“I should have some information for us by the time you arrive.”
“See you shortly.”
I stop by Dillon’s, Cameron’s, and Sara’s offices and let them know what’s going on. “Good luck,” they all tell me.
When I arrive at Marci’s office, her receptionist sends me back without announcing me. It’s controlled chaos, with multiple banker boxes labeled with case names lining the wall next to a beautiful view of Oakland and the north bay.
Marci sees me at her door and motions for me to sit down.
“Great, we’ll be by within the hour. Do you want us to alert SFPD?” She’s quiet a few moments. “Great, we’ll see you then.”
She hangs up the phone and looks at me. “That was Cora Perry over at the FBI. She’s going to assemble a group to meet us in about an hour. How is CeCe doing?”
“She’s stressed. It’s a company that was started by her mother, so she isn’t going to go down without a fight.”
“I don’t blame her. Tell me about the issue with the competitor.”
I show her a copy of the ad slick I brought with me and tell her how they got it.
“Everything was the same?” she asks.
“Everything. Not only the colors and their names but also the packaging and display.”
“That’s definitely creepy. She went to the FBI?”
“Yes, but they weren’t too eager to help her because it’s ‘only makeup,’ so she asked Walker Clifton to get involved, which he happily did.”
“I can imagine, given not only is she a good donor for him, but Metro is one of the bigger single employers in the city.” She looks at her notes for a few minutes. “Had Metro already started production of these colors?”
“I believe so, but on a small level. There is an expiration date, and they wouldn’t have done too much beyond samples for photos and testing on models. I know that from previous conversations with her, but as I understand it, they debated moving forward despite the rip-off, figuring their fans would be loyal to them. In the end, though, they chose to not announce any new colors for the fall.”
“That will hit their bottom line, I would imagine.”
“I believe so, yes. We can ask her number two person to join us. Evelyn is amazing and knows a lot more than I do.”
“Let’s wait on that. For now, we’re just reporting what you know while CeCe is away.”
I nod. “Correct.”
“Who alerted her about the animal cruelty?”
“She received a call shortly after six this morning.”
“Where you there?”
Crap. Marci is good. “Yes, I’m staying with her until the doctor tells me I can live alone.”
“You were with her, though?”
“Yes, but—” I take a deep breath. “Marci, this is new for both of us. We haven’t even told our closest friends. I know I want more from her, but with everything going on, I don’t want to jeopardize this in any way. Do we have to announce it to everyone today?”
“Honestly, I know this crowd. No one will catch it. If they do, I can direct them for now. If it goes to court, then we’ll have to be prepared to talk about it, but hopefully by then, you two will be out to the world. That girl has been railroaded by the press and deserves someone who cares about her.”
“I couldn’t agree more. We’ve had bad timing for several years, and I’m happy we’re on the right track.”
“Back to this call….”
“It was her IT guy, and he alerted her to it. They don’t do any animal testing. It’s my understanding from them that if you want to sell in China, you’re required to do animal testing, so they’ve decided to not sell there.”
“Isn’t it interesting that the competitor who ripped them off is Chinese?”
“Our thoughts exactly.”
“And what’s she doing in New York?” Marci asks.
“She’s meeting with a crisis management firm in New York this evening. They’ve already told her she was doing the morning shows tomorrow. She’ll be there for a few days dealing with this mess.”
“The tabloids will be going crazy after this, I would think.”
“She takes it as normal, but really she’s a trooper when it comes to these issues.”
“Let’s start heading over.” We stand and walk to the door and head down to my waiting car. Marci looks around at the guys who start following us. “I just realized you have a team with you all the time.”
“Ever since I was poisoned, they’ve pretty much insisted on it.”
“Do you have a taster, too?”
I laugh hard. “I guess that would be CeCe.”
“That’s a pretty high-value taster.”
We drive over with my phone ringing like crazy. The sound is off, but it still buzzes. “What can we expect from these guys today?”
“I think you’ll have a pretty big audience. You’ll have Cyber, White-Collar, SFPD and, people from the district attorney’s office, if not Walker Clifton and others from the US attorney’s office. That’s a big party.”
As we pull up in front of the federal building, I follow Marci’s lead as she hands the woman her driver’s license. She chats briefly with Marci while she types our information into her system.
“When are you heading back to Philly?” the receptionist asks her.
“No offense, but I’m hoping not for a while. Though I sure could use a good cheesesteak.”
“Girl, you can go to Jake’s on Buchannan’s for something close.”
“I’ll have to remember that. Give your cousin my best the next time you talk to her.”
She hands us back our licenses, and we head through security. Once we’re in the elevator with our escort, Marci explains. “I recently had a case in Philadelphia, and I recognized the family resemblance with the admin there. It happens to be her cousin.”
“That must have been William’s issue. What a small world.”
She snickers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you and your friends are my largest clients by far.”
“Well, we’re hoping that changes before too long.”
“You cemented me for partnership, so thank you.”
