She and her crew had done their homework.
“Tandy,” I started gently, “with all that, can you please tell me why you didn’t give this to Lloyd or Berger?”
Her shoulders straightened, and when she spoke, her voice was stronger. “Because I need this job, Frankie. I have a roommate. We live in a nice place, but only because we go in on it together. Without her, it’d be tough to find somewhere to rent that’s that nice, safe, and in a good part of town. I want to be able to afford to keep my part of that place and it isn’t like people headhunt for assistants. I don’t have the reserves to make it if I get fired. I need to work. And with things this big, you never know who’s in on it. So, if we don’t have everything we have to have to prove what we know is true, if they fire us, we have nothing to give to the newspapers to expose them.”
She and her crew hadn’t just done their homework, they’d thought it all through.
But my mind was whirling with what to do next.
Then I hit on it.
“I need the name and phone number of the investigator in Denver. I also need Peter to make copies of absolutely everything he has. Call him and tell him to do that, then I’ll go down to IT on my way back from the gym at lunch to get it myself. You make the rounds and be cool about it, telling everyone to stand down for now. I’ll let you know what we’re doing next.”
Her expression went suspicious as she said, “No offense, Frankie, but we’ve been at this a lot longer than you and you’re kind of management. So I know you’re cool, but with this kind of stuff, I have to know you’re cool. I don’t think it’s a good idea to hand everything over to you.”
I got that.
I also had to get past it.
“All right, honey, take a deep breath and keep your cool when I tell you something that’s gonna blow your mind, freak you out, and put the fear of God in you.”
Her eyes widened, but I went on.
“The reason I’m sticking my nose in is because someone close to me is keeping Peter Furlock safe. And that’s because he’s had a hit put out on him. Now, I’m taking this over because I have the resources to do it, I have more weight in this company than any of you, and because I want you, Sandy, Miranda, Kathleen, Peter, and whoever else to stay alive.”
“Oh my God, that’s why you wanted me to call him,” she breathed.
“That’s why,” I confirmed.
“Should I tell him?” she asked.
“If you want, I will. But I think he should know. He has someone shadowing him to protect him, but it doesn’t hurt to stay vigilant.”
“I should tell him,” she whispered. “He knows me.”
I nodded. “I understand that,” I assured her, then I leaned toward her. “But please warn him that he does not go off the beaten path. We can’t let the people who are doing this know how on to them you are or what the people who are working with me are doing.”
She looked so freaked, I wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but I didn’t want anyone to see me doing it.
So I didn’t and just kept talking.
“Now, you gotta trust me. This is huge and what you’ve been doing is making someone antsy. Let’s get this product safely off our catalog and do it without any more good, brave people getting harmed. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“You need a minute to get yourself together?” I asked, and she nodded. “Take it, then, babe. But do it scribbling on your notepad, right?”
“Right, notepad, good idea. Just a normal meeting with new scenery between Frankie and Tandy,” she said in a near chant.
I smiled at her. “Just that, honey.”
She nodded again, snatched up her notepad, and started scribbling.
I took a sip of my latte and decided on what was next.
Benny first, obviously.
Then Sal.
I looked to Tandy, who was rabidly scribbling like I was a taskmaster about to pull out my whip.
“Babe,” I called, and she looked to me.
I made my voice low when I spoke again, and even if my words were clear, my tone made them clearer.
“You did good. You did right. You took initiative, even when I told you to back down. You were brave. And you’re gonna save a lot of people a lot of heartache. Literally. I admire you, Tandy.” Her lip started trembling so I finished gently, “Just a normal meeting, honey.”
She forced a weak smile and replied, “Just another meeting, Frankie.”
I grinned at her and took another sip of my latte.
* * * * *
That evening at 5:05, I sauntered to my car just like any other day I’d saunter to my car, except way earlier.
This was because Benny was at my place and I wanted to be with Benny.
This was also because I wanted to get the fuck out of there.
