This was a rare request, but Phoebe nodded. “I’ll do it before I go.”
“Why don’t you just do it now while I’m standing here.”
Phoebe felt a little tension, but moved over to the audio computer and obeyed Madeline’s order.
Madeline seemed much happier about this. “See you Wednesday,” she said and left out Phoebe’s office.
Fifteen minutes later, Simon buzzed in Phoebe’s office to say Madeline had decided to step out the office and would not be returning for the rest of the day. Phoebe didn’t think this was strange since it was three o’clock nearing the end of the day.
Phoebe still felt uncomfortable about the casual way Madeline had taken the whole thing. She remembered Jacoby’s words from the other night. Hell, it felt like she remembered everything all at once and was trying to fight this overwhelming sense of grief, as if she had lost something major in her life.
No, she told herself. She couldn’t feel this way right now. She wouldn’t think about him.
Yet, the idea that Madeline was going around bragging that she had gotten over on Phoebe really perturbed her. Going into Madeline’s office she looked through the desk drawers until she found a locked card file box. Using a paper clip and a trick she had learned from Daniel, she picked the cheap lock and searched through the set of keys until she found what she was looking for. She removed the key she needed from the ring and replaced everything back in its place using a Kleenex just in case to wipe off all the fingerprints because Phoebe was really paranoid.
Quickly, she left the office and went back into her own office glad Simon had not caught her in the act because sometimes he was so nosey, he usually followed her shortly after every time she left her office as if he were spying on her. Knowing that this time he had not, started to gnaw at her brain. She walked quietly out her office and headed for the back offices to check to see if Simon was done with getting the back offices together per Madeline’s instructions. Phoebe thought maybe Simon was so adamant about finishing the offices that he wasn’t thinking about what Phoebe was doing. Just as she was getting to the door, she heard Latrice over the speakerphone inside the office, which were installed over the weekend.
“...I can’t believe Phoebe would sleep with him for money!” Latrice exclaimed. “Does Madeline know that?”
“No, Madeline doesn’t, but you know why she needs the money,” Simon said.
Latrice giggled into the phone as if it were some deep dark secret. Phoebe quietly leaned against the wall and listened barely breathing so she could hear every word. “No reason Maddie called this afternoon and starting barking down instructions.”
“What do you mean?” Simon asked.
Latrice sighed as if in regret. “She said she wanted me to call to inform security in your building that she would might need assistance this Friday at the office in Detroit. She was planning on letting an employee go and she thinks it might be disturbing. Can you imagine Phoebe being disturbed?”
Simon giggled now. “More like perturbed if you ask me. That’s why Maddie was telling me in the car on the way back here that I needed to step up to the plate and take on more responsibilities because there was going to be big changes in the office.”
“I just assumed it was going to be one of the typist?” She clicked her tongue. “I can’t believe Phoebe could be so dumb as to believe all of Maddie’s promises to raise her pay after she does a good job. I’ve seen that child jump through so many hoops for Madeline and Madeline keeps adding on things without giving her the raise. I thought maybe Phoebe would get smart after she made Madeline do everything in writing. It’s about six different agreements each one Phoebe has kept and each one Madeline has broke. I think Madeline may owe her about a hundred grand in back pay. Phoebe doesn’t even know the real pay Phoebe told the state she was promising to pay Madeline. If Phoebe wanted revenge all she has to do is get those agreements and take them to a lawyer.”
“Where are they at?”
“There are two copies. One here in Lansing and the other in the locked employee cabinet in the copier room in the file room there in Detroit. Madeline keeps copies of all employees’ stuff there for the politics. But in truth I think Madeline really thought Phoebe would fuck up any moment and Madeline would take great pleasure in rubbing the shit in her face, but Phoebe did everything perfect that I even heard Maddie say she should have hired Phoebe to run the office in the first place, so she wouldn’t be in so much trouble with the state.”
Simon inquired full of curiosity, “ If she gets rid of Phoebe - and they like her a lot - won’t she lose the state account?”
“I think that’s a chance she’s willing to take, but legally the state can’t take the account away unless if ten or more reports come up missing with the exception to an act of God.”
“What about the other accounts that love Phoebe?”
“Like I said it’s a chance Madeline’s willing to take because she is so pissed off at Phoebe. I didn’t understand how much until you told me what happened, but now I know Madeline’s going to make sure Phoebe can’t get work to save her life in this city again. I just don’t know how she’s going to fire Phoebe and not have to pay the unemployment office. That would burn her up even more than having Phoebe on the payroll.”
Simon gasped. “I know. She asked me to hold the Lansing package this afternoon, because that’s the one that won’t get to Lansing until Wednesday morning. If they aren’t accounted for by the end of Wednesday they are officially lost and we would end up paying the doctors to do a rush report and that would come out of the company’s pocket, not the state.”
Latrice quickly caught on. “And that would give Madeline a good reason to fire Phoebe for incompetence.”
They chuckled and Phoebe closed her eyes to control her anger as it was building by the second. Simon was supposed to be her so-called friend and as many times as she had saved his ass from getting fired by cleaning up his stupid shit, this was the thanks she would get.
