Foolproof (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 4)

by Dianne Emley

  “Sure…” Iris heard more rustling on the other end of the line.

  “Just a sec.” It sounded as if Toni had put her hand over the receiver. After several long seconds, she came back. Her voice was tense. “I’ll come over now.”

  “Now?” Iris looked at her watch. It was 8:00 at night. “Is there someone with you?”

  Toni’s voice grew more pinched. “No…no one.”

  “I thought I heard you talking to somebody.”

  “Uh-unh, no. So, can I come over, please?”

  Iris was perplexed by the sudden urgency in Toni’s voice. She shrugged it off to another bout of Toni’s endless man problems. “Okay, I’ll see you in a few minutes. And I have something to tell you about Evan.”

  Forty-five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Iris looked out the peephole and saw Toni standing on the front porch. Iris unlocked the door. Toni quickly came inside, grabbed the edge of the door, and tried to slam it closed. Only then did Iris see that Toni had been crying. Iris didn’t have time to ask questions. Evan easily pushed the door open.

  “Move back.” Evan waved the handgun he was holding at the two women.

  “I’m sorry, Iris,” Toni wailed, her eyes filling. “He made me do it. He was at my apartment when you called.” She pouted at Evan. “I don’t get you.”

  Evan looked around the spartan living room. “I would have thought you’d have more furniture than this.”

  “I just moved in.”

  “Sit here.” He indicated the easy chair.

  Iris sat.

  “Toni, sit on the floor beside her.”

  Toni dropped to her knees and sat cross-legged on the floor. She quietly sobbed, wiping her eyes and nose with the backs of both hands.

  “I’m coming back to work for McKinney Alitzer tomorrow morning,” Evan stated.

  Iris raised her eyebrows. “Are you?”

  “You’ll tell everyone we had a misunderstanding and you’ve hired me back.”

  Iris relaxed into the chair and crossed her legs, feeling oddly calm. “Why would I tell them that?”

  “Because you have no choice in the matter.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’ve set it up to make it look like you’re getting a cut of the Canterbury Investments money.”

  “But I haven’t taken any money from you.”

  “Have you verified your checking account balance today?”

  Iris remembered the direct-deposit information that Sam Eastman was so eager to get his hands on. The list Louise gave him included the banks and account numbers of the participating employees.

  “Go ahead,” Evan said. “Call your bank.”

  She pointed to her purse, which was sitting on a chair in the dining room, adjacent to the living room. He waved her on with the gun. When she picked up her purse, he grabbed it from her, dug around inside, and handed it back to her. She returned to the chair and took out her checkbook, found the bank’s twenty-four-hour account balance line, and picked up the cordless phone that stood on an overturned crate that served as an end table. After punching many numbers onto the telephone keypad, the automated voice read out her balance. It was $20,000 more than it should have been. She hung up and blankly stared at Evan.

  He looked at her smugly. “A Canterbury Investments check made out to you with your forged endorsement was deposited in your account today. You may decide to never touch the money. You may try to return it to me. It doesn’t matter. That check went into your account and you can’t undo the audit trail. Just hire me back and let me go about my business and no one will be the wiser. You can even keep the twenty grand. Otherwise, I’ll make sure you go down with me.”

  Iris twirled a lock of her hair and said nothing.

  “Evan,” Toni implored, still crying. “Don’t be like this.”

  “What’s Sam Eastman’s angle?” Iris asked, trying to keep her voice strong and sure. “Is he in on Canterbury Investments, getting a cut?”

  Evan shook his head. “Sam Eastman’s no friend of yours or mine, Iris. He knew about Canterbury Investments all along. Sam set you up for a fall all right, but he’s not the genius behind this.”

  “T. Duke Sawyer,” Iris said. “I know all about you and your father, Evan.”

  Toni’s jaw dropped. She looked at Evan as if seeing him for the first time.

