Cash Burn (8 page)

“Why not?”

“We change the locks whenever a key’s lost.”

“But you do have a key.”

“I did. I gave it back the other day. There’s a log our operations officer keeps of every key, who has it, the serial number. When somebody leaves the bank, they have to take the key back. They keep them in a locked file drawer.”

He took in her stare, returned it. “There’s probably no connection. I was just curious. You said Business Trust Bank?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. So you didn’t see anyone that night, but you’re sure someone was in the house with you. And it wasn’t Greg.”

“Yes. I’m sure of it. Greg probably left the sliding glass door unlocked. Whoever came in turned off the power outside and found the door unlocked.”

“The junction box is outside?”

“Yes, in back.”

He nodded slowly. Then he hesitated. This conversation was about to get even harder. “The coroner’s report—did Detective Danton fill you in?”

She dropped her head and nodded.

“I’m sorry, but the murder didn’t happen where they found Greg. His body was moved. So there could be something to what you’re saying. You should talk with Danton again.”

“I will. He’s been very nice. I just think he believes . . .” Her head dipped again. “He found some drugs in Greg’s room.” She said it as if making a confession.

“Yeah, I saw that in the report.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything. That doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It might.” He didn’t remind her of the results of the tox screen on the body.

“But it doesn’t.” That stare again. Forcing him to agree. Daring him to contradict her.

“Okay. Let’s say it doesn’t. Let’s say someone came into the house that night. They turned off the power and found the unlocked door. Maybe Greg surprised them and there was a struggle. How could you not hear that? How could you sleep through it?”

Her lips tightened. She dropped her eyes.

“Did you see anything that morning that looked like there was a fight in the house?”

“It could have happened outside.”

“Yeah. It could have.”

She rose from the bench and folded her arms. “Look, I know what it sounds like, okay? The grieving mom looking for a better explanation. Something that doesn’t make her boy look so bad. But I’m telling you, there was someone here that night. It wasn’t Greg. It wasn’t anybody I know. But he was here.”

Deny it
, she was saying with every angle of every joint in her body.

Tom wouldn’t deny it. His hunch was right.

It was him. It was Flip.

14

Jason looked up to see Brenda leaning into the doorway.

“Got a minute?” she asked.

He waved her in.

They’d been working together for a week now, and her confidence seemed to grow each day. She lowered herself into the chair. “I wanted to go over your sponsorships with you. There’s a rumor going around that they might cut the budget, and I know you’d want to make sure we take care of your charities.”

“Seems like I’m always the last one to hear the rumors. Thanks.”

She leaned forward, her fragrance drifting to him. It reminded him of a garden sharpened with the scent of exotic flowers. She rose from the chair and opened the file before him, turned it so he could read its contents.

Her hand pointed to the spot where he needed to sign to renew the sponsorship, and she’d prepared an invoice so the bank’s payables department would issue a check.

He brought his pen to the paper and signed.

She flipped the pages back and craned her neck. “I can’t read upside down very well.” She stepped around the desk, and he felt her approach.

Coming next to him, she leaned over the desk, and the smoothness where her jaw joined her neck passed before him.

A part of him recognized that she was too close to him. He knew he should tell her so. The words vaguely formed in his mind.

“Sign here,” she said.

He looked to the paper. Her finger was next to the signature line. His signature would authorize a three-thousand-dollar contribution from BTB’s foundation to a charity caring for indigent families.

But he let his eyes drift again to the skin of her neck where it descended to the collar of her blouse and linger there for a moment, drinking in its texture.

He put the tip of his pen to the paper and scratched his signature above the line.

Brenda flipped the next page and pointed out the dollar amount on the invoice.

“What is that perfume?”

She turned her eyes to him, and he felt the pull of their green, seeing now very closely for the first time their jeweled glistening, and she said a couple of words in French, her breath passing over his cheek a warm caress.

He held her eyes for a moment before nodding. He looked to the file, flipped the next page himself, and signed. “That it?”