“Well I won’t worry about shit when I’m sitting in that nice office Phoebe’s got because she took care of all the big problems. I won’t have shit to do almost because she’s cleaned up the mess. All I have to do is make sure the reports get out and answer any problems or questions the clients have.” His voice turned harsh when he said, “And I won’t be taking the shit pay Madeline gives to Phoebe. I’m not doing shit until I see it in my paycheck.”
“Phoebe doesn’t know about all that stuff I told you about her pay, does she?” Latrice said nervously.
“Of course not. She’s so blind. Once I asked her why does she take all this crap and not get paid for it and she’s going to tell me in some goody two shoe voice that good things come to those who wait. I wanted to tell her to wake up and smell the cappuccino because if you wait for Madeline to actually do something good for you, then you’ll die waiting.”
They had a very good laugh off of that one and Phoebe really fought for control. ‘Am I really that bad of a character judge?’ she wondered to herself. It seemed as if everyone knew she was being screwed, except Phoebe.
Latrice changed the subject to ask if Simon would be coming up for the weekend. Obviously now Phoebe was old news to them. As quietly as she had come up there, she made her way back to her office and cursed under her breath. Her mind was moving like a runaway locomotive and by the time she sat in her seat, she knew exactly what she needed to do in order to save her ass and make sure Madeline had a taste of her own deceitful medicine.
While she worked like lightening on the computer, keeping an eye on the phone, which indicated it was in use - knowing it was Simon and Latrice gossiping more - and keeping an ear on anyone coming down the hallway from the typing room, she called Leslie Cross, the Lansing supervisor.
“Hey kiddo,” Leslie said happy to hear from Phoebe. “How’s it going down in Detroit?”
“Stressful, but I don’t have time for our usual talk sessions.”
Leslie sounded real
ly disappointed when she said, “Aw, that’s really too bad, because I miss those.”
Phoebe almost miss those days when they could sit on the phone and just talk like old pals, but she had only gotten in good with Leslie because she was trying to keep the account for Madeline and it had worked like a charm. Leslie would give her the inside scoop on what the administrators were getting upset about and what the other offices were saying about the reports. In all, Phoebe was well liked through all the FIA offices that she handled the reports for and she knew she could screw Madeline really bad if she wanted to, but instead she decided to save her own butt first.
“I need to ask you a favor,” Phoebe said slowly.
“Oh this sounds juicy. You know you can ask me anything.”
“I’m going to send you something special delivery through the email and I only want you to handle it. Don’t even let your assistant know you received it because he will be asking you about it. I’m having a hunch about some things and I want to make sure before I make accusations I want to make sure it’s the person I’m accusing.”
“Will this make my doctor’s upset?” Leslie’s priority for her office was to make the doctors happy.
“Oh no, but you have to promise no matter how much shit hit the fan, you can’t let on that you know the truth until I tell you. This involves my integrity. It has nothing to do with the doctors.”
“Alright, give me the juicy details and we’ll go from that, kiddo.”
Phoebe quickly told Leslie her plan
Simon came into her office at the end of the day to ask when she would leaving just as she was sending off the last email to Leslie. It was ten minutes to five and everybody else was gone.
“I just have to take care of some reprints, then I’ll be all done,” she answered. “Then I have to wait until Leslie sends me a fax. It should be any minute.” She tried to sound as cheerful as possible, without it sounding fake.
“You’ve had a long day. That fax will be here tomorrow and I’ll personally take care of it,” he promised.
She felt he was being a little bit too helpful. “I don’t mind waiting, Simon.”
“Then I can wait with you and help you out,” he insisted.
Alarm bells went off like crazy inside Phoebe. Simon never liked working past five. It was against his own personal religion. It took all her control to keep a calm disposition in front of him. “No need, Simon. I’m just going to complete it and lay it on your desk, but since I’m off tomorrow I wanted to make sure it was complete.”
“You don’t trust me to do it?” he asked offended.
Her tone of voice was completely complacent. “Of course I would if I was here, but you’ll be so overwhelmed and Leslie did ask me to help her out as a personal favor. You know how I am, I love to please.”
Simon only smiled nervously. She could see he had run out of things to say to keep him there.
Phoebe asked innocently, “I didn’t see the Lansing package on the pickup tray.”
“Oh he came early just as I was done wrapping so I gave him what I had - which was Lansing. I’m sorry I forgot to tell you.”
“Well, we would like to keep record of that. Did you sign the board for our records?” Usually Phoebe never cared if he signed the board or not and she would just go behind him and sign it.
She stuck an innocent yet flighty smile on her lips disarming him, as he said, “I’ll sign it on my way out.”
“Did Maddie tell you what’s going on in those back offices?” she asked to throw him off. “I haven’t had time to check them out yet because I’ve been so busy.”
“Yeah,” he said immediately perking up. Simon was a gossip by nature. He couldn’t help himself and given any opportunity he could run his mouth until the cows come home. “She’s having Mr. Knight use them for any of his business needs until his offices are ready next Monday.” He snickered. “You think you can handle yourself around him until then?”
