Foolproof (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 4)

by Dianne Emley

“This is about business, Iris. Not about sentimentality. Kip Cross’s been linked to another murder since my last offer.”

  “Accidental death.”

  “Whatever. Pandora’s value is diminishing by the day. Four seventy-five is a fair offer. You say you’re concerned about making the best deal for Brianna Cross. You should have made that deal two offers ago. Stop being emotional and start being realistic.”

  “All right, as soon as you stop using dirty tricks to tarnish my reputation and stall a Pandora IPO.”

  T. Duke played dumb. “Tarnish your reputation?”

  “I know all about Canterbury Investments. A chain of deceit is only as strong as its weakest link. What made you think that Sam Eastman could pull off something like that?”

  “Sam Eastman? Canterbury what?”

  “Oh, puh-leese.”

  “Iris, it’s unsportsmanlike to make accusations without backing them up.”

  “Unsportsmanlike? T. Duke, I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up and stared at the now placid torture device known as the telephone. Conduit of countless horrors.

  Liz came into her office. “No Top Gun today?” She wore a white wool knit suit with a zip-front jacket.

  “Hasn’t even called,” Iris said. “Maybe he’s doing me a favor and falling on his sword.”

  “I had lunch with Ron Aldrich yesterday, my old boss over at Pierce Fenner Smith. He didn’t remember even interviewing Evan much less making him a job offer.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Why?”

  Iris briskly shook her head. “Can’t talk now.”

  Liz peered out Iris’s door and down the corridor. “Uh-oh. Here comes Sam-I-Am and he looks all aflutter.”

  “Good.” Iris brightened. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

  Liz gave Iris a probing look. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Liz hoisted a buttock onto the corner of Iris’s desk. “Tell me now.”

  “Liz,” Iris pleaded.

  Liz raised her hands, conceding defeat. “Okay, okay. I’m gone.” She met Sam as she was leaving. “Morning, Sam.”

  “Morning, Liz.” He entered Iris’s office. “Good morning, Iris,” he said, beaming.

  “Morning, Sam.” He was jolly. Something was up. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this early-morning visit?”

  “Oh”—Sam shrugged and aimlessly looked around Iris’s office—“just thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing. Things are going well, I hope?”

  “Generally well, but I do have one problem, Sam.”

  “Oh?” He smoothed his tie.

  “It concerns Evan Finn.”

  “I noticed Evan wasn’t at his desk. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Look, Sam—”

  He snapped his fingers, cutting her off. “Before I forget, I need information on the branch’s participation in the direct deposit program.”

  She looked at him quizzically.

  “You know, where the payroll department shoots your paychecks right into the bank.”

  “I know what it is. What about it?”

  “The home office wants to make sure all the employees are participating.” He walked back and forth in Iris’s office as he talked, anxiously glancing into the bull pen each time he passed the door. “It saves the firm a lot of money. There was a memo encouraging compliance. Didn’t you see it?”

  “I didn’t see any communication on that.” Iris raised her hand to indicate Louise’s alcove next to her office. “Louise can get you whatever you need.”

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, as if Iris had made a brilliant suggestion. “Louise, of course. I’ll touch base with her.”

  He fled Iris’s office, giving her the impression that he was trying to avoid talking to her. Through the window that overlooked the suite, Iris saw Louise walk away carrying a file folder. Sam bounced from one foot to the next as he waited. Shortly, Louise returned carrying some photocopies, which she handed to Sam. He folded them, slipped them into his jacket pocket, and poked his head inside Iris’s office. “I’ve gotta run. Bye.”

  “Sam!” Iris got up from her desk and followed him into the suite, reaching to touch his arm. He looked down at her hand as if it had mud on it.

  “I need to talk to you about something important. Please.” She turned and started walking toward her office.

  Sam reluctantly trailed after her.

  “I’m going to fire Evan Finn the minute he sets foot in the door,” she announced.

  “What?”

