Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights (24 page)

Anatoly’s lips formed into a wry smile. “It’s not going to look too good for Chalet, either.”

“You must understand, as soon as I found out about them I pressured Taylor to resign her position,” James said. “I gave her a stellar recommendation, of course—she deserves it. She was offered an executive position at JVW and will be starting there within the next few days. There’s not a doubt in my mind that she’ll be a major asset for them. But she broke company policy. We don’t allow upper management to get romantically involved with those who report to us.”

Anatoly crossed his ankle over his knee. “What exactly is the wording of your company policy?”

“It’s very clear-cut,” James explained. “Any romantic involvement with a coworker can result in immediate termination. Employees have to sign a document saying they understand that, among other things. So, as you can see, Taylor knew the risks.”

“Your corporation seems to have some sexist leanings,” Anatoly pointed out. “Why else would Taylor be asked to leave while Bob was offered a promotion?”

James’s eyes narrowed. “If Bob had offered his resignation I would have been content to have Taylor stay. That didn’t happen, and since Taylor was officially Bob’s supervisor, it was her actions that left the company open for a possible sexual harassment suit. I assure you, sexism had nothing to do with it.”

“No need to get defensive.” Anatoly threw up his hands, as if to surrender the argument. “But hypothetically speaking, you could have fired both Taylor and Bob without the fear of legal repercussions. Bob
did
sign the same document.”

James hesitated before nodding his agreement. “I could have gotten rid of both of them, but then I would have been left with a royal mess. Taylor and Bob were the two top executives in the financial department. To lose both of them at once would have been devastating for Chalet.” A pained look crossed his features. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what ended up happening. Thank God our sales are strong, otherwise the stockholders would be fleeing in droves.”

“How did Taylor react to your decision?” Anatoly asked.

“Taylor accepted her fate fairly graciously. Granted, she did contact me a few times after all was said and done in hopes that I might have changed my mind, but when she determined that I hadn’t, she certainly didn’t make a fuss. And as soon as she found out about Bob, she offered to come in a few times to help me figure out which of Bob’s projects could be delegated to the rest of the accounting staff and which needed to be taken care of by me personally.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That was excessively generous of her.”

“I suspect Taylor is grateful to me for my discretion.” James glanced at his watch. “She’s due here any minute to go over a few things with me and the new comptroller one last time.”

“If she did ask for her job back, would you give it to her?”

“Perhaps. Unfortunately, I think my chance at wooing her back has come and gone.” James released a troubled sigh. “Normally, I don’t like to rehire former employees, but as I said, it doesn’t look good for a company that just went public to lose both its CFO and comptroller in the space of a month….” James’s voice trailed off and, with a tired smile, he sat farther back in his chair. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Now that Taylor has another job she may not want to come back. She could simply be helping me today out of the goodness of her heart.”

Anatoly nodded, although he didn’t look all that convinced of Taylor’s altruism. “Do you have any reason to believe Bob was carrying on with anyone else here? Perhaps someone who worked for him?”

I shot Anatoly a warning glance, but he ignored me.

“Of course not,” James said. “Why do you ask?”

“Bob was a married man having an affair with his boss.” Anatoly flicked a piece of lint off his jeans. “That had to speak to a certain moral flexibility that would lend itself to future misconduct.”

“Now you sound like one of those right-wing puritans who made such an issue over Clinton’s affair.” James laughed as if he had just made a hilarious joke. “Bob had a weakness for women, but he learned from his mistake with Taylor. He was determined to keep his personal and professional life separate, and that’s all that mattered to me. It was not my job to punish Bob for the questionable decisions he made with regard to his personal life. My job was to reward him for the good decisions he made at Chalet. If he had lived to fill the CFO position, it would have been his second promotion in as many years. You don’t get that kind of advancement without being damn good at what you do. Taylor was a great worker but, truth be told, Bob was better.”

“James? I—” Taylor stopped short as her eyes fell on Anatoly and me. “I didn’t realize that you had company. You haven’t forgotten our meeting, have you?”

