the scenarios myself, I didn’t see how to make things better.
I walked over to the table, grabbed my briefcase and started to make my way down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Shannon yelled.
“I have to get back to New York,” I replied as I made my way down towards the garage. “I’m taking the Mustang. If you find out anything from Paul or hear from him, get in touch with me right away.”
“Boss, why don’t you let me drive you?” James said as he followed me down the stairs. “Maybe you aren’t in the best state of mind to drive yourself right now.”
“I appreciate the offer, James, but I can handle it. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
I took a quick look at my watch and saw it was almost eight in the morning. I knew if I left right now, I could be in New York by one or two, giving me plenty of time to get to the office before everyone was gone for the day.
I pulled the Mustang out of the garage and headed out towards Route 1 as fast as I could. I hoped to get this taken care of and get back to talk to Kelly, if she would let me, before things went too far to save.