Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2)

by Christina Ross

  “Fine,” Rowe said. “Keep Blackwell. Keep Ann. What the hell do I care? But here’s something for you to consider, Wenn—watch your back, because I don’t like being threatened.”

  “Isn’t that a threat?” Alex said.

  “I heard it as one,” I said.

  “As did I,” Blackwell said.

  “Process it however you want,” Rowe said. “But just know that I said it—and that I mean it. Now, get the fuck out of my office. I’ll see you at the conference.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  We left Rowe’s office, and took the elevator to the fortieth floor, where Ann, Tank, and Lisa were waiting to greet us.

  “Are you all right?” Ann asked.

  “Never better,” Alex said. “That’s a man on the run. Now we just need to sit back, bide our time, gather whatever evidence we can against him, and then run him down.” He looked at Tank. “After the conference, you and I will debrief on what happened and on what I’m seeking going forward. As you can see, Jennifer and I now have offices on this floor—Rowe has overtaken the forty-seventh floor for himself. What you might not know is that he fired Barbara.”

  “He did what?” Lisa said.

  “The son of a bitch fired me,” Blackwell said with a roll of her eyes. “Tossed me to the sidewalk as if I were runway roadkill.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Lisa said. “You can’t leave Wenn.”

  She put her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Because of this man, I’m not. Let’s just say that after Alex kicked down the door to Stephen Rowe’s new office, where the little bastard was hiding like some sort of hoodrat—and yes, by the way, I do watch Empire—one thing led to another and I was allowed to keep my job.”

  Lisa looked at Alex. “You kicked down a door?”

  “I did. Tank would have been proud.”

  “Sometimes you just need to kick shit down,” Tank said.

  “You should have seen it,” Blackwell said. “It was like an action movie. After the splinters flew and the dust settled—and I mean that literally—it all went south for Rowe. Alex was amazing. For a city boy, he made his Wild, Wild West entrance for sure, but it’s the coolness and the confidence in which he held himself afterward that was the real show. Alex drew a line in the sand and dared Rowe to overstep it. He isn’t stretching the truth when he says that Rowe is a man on the run.”

  “Which concerns me for reasons we’ll talk about later,” Tank said. “When we debrief.”

  “Those same reasons concern me,” I said to Tank. “Rowe told Alex to watch his back. He said that he didn’t like to be threatened. Was he just rattled by having his door kicked down and being reactive, or was he threatening Alex?”

  “We don’t know, but we can certainly take precautions,” Tank said.

  “But who is ‘we,’ Tank?” I said. “I have a feeling that Rowe is going to demand that you be part of his security detail. I’m certain of it. And without you there to protect my husband, what are we to do then?”

  “Tank could quit,” Alex said. “I’d hire him myself on my own dime. There’s nothing that Rowe can do about that. If Tank needs more men, we’ll bring them on board, even if we need to pilfer them from Wenn. Not my problem. Once I’m CEO again, Barbara will see to it that Tank and the others are brought back to Wenn in their original positions.” He looked at Tank. “Does that work for you?”

  “Why don’t we just cut to the chase and do this now? Because Jennifer’s correct. He’s going to go there.”

  “Done,” Alex said. “Sorry to see you go, old friend, but you no longer work for Wenn. That said, I’m glad to hire you to work exclusively for me, and at a significantly higher salary that we’ll discuss later in private. Hopefully, Cutter will be coming back to us soon. We all heard on the flight that he’s no longer in a coma, but that it’s still going to take time for him to get back on his feet and be ready for work. What I’m hoping is that all of this will be behind us before he does return to Wenn.”

  “What’s your first priority?” Tank asked.

  “Find Janice Jones as soon as possible. To do that, you’re going to need a staff. So hire whomever you need to get the job done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. I don’t care what it costs—hire the best. Hell, like I said, hire from within. I’m giving you an unlimited budget to get to Jones, and to get her to talk. If she won’t, others will—we just need to find out who. They’re out there. The question is this—who saw her and Rowe on a regular basis and in a way that suggested they were more than mere friends? We need to find those people and talk to them—like Jones’ doorman, for instance. Or the staff at that diner in the Village they frequented. And whatever other leads you can find. What we need to do is build a case against Rowe that proves he is morally corrupt and thus unfit to run Wenn. Can you make that happen?”

  “By the end of the day, I’ll have a team assembled and we’ll get to work.”

  “Perfect. When we have something that reeks of scandal, I’ll threaten Rowe with it. If that isn’t enough to get him to step down so I can have my old positions back, we’ll leak the information to the press and let that soap opera play out in public. What I’m going to do to him at that press conference is going to assist in all of this. I’m going to undermine him in ways he’ll never see coming.”

  “What you are talking about?” I said.

  “You like surprises, don’t you, love?” Alex said.

  “You know I hate surprises.”

  “You won’t hate this one,” Alex said. “Just watch.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  When it was time to leave for the press conference, all of us had had the opportunity to view Alex’s new office and mine, which was located next to his.