The last was partly because I’d picked up all the evidence Tandy’s crew had amassed from a visibly terrified Peter Furlock. Although not nice to say, he was a man who was squat, dumpy, had thinning light brown hair, and wore thick glasses either due to weak eyes or squinting at a computer screen or a TV while playing a game all the time.
Even so, he was also building up to being a hero because he was smart and brave and doing the right thing, all this I told him in order to get him to calm down, stick with the program, and assure him my “people” had his back.
When he went back to wherever IT people holed up, he looked less terrified but still jittery.
The stuff he gave me was in my computer bag.
So I also wanted to get out of there because the place was giving me the heebie-jeebies. It felt like the walls had eyes and it didn’t help that Heath disappeared at lunch and didn’t come back.
This sent Sandy into a tailspin for reasons that were probably not good. She was visibly nervous. She dropped several things, including a full mug of coffee. She avoided Tandy (and, thus, me) like the plague. And twice, I saw her rushing to the bathroom.
She maybe didn’t feel well.
But she probably went in there to freak out and/or burst into tears.
Something was up with that and it was either what I’d said to Heath or what Bierman had said.
I’d called Benny with the news, giving him the detail on Nightingale Investigations, the firm Tandy’s sister’s friend from Brownsburg (of all freaking places) had connections with. Ben told me he’d relay everything to Sal so I didn’t have to.
This was not because he didn’t want me to talk with Sal. It was because he didn’t want to chance me being overheard by anyone.
Since all the evidence was on three thumb drives, no paper, I was going to hand them over to someone Sal was sending to keep them safe.
That was my plan for the night.
I was also going to cuddle with my man, play with my puppy, look forward to the time when that was my life but in Chicago, and try to forget about all this crap.
Until tomorrow.
I was at my car when my phone in my purse binged with a text. I got in the car, settled, dug out my phone, and looked at the display.
When I saw what was on it, I forced myself to act normally, seeing as they had cameras in the parking garage. And when the text faded to a dark screen, I went to my texts to read it again.
McCaffrey’s. Now. Come by yourself.
It was from Heath.
One thing I knew, I was going to McCaffrey’s.
The other thing I knew, I was not going alone.
I put my Bluetooth in, made the call, and pulled out of my spot as it rang.
“You headed home?” was Benny’s greeting.
“No, I’m meeting you at a place called McCaffrey’s where I’m giving a command performance for Heath, my colleague who disappeared at lunch after a first-thing-in-the-morning meeting with me followed immediately by one with Bierman.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Where is it?”
I gave him directions and he sounded like he was walking when he said, “Got it. Be there in a f
ew. But do not go in without me. Do not even park in the parking lot without me. I had shit to do with Sal’s boys today, so one of them took your ass on the way to work and was gonna trail you home. He can clock out when I get there, but you’re not goin’ in without someone at your back. Take a drive. Circle it. I’ll text you when I’m there.”
Seemed Ben was good at cloak-and-dagger shit.
I found that interesting.
And hot.
“Right, capo.”
“Whatever,” he said with a smile in his voice, then, “Later.”
He disconnected and I did as told, though it wasn’t for a few since Brownsburg was half an hour drive on a good day from McCaffrey’s and it was rush hour. Since 86th Street and its environs, where McCaffrey’s was located, was crazy busy, I also did it wanting to murder somebody. And I did it until my phone binged and I saw the text that said Ben was there.
That’s when I went to McCaffrey’s, which was a pub restaurant off 86th where a lot of folks from Wyler went after work for a couple of drinks and a plate of appetizers. I’d been there twice, always with folks from Wyler.
I parked, and when I got out, Benny was at my door.
“Got the shit on you, babe?” he asked and there it was again. He was good at this cloak-and-dagger shit. I’d left it in my computer bag on my passenger seat. It probably wasn’t such a hot idea to leave evidence of all that Tandy’s crew had been doing in a decades-old Z outside a pub frequented by Wyler staff.
