Silent Partner (6 page)

“I don’t know,” she murmured, glancing down. Maybe Jake Lawrence didn’t just kill big game for sport. Maybe he enjoyed destroying people’s lives, too. Maybe that was why he needed a personal army.

“That man will not be comfortable about the fact that you and I have talked.”

Angela glanced up. “Which man?”

“The chairman of Sumter Bank. Bob Dudley.”

She shook her head. “I’m just a vice president, Mr. Lawrence—”

“Jake,” he interrupted. “Please.”

“Jake,” she repeated. It didn’t sound right, and she wondered if that was because she didn’t feel she could trust him. “There are hundreds of vice presidents at Sumter,” she said. “I’m so far down the corporate ladder the senior people don’t even know who I am.” She’d met the chairman and president of the bank briefly at last year’s Christmas party, and each of them had given her nothing but a limp handshake and a fake smile before quickly moving on. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

“Bob Dudley will grill you at length about our conversation as soon as you return to Richmond. Count on it.”

“I doubt he even knows I came out here.”

“Oh, he knows.”

“If you say so,” she answered skeptically.

“Don’t tell him anything specific when he asks,” Lawrence added. “Tell him only that we talked in general about a project I want you to work on for me. Don’t mention anything about a public tender offer.”

“All right,” Angela agreed. “But, assuming you’re right and he does want to grill me about our conversation, won’t my lack of details make him even more curious? And he may not appreciate the fact that all of a sudden I’m working for you when the bank is the one cutting my paycheck twice a month.”

Lawrence nodded. “You might be right. Okay. Tell him I’m thinking about leveraging one of my companies, and that the company operates in an industry you already have experience with. That you’d lead the debt financing and make lots of money for Sumter in the process. That ought to make him feel better. All right?”

“All right.”

Lawrence turned his glass upside down and finished what little remained. “So, will you help me?”

“I’d like to talk about the situation with my boss first. But if it involves potential loan business for Sumter, I don’t think he’ll have a problem with me working on it.”

“I can guarantee you he won’t have a problem with it,” Lawrence replied confidently. “As you pointed out, I own 8 percent of the bank.”

“That’s true.” The senior executives had to pay attention to Lawrence, whether they wanted to or not. For a public company as big as Sumter, 8 percent was a meaningful stake. “So what company are you thinking about buying?” she asked.

“I’ll let you know in a few days,” Lawrence answered cautiously. “I’ve still got a bit more preliminary information to gather before we go live on this one.”

“Oh.”
Then why did you bother flying me all the way across the country?
she wondered. She cursed herself silently. Maybe she shouldn’t question people’s motivations so often. “Is that all?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re a busy man.”

“Stay awhile,” he urged, reaching across the couch and putting a hand on her knee. “I’ve still got a few minutes before Colby bangs on the door to tell me it’s time to go.”

“Okay,” she agreed hesitantly, easing back onto the couch.

“I like to get to know the people I work with,” he explained, sliding subtly closer. “All right with you?”

“Sure, fine.” Her instinct was to move away or stand up, but she didn’t want to irritate him.

“I think I remember from my notes that you have a son.”

Her body went rigid. Apparently nothing was sacred. “That’s right.”

“Sam Reese’s son?”

“Yes,” she answered stiffly.

“What’s his name?”

“Hunter.”

“I like that name. How old is Hunter?”

“Six.”

“I assume you got custody of him after the divorce.”

Angela glanced down. “No, I didn’t.”

“What?” Lawrence asked.

“Hunter lives with his father,” she explained quietly, wondering why Lawrence was playing this game. Or maybe he just hadn’t paid close enough attention to the information his assistant had prepared.

“How often do you see Hunter?”

“One weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.”

“Really? Well, I’m no expert when it comes to divorce and child custody, but don’t mothers usually get custody?”

“Usually.”

“What happened?”

Angela took a deep breath. “I was fighting a machine. My former father-in-law is an influential man in Richmond and he hates me. He hired a legion of lawyers from the best firm in town, and I only had enough money to hire a one-woman shop. I can’t prove it, but I think he paid off the judge, too. He doesn’t leave much to chance.”