  Just as Stephen Rowe promised it would be.

  “Is it just me,” Blackwell said as she stood with her arms akimbo beside Alex’s desk, “or is anyone else overcome by the distinct scent of urine?”

  “I think it might be just you,” I said, looking around Alex’s considerably smaller office, which—like my own—had only one window with no view. “You’re the one with that kind of imagination.”

  “Bullshit,” Blackwell said. “I can smell it. My nose is trained for scents. Admittedly, urine isn’t among the top ten, but I’ve certainly changed my share of diapers to know it when I smell it. Ann, would you please have each of these offices cleaned before either of these two go to work in them? Rugs shampooed? Insecticide treatment? Perhaps a flea bomb? That sort of thing? I don’t trust that man.”

  “Of course,” Ann said.

  Blackwell brightened. “You said that so quickly,” she said. “So, you also can smell it!”

  “I smell something,” Ann said.

  “Fear?” I asked.

  And poor Ann flushed. “We should go,” she said. “We need to be there in ten minutes.”

  “Jennifer, come to me,” Blackwell said before we left. “Your mascara has smudged beneath your left eye. And somehow your hair has gotten tangled in the strap of your sling. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought you’d gone three rounds in the ring with Rowe.”

  “So long as I won,” I said.

  “Oh, you would have won. You would have knocked that punk out.” From her purse, she pulled out a cotton round and slid it just below the rim of my left eye, removing the smudged mascara. Then she took out a compact from my own purse and dusted my face with it. Finally, she applied a bit of lipstick before tending to my hair and saying in a low voice, “How are you feeling? How is your shoulder?”

  “It’s fine,” I lied.

  Naturally, she called me on it. “I guess when you don’t want to worry your husband before an important event, sometimes white lies are necessary, aren’t they?”

  “Sometimes they are.”

  “Just not with me.”

  “Another time, perhaps?”

  She took that one for the team and stepped back to appraise me.

  “There,” she said. “I might not
be Bernie, but I can tell you this—you’re camera ready now.” She looked over at Alex and straightened his tie before turning to Ann. “We’re good here,” she said. “So, if Alex is ready, I say we do this.”

  “Let’s,” Alex said.

  And we were off.

  * * *

  When we arrived in the lobby, the press hadn’t yet been allowed inside, but I could see them gathered beyond the long array of windows to my left, eager to get in.

  Stephen Rowe was already there, as was the entire board, which surprised me. I was under the impression that it was just going to be Rowe and Alex at this conference, with me, Blackwell, Lisa, and Tank along in case there were any questions for us.

  “Why is the board here?” I asked Alex.

  “With our stock rebounding, it’s in our best interest to give a big show of solidarity. We need to show the world that Wenn is strong—even if I’m not running it.”

  “Especially if you’re not running it.”

  “I should say hello to them before this begins,” he said.

  I squeezed his hand in agreement and watched him move away from me and start to greet the board, some of whom were like family to him. Hands were shaken, and there also were a few hugs that seemed genuine to me. But Rowe was having none of it. Instead, he stood at the podium, flicking through his notes as if Alex didn’t exist.

  “If I had a gun, I’d shoot him in the back,” I said to Blackwell.

  “Since you’re clearly no stranger to a pepperbox, I don’t doubt that you would. But why the back when you have a clear shot of his head?”

  “Good point.” I bit my lower lip. “Alex is up to something,” I said.

  “Clearly.”

  “How is he going to undermine Rowe during the conference? It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s counterproductive. I thought he wanted to show the media that Wenn is still strong.”

  “Obviously, we’re going to need to wait and see what he has in mind. Knowing your husband, it will be subtle but memorable. We’ll know what he’s up to the moment he goes there.” She looked over at Alex mixing with the board. “You should go over,” she said. “Say hello to them. Let them get a good look at your arm hammock. Let them see for themselves how lucky we are to be alive.”

  “Is that Diana Crane?” I asked, nodding toward a severe-looking woman somewhere in her late forties. She was standing next to Alex and had her hand on his forearm while he spoke to her. “I haven’t met her yet, but I have seen her photo, though she didn’t look like that. She looked…different.”

  “Facelift. Botox. Juvéderm. It’s the works for that one. At this point, if she keeps lifting and tucking, she’s going to have a goatee.”

  I just looked at Blackwell. “You really have no bounds, don’t you?”

  “None. And look—it’s not that I blame her for getting some work done. I don’t. It’s tough for women to stay at the top in this town. Unlike men, you’re expected to continue to look like the dew on a lily—youth eternal. So despite the fact that she can be difficult, I will give her points for taking action to that end—even if I do think she’s gone a bit far. Look at her cheeks, for God’s sake. They’re so plumped with filler, her eyes look like slits.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Early sixties?”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not, and you’re stalling. Now, go over there. Make the rounds. Be yourself—and watch your back.”