Anatoly’s mouth stretched into a satisfied smile and he stood up to face her. “Actually, Ms. Blake, we were just talking about you.”

Taylor’s posture stiffened. “Do I know you?”

“Taylor, this is Anatoly,” James said. “He’s a family friend of Bob’s. He’s also a private detective.”

“I see.” Her voice had a new edge to it. “Are you investigating something?”

James sighed and steepled his fingers. “Close the door, Taylor.”

Taylor did so but didn’t bother to enter the room.

“They’re looking into Bob’s murder,” James said. “I know that every one of us wants to do whatever we can to bring his killer to justice. Unfortunately, that means a lot of things that we’ve been keeping under wraps are going to become exposed. Specifically your involvement with Bob.”

If we had been in a 1950s sci-fi flick, laser beams would have been shooting out of Taylor’s pupils right now, vaporizing James in a flash of cheap special effects.

“I had to tell them, Taylor.” James’s voice rose to an almost whiny pitch. “A man is dead. Surely the search for his killer is more important than the secrecy surrounding your short-lived office romance.”

“I trusted you—”

By the look on Taylor’s face I’d say she was one step away from qualifying for a restraining order.

“You tossed me aside in order to accommodate that middle-class half-wit and yet I still agreed to come in here and clean up the mess he left behind.”

“Taylor, I had to let you go. You
know
that.” James’s voice had gotten stronger but he had also slumped lower in his chair. “You knew the risk you were taking when you took up with Bob. You made the choice, and even after you left I kept my mouth shut—”

“Only because no one asked you the right questions,” Taylor snapped.

I muffled a cough with my hand and Taylor started as if she had forgotten that I was there. She recovered quickly and rolled her shoulders back.

“I suppose you think you’ve found another suspect.”

I shrugged. “If the silencer fits…”

“What?” James’s Adam’s apple did its bobbing thing a few more times. “You can’t think that Taylor killed Bob!”

“Of course they do!” Taylor took three advancing steps toward his desk. “You just told them I had an affair with him and lost my job because of it!”

“But you would never do that.” James quickly looked at Anatoly and me. “She would never do that,” he repeated.

“And what makes you say that?” Anatoly asked.

“Because she’s not a murderer. And…and…wait. She couldn’t have done it.” A relieved smile lit up James’s face. “I ran into her at the Grand Café the night Bob was killed. I bought her dinner.”

Anatoly turned his eyes to Taylor. “Is this true?”

“Yes, it’s true.” Taylor never looked away from James.

“And what time did this dinner take place?”

“I got there at around a quarter to seven and she was already there. She was about to dine alone at the bar, but I invited her to join me instead. So you see—Taylor couldn’t have killed Bob.”

“When exactly did your affair with Bob end?” Anatoly asked, apparently unfazed by Taylor’s sudden alibi.

Taylor’s eyes stayed locked on James, and she lifted her chin a quarter of an inch. “The affair ended several months ago.”

I tried to ignore the throbbing in my head. There wasn’t enough Valium in the world to prepare Leah for this confession.

“When
exactly
did it end?” Anatoly asked smoothly.

“When,” Taylor repeated. “I suppose it ended mid-November. It was never serious.”

“But you were still working together at that point.”

“I just found out about it last month,” James piped in. Taylor glared at him but didn’t say anything.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“I went to her office to go over some paperwork. She wasn’t there, but next to her wastebasket was a card.”

“And you read it.” Taylor’s voice was cold and steady. “It was a complete violation of my privacy.”

“What did the card say?” Anatoly asked.

James sighed. “He wanted her back.”

Anatoly was clearly listening to James, but he was watching Taylor, who remained by the door, radiating anger. “Is that when James asked for your resignation?” he asked.

I saw Taylor wince. “It was for the best,” she said testily. “I don’t like working for spineless chauvinistic pigs.”

“Yeah.” I nodded empathetically. “That’s got to suck.”

James cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well then, now that all this unsavory business has been discussed, I suppose it goes without saying that it would behoove all of us if this conversation stays within these walls.”