  “He’s perpetrating fraud. He’s taking money from clients but he’s not buying the securities.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I have good reasons. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Evan’s an established broker with a good reputation. Why would he steal from clients?”

  “You never had any idea that Evan might be involved in something like this?”

  “Of course not! Furthermore I don’t believe it and I don’t want to hear any more about it unless you have firm proof. Making accusations like that is a good way to get yourself and the firm sued. Evan’s a good broker from where I sit.”

  “His sales figures are mediocre at best. Even if Evan wasn’t stealing, I’d rather have an ambitious newcomer sitting at that cubicle than a guy who’s six years out of college and still doesn’t take his job seriously.”

  Sam sternly responded, “I’d advise you to leave well enough alone, Iris.”

  His tone surprised her. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  Sam seemed to realize that his comment was strong. “What I meant is, give him a few more weeks. He’ll turn around. Just give me that, please.”

  She walked to her desk and started gathering papers. They didn’t need to be gathered, but it made her look purposeful. “I’ve made my decision.”

  “You can’t fire Evan on the basis of a suspicion. You have to have cause.”

  “He’s been with us less than a month. I don’t need cause.”

  “You can’t fire him.”

  “I can and I will.” Her eyes burned into his.

  “Please, Iris. Do me this favor. Just a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks? Is that the amount of time you need to start an SEC investigation on my office? Is that the time frame you agreed to with T. Duke Sawyer? Or are you involved in Evan’s scam, too?”

  The intercom on Iris’s phone cut in. It was Louise. “Evan’s arrived.”

  “Have him come down here, please.”

  Sam pulled at his tie, which seemed to have grown tight.

  Evan came in and stood in front of Iris’s desk without saying anything. He looked at Sam, then again at Iris.

  “Please leave it open,” Iris said to Louise, who had started to close the door behind her.

  Sam acted startled to see Evan. “Good morning, Evan.”

  Evan didn’t respond, but his dark eyes grew darker. Sam pressed his lips into a thin line.

  “Evan,” Iris began, “I’m sorry but I have to let you go.”

  Evan asked Sam, “She’s firing me?” A look of rage crossed his face as he stepped farther into the room.

  Sam drifted against the wall toward the corner, wedging himself between the window and credenza, as far from Evan’s menacing approach as he could get. “Evan, I—”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Evan moved to block Iris’s escape through the open door.

  “Louise!” she yelped as he put his hand on her shoulder, forcing her against the filing cabinet. Still holding her, he reached behind, closed the door, and flipped the lock.

  Iris craned her neck to look out the inside window and saw Louise urgently yammering into the telephone. Someone started pounding on the door. She heard Kyle Tucker and Liz yelling.

  Sam continued to cower in the corner. “Evan, don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  “Stay there,”
Evan ordered Iris. He grabbed one of her chairs and wedged it under the doorknob.

  When his back was turned, she snatched her brass letter opener from her desk and held it behind her back.

  Evan pressed his body against hers. She felt his hot breath on her face. She tried to shove him off, which only made him lean harder against her. She could hardly breathe.

  “Sweet Iris,” he whispered. He brushed his lips against hers.

  Someone outside was fumbling with keys in the door. It gave, but the chair wouldn’t allow the door to be opened.

  The commotion did nothing to dissuade Evan. “If you fire me, I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  Iris neither confirmed nor denied his accusation. Behind her back, she tightened her grasp on the letter opener.

  “What have you got back there?” He slid his arm around her back, closed his hand on top of hers and pulled it from behind her, her resistance slowing him only slightly. “You want to play rough, huh?”

  “Evan!” Sam shouted. He made a show of taking a firm step, but didn’t take another.

  The noise outside grew louder. Someone was now ramming the door.

  Evan bent Iris’s arm, still holding the letter opener, turning it toward her. She tried to force him away but felt the point jammed against her belly. They looked into each other’s eyes. She saw his change; they grew cold. She now believed him to be capable of anything. She tried with all her might to push his hand and the letter opener away. He grinned. The more she struggled, the more he seemed to enjoy it.

