The P.U.R.E. (25 page)

Doug was up to his old tricks. His confidence, Jeff’s smarmy arrogance, and HR’s dogged determination to further weaken my credibility all colluded to convince me that no one would take my harassment claim seriously.

33

I had five new text messages and one voice mail when I woke Saturday morning, only one of which came from Doug, thankfully. Jon sent the second text that said, ‘Sorry I was a JERK.’ The next two were also from him and said, ‘Sorry again, tried to call last nite, but no answer, left v-mail’, and ‘See you at 6. Dress up.’

The last was from the number Marilyn had given me. It said, ‘Dinner at noon today.’

Jon’s voice mail was filled with more apologies and ramblings and something about our date at six, dress up, special occasion, blah, blah. Uh-huh, sure.

I checked my watch. Ten thirty. I had less than an hour and a half to get up, shower, dress, figure out where I needed to go, and get there. I hoped my destination wasn’t too far from my apartment. I kicked myself for not having already vetted out the address Marilyn gave me.

At least I wouldn’t have to lie to Jon about why I needed to dash off. I’d have told him one of my girlfriends broke up with her boyfriend and she needed a shoulder to cry on because he took her for granted except when he wanted a booty call.
Ha!

Thankfully, the address was downtown in a building a block away from Anderson-Blakely. I had no worries about getting lost.

Not knowing what to wear for a meeting with an FBI informant and her handler, I dressed semi-professionally in a khaki tan skirt, a lightweight pink sweater, and the Anne Klein heels I practically stole from TJ Maxx.

The suite belonged to Mason, Masters and Lawless, Attorneys at Law. I snickered at the irony of Mr. Lawless, the lawyer. No one greeted me when I entered, but it was a Saturday, after all.

“Hello?” I called out.

Marilyn appeared from a hallway on the right. “Gayle. Good. You got my message. Come this way.”

I followed her into a small conference room. A man about fifty to fifty-five stood as we entered. His hair was silver, and he wore dark-rimmed glasses. For an old guy, he was quite handsome, like a sleek silver fox, and he possessed a wiry energy to him. The edges of his mouth curled as if everything he uttered was done tongue-in-cheek.

“Gayle, this is Agent Burrows. He’s been my contact for these past few months. Agent Burrows, this is Gayle Lindley, the Anderson-Blakely staff person I told you about.”

I shook Agent Burrows’ hand, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. Marilyn studied me so intently I wondered if she still thought I might be the undercover agent.

I too had wondered. Anderson-Blakely hired about a hundred new professional staff each summer. I barely knew half of them, but of those I did, none struck me as the secret-agent type.

“Let’s go ahead and sit and get to the main reason we’re here on a beautiful Saturday afternoon,” Burrows said. He pointed to the conference table where he nabbed the head seat. Marilyn and I took the chairs to his immediate right and left.

I couldn’t wait to share my findings and learn more about the whole undercover operation. As soon as my butt hit the chair, my words gushed forth in a torrent. “I brought some photocopied pages from Jeff Hardinger’s planner and a key Marilyn said you’d want. I read them all but either couldn’t decode his shorthand or the entries seemed to be mundane Anderson-Blakely business.”

A pair of deep parallel frown lines appeared above Agent Burrows’ nose. He extended his hand to take the contraband I withdrew from my purse and flipped through the pages. “Where did you get these?”

“From Jeff Hardinger’s briefcase, in his office. I had the key.”

Burrows’ brows lifted, and a shade of amusement passed over his face before disappearing again. “I see. The Rosetta Stone. This is some very critical intelligence, Gayle, but you need to stay away from Jeff Hardinger and his property from now on. Our inside man will do the poking around.”

“Man?” asked Marilyn. “The agent is a man, or are you speaking generically?”

“He’s a man. As a matter of fact, he’s here today, which is the main reason why I pulled you in, Marilyn. We’re going to reveal his identity to you, so you’ll have two points of contact. Gayle, your participation is critical as well, but if you’re unable or unwilling to continue with the confidential investigation, you’ll be excused immediately without learning the identity of our agent. We’ll debrief him on your being brought into the investigation regardless. He’s not aware you’re here today or that Marilyn contacted you.” He looked pointedly at Marilyn as he said the last bit.

