by Kara Lennox
“What’s this?”
“It’s the female owl. She’s checking out her renovated nest site.”
“So, she stuck around?” Jillian couldn’t completely disguise her interest in the owl, though she was obviously trying to.
“She watched us all day Friday as we worked to get that snag upright. She stayed away Saturday, but yesterday she came back at dawn, circled the tree a couple of times, then went inside the hollow and went to sleep.”
Jillian cycled through the four photos he’d taken of the barn owl. At the last photo of the owl roosting, she grinned for all of half a second before again turning to stone. “Mission accomplished.” She handed the camera back to him.
“No, you keep it. I was wondering if you could write up a little article about restoring the owl tree. It doesn’t have to be perfect, someone in publicity will jazz it up. But it might make a nice human interest story for one of the industry magazines.”
“Yes, I can do that. If you’ll provide me with the basic facts of the engineering part—how many dowels, how long, the equipment used and so forth—I’ll edit the pictures and do the rest.”
“Excellent.” God, how he loved the way this woman said yes. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Then why did he feel like something was missing? Or like they’d gone backward somehow? In Stirrup Creek, he’d felt her softening toward him. Well, a tiny bit, anyway. Working together toward a common goal had created the first tenuous strands of a bond, which he’d hoped to build on. She’d smiled at him a few times, he’d complimented her hard work, they’d shared a meal.
Now, it felt like she was shutting him out.
When he entered his office, he shouldn’t have been shocked to see how neat and organized everything was…but that didn’t stop him from clamping his hand over his mouth. Wow. He’d never seen his office looking so good. Jillian had found some stacking trays and lined them up on his credenza, labeled them neatly, and sorted all of his papers into it. She’d left one large stack on his desk of papers she thought could be disposed of, but she wanted his approval. He flicked through the whole stack in fifteen minutes. Most of it went right into the shred bin.
Even if he couldn’t find something, he felt confident all he had to do was ask Jillian and she would know exactly where it was.
He’d had some misgivings about giving her his email password and telling her to deal with correspondence, but he discovered she’d handled that just as efficiently. Many routine matters she’d been able to do herself; a few others she’d written responses, but left them in the draft folder for him to tinker with or send as he saw appropriate.
She had just saved him so much time. She could probably run this whole damn company if she wanted to.
He strode back out of his office and stood in front of her desk, silently admiring the way her newly manicured nails flew over the keyboard.
After a few moments she looked up. “Yes, Conner?”
“My office looks good.”
“I hope you’ll find it easier to work there, too.”
“I’m sure I will.”
Ham chose that moment to stroll by. “Good morning, Conner. And…Jillian, right?”
Conner hid a smile. He knew damn well what her name was.
“Yes, Mr. Payne.” She smiled at him, but the smile lacked warmth.
“How are things working out?”
“Just fine, thank you for asking.”
“More than fine,” Conner added, wanting Ham to know they’d misjudged her. “Jillian is incredibly organized. You should see my desk.”
“Is that so? Do you think you could spare her for a bit? I have a special project she might be ideally suited to.”
Was Ham trying to steal his assistant? If so, what could he do about it? He wanted to say, “No, I need her!” Instead he managed a weak smile. “What kind of project?”
“Planning the company party.”
Conner recoiled. That was an awful job. Normally Stan’s assistant did all the planning, but when Stan was arrested, she’d been so upset she took an extended leave, and no one wanted to step into her shoes.
“I’d love to,” Jillian said before he could warn her not to. “I’m a very good party planner.” Somehow, she didn’t make that sound like bragging; she was just stating facts.
“Great!” Ham rubbed his hands together. “Every year, Mayall Lumber has a birthday party in late September. We’ve been doing it for almost a hundred years.”
Jillian started taking notes in a steno pad. “Is it appropriate to have a party?” she asked. “Given the current circumstances.”
“Not only appropriate, but essential,” Ham said. “We have to keep the employees’ morale up.”
“Okay. Is there a particular caterer you use, or a certain venue? How many people do you expect? Do you invite clients or is it strictly employees? Are families included?”
“You know who can help you with this?” Ham said. “Isaac Cuddy’s wife, Ariel. She’s always heavily involved with the party. You’ll like her.”
“I’ll give her a call,” Jillian said coolly. “But I don’t want to neglect tasks I’m doing for Conner.”
Conner was grateful for that small crumb. He didn’t want to give her up to other people’s tasks and agendas; he liked having her at his beck and call. He liked knowing she was right around the corner, ready and willing to do his bidding.
Not like most women, that was for sure.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Conner couldn’t help asking after Ham had walked away.
“If Mr. Payne wants me to plan the party, then I’ll do it. It’s perfectly fine.”
“Okay.” He shrugged and retreated to his office.
It had been a long time since he’d worried about making someone happy. When he and Chandra had first married, after a whirlwind courtship and a crazy-fast but extravagant wedding, he’d devoted almost all of his energy to trying to make her happy. She wanted a house in the suburbs, they’d buy a house in the suburbs. She resented his frequent business trips, so he acquiesced when Stan moved him into a desk job, then the director’s job.
