by Pj Fiala
Danny sat forward as well. “Because they’re arrogant. They assume everything will go their way. They also don’t want to tip anyone off just yet who may see what’s happening and pull the rug out from under them. I’d bet that’s why they aren’t submitting their formal offer to purchase until Friday. The City Council meeting is next Thursday evening.”
Tammy shook her head trying to keep up. “But, why Stateside? There are many buildings for sale just one block away from here. They could put the mall there.”
Charles smiled. “Turns out the State plans to move the highway during the road construction, which is slated to start next year. That highway will go through those buildings. They aren’t worth anything now. When the State comes through and purchases, they only pay assessed value and many times less than that. Those plans haven’t been approved by the Governor yet, but I'd bet money is being exchanged or promises made to make that happen.”
Charles pulled a map out of the briefcase he had sitting on the floor next to his chair. Spreading it out on Tammy’s desk, they all stood to get a better look.
Pointing to Stateside on the map Charles followed the path of the proposed highway and where the other buildings were located. “This is prime real estate for a mall with this location. Just off the highway and with the traffic counts it'll soon have, it'll be easy to fill and command prime rent.”
Tammy stood silent as her eyes traced the lines Charles had just pointed out. She slowly looked up at Danny, her eyes shiny with unshed tears and softly said, “It’s hopeless then. There’s nothing I can do.”
Danny tucked her hair behind her ear and traced the little lines at the corner of her eye with his thumb. “You need to have faith. Charles and his men have a plan.”
CHAPTER 38
DRIVING HOME, DANNY was lost in thought. It was close to lunchtime and he knew the guys had gone to Rolling Thunder, but Danny wanted to speak to Charles alone. “Want to stop for lunch?”
Charles smiled, “That’d be very nice, Dan.”
Racing to figure out where to stop, Danny pulled into The Wheel. “It should be easy to find a place to sit since it’s only eleven-thirty.”
Shifting his truck into ‘park’ Danny, unlocked his seatbelt and climbed out of his truck. Hitting the key fob to lock it once Charles’ door was closed, they walked into The Wheel.
The hostess greeted them with a big smile. “Afternoon gentlemen. Just the two of you today?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charles offered.
The hostess turned and walked them to the first window seat in the dining room. “You’re waitress will be here shortly to take your order. Her name is Talia.”
Danny and Charles perused their menus. Folding his menu and pushing it back, Danny glanced out the window and saw Zeke strolling across the parking lot. Another man joined him not far from the window. The other man was shorter, blonde and had a bit of a gut. He seemed nervous and looked all around him to see if anyone was watching what they were doing.
“What do you make of that?” Danny asked Charles.
Turning to watch the scene unfold before them, they saw Zeke pull a thick letter-sized envelope out of his suit jacket. The two men continued talking, though now it looked a bit heated. Zeke’s hands were jerky and staccato as he addressed the shorter man. Finally the other man pulled a small item out of his front pants pocket. He looked down at it in his hand and closed his fingers around the object. Zeke grew more irritated and turned to walk away. The shorter man put his hand on Zeke’s arm as Zeke whipped around and glared at him.
Taking a step back the man held his hand out and opened his fingers, revealing the small object. Danny and Charles both sat straighter in their chairs trying to see what it was. Zeke reached forward to grab the object as he handed the thick envelope over with his other hand. The sun glinted off the object as Zeke picked it up. He shook it at the other man’s face a couple of times, tapping the end of the man’s nose before pulling it away.
“That’s a thumb drive.” Danny sat back in his chair, not wanting to look so suspicious. He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Snapping a few pictures, he got Zeke holding up the thumb drive and the other man opening the envelope and counting what looked like money.
“That lowlife son-of-a-bitch just bought something very valuable to him. The wad of cash in that envelope is easily ten thousand dollars or more. Probably more. That’s how he operates.” Charles turned back to Danny his lips drawn into a tight line. “Did you get good pictures?”
Sliding his thumb over his phone, Danny looked down at the pictures and nodded. “Yeah. You can see both of them clearly.”
He handed his phone to Charles who scrolled through as he nodded. “Perfect. I don’t know what we’ll need them for, but it’s good to have them.”
Danny began tapping away on his phone. “I’m emailing them to myself, Tammy, and you. I don’t want to risk losing these.”
***
Tammy walked back into her office, her feet whispering on the carpet, her heart heavy. Her nerves were getting the best of her. Every time she turned around she expected Zeke to jump out at her. She hadn’t heard from him all morning and she half expected him to show up after Danny and Charles left. Setting the stack of reports on her desk, she walked over and looked out the window of her office. Not a great view, just the parking lot, but it was a window. As she stood here now, she realized she needed to come to terms with the fact that this place would be gone soon.