  Evan gave Iris an appreciative look. “Not much gets past you. I like that.”

  Iris again crossed her legs, trying to look relaxed. “Who really threw the prostitute off the Las Vegas hotel balcony?”

  Toni’s mouth gaped even wider.

  “My father. I was in the other room of the suite, passed out. He was partying with an expensive call girl. That’s one of his hobbies, you know. Professional snatch.”

  Iris recalled the woman had who made a suggestive gesture at Baines the first time she visited T. Duke at his Somis office.

  “Why bother with an amateur when you can get a pro, he says. Rumor is, my mother hasn’t come near him in years. The old man likes having plenty of beautiful women around. That’s the only reason he included me in his escapades—to make him look good. At the same time he used me, he hated me for it. That’s why Holly Free ended up on the ground. The way the story goes, the old man was drunk and couldn’t perform. That alone was bad enough, but this girl offered to do me. Then she made a fatal mistake. She told him she’d do me for free.”

  Evan’s story sounded pat and grandiose to Iris, especially after she’d witnessed his violent side firsthand. But since he seemed of a mind to talk, she thought she’d milk it with the hope that a few grains of truth would tumble out. “Do you know if T. Duke is involved with a group called the Trust Makers or if he’s worked to keep sex or violence out of the entertainment media?”

  Evan laughed. “Are you kidding? My father works for the benefit of one charity—himself.”

  Toni suggested, “But it sounds like you haven’t had much contact with him over the past few years. He might have had a change of heart.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Why is he so obsessed with controlling Pandora?” Iris asked.

  “It’s a game, Iris. When you’re as rich as he is, it’s not about money anymore. It’s about winning.”

  His comment surprised Iris. “But T. Duke’s living on credit. The Sawyer Company’s hocked to the hilt.”

  Evan laughed again. “He bleeds every company he gets his hands on. He’s got dough, art, and antiques stashed all over the world. Pandora is sport for him. A way to pass the days.”

  “Tell me this. You’re a good broker. You’re smart. You know the business. Why don’t you go legitimate?”

  “There’s nothing I would like more than to be a regular citizen.”

  “So be one.”

  “Give me a break. No legit firm would hire me.”

  “You don’t have to work for a big firm. You could build a business, like you have with Canterbury. Charge a percentage for your advice and get a licensed broker to do the trades.”

  “Can’t make any real dough like that.”

  “Okay,” Iris said unconvincingly. She wasn’t going to press the issue since he was the one with the gun. The guy obviously enjoyed being a criminal, in spite of what he said.

  Evan seemed intent on making his case. He punctuated his words with the gun. “I’ve never murdered anybody. I’ve never stolen anybody’s money. When a client wants out of Canterbury, I give them their money back.”

  Iris couldn’t stop herself. “Better hope the market doesn’t take a dive and everybody wants their money at the same time.”

  He looked at her evenly and for a long time. Iris silently beat herself up for having such a big mouth. Finally, he said, “You’re cute, you know that?”

  She smiled feebly. It was better than being dead.

  “Look”—he glanced at his watch—“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, say, nine o’clock? That’ll give you time to tell everyone about our disagreement and how it
’s been resolved. And I’m not sitting in one of those cubicles in the bull pen. I’m taking a window office.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’ll tell the police that incident in the office was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “Fine.”

  He seemed pleased that she was so compliant. “You and I are now partners. You let me go about my business and I’ll let you go about yours. Remember, just because we have a mutual enemy doesn’t make us buddies. You screw me over, you’re going down too.”

  “Understood.”

  “One more thing. I want the photocopies you made of the Canterbury Investment statements.”

  “I don’t have them,” Iris forced herself to steadily look him in the eyes. “I burned them.”

  “I don’t think so.” Evan jerked the gun up and down in Toni’s direction, indicating he wanted her to stand. Once she did, he put his arm around her, kissed her cheek, then held the gun to her head. To Iris he said, “Make it snappy, or you’re going to have to recruit a new marketing manager for Pandora.”