  “You want to fight me, huh?” he taunted.

  “Maybe.” She narrowed her eyes.

  He licked his lips and pressed his body more closely against her.

  “Evan!” Sam again impotently shouted.

  Iris had forgotten he was there. She stared at Evan. He was the only thing on her mind.

  He parted his lips and pressed them against hers.

  She returned the kiss, feeling his energy transform into sexual desire. Then she jammed her knee into his groin.

  He went down. She stepped over his coiled body and kicked the chair from underneath the doorknob. Two security guards rushed in and dragged Evan, still bent over, from her office.

  The employees who had gathered outside were all talking at once.

  “Thank goodness you’re all right,” Sam exclaimed as he ran from his corner.

  “Oh my God, Iris.” Tears streamed down Liz’s face. “What happened?”

  Iris was dazed. “I fired him.”

  “Way to go, Iris!” Kyle yelped. Someone else followed with a whoop, and soon everyone was clapping and cheering.

  Employees traded their views of Evan. “What an A-hole.” “Rude.” “Arrogant.” “Glad he’s gone.”

  Iris grinned, wiping nervous tears from her eyes. Suddenly feeling shaky, she leaned against the doorframe.

  “I felt so helpless to do anything,” Sam sheepishly explained.

  Iris couldn’t resist a final shot. “I guess Evan just gave me cause to fire him, didn’t he, Sam?”

  “Still no sign of Evan Finn,” Detective Tiffany Stubbs said to Iris after checking in with her precinct office. “Those guards were stupid not to have handcuffed him. Stay inside, keep everything locked, and don’t let anyone in.”

  Iris nodded.

  “Mind if I warm up my coffee?” Stubbs asked.

  “Please, help yourself.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Stubbs walked to the coffeemaker in Iris’s kitchen, filled the mug, and poured in the nondairy creamer and sugar substitute that Iris kept in the house for guests.

  Iris read aloud from the file that Stubbs had brought her. “Evan Finn is really Randall Sawyer, T. Duke Sawyer’s only son. He spent five years in a Nevada jail for manslaughter. He confessed to throwing a prostitute off a seventeenth-floor balcony of a Las Vegas hotel. When asked why he did it, he said he was drunk and high and something she said made him mad. Over she went. There were no witnesses, although T. Duke was in an adjoining room of the suite. The charge was reduced from second-degree murder to manslaughter, probably because of T. Duke’s influence. Before that, Randall had a couple of arrests for driving under the influence and possession of drugs. Went to high school in Europe.”

  Stubbs sat across from Iris. “Father probably sent him there, thinking he’d remove him from his environment and give him a fresh start.”

  “He didn’t graduate from high school. Must have learned about the stock market on his own. He’s a bright guy, that’s for sure,” Iris commented. “Just whacked-out.”

  “Dangerous combination.”

  “Ironically, he’s probably not that different from his old man.” Iris pointed to something on one of the sheets. “In prison, Evan recanted his confession. Claimed his father was responsible for the murder. Said he was the one in the adjoining room, not T. Duke, and that T. Duke hatched a scheme for Evan, the ne’er-do-well with a lot less to lose, to take the rap. Said his father had promised he’d pull strings to get Evan a short sentence.”

  “But five years is not a short sentence for manslaughter,” Stubbs said. “I’m unfamiliar with Nevada, but in California, someone could be out of jail in eighteen months.”

  “Sounds like Evan pinned the murder on his father to get back at him for not doing more to keep him out of jail. That must have ticked off T. Duke, but he still pretended to take the high road, setting Evan up as an established businessman after his release. The Pandora situation falls into my lap. T. Duke sees a way to use Evan to neutralize me and get revenge on his son. One question remains: Who threw Holly Free out that hotel window?”