Conner had dressed to please her. Cut his hair the way she liked. Yet nothing he did seemed to make her happy. The more he tried, the more dissatisfied she’d become.
His interest in keeping Jillian happy, or at least not driving her away, wasn’t the same, he argued to himself. Doing whatever it took to keep her as his assistant was merely a sound business decision.
Then why did he feel his heart lift every time she even thought about smiling? And why was he so preoccupied at night, fantasizing about how he could make her happy in more ways than one?
He shook his head. Time to get back to work. He checked his email and opened one from the manager of a sawmill in Tuscaloosa, Mississippi, Bob Bellaire, a man whose name Conner had found in Greg’s list of email contacts. Conner had written to every one of those contacts, hoping to find someone who could tell him what Greg had been up to.
“All I know is, your man promised me a load of Grade A pine at a heckuva deal, then it never showed up.”
Conner forwarded the email to Ham, who was director of sales in addition to his temporary CEO duties. “Is this one of our customers?” he asked Ham. “Or was Greg freelancing?”
Three minutes after he hit the send button, Conner’s phone rang. It was Ham. “I’m glad you called this to my attention,” he said. “Bellaire is one of our newer customers. His order got lost in the confusion. I’ll take care of him.”
Conner was disappointed; he’d thought he’d found an anomaly, but it was just an oversight. He opened another email, from a Brazilian landowner. Conner had been checking up on Greg’s international jobs to see if he’d overharvested anywhere else. The original email had been in Portuguese; his computer had translated it to English, so it was a bit rough, but one sentence made perfect sense: “I already gave this information to your inspector Bowe
n. I suggest you contact him.”
Inspector Bowen? Was he one of the guys from the International Forest Stewardship Council, the watchdog of world timber harvesting? If so, Greg’s irresponsible actions may have landed the company into a heap of trouble.
He sent the email to a translator he knew so he could actually understand what the Brazilian man had tried to tell him.
* * *
“ALL RIGHT, THEN, SEE YOU tomorrow.” Jillian hung up the phone, looking forward to her shopping expedition with Ariel Cuddy. She knew she shouldn’t be so excited about planning the company party. She had a business degree from Dartmouth, and she was an aspiring Project Justice investigator.
But Ham had told her, confidentially, that he thought the party planning would give her a chance to mix and mingle with all of the employees, get to know them, maybe pick up some useful information.
That made it okay, she decided. Besides, she loved planning parties. It had been one of her primary duties as Daniel’s assistant. He was constantly entertaining, whether hosting an intimate dinner, meeting with the executive board of Logan Oil or throwing a huge bash for hundreds of people.
Jillian had always been at the center of it—creating a theme, working with the chef on the menu, buying or commissioning decorations, making each guest feel special and welcome.
As a party guest, she sometimes felt awkward or out of place, not knowing who to talk to—or who might want to talk to her. Shades of high school. But as a hostess, she had a role to fill, duties to attend to. She was always busy, her hands never idle.
Plus, the company party gave her an excuse to put some distance between herself and Conner.
It had taken every ounce of control she’d possessed this morning not to fling her outrage at him. Empty-headed fluff! Let me just show you how much damage a piece of fluff can do.
Likewise, she’d also resisted the childish urge to reply to emails he’d receive with strings of obscenities, the online version of slashing his tires.
But she was better than that. She wasn’t the same insecure girl she’d been a dozen years ago. She knew her worth—on her good days, anyway. She was a valued employee of Project Justice with an important job to do. It didn’t matter what Conner thought of her. As soon as she found a way to prove Stan Mayall’s innocence, she would walk out of this damn office without a backward glance and leave Conner high and dry without giving notice, without training a new assistant.
Let him find out just how much work his supposedly brainless fluff did around here.
Planning a party would give her something else to focus on, extracting information from her fellow employees as well as the executives’ wives, who were traditionally included in the party planning. Maybe Jillian could gain their trust, be brought into their inner circle, and get them to dish what terrible, illicit activities were going on.
Ariel couldn’t have been nicer. She’d expressed surprise and pleasure that the annual party—which had been held every year since 1923, without fail—wouldn’t fall by the wayside in light of Stan Mayall’s unfortunate incarceration. She’d sounded honored that Jillian sought her knowledge and opinions.
Jillian had already researched what had been done during previous years’ parties. The company had thrown everything from grand costume balls to weekend beach retreats in good years, to simple luncheons and potluck dinners in years when budgets were smaller.
Jillian didn’t yet know what her budget would be, but even if it was generous, she thought something simple and homespun would be appropriate this year. She was jotting down some ideas when Conner came out of his office.
She steeled herself to maintain her pleasant, professional facade when all she really wanted to do was smack him.
“I’m headed to the board meeting. Wish me luck.”
“What do you need luck for?”
“I’m going to have to confess about the money I spent in Stirrup Creek. I didn’t get prior approval. If I can’t get it squeezed into the budget somewhere, it’ll come out of my paycheck.”