I clasped my hands together and brought them under my chin. “I don’t think that behooves me.” I looked up at Anatoly. “Does it behoove you?”

Anatoly shook his head. “I’m not behooved.”

“But what’s the point of telling people about this?” James sat up, clearly alarmed. “You know that Taylor didn’t kill Bob and this news will obviously upset Leah, not to mention our stockholders—”

“I understand you’re angry,” Taylor said, cutting James off and directing her words to me. The funny part was that she was the one who sounded pissed. “Try to understand—what Bob and I shared was meaningless. I was newly divorced and Bob was a comfort. But we were never in love. It was just an ill-conceived fling.”

“Yes.” I stood up to face her, although I was still forced to crane my neck to make eye contact. “It seems my brother-in-law’s life consisted of one ill-conceived fling after another. What I don’t understand is why
you
chose Bob. Did it ever occur to you that the man you were making love to was a simpering idiot? Or were you unable to reach that conclusion until the affair was over?”

Taylor’s mouth twitched at the corners. “Like I said, I was just coming out of a relationship with another simpering idiot. I was simply sticking to what I knew.”

James let out a forced laugh. “Very well, now that we have that straightened out, I would like to get back to the matter of discretion. Taylor made a mistake, but I fail to see that any real harm was done. No need to make things worse than they need to be.”

Anatoly pulled his keys out of the pocket of his leather jacket and smiled at James. “You’re right, there’s no need to cause any more embarrassment to the family or Chalet.” He put his hand on my back and began to guide me toward the door, but stopped before we got there. “As I said before, we would be happy to check on Erika if you don’t mind giving us her address.”

I felt the muscles in my neck tighten as I struggled to come up with a reason that we wouldn’t be able to go on that particular errand.

James’s brow creased and he rubbed the nonexistent stubble on his chin. “I’m really not supposed to give out the personal information of our employees, but I suppose in this case…”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “We don’t want you to break any rules on our behalf.” I grabbed Anatoly’s arm. “Come on, we have other stuff to do.”

Anatoly frowned but allowed me to lead him out of the office. “Why don’t you want to go to Erika’s?” he asked when we got onto the elevator.

“She lives too far away.” I jammed my finger against the button for the lobby a few times, although the elevator was already on its way down.

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Anatoly grumbled as the elevator doors opened to the bottom floor. “Let’s try another question. If a man had done to you what it seems Bob did to Taylor, how would you feel?”

I smiled as we stepped out onto the windy streets and walked over to where he had parked his bike. “If it were me? I’d want to kill him.”

He nodded and handed me a helmet. “My thoughts exactly.”

“But James says she was with him.”

“Yes, but he clearly likes Taylor, or maybe he just felt guilty for exposing her. Either way, he has reason to cover for her.”

I turned my face away from the wind. “Do you think Taylor and James are involved romantically?”

Anatoly sighed. “I didn’t get that feeling from them. I know where you’re going with this—you’re thinking James could have killed Bob in a jealous rage, but the fact that he fired Taylor without firing Bob tells me that James isn’t a man who would risk everything for the love of a woman.”

“You’re probably right,” I admitted. “Taylor, on the other hand, may very well be guilty.” I zipped up my leather jacket in preparation for the motorcycle ride ahead. “The problem is that if we go to the police with this and they question either James or Taylor, both are likely to deny it.”

“Of course they will.” Anatoly’s lips curled into a sexy half smile. “That’s where my spy stuff comes in.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mini tape recorder.

“Anatoly,” I breathed, “I do love it when you’re devious.”

We called the police station to ask for an immediate appointment with Lorenzo, but he was out of the office. The woman who I spoke with on the phone wouldn’t say if he was out having lunch or on a case, which made it impossible for Anatoly or me to guess how long he’d be out of reach. So Anatoly and I decided to hold on to the tape until we could give it to him personally. I couldn’t wait to see his expression when I destroyed his hopes for an open-and-shut case.

I had Anatoly drop me off at home and I bounded up the stairs to talk to Leah. I found her humming to herself while making chocolate chip cookies.