“Right,” I muttered, leaned into my car, nabbed my bag, pulled it out, and when I did, Benny took it.
I locked up. He grabbed my hand and led me into the bar.
We found Heath away from the having-a-few-and-attempting-to-hook-up crowd around the bar. Side booth, out of the way.
Obviously, he didn’t want to have a beer (or in his case, by the cocktail glass in front of him, I was again guessing a martini) and share about our day among the heaving throng.
I led Benny to Heath, and when we got to his booth, Ben guided me in first.
We barely stopped sliding our asses in when Heath asked, “Who’s this fucking guy?”
“My boyfriend,” I answered.
He leveled his eyes on me. “I thought I told you to come alone.”
“She’s not alone. Get over it or not. Call it now. We leavin’ or we stayin’?” Ben declared, and Heath glared at him.
Then he shrugged. “What the fuck, doesn’t matter. It’s gonna be all over the Internet soon anyway so everyone can see it,” he muttered bizarrely, then turned, picked something up out of the seat beside him, and tossed it across the table our way.
It was a manila envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked, reaching for it.
“Proof Randy Bierman is a total dick,” Heath answered.
“Need more to go on there, man,” Benny said.
Heath looked at me but jerked his head toward Benny. “Again, why is this guy here?”
“He’s Italian. He’s protective. He tends not to like me having a drink on command alone with guys who don’t like me much, so he’s here. Like he said, get over it,” I replied, having grabbed the envelope during that exchange. I flipped open the flap and started to pull out what was inside.
I shoved it back in and I didn’t even get a full look.
This was because what I saw was Heath sitting in a nice armchair, fully clothed, head thrown back, and Sandy was between his legs doing something that could not be mistaken, completely naked.
I barely got the photo shoved back in before Benny ripped the envelope out of my hand and sent it sailing back to Heath.
“You wanna explain why you’re givin’ my woman shit like that to look at?” he demanded to know, his voice not smooth, not easy, but rumbling and irate.
Obviously, he got a look too.
“Thought she should know she’s right,” Heath answered like it was all the same to him. I looked at his martini glass, which was drained, and wondered how many he’d had.
When he spoke again, I looked back to him.
“Bierman. Like you guessed. Told me to tell Sandy to keep her shit together or her consequence would be everyone across the globe knowing she has a birthmark on her ass. Also told me to end it with her. And last, he told me if my resignation wasn’t on Lloyd’s desk by Monday, that picture”—he jerked his head to the envelope—“was going to be all over the Internet.”
I did not get this.
So I asked, “Why does he want you to resign?”
“Because he’s a dick,” Heath answered.
The way he opened our discussion came back to me.
“Are you resigning?”
“Fuck no,” he clipped, and I blinked.
He was swinging Sandy out there.
What a jerk!
“You’re gonna put your woman out there?” Benny stated my thoughts, but he did it incredulously, like that idea was so foreign to him he couldn’t process it, and I remembered (not that I’d ever forget) how much I love Benny Bianchi.
Benny Bianchi had a lot of my love, but he would earn more in the coming exchange.
“I’m not lettin’ some twat strong-arm me into quitting my fucking job,” Heath declared. “And she’s not my woman.”
“Your dick been in her mouth more than once?” Benny asked.
“Not that it’s your business, but yeah,” Heath bit out.
“Then she’s your woman,” Ben decreed.
I grinned and leaned into him, wrapping my hands around his bicep and murmuring, “You’re so awesome.”
He tipped his head to look down at me. “Babe, you wanna focus?”
I kept grinning and murmuring when I said, “Right,” let him go, and looked back to Heath.
Heath was staring at us, and when he got both our attention, he announced, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“I failed to introduce you two,” I said, ignoring his remark. “Heath, this is my boyfriend, Benny Bianchi—master pizza maker, super protective Italian hot guy, and man who knows how to treat a woman.” I looked up to Ben. “Ben, Heath—a man who gives all us salespeople a bad name.”