  Iris leaped from the chair and disappeared down the hallway.

  “Evan,” Toni pleaded, “how can you do this to me? I thought we had something special.”

  “We did, for the ten minutes it took.”

  Toni bleated.

  Iris returned with the photocopies. Evan released Toni, who was again crying. He folded the wad of papers in half, stuffed them inside his jacket, and walked backward toward the door. When he had the door open, he put the gun away. “Iris, don’t underestimate my father. You’d better watch your back.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

  Iris and Toni looked at the closed door.

  Toni cried, “I thought I meant something to him. All the time, he was just using me.” Her head bobbed back on her neck and she wailed to the ceiling.

  Iris still looked at the door, stunned. “My career is over. Everything I’ve worked and sweated blood for all these years.”

  “I wasn’t anything but a quick screw for him.” Toni smacked her hand against her forehead. “I built up this big thing and it was all in my head.”

  Iris drifted across the room, as if dazed. “Why did this happen to me? All I wanted was to do right by Bridget and Brianna. What did I do to deserve Evan Sawyer in my life?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Toni again slapped her head, harder than before. “Why do I always get involved with these men who just use me? I believed all of Kip’s pretty pictures about us. Now Evan. I’m not even talking about all the others. Toni, you’re such a loser!”

  Iris paced through the room, rubbing her hands over her face. “What am I going to do? I’m screwed no matter what.”

  Iris and Toni both stopped stewing in their private hells and looked at each other from across the room. They met in the middle and gave each other a hug.

  “I’m sorry about Evan, Toni.”

  “You tried to tell me about him. I’m sorry about the fix you’re in. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kip was sitting in Bridget’s office, working at the computer by the light of the wood-burning fireplace. He leaned back from the keyboard, looked into the dying flames, got up, and put on another log from the stack in a brass carrier next to the hearth. He rolled it into place with a poker, then watched it slowly catch flame. He frowned at the sound of rapid footsteps down the corridor. There was no mistaking the creak of the heavy front door opening and clicking closed.

  Kip quickly padded from the room in his flip-flops and went out the front door in time to see a flash of blonde dart around the corner of the house and down the stairs. He peeked down the dark staircase and was just able to make out Summer bounding down them. He kicked off his flip-flops, so as to not make any noise, and jogged after her.

  When he reached the street below, Capri Road, he saw Summer in a passionate embrace with a tall, handsome man next to a dark green Range Rover.

  “Evan, baby,” she purred.

  “Let’s go.” They hopped inside and took off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Louise arrived at the office and poked her head through Iris’s doorway before reaching her own desk. “You’re here bright and early.”

  “Early, anyway.” Iris was at her desk, staring into a cup of black coffee as if it were a crystal ball.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s rotten, to tell the truth.”

  Louise’s face grew concerned. She came inside Iris’s office. “What’s wrong?”

  Iris knew she had to get her out ASAP. It was all Iris could do to hold herself together as it was. A sympathetic look from a kind person would tip her over the edge and make her lose her composure. Just when she needed all her wits, they were failing her. She stared hard into the coffee. Regaining a brittle calm, she looked up at her assistant. “I have an announcement to make when everyone comes in that I think you’ll find interesting. Once I do, Louise, please don’t question my decision. I have my reasons.”

  Louise, looking more concerned than ever, nodded and made her way to her desk.

  Iris watched the minutes tick past on the clock on the corner of her desk. When it was 6:20 A.M., ten minutes before the market opened in New York, Iris walked to the front of the sales department and faced the bull pen. “Can I have everyone’s attention? Please, guys.” She clapped her hands.

  “Hail our fearless leader!” Warren Gray yelled.

  Kyle Tucker lobbed a Nerf ball that he had been hiding in the crook of his arm at Iris’s head. She ducked before it hit her and laughed good-naturedly.