“You’ll have my full cooperation and confidentiality.” I sounded so official, like I rubbed elbows with spies on a regular basis.

“That will make things easier … for some of us anyway.” Agent Burrows muttered his last words. He flipped through the copies and slipped them inside a folder.

“Gayle would like answers to how and why Aphrodite became involved in this investigation, but I told her I’d need to clear it with you first,” Marilyn said.

“Of course. Feel free to share the background story with her,” Burrows said to Marilyn.

Marilyn focused on me. “You remember when I told you Libby Jameson and I go way back, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “Libby came to me to tell me she suspected Kenneth had been embezzling funds from the company and day trading using insider information. She also told me about Kenneth’s affair with Leslie Turner. The FBI leveraged the connection between Aphrodite and Bob Turner into a means of setting a trap for Jeff’s and Bob’s insider information black market.

“How did Libby know?” I asked.

“Jayna told her. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Jayna also had an affair with Kenneth, but when he broke it off, she ratted him out.”

“Who killed Kenneth?” I asked, shifting forward in my chair. So many lovely answers, and I’d have to withhold them all from Jon.

“We aren’t positive,” said Agent Burrows, “but Bob Turner is a prime candidate, as is Jeff Hardinger. We suspect Kenneth grew disgruntled with the quality of the information he purchased and threatened to expose Bob’s side business. The other possibility is Bob discovered his wife and Kenneth’s affair.”

I pondered their suppositions a second. “Bob and Jeff were prepared to cover up the Aphrodite misstatements. Was that to protect Kenneth as part of their deal since the funds to pay for the insider tips came from Aphrodite?”

Marilyn stood and paced the room. “Probably. And to keep him quiet about Leslie’s ownership of Aphrodite stock.”

“We didn’t know about the Aphrodite cover up or the nature of the shares until our agent discovered their existence,” Burrows said.

Whoa.
How did the agent find out about the shares? Had he taken the papers out of my briefcase when my apartment was vandalized? Did he break in and plant the slurs to divert attention? Was the audit room bugged? Had the papers been lifted before I left Aphrodite?

Agent Burrows, who had listened to Marilyn’s explanations in silence, leaned forward on his elbows. “Gayle, to reiterate, for your safety, you must immediately cease
all
your independent sleuthing. We’ll also need you to drop your sexual harassment case against Doug Martin, at least for the present time, until we can conclude our investigation.”

“What!”

I was supposed to take one for the team? No wonder sexual harassers always seemed to get off scot-free with that kind of dismissive attitude.

Nobody gave a rat’s ass about me.

“I’m sorry, Gayle, but I did try to warn you,” Marilyn said.

I hoped Marilyn saw her betrayal reflected on my face. I wondered if she’d ever been harassed. Perhaps she had lived with sexism and harassment so long numbness had set in and she accepted it as no more than an occupational hazard.

Burrows clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “We feel your claim might put undue strain on Jeff’s operation and cause him to change his tactics. Doug is deeply involved, if you hadn’t already guessed, but he’s a loose cannon. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jeff didn’t have a plan to part ways with him soon, and we don’t want another dead body on our hands.” A quick glance at his watch signaled he’d moved on and considered the matter closed.

“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings any,” I sniped but immediately wished I could yank the words back.

“These are desperate men who may have already killed once because the stakes are so high,” he said. “Don’t think they won’t hesitate to kill again. If you stir up trouble for them, they might dispose of both you and Doug, make your deaths appear as if an obsessive stalker opted for a murder-suicide.”

I shuddered because his words rang true if what I’d learned less than twenty-four hours earlier meant anything. Marilyn shot me a sympathetic glance, and I banked my outrage.

“Which brings me to the primary reason why I asked you here today, Marilyn. We think Bob and Jeff have discovered your identity as an informant. We’ll need you to disappear for a while until we can determine the accuracy of our agent’s intelligence and dispatch the threat, if any.”

“Threat? Like someone might try to kill me?” Marilyn’s eyes and mouth flew open. I wished Jon were present so I could tell him I told him so.