“I think I can,” she said sourly. “Plus he’s old news, Simon. You know that.” Her voice was casual, but her brain was moving into outer drive and holding on to her turmoil of emotions was becoming difficult.
“That didn’t look like old news to me this afternoon.”
“Well, it was, but I couldn’t help myself. I certainly wasn’t going to allow him to speak to me that way a moment longer.”
Simon smacked his lips as if he was very disappointed. “I just can’t believe how he acted. After you left, he went into the bedroom’s private bathroom, while Desmond told Madeline that a mistaken identity had been made and neither of you knew who the other was, but Lawrence had intentions on you way before then and Jacoby was being a sore loser.”
“I wasn’t a trophy,” she said, letting her true emotions come to the forefront for just a moment, but then getting a hold on them and settling down taking a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past.”
“Obviously,” Simon said, “Because Madeline went in the bedroom to speak to Jacoby. She closed the door, but by the time she came out she was beaming like she had won the Big Game Lottery.”
Phoebe acted nonchalantly because she knew Simon had probably told her that to shock her. He was carefully studying her emotions and it was vital she kept good face.
“Can you believe how calm Madeline was in the office when she spoke to you?” he asked.
Of course the nosey prick would have been listening at the door. She didn’t point this out to him. Instead she smiled a brittle, forced expression and said, “She must have been steaming on the way back here.”
“Oh no,” he lied blatantly. “She was pretty calm about the whole thing.”
She wanted to punch him dead square in the jaw, but clutched the chair and grinded her teeth.
Simon checked his watch and cursed, but still seemed reluctant to leave. “If anything comes up, you’ll call me, won’t you?”
“You’ll be the first to know,” she promised with the most gracious smile plastered on her face.
Once he was gone, she deleted the emails for the entire day off the computer then went in the back and took them off the server. She signed on the server using Simon’s name and password. She knew this because it was her job to know everyone’s password in case something happened to them and no one could get into their computer, but along with that knowledge she wasn’t supposed to use it wrongly.
Not a guilty bone in her body came as she used Simon’s code to get in and saw that he also had administrative powers like her. Phoebe wondered when had his administrative duties had changed.
The computer allowed her to get in other computers and she knew exactly what do. Without Madeline knowing, she had taken computer software classes on the weekends, paying out of her own pocket. Phoebe had mastered the knowledge, of the program she used and had become certified without anyone’s knowledge except her mother.
While she was at it, she checked Madeline’s trash knowing the sequence to get into other computers in the office.
Maddie had shot an email to Desmond right before leaving the office today, telling him to block all of Phoebe’s privileges by next Monday morning. There was also an email to Latrice in detail about what Madeline was planning and what Latrice needed to do in order for it to work. At the end of it all, Madeline ordered Latrice to delete this email messages and any other’s concerning Phoebe in the next couple of days that would probably be sent.
Phoebe reprogrammed Madeline’s computer emails to do secret CC’s to her email at her private address. If Madeline didn’t know how to read her e-mail’s properly, she wouldn’t notice this was happening until too late unless the email was re-forward back to Madeline.
She made copies of the emails and then closed down all the programs she had went into and signed off. Her presence in the computer would not be known, except without a thorough investigation, but by then she wouldn’t care because she wouldn’t be there.
The fax machine alarm to let her know a fax had come through went off
and she went into the copier room where the fax was and took the fax Leslie had just sent her off the machine. There were several pages and Leslie had made notes in the margins pointing out the information that Phoebe had asked for. Along with the fax, she placed the emails in a folder and then she put this in her brief case along with the key to the personnel file. Tomorrow when no one least expected it. She would come into the office and look in detail in her file, hoping nothing would be changed and hoping that no one had thought of hiding the files.
Chapter 20
Tossing the remote control on the bed, Jacoby staggered over to the nearest chair to get his balance. He figured the eight shots of Corbel were the ones that had broken the camel’s back tonight along with his intake of several beers and other hard liquors. It was a good thing he had only used the restaurant’s bar because anywhere else and he knew he would not have made it back to his room.
Sitting in the chair before he fell on his face, he looked down at the bulge between his legs. Damn, he cursed sitting back in the chair. Tonight he had several offers from very beautiful women. Each one more beautiful and tempting than the other, yet he knew that none of them could satisfy him like Phoebe.
Soon as he got out of his clothes, he staggered over to the bed and laid down hoping he had gotten enough to drink to just pass out, but it felt as if he didn’t because as he stared up at the ceiling, he found himself wishing she was here.
The phone by the bed rung loudly and he picked it up, grateful for the distraction. Before he could get anything out to say, Desmond came on the line. “Shut your mouth, cover the receiver and just listen, all right?”
He wasn’t given a chance to answer as the line clicked then he could hear Desmond say, “No, I think I just missed her. I’ll catch up with her later. So what were you saying about Jacoby?”
“Like I said, Jacoby couldn’t go a second without having a woman. You know he’s a sex addict. I haven’t seen that man go seventy-two hours without being between some woman’s legs.”
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