“Good luck then,” she said, but then added, “I’m sure they’ll understand. What you did wasn’t only good for the client and the environment, it was good for the company.”
“Sometimes the board can get very focused on the bottom line. Plus, the original problem falls into my lap. I was Greg’s boss, therefore his mistakes are mine.”
“They’ll get it,” she assured him. She hadn’t intended to offer him encouragement. But she had a terrible time staying angry at him when she remembered how he’d handled the problem in East Texas.
Her mother had told her that eavesdropping often led to hearing things you rather wished you hadn’t. Now she’d discovered firsthand how true that was. People say awful things behind your back that they would never say to your face.
Just imagine if he heard some of the things I’ve said about him! Even worse, the things she’d thought.
Come to think of it, he did hear a few choice words she’d had for him back in high school. She’d made sure Jeff told Conner exactly what she thought of him.
She actually grinned, recalling the string of epithets she’d spent hours cobbling together, then making Jeff repeat it word for word to his rat-bastard friend.
The grin shocked her. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny about the pain of a fourteen-year-old girl whose spirit had been crushed.
She wasn’t fourteen anymore. She was a dedicated professional intent on becoming a Project Justice investigator. Emotions, negative or positive, had nothing to do with the job at hand. She needed to forget about what happened in high school.
That thought shocked her, too.
She had more important things to do than wage psychological battle within herself. The directors were at a board meeting; that meant they were out of the way, and she could do a little snooping. She knew exactly which executive she would start with, too: Isaac Cuddy.
A guy who stole office supplies might be guilty of something grander, she reasoned. Plus, she just couldn’t stand the guy. He’d been rude as hell to her.
She had the perfect excuse for snooping, too, in the unlikely event she got caught. Ariel Cuddy had said her husband, the budget director, would know the amount of money allocated to the party. If anyone happened to see her in or near Isaac Cuddy’s office, she could claim she’d gone looking for that elusive number.
Iris, Cuddy’s admin, was gone for the day. Her computer was turned off, her printer covered, her lights darkened.
Jillian tapped on Isaac’s door. Nothing. She tried the knob, but it was locked.
However, she wasn’t willing to give up. She’d seen Iris locking a bunch of keys in her desk drawer. Desks were pretty easy to jimmy; she’d gotten very good at breaking into her dad’s desk as a kid, to retrieve the Breath of Fire CD he hid from her and Jeff when he thought they needed a break from video games.
Iris’s old birchwood desk, though beautifully maintained, had a lock a monkey could defeat. Jillian had it open in seconds, and there were the keys.
Her heart thumping, she quickly found the key to Isaac’s office door and slid it into the lock. It snicked open.
She paused, trying to decide whether she was doing the right thing. Daniel would say no. But it was Celeste’s voice in her head that screamed the loudest, Do it! Take the initiative. No one is going to give anything to you, you have to take it.
What the hell, she was good at talking her way into and out of situations. She opened the door.
Isaac Cuddy’s office was tidy, as you might expect an accountant’s office to be, but he had nice furniture, even more spectacular then Conner’s. She’d grown up around expensive furnishings, and she’d be willing to bet the desk was genuine Regency period, made in England.
She began her search at Isaac’s desk, not quite sure what she was looking for. She saw some papers related to 401(k) retirement funds. Curious what the top brass might be investing for the future, she couldn’t resist looking.
Was Is
aac robbing the pension fund? That sort of criminal activity was all the rage these days. But she didn’t see anything that sent up a red flag.
She was a little surprised by how small the projected pensions were. Then again, she’d been spoiled, working for Daniel, who offered salaries and benefits well above the norm.
What else might indicate criminal activity—a second set of books, large stashes of cash?
A couple of boxes shoved under a table in the corner caught her eye, mostly because the rest of the office was so neat. One contained a high-end labeling machine; the other, a heavy-duty paper cutter. What would Isaac be doing with those? The machines were equipment a clerical person would use; she couldn’t imagine the budget director labeling his own files or cutting up paper.
He’s stealing them. It made sense that a thief might take pieces of equipment that were shared from department to department by clerical workers who came and went. If someone realized the stuff was missing, a recently departed secretary could be blamed, or everyone could just assume it would turn up.
She doubted Greg Tynes died to hide this secret. He wouldn’t know anything about office supplies, and that wasn’t the sort of story a reporter like Mark Bowen would care anything about. It was a little bit juicy that a company director was a petty thief, but hardly something that would bring down the whole corporation.
She lifted up Isaac’s mouse pad; people still hid their passwords there despite security warnings. She found no secretly cached slips of paper. But when she flipped it all the way over, she found a list of words and phrases written in ballpoint ink on the rubberized surface. She quickly committed them to memory.
Jillian’s stomach tightened, telling her she’d been in here long enough. She was about to tiptoe out when the door burst open without warning.
Her heart stopped beating, and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out from sheer terror. Conner Blake stood in the doorway, looking like Thor himself ready to hurl thunderbolts at her.