“Why does he hate you so much?”

“Because my family was dirt poor,” she replied bitterly.

“But you graduated from one of the best business schools in the country. You pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Didn’t matter to him. He didn’t want me in his beautiful world, or his son’s. He wanted Sam married to a blue-blooded debutante from Richmond’s West End who grew up knowing all the right people from the day she was born. Not some nobody from a trailer park outside Asheville, North Carolina.”

“That’s terrible,” Lawrence said gently. He was quiet for a few moments. “Who filed for the divorce?”

Angela folded her hands tightly in her lap. “Sam did,” she answered.

“On what grounds?”

She hesitated, knowing how this would sound. She could refuse to answer or lie, but chances were good that Lawrence already knew, and all of this was just a test to see if she’d tell him the truth. “Adultery.”

“I’m assuming that accusation wasn’t true. Just a trumped-up charge for the lawyers to use.”

“That’s right,” she said. The truth was exactly the opposite. She’d caught Sam in bed with a woman one day when she’d come home early from a trip. “But the judge believed it,” she added, her eyes starting to burn. Angela thought it was mostly because two of Sam’s closest bachelor buddies had lied in court about having sexual relations with her while she was married to Sam. Lied about how she had seduced them, then went into lurid details concerning the alleged trysts in front of a courtroom packed with Reese’s family and friends. And the lawyers had coached her accusers expertly. One of the men had even broken down on the stand, begging for Sam’s forgiveness across the courtroom. She could only imagine how much they’d been paid to perjure themselves. Probably six figures. Sam’s father hated her that much. He had hated her right from the start. But she’d believed all along that Sam was strong enough to be his own man. She’d misjudged the risks and paid a terrible price. “And that was all that mattered,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry, Angela,” Lawrence offered quietly. “Perhaps I can assist you there.”

She glanced up. “If you help me, I’ll help you” had been Lawrence’s words at the beginning of the meeting. “How?”

“A man in my position can wield a certain amount of influence. And often these things come down to who’s got the bigger gun.”

He didn’t have to tell her that.

“Candidly,” Lawrence continued, “there aren’t many guns bigger than mine.”

“Mr. Lawrence . . . I mean, Jake,” Angela interrupted herself, turning to face him. “That would mean a great deal to me,” she admitted, grasping the incredible opportunity that lay before her. “I miss Hunter so badly sometimes.” She hated begging but, when it came to her son, pride ran a distant second.

“Let me talk to my people.” He patted her knee again and smiled.

This time she smiled back, and slipped her hand into his. She hated herself for what she was doing, but Hunter needed her. And she needed him. “Thank you, Jake.”

“I can’t promise anything. Just that I’ll look into it.”

“I appreciate that so much.”

“There’s another thing,” he said, sliding his hand up her leg a few inches.

“What’s that?” She forced herself not to pull away.

“Why haven’t you been promoted to director yet?”

“Excuse me?”

“You told me earlier that you were a vice president at Sumter Bank.”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t director the next title above vice president?”

“Director, yes. After that it’s managing director, then senior managing director.”

“Well, I’ve taken a look at your personnel record at Sumter, and it’s outstanding. You’ve generated a significant amount of business for the bank, and you’ve never been a discipline problem. Shouldn’t a woman with that kind of record have been promoted to director by now? My aides tell me that several of your peers who haven’t performed anywhere near as well as you have, including two women, are directors earning a good deal more income than you are.”

Angela shrugged, trying not to show emotion. That issue was a constant and bitter source of frustration.

“Did you know that human resources has put you up for that promotion twice?”

She glanced up.

“And,” Lawrence continued, “your boss has stonewalled the process both times.”

Angela stared at Lawrence, trying not to show emotion.

“Why do you think that is?” Lawrence asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied, her voice raspy. She’d always considered her boss, Ken Booker, a friend. He’d always blamed her not getting promoted on human resources. Now Lawrence was telling her it was the other way around.