The doors open and we walk into what looks like the Discovery’s bridge on Star Trek. Cora crosses the room and gives me a great big hug. “You sure do look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
“It’s been a few weeks. I was supposed to be back at work full time today, but it looks like this is going to derail me a little bit.”
“I understand our mole may be going after CeCe, too?”
“We aren’t sure, but someone’s targeting her.”
“Detective Lenning, his partner, and a person from the district attorney’s office are in the conference room. Walker Clifton himself is coming, and he’s always late.” She looks at Marci, and they give each other a knowing nod. “Come with me.”
She walks her way to a conference room where the walls are all glass. Attached to one side of the glass, I see a running timeline of our hackers. It’s stunning to see it all laid out like this and how it all relates.
There is a flurry of commotion, and Walker Clifton walks in with Agents Winters and Greene. They’re following him closely. So close, I wonder if their noses are brown.
Everyone takes their seats, and I notice Jim Adelson has joined us, too. He nods at me. “Mason.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Jim.”
Walker starts our meeting. “Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves and our roles within our little group here. I’ll start. I’m United States Attorney Walker Michael Clifton of the Northern District of California.”
Each person around the room follows suit and introduces themselves. There is no self-deprecating humor; this is all formal, a bunch of dogs marking their territory. I know everyone through one scrape or another our team has dealt with.
Walker is the most senior in the room, so he takes the lead. “Mason, tell us what’s going on.”
/>
“Thank you. I’m here sharing about what has happened with Caroline Arnault, the president and CEO of Metropolitan Cosmetics, as well as one of SHN’s advisors and a shareholder. It could be unrelated. However, we feel that since it seems a little too coincidental, we should all be on the same page.” I then walk them through the Chinese having Metro’s fall line.
“Why wasn’t this reported to the FBI?” Detective Lenning asks.
“It was,” I respond but don’t elaborate.
Detective Lenning looks at the White-Collar agents and asks, “Why didn’t you send us the information?”
The two agents squirm in their seats.
“They felt it wasn’t a big deal since it was only makeup,” Marci shares.
Cora’s eyes pop, as do Detective Lenning’s. Everyone in the room is obviously surprised by this revelation.
“One of San Francisco’s largest employers reports to you that her entire fall line has been stolen and is being released by a foreign competitor, and you dismiss her?”
Walker holds up his hand and interjects. “We’ve addressed this, and you will have the information promised by the end of the day.”
Detective Lenning shakes his head, and I couldn’t agree more.
“My team’s been able to ascertain that they haven’t been working on this for months, as was reported to the FBI, but rather a few weeks at most. We believe there is someone inside of Metro who fed them information as it went along. It went through heavy encryption and was outside of Metro’s firewalls. In addition, the cosmetics company also is a known front for Chinese intelligence,” Jim offers.
“How can you be so sure?” Agent Winters asks with pure disdain.
“Because Miss Arnault is a client of ours and we’ve investigated. We’ve done background checks on each person who had access to various parts of the process and narrowed it down to these five people: Becca Bentley, who heads up public relations; Christy Levin, who is Miss Arnault's admin; Evelyn Stevens, head of operations; Scarlet Lopez, who is Evelyn’s admin; and Jordan Tyler, the project manager.”
The meeting goes for the remainder of the afternoon. In the end, we all agree that the attacks on CeCe’s company may stem from the same source, but nothing concrete is determined. “Is it interesting to anyone else that there were Russian hackers and now we’re dealing with Chinese intelligence? Could this mean our hackers are selling this off to others?” I muse.
The White-Collar agents look at me in surprise.
“Our hackers did say they were close to you and indicated that we interacted with them regularly when they sent you that voice mail a few months ago,” Jim volunteers.
“What voice mail?” asks Detective Lenning.
“I have it here.” Cora works with her computer a bit, and then she plays the file.
“Good morning, Mason,” a computer-generated voice drones on in a monotone. “I see you and your friends at the US attorney’s office have indicted us. We want to assure you that we are not scared of you and your indictments. You should have figured out who we are, and none of you are smart enough to actually do that. We are everywhere, and you don’t even recognize us. But we can assure you that we are not hiding. We are going to make a big impact, and you will regret the day our paths ever crossed.”
“We’ve indicted Adam and Eve from that voice mail,” Walker shares with the group.
We spend the rest of the afternoon making plans for our next steps. Most of the burden is going to be carried by the White-Collar team, but I’m not holding my breath.
As we walk downstairs, I make a point of speaking to the lackluster agents. “I appreciate any and all of your help.”
Chapter ten
CeCe
As we enter Gran Tivoli for dinner, the paparazzi are in full force. I smile as they throw out questions about animal testing but don’t answer any. When I see Jeremy, I know he’ll be a good friend to help Metro weather this chaos.
“Caroline! So lovely to finally meet you. I just wish it was under better circumstances.” He leads me to the back of the restaurant to a private room, where his team has gathered around a large round table. I notice there are noise machines. At first, I think it’s to drown out the noise of the main dining room outside, but then I realize it’s to make sure no one is listening to us here on the inside.