She closed the file and stood away from him. He gulped a breath and tapped the pen on the desktop.

She kept her eyes on his. “You have a meeting at CCI with Billy at two, and I confirmed your reservations at Drago for your dinner with Northfield. Seven o’clock, six people.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“There was some filing that backed up. And some reporting was overdue from a couple of your customers, so I called them. Anything else I can take off your plate right now?”

“No. Thanks.”

She turned, and he allowed his eyes to wander over her movement to the door. Finally she passed out of his view.

He brought his hands to his lips and clasped them with his elbows propped on the desk. For a moment he sat silently, the buzz of chatter in the suite outside his office suddenly alien to his ears. He ignored the draw of the credits he needed to review for his team, the e-mails piling up, the pressure of preparation for upcoming meetings and the competition with Vince—all of it now somehow remote.

He forced his eyes to the picture of Serena. On a sloop in the Caribbean five years ago, Serena sat on the deck next to him, her tanned legs stretched out toward the camera, one arm around his back, another hand on his chest. They were on their honeymoon, drunk with the freshness of their love, their smiles reflecting its intensity, its singularity. He remembered that day on the boat, the feel of her next to him in the Caribbean sun, the press of her against him as the boat lifted and swayed in the waves with the shove of the wind behind. At the resort that night over dinner, conversation lagging from fatigue after their day in the sun, he had looked into her and she into him, the dining room crowded but the two of them isolated and removed in their love, untouchable.

But only a few months later, their marriage began to feel like a corporate merger. They would pass in the hallway in the mornings, off for meetings or to their offices on opposite ends of the Santa Monica Freeway to slug through ten- to twelve-hour days. And in the few evenings when they were both home, they were so tired from putting out fires all day that they had nothing left for one another. After the first year, they stopped even talking about going away together; their trips never panned out. They took their meals with clients or separately. Even on weekends the intensity of their schedules pulled them apart.

They joked about it at first. When they resorted to punching appointments into their calendars to confirm their good intentions, Jason felt a sense of desperation over where they were headed. He had to break their dates nearly as often as Serena, but that didn’t stop his rising resentment over her work’s demands. He refused to allow himself to reveal that he was jealous of her job, but his jealousy turned uglier when he began to suspect that there was more to her trips than the business she claimed. The few calls she made from the road before the end were interrupted by background noise that sounded nothing like a business meeting. The last phone message, with the muffled voice of her boss in the background, had nearly driven him mad.

Staring at the empty doorway now, he twisted his wedding band. It was loose enough that sometimes it nearly fell off when he washed his hands. He slid it to the tip of his ring finger and let it dangle there, tapping at it with his pinky. A smooth ring of skin was noticeable on his ring finger if he looked very carefully, like a ghost of a commitment. Five years.

His eyes returned to the picture. The memory of that day and the night that had followed, so filled with tenderness and promise, were tainted now. She had shifted her affections to someone else. Had it all been a lie? In the picture, she embraced him with one arm, her other hand against him. Even the certainty of her touch now seemed false.

He reached for the frame. On his left hand, the wedding band dangled from his fingertip. In his right hand was the picture. He took a breath.

His phone rang, and he glanced at the readout. The loan-operations department was trying to reach him.

Serena’s number was first on his speed dial. He could have her office on the phone in a few seconds.

She hadn’t claimed she was innocent, hadn’t defended herself at all. It was as good as an admission of guilt. Just a scornful frown and a shake of her head. Before she pivoted to walk out the door, all she said was, “You want me, you call me.”

He held the picture flat and tapped his ring finger on the glass. His wedding band rattled onto it and he regarded the gold circle it made on the image. The ring was now nothing more than a symbol of an unfaithful wife, of broken vows.

The ring sliding on the glass, he shoved the picture in a desk drawer and slammed it shut.