“Could your background be a factor?” he asked directly.

“I suppose anything is possible.”

Lawrence hesitated, gently caressing her thigh. “But that explanation doesn’t seem entirely plausible. I mean, if you’re performing well, wouldn’t they be afraid to lose you to another bank?”

“They don’t seem to be.”

“Could your not getting the promotion have anything to do with the fact that senior executives at Sumter Bank perceive you as a troublemaker? Even though there’s nothing on your record to indicate that.”

Angela’s eyes flashed to Lawrence’s. “What are you talking about?”

“Any possibility that they suspect you are a certain newspaper reporter’s source of some very negative information regarding the bank’s poor record of service to minorities in its market areas? In the last few months the
Richmond Tribune
has turned up the heat on Sumter Bank about that poor record.” Lawrence hesitated. “There was one particularly damaging article written by a reporter named Olivia Jefferson that came out last week. That article led people to believe she might have a source inside Sumter.”

Angela said nothing.

“Do you know Ms. Jefferson?”

“I think I may know of her.”

“I’m not asking if you know
of
her,” Lawrence said, his voice rising, “I’m asking if you
know
her.”

“I, um, yes. I’ve met her at a couple of business functions. She covers local business for the
Tribune
, and Richmond is a pretty small city.”

Lawrence’s eyes narrowed as he moved his hand higher on Angela’s thigh. “Those Wall Street investment bankers I mentioned do have one theory about the decline of Sumter’s stock price.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. As you probably know, the entire banking industry has been going through a massive consolidation over the past ten years. Small ones and big ones are gobbling each other up every day, making shareholders very wealthy in the process.”

“I do know that.”

“But what you may not know is that the Federal Reserve and other regulators closely monitor a bank’s performance with respect to serving low-income and minority communities. That they review those records before approving any merger or acquisition, and that these regulators can hold up profitable mergers if they aren’t satisfied with a bank’s record regarding the issue. My investment bankers believe that might be the case with Sumter. They believe that all of this bad press about Sumter in the
Richmond Trib
may have made it less attractive as an acquisition target to the big boys in New York, North Carolina, and on the West Coast because those entities fear that any bid they make would be held up by the regulators. My people think that the decline in Sumter’s stock price is directly related to that nasty information, which, by the way, other newspapers seem to be picking up on. My sources tell me the
Wall Street Journal
is considering the possibility of conducting its own investigation into what’s going on at Sumter.”

Angela swallowed hard. In fact, she was intimately aware of how the government monitored the country’s largest banks in terms of how well they were serving low-income people. Perhaps she and Lawrence were getting to the real reason he had flown her all the way out here. He’d spent almost $500 million on Sumter stock. Now it was worth forty million less. If the
Wall Street Journal
decided to investigate Sumter and found anything negative, his investment might be worth
far
less.

“Are you getting my drift, Angela?” he asked, reaching up and stroking her hair.

She closed her eyes tightly, managing not to flinch. “I—”

“One more question.”

“Yes?”

“Who’s Sally Chambers?”

Angela pulled back with a start, as though she’d touched a live wire. “What?”

“Sally Chambers,” Lawrence repeated. “Who is she?”

Angela swallowed hard. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

“Answer me.”

“You have no right to—”

“I will help you, if you help me,” he interrupted. “But if you don’t, I won’t help you. And helping me includes answering each of my questions.”

Angela could feel herself shaking. Fear, anger, regret, and guilt were all coming together to form a hurricane of emotion. “Sally was my best friend.”

“Was?”

“You know what happened.” The awful image of blood pouring from Sally’s mouth and nose came flashing back, and she could feel herself losing control. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Sally died, didn’t she?”

“Yes. In my arms.”

“That’s awful,” Lawrence said softly. “You know, there’s so much we could do together, so many important problems we could solve. Yours and mine. I’d hate to see anything get in the way of those possibilities.” He smiled, then leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. “You’re a beautiful woman, Angela Day,” he whispered, running his fingers up the inside of her leg to her belt. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”