The team introduces themselves as they go around the table. Adam, the project manager and media relations expert, looks like he’s twelve years old. I hope I’m in good hands.
Adam stands and begins a slideshow. I’m shocked at what they’ve put together in less than eight hours. He walks through some gruesome pictures and is able to show that they’ve been used before. I don’t know why that comforts me, but it does. Then he talks about the plan to combat this nightmare. “As I mentioned this morning, we have you scheduled on all the morning shows. We have the questions they’re allowed to ask and your answers, which we’ll go through shortly.”
“We know that some are going to go off script, particularly about your current love life,” Vanessa reminds them.
I’m in shock. How would they know about Mason? We haven’t talked about “us,” and the last thing I want to do is talk about that publicly. I learned a long time ago that that was a simple way to destroy a relationship, and I’ve waited too long for him to get scared away by the press.
“We have some talking points about Prince Frederic,” Adam assures her.
Oh, thank goodness. Frederic and his porn star. I’m just tabloid gold right now. “Do you really think they’ll care about that at this point? We’ve both moved on,” I say dismissively.
“Yes, they’ll care. You’re considered American royalty by all standards, and you were replaced by a porn star,” Neil, the research guru, stresses.
“Well, the simple answer is that we didn’t see much of each other before the big breakup, and we’ve both moved on,” I patiently explain.
“They’ll want to know who you’ve moved on with. Unless you’re ready to share that juicy tidbit, I’d suggest we might want to adjust what you say,” Adam kindly says to me.
“I’ll take your advice on how to handle that, but be assured that I wasn’t heartbroken over Frederic and his porn star. And I might add, despite what the tabloids write, I’m not frigid either.”
The room laughs, which is what I was hoping for.
“You’re going to do fantastic tomorrow. You’ve been managing press your whole life. You’ve totally got this,” Jeremy exclaims.
He’s right. I have spent my life managing the press. When my grandfather was upset with our dad for not coming back to work for the family business, he set his will up to give my brother and me our father’s portion of his estate. He didn’t understand how computers could make any money, but my father and mother were billionaires in their own right after they started Sandy Systems, which was the first company to figure out how to link computers together into networks. Our parents were very careful not to overexpose us, and we had a tight group of friends. I learned early on that when people shared our confidences, it would show up on the news or tabloids. We did many public relations junkets to downplay any drama.
It’s nearly midnight when I get to my suite at the Four Seasons. My body clock tells me it’s only nine, but I’m still exhausted. The car service will pick Vanessa and me up at six here at the hotel. I should be able to sleep at least a little bit before then.
I look at my phone and see a missed call and voice mail from Mason.
“Hey, beautiful. I’m thinking about you today. I hope you had a good flight, and I’ll be watching you on the morning shows. You’re going to do great. I’m here if you have the energy to call.”
I smile. I adore that he touched base with me. Most guys seem to like to play it cool or see me as a way to up their profile. Maybe it’s just as well that Mason and I started out as friends.
I pick up my phone and FaceTime him.
His hair is tousled, and I remember what those lips did for
me just last night. “Hey, how was your flight?”
“It was good. Am I interrupting anything?”
“Absolutely not. Angela has fed me well, and now I’m watching SportsCenter. All my teams lost today.”
“You’re an Indians and Browns fan. You should be used to that by now,” I tease.
“Ouch! You’re harsh.” His smile is as broad as the Grand Canyon.
I giggle. “Thanks for the message. It made my day.”
“Well, it must have been a rough day if a simple message makes it.”
“I’ve decided that I will personally float Metro if this goes sideways. Too many people will be out of a job, and I won’t have that.”
“That could be pretty pricey.”
“I don’t care. It isn’t money that I made myself anyway. I’ve lost three of the four contracts we had for Fashion Week. Only Gap is hanging on for now, but depending on how things go this week, we may lose them, too.” I sigh.
“I’m really sorry.”
“The other thing I learned is that despite having the questions they’ll ask on the morning shows tomorrow, we can expect them to go off script and ask about Frederic and his porn star. Accurate Communications didn’t like my response.”
“What didn’t they like?”
“That we’ve both moved on and I’m not frigid.”
Mason lets out a deep belly laugh. “Oh, I can definitely attest that you aren’t frigid. Should I prepare a press release that I think my dick is going to fall off since we’ve had so much sex?”
I match his laughter. “Would you mind? Make sure you whip it out and show them and add that I give amazing blowjobs in private. I don’t need to do anything in public for attention.”
“Consider it done,” he says while he continues to laugh. When we finally stop giggling, he asks, “Do you need to out us?”
“I did say we’ve both moved on, but they’re suggesting that unless I’m ready to out us, then I should use different language. I’m not ready to expose you to the nightmare of the tabloids. You see what it does for Sara and Trey. Let’s enjoy this for a while.”
“Have you told Emerson or Hadlee yet?”
Fascination: (Billionaire Venture Capitalist #9): A Friends to Lovers Romance Page 10