“According to our agent, Bob Turner met with a lesser known criminal for hire last night in Deep Ellum and handed off an envelope full of cash and a file. I only said
threat
of danger because the guy Turner met with is not known to be a hired gun. He mostly does property crimes and insurance fraud for hire—vandalism, robberies, arson, that sort of thing—but he might have branched out. Property crimes can also pose a danger though.”

Obviously, my information from the previous night was old news because the agent had also been in the bar. He could have recognized Jon and I and witnessed us pilfer Marilyn’s file. I hadn’t seen anyone I recognized from Anderson-Blakely, but it was a big firm, and I’d only been employed a few months myself.

Why didn’t Burrows mention the file’s contents or the brawl the man got into with us? Did the agent leave before Jon and I sidelined the hired gun? That made no sense. Why would he have left? My head began to throb.

“Our agent will assist you in going into hiding for a while, Marilyn, if you’re prepared.”

“Sure. Yes. Right.” She nodded as worry furrowed her brow.

I just wanted to know who the agent was.

“Alright then, let’s get the introductions over with then.”

34

Agent Burrows escorted us out of the conference room and down the hall to an office. A man sat in front of the desk, his back to us. As we neared, he rose and turned.

The smile on Jon Cripps’ face came crashing down.

So did mine.

“Son of a bitch!” I said under my breath. My heart raced and blood pounded in my head, making whooshing sounds in my ears.

Burrows said the undercover agent only expected to reveal himself to Marilyn, and no doubt thought the two of them would share a laugh of recognition. Jon didn’t know about me, and I wasn’t chuckling.

Why hadn’t I even considered it might be him?

“Well, you weren’t who I expected you to be. You just got fired, too. Interesting,” Marilyn said.

Jon nodded at Marilyn with a tight smile. He cleared his throat, his gaze on me. “Gayle. Nice to meet you outside of the work environment for a change.”

Excuse me?
He continued to hold my eyes. He wore the same half sheepish, half panicked look he’d sported when Scarlett and I ran into him having lunch with Thalia.

Thalia.
Had they ever been engaged, or was she part of his cover story? Was she an agent too? Her warning about Jon and his secrets took on greater meaning.

One truth Jon failed to hide: his anxiety either Agent Burrows or I would discover the true nature of his extracurricular activities.

“Jon Cripps. An undercover FBI agent. What a surprise.” I couldn’t keep the ice out of my voice.

If I’d had a baseball bat, I’d have whacked him over the head. The asshole had been screwing with me all along—in every sense of the word. Everything I thought I knew about him—all lies.

I bristled at the memory of Jon sharing how his inner voice told him I was ‘the one’ when he first met me. Yeah, I was
the one
alright. I was easy and stupid enough to fall for his slightly quirky, but lovable, Texan charm and unwittingly help him do his job. They’d probably give him a bonus for a job well done, thanks in part to me. Only my initial instincts about him had been right. I never should have slept with him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

No matter what, I would never give him a glimpse of me as anything but cool and professional. I was not going to rant and rave in front of Marilyn and Agent Burrows about how Jon led me on, used and betrayed me. Public recriminations I’d squelch and stash in my own private hell, but the next time I cornered him, I’d be sure to share a little piece with him. Right before I told him we were over, not that there ever was a ‘we’, not in the real world anyway.
Scratch that.
Damn him, he’d robbed me of even that minor recompense.

“Obviously no introductions are necessary,” Burrows said. He glanced at Jon, then me and shook his head.
Oh crap.
Burrows must have figured out Jon and I worked together the second I handed over Jeff’s pages. Jon made copies, copies he probably turned over to the FBI the same day he passed on the intel about Bob’s meeting in the bar.

No one spoke. Marilyn sighed and sat down first. I hesitated before taking the only remaining chair, the one on Jon’s right. I couldn’t look at him, but I could sense him staring at me with imploring eyes.

Jon debriefed us on the alleged hitman’s activities. He’d unearthed many details about the guy he decked on my behalf in the bar. For starters, the man’s name was Ron Fein. Seems the guy was more of an annoyance than a threat. He mostly did hired break-ins and vandalism and had never been linked to any murders or even assaults.

Jon altered the facts to omit my role in the prior night’s activities.
Why?
To take full credit or because he was fraternizing on the job? A bit of both?