  “Based upon your adventure with Evan today, I’d put my money on him,” Stubbs said. “How did you find out about his Canterbury Investments scheme, anyway?”

  Iris felt her cheeks coloring and nervously shuffled the papers in the file folder. “Eavesdropped. Looked at stuff he left on his desk.” She didn’t tell her she broke into Evan’s office. She picked up her mug and went to fill it with more coffee. It occurred to her she should hide the photocopies of the Canterbury Investments statements—the only physical evidence of her break-in. Perhaps she should burn them.

  She leaned against the kitchen counter. “Detective Stubbs, you have to admit there’s more to Bridget Cross’s murder than a disgruntled husband taking vengeance on his wife. If T. Duke Sawyer is capable of destroying his own son’s life, what would he do to a businesswoman who…” She trailed off as an idea occurred to her. “Maybe Evan was the shooter.”

  Stubbs stood and slipped the file folder into a black vinyl portfolio. “Is this latest theory a new spin on the one about the Trust Makers fringe group taking over companies to put them out of business, killing the principals if they have to—or is this a new hypothesis altogether? We get more bang for our buck with the conspiracy theory—Alexa Platt’s and Bridget Cross’s murders solved and Harry Hagopian’s car crash explained. If it was a case of pure greed on T. Duke’s part, we only solve Bridget’s murder. And in neither case do we explain what happened to Banzai Jefferson. There’s no evidence, just a lot of talk, to implicate anyone except Kip Cross.”

  “But there’s not enough evidence to implicate Kip, either.”

  “I have bloody footprints and a man with gunshot residue on his hands. Don’t forget, I do have a witness. I showed Brianna’s drawings to a child psychologist, who thinks Brianna could remember more details with time and guidance. In another day or two, I should have the request approved to have Brianna interviewed over her father’s objections.”

  Stubbs walked to the front door with Iris following. “I figure time is on our side. Once things quiet down for Kip and he’s settled back into his day-to-day life, his conscience might begin to prey on him. Your mind can do funny things to you in the wee hours of the morning.”

  All the coffee Iris had drunk late in the evening had made her wired. She knew she’d pay for it
later.

  She went into her home office and got the photocopies of the Canterbury Investment statements. She weighed the idea of burning them versus putting them in her safe-deposit box. She didn’t know how the situation with Evan would end up, but if it became a case of his word versus hers, it would be useful for her to have documentation. She took the photocopies to her bedroom closet and stashed them under the mountain of dirty panty hose in there. Now she had a reason to put off doing her hand laundry another night.

  Back in her office again, she turned on her laptop computer to pick up her E-mail. She leaned back in her chair, chewed her thumb, and idly watched the monitor as the system loaded. The screen displayed something she’d never seen before.

  A shadowy staircase appeared. A woman, viewed from the back, was ascending it. She looked like Cherry Divine from the final level of Suckers. The woman turned to look behind. She had Iris’s face.

  The woman continued walking, approaching a dark castle at the top of the steps. As she reached the front door, it burst open, revealing Slade Slayer. “Hello, Iris,” he said in his familiar baritone, his trademark sneer on his face. With both hands, he pushed her down the steps. She tumbled all the way to the bottom, screaming, finally coming to rest with her head twisted backward on her neck.

  Slade Slayer remained at the top of the stairs. He pointed to the real Iris and said, “Behave, or you’re next.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Toni, somebody put something weird on my computer!” Over the phone, Iris heard a rustling noise that led her to believe Toni wasn’t vertical and wasn’t alone. “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, no. Go. What happened?”

  “I turned on my laptop and it played this sequence that looked like it was from Suckers. But it was Cherry Divine with my face. Slade pushes her—or me—down the stairs and says, ‘Behave, or you’re next.’ It executes each time I boot the computer.”

  “Eww…”

  “It had to have been done by someone from Pandora, doesn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. The Slade Slayer specs are available on the Internet. Anyone with some programming skills and access to your laptop could have done it. Can you bring it to Pandora tomorrow?”