15

Jason spotted Ed Monroe across the room. The CEO of Northfield Industries filled his chair. He looked broad and so deep-bellied he might have dined like this every night. He held court from the corner, facing the room, the white tablecloth before him stretched over the broad circle of the table, a menu waiting closed before him, cutlery paired, saucers poised, glass goblets empty. In the center of the circle, salt and pepper shakers sentineled next to a flickering candle shaded in a rose-colored cylinder.

As Jason approached, Ed’s quick eyes caught him, and his lips stopped moving for an instant, then began again, and all the faces turned toward Jason. Ed’s wife, Ona, sat to his left, and his CFO, Randy Sloan, sat to his right. Randy’s wife, Jeanne, completed the foursome.

Jason went to Ed first. Their hands clasped.

“You remember my wife, Ona?”

“Of course.” Jason took her hand in both of his before turning to Randy and Jeanne.

His chair was opposite Ed. The CEO’s head seemed to be all face, pale in the flickering candlelight, long chin, granite nose. He could be a former boxer with that nose and the sleepy droop of his eyes. Jason sensed that Ed Monroe was willing to box anything in front of him. Maybe that was what made him such a success at negotiating the acquisitions of his competitors.

Jason apologized for Serena’s absence. Sudden emergency, out of town—the words came out automatically; he’d said them so many times in the past three months. A busboy cleared the setting Serena would have used. The chair wasn’t removed. It sat empty next to him as if she might surprise him and show. It gave him a sour sensation underneath his belt.

The waiter appeared—young, tall, black hair combed back and curling behind his neck. The looks of a leading man in a soap opera. He waited for a pause in the small-talk before offering the wine bottle for Ed’s perusal of the label, and when Ed nodded, the waiter stood away and began the ritual. He placed the cork on the table before Ed, and without a pause in his diatribe, Ed took it in his clunky fingers and absently twisted it, regarding it as he spoke. The waiter poured a swallow in Ed’s glass. A sip, a reverential delay, and a nod gave authority to pour the rest of the glasses.

The menus sat folded before them. Everyone waited for Ed to pick his up to start the process. The waiter withdrew.

Ed addressed Jason. “What kind of law does your wife practice again?”

“Executive comp. She helps companies structure their comp packages around SEC and tax rules. One of her clients is preparing for an offering. She had to fly to New York for some last-minute work on their programs.”

Ed glanced at Randy and something passed between them without any words. Randy said, “What’s her firm?”

“Strumb Rossi. She opened the LA office for them three years ago.”
And I’ve hardly seen her since.

Ed swirled the wine in his glass, took a sip. “How is it, being married to a lawyer?”

“I haven’t won an argument in five years.”

Randy laughed. Ed’s smile said nothing; his pale eyes rested on Jason over the clear circle of his goblet.

The waiter hovered around the table as if he longed to occupy the empty chair. Ed finally looked up at him and asked about the appetizers. The heartthrob talked him through the appetizers, and Ed selected for the table the mussels, the gratin of Belgian endive with bacon, and the duck prosciutto. With an approving bow of his head, the waiter retreated.

The menus still collected dust before them. Entrees would be considered over the hors d’oeuvres, apparently. Ed swirled his cabernet, let his eye take it in before raising the glass to his lips again. He smacked his thin lips and glanced to Randy, then back to Jason. “You came through for us on that financing, Jason,” he said. “Cut it a little close to our deadline, though.”

“I’ll see if I can get you more cushion next time.”

Those pale eyes moved again to glance at his CFO. Clearly something was yet to be said here.

“You guys have been good customers for the bank. We’re glad we can support you.”

“No trouble getting it done?” Ed had a real fixation on the tone of red that swirled in his goblet in the candlelight.

“There’s always something to talk about when credits get up beyond ten million. But performance means a lot to us. Our experience with you guys has been solid. That carries a lot of weight.”

“You mean you wouldn’t lend twenty-three million to just anybody off the street?”

“No. Not just anybody.”

“Well, we appreciate it. Right, Randy?”

Randy nodded.

Jason lifted his glass over the tabletop. “To another successful acquisition. Congratulations, guys.”