“Jesus, I didn’t ask you here to give me shit,” Heath said.
“You didn’t ask me here at all,” I pointed out as Benny asked over me, “Why did you ask her here?”
Another shrug. “Colleagues and shit. She tried to do me a solid, I threw it in her face. She should know,” Heath told him.
“The guy tell you he’d give you the photos if you resign?” Benny kept at him.
“No. He said I wouldn’t see them on the Internet if I resigned.”
“He keeps it and knows you’ll fold, he pulls it out anytime he needs somethin’ from you,” Benny guessed.
“If I did something as weak as resign, I wouldn’t be around for him to blackmail me,” Heath returned.
“You’d probably go to another pharma and then who knows what he would expect from you,” Benny wisely pointed out.
“Then it’s good I’m gonna call his bluff,” Heath fired back.
“Resign,” Ben replied firmly, and Heath’s eyes narrowed.
“Dude, I do not know you. I didn’t ask you here. I do not want you here. And I sure as fuck am not gonna take career advice from you.”
It was then Benny lost patience and pinned Heath with his eyes.
“Right now, two Chicago wise guys are workin’ over the PI who took that picture. They’ll have all he has on you probably within half an hour so he won’t have it to hold over you. And word on this guy is, he’s a big fan of piggybacking his clients’ blackmail attempts. The next couple of days, the rest will be collected. You resign. Shit goes down. Things are explained, including why you resigned. A week, two, you’ll have your job back.”
Heath’s head twitched when Ben started talking, and he was staring with his mouth open when Benny quit.
He pulled himself together to whisper, “Fuck me, you’re in the mob?”
“Not me, not even close
. But Frankie has connections, so heads up on that, I wouldn’t fuck her over,” Ben told him.
Heath’s eyes near on bugged out of his head and I had to swallow a giggle. Since it was such a big giggle, it wasn’t easy, and I almost choked on it.
But Ben wasn’t done.
“She’s got your back, and by that, I’m thinkin’ she more has the woman you won’t claim as yours back, but you get to enjoy that protection. Just resign. It’ll all be good.”
“How can I be assured of that?” Heath pressed.
“You can’t,” Ben returned. “You just gotta trust that not everyone in this world is an asshole out for themselves like you are.”
I couldn’t stop that giggle and Heath turned his scowl at me.
I waved a hand, forced myself to sober, and said, “Sorry, sorry. Inappropriate.”
“You gonna fuck me?” he asked.
“What I’m gonna do is make sure Sandy doesn’t get fucked, which means I have to do the same for you. So, no. I’m not gonna fuck you,” I told him.
Heath’s eyes narrowed. “You know why Bierman wants me out?”
“You aren’t gonna know that,” Ben took back the conversation, though I didn’t know, neither did Benny. But obviously Ben had made the decision that we weren’t sharing the rest with a jerk like Heath.
Heath looked to him. “Why not?”
“Your protection,” Benny said.
“That’s jacked,” Heath bit out. “It’s my ass on the line.”
It was then I knew Ben was done.
I knew this when he stated, “Okay, I’m hungry. I don’t wanna be here with you. I wanna be home with my woman and my dog, so this is the gig. It’s lost on you but bigger shit is at play here and whatever your part in it is small. So we don’t have time to jack around with you. You either trust Frankie or you don’t. But I’ll tell you something, you go in the office Monday morning without your resignation typed out in order to take the back of the woman who’s warmin’ your bed, you are not a man. You’re a dick, a weasel, and a douche. That play you make is gonna be on you. And it might not fuck with your head but I cannot imagine how it wouldn’t that the woman you toss right in front of the bus is gonna pay for your ambition and probably have men say shit and even do shit to her that she won’t deserve. It could even put her in jeopardy because they saw that out there.”
The Promise Page 49