  Someone else picked it up and threw it at her again.

  She caught it and threw it back.

  Liz Martini left her office and sat on the corner of her sales assistant’s desk.

  Amber Ambrose leaned against her doorframe.

  Sam Eastman walked into the department and looked baffled at the gathering.

  Iris began. “Good morning, Sam. Glad you could join us. Just wanted to share a few thoughts with everyone before we start the day. The market’s been nervous lately, to say the least. I think you’ve all done a terrific job of keeping your clients calm, not panic selling, making reasoned decisions, and taking advantage of the bargains.”

  There were hurrahs and pats on the back.

  “I also wanted to say how I’ve appreciated the way you’ve all supported me since my promotion to branch manager.” Uh-oh. She’d stepped into emotional quicksand. Her voice had cracked. She quickly looked around and was relieved to see that almost no one had noticed. The guys were still pushing and jiving. Amber was too self-absorbed to have noticed. Louise, of course, already knew that something was up. The waver in Iris’s voice had tipped Liz off, who now frowned with concern. Iris avoided her gaze.

  Kyle started applauding and soon everyone joined in, including Sam Eastman, who anemically clapped. There were whoops and hollers.

  Iris would have disintegrated into tears, but the thought of the real purpose of her calling the assembly sobered her.

  The group grew restless, thinking she was about finished. “One last thing. Evan Finn will be rejoining our team today.”

  She could have heard a pin drop. Everyone looked at each other with expressions ranging from disbelief to horror. Everyone, that is, except Sam Eastman, who looked visibly relieved.

  Seeing how disconcerted everyone was by her announcement, Iris decided to offer no explanation. She knew the one she’d cooked up was lame anyway and wouldn’t have satisfied anybody. She thrust her fist in the air—“Carpe diem!”—and walked back to her office. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Liz making a beeline toward her. Iris stopped her by turning to Sam and saying, “I’m so glad you were able to change your schedule to stop by.”

  “Anything for you, Iris.”

  Inside her office, Sam eagerly rubbed his hands together and prowled around, as if too nervous to sit. “I’m pleased to see that you changed your opinion a
bout Evan. We had that little…incident, but when you think about it, no harm was done.”

  Iris quietly closed the door and leaned against it with her hands in her jacket pockets. “Let’s be frank. Evan’s behavior was out there. I’m going to have a heck of a time explaining why I took him back.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was.” Sam shook his head with amusement as if Evan were an irrepressible six-year-old scamp, a lovable troublemaker. His good humor dimmed slightly as reality nudged in. “Why did you decide to rehire Evan?”

  Iris amiably shrugged. “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  They both merrily laughed.

  “He can be persuasive, can’t he?” Sam enthused.

  “Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? I wasn’t too enthusiastic at first, but he sweetened the deal for me. Several grand, tax free…I have a lot of expenses now.”

  “I can imagine. I was surprised when you bought that house. Casa Marina, of all places.” Sam settled into Iris’s couch and stretched his arms across the cushion backs. “It was way over your head, in my humble opinion.”

  Iris lowered her eyelids slightly. For many years, she had made twice as much in commissions as he had earned in salary—a fact that Sam had apparently forgotten. It was okay. She had him where she wanted him—relaxed and sharing secrets. Just like two old friends. “I wish I’d asked your opinion before I jumped.”

  She walked to her western-facing window and leaned against the credenza, closer to where he was sitting. “Just between you and me, I think this scheme is brilliant. I want you to know, I’m not taking this at all personally. Business is business.”

  “I’m glad, Iris. I didn’t mean it personally. I only had yours and the firm’s best interests at heart. I’ll pull strings to ensure you come out of this unscathed.” He casually crossed his legs, as if he’d spent the better part of his life pulling strings for friends. “Of course, it will be apparent to everyone that your skills are not suited to running a branch office. You have to admit, Iris, that you haven’t been happy as branch manager.”