  I took a breath to settle my nerves and let it out slowly as I walked over to where my husband was standing. When he caught my eye, he immediately put his arm around my waist, introduced me to Diana Crane and Mike Fine, who were the two members of the board I hadn’t met, and suddenly my health and the bullet I took became the topic of conversation.

  “Will you have a proper recovery?” Diana asked.

  “Yes. Just a few weeks of physical therapy and I should be fine. It wasn’t much of anything, really. It could have been worse.”

  “Not much of anything?” Diana said, widening her eyes as far as they’d go. “You were shot, for God’s sake. There’s no need to be humble here.”

  “I—”

  “And by the way, I know every doctor in this city,” she said. “When you’re deciding who to see to repair the surface of that wound, call me and I’ll tell you exactly who to see.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very generous of you.”

  “I can’t imagine acting so quickly,” she said. “Or having the guts to do what you did. Or to live on that island for so long without knowing if you’d be rescued. I’m here to say that I wish I’d met you sooner, Jennifer. Alex is a lucky man.”

  “I’d do anything for Alex,” I said. “But I think I’m the lucky one.”

  The woman turned swiftly to Alex. “She’s everything you said about her and more. No wonder all of New York is in love with her. Congratulations, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Diana.”

  “Jennifer is clearly a brave woman,” an older gentleman said.

  I turned to the man who’d spoken and faced Jonathan Rubinstein, the man who had been so kind to me when we first met right before I had my dance with Rowe. He was the head of Qualcomm Micro and I remembered that his granddaughter was going to Vassar to study English with the hopes of becoming a novelist. When I recalled that, I seized the information as if it were a battle-ax. “I’m not sure if I was brave or stupid, Jonathan, but either way, we can agree that it got the job done.”

  “To say the least,” he said. “The reason all of you made it back is because of you and Alex.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, knowing that I needed to correct him. “It’s because of everyone. I can assure you of that. None of us would be here now without the teamwork we forged on that island. Everyone offered something. Everyone had a moment when they were the hero of whatever hell we were facing at any given moment. As we talk more about our time on the island—and I think that Alex will address some of it today and more of it in interviews going forward—the world will see that we each brought with us a specific skill set. Alex, for instance, was a rock. He nearly died in that plane crash. And at the end, when he knew the odds were against him and that he might face death again, he put his life on the line for all of us. And then there is Mitch McCollister, whom most of you know as Tank. He’s a former SEAL, so you can imagine how his survivalist skills helped us. I may have been shot, but that can’t occlude everyone else’s efforts, because those efforts were critical to our survival.”

  “Well said,” Rubinstein said. “And noted.”

  “By the way,” I said, wanting desperately to turn the attention away from me, “how is your granddaughter? Clarice, isn’t it? She must be on her summer break from Vassar by now. Is she working on her novel?”

  “I’m surprised you remember that she’s writing one.”

  “Of course I remember, and I haven’t forgotten my offer. If she wants, she still can meet with Iris at Wenn Publishing. She’s our best editor. Iris has turned countless books into best-sellers. I’m sure she’d be happy to take a look at Clarice’s novel and offer some tips if she’d like. But only if she’d like—my best friend, Lisa, is a writer, and I know that writing can be a personal journey one wants to keep to themselves until the time is right to show it to others. Just know that the offer stands.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said.

  “And don’t forget what I said that night about Qualcomm Micro—the new processor your company is producing could be a game changer for the next edition of the SlimPhone. I hope you’ll keep that in mind as you continue to engineer it.”

  “Actually, I have,” he said.

  “Jesus, Jonathan, are you going to hog her all to yourself?” a man said.

  I turned to the man who’d said that, and checked my memory for his name. It was Tom Brown, another member of the old guard hired by Alex’s father, and one of Alex’s main supporters.

  “Mr. Brown,” I said, shaking his hand. “It’s go
od to see you.”

  “I think I can speak for all of us when I say that it’s even better to see you and Alex. We were beyond worried when you were gone. We thought of you every day. I hope you know that. I also hope you know that any decisions made while you were missing were not made lightly.”

  And there it was—right out in the open. This man, at least, wanted Alex back as CEO and chairman of the board—I could feel it. When Jonathan said “hear, hear,” my heart swelled even though Diana Crane and Mike Fine remained silent on the subject. At least I now knew that these two men realized that the board had jumped the gun when they voted in favor of Rowe taking the reins from Alex. And how could I blame them for doing so? They had no choice but to cave in to public pressure and go to a vote when the authorities had pronounced us dead. “Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts, Mr. Brown.”

  “It’s Tom.”

  “We all appreciate it, Tom. Not just Alex and me, but everyone else who was on that island with us. We felt all of you rooting for us when we were gone. It kept us going knowing that we had your support.”

  “And yet here we are,” Tom said.

  “Meaning?” Diana said.

  “You know what I mean. We’ve talked about it.”

  “Decisions had to be made,” she said.