Hearing her email chime, she walked over to her computer and entered her password to unlock the screen saver. Her lips lifted at the corners when she saw Danny’s name. Opening the email, she saw ‘Don’t show Mr. Moneybags these pictures’. Clicking on the first one, she gasped. There stood Zeke talking to another man. She clicked the next picture and her heart began hammering in her chest. The heat crawled up her body, her neck, her cheeks, as her hands began shaking.
Grabbing her cell phone she slashed her thumb across the screen and scrolled to Danny’s picture. Tapping to connect the call she closed her eyes as she listened to the ringing on the other end. She took a deep breath to calm herself and keep her voice from shaking.
“Hey, babe. Did you get the pictures I sent?” Danny’s voice calmed her through the phone line.
“Ye…” Licking her lips, she tried again. “Yeah. Where did you get these?”
“Charles and I stopped at The Wheel for lunch. We sat by the window and I saw Mr. Moneybags stroll across the parking lot like he owned it. Then I watched as he stopped and started talking to that guy. Then we saw the exchange.”
Tammy’s voice rose. “What exchange?”
Danny’s brows pinched. “Did you look at all the pictures?” He stood quickly and motioned to Charles that he was going outside. Looking down at his phone, he clicked speaker, and scrolled to his sent emails to make sure he sent them all.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That fucker. That mother-fucker,” Tammy wailed.
Danny’s head snapped up. “Tammy, what…what’s going on?”
Leaping to her feet, Tammy closed her office door and began to pace while holding her phone to her ear. “It’s Scott. The other guy is Scott. Fucking-video-Scott.”
Danny’s face pinched. He looked at the pictures again, slowly scrolling through each one, looking closely at the blond man talking to Zeke. He quickly headed to his truck so no one would hear their conversation. Climbing in and closing the door, Danny’s breathing came in spurts as he watched the exchange through pictures again. The realization of what was probably on that thumb drive turned his stomach. Tammy’s video. That’s why it had been getting a lot of attention lately. As her soft crying came through the phone, Danny’s guts twisted.
“Babe, we’ll figure all this out. First, you need to call your attorney and send him the pictures. When you went to court to get the video pulled and put a restraining order on Scott, did the Judge add in the restraining order that he wasn’t allowed to sell or physically distri
bute it?”
Sniffing and wiping under her eyes, Tammy shook her head. When she didn’t hear Danny respond, she realized he couldn’t see her. She softly replied, “No.” Pulling a tissue from the floral tissue box on the corner of her desk, Tammy swabbed her nose and tossed the tissue in the waste basket. “He wasn’t allowed to upload to any internet sites, email, message, share links in any way to anyone. He isn’t allowed to comment on it if he sees it out on the internet, he isn’t allowed to forward, like it, or otherwise. But…” she sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t think we ever dreamed he'd download it to a thumb drive and sell it. I’ll have to check the language in the restraining order.”
Softening his voice so he could soothe her, Danny said. “Okay, hon. Hang up and call your attorney. I’m going to go in and finish my lunch with Charles and I’ll see you at home.”
“Oh, my God. Danny, please don’t tell Charles about the video. It’s so humiliating.”
Danny hesitated. “Babe, we need to tell him. He needs to know what we’re up against here and he saw the exchange. He might have some connections that can help us with this. Tam, wait till you hear what he has in mind. I had no idea, and I mean, no idea how connected Lex’s family is. Blows my mind.”
Flopping into her desk chair Tammy closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Choking back the sob threatening to escape, she softly said, “Please don’t, Danny.”
“Babe? My counselor would tell you that you have to talk about it and stop giving it the power to paralyze you.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said softly.
“I love you. It’s going to be alright.”
That did it. The flood gates opened and Tammy allowed herself a good cry. Through her sobs and tears she managed, “Love. You.” before she hung up.
Danny tapped the back of his head against the headrest a few times while getting his emotions under control. He wasn’t a bit hungry any more, but, for Charles, he would go and fake it.
CHAPTER 39
GETTING HERSELF UNDER CONTROL, Tammy pulled the little pocket mirror out of her desk drawer and scoffed as she looked at her smeared mascara, red eyes and nose and virtually no other makeup on her face. Wiping, adjusting and fixing what she could, she grabbed her lip gloss and swiped it on her lips. It would have to do. She was going to kill Zeke and Scott and make this shit stop. She had enough of being a victim. And she was sick and tired of waiting for that video to jump out and destroy her.
After she felt a bit better and thought she could talk to her mom without crying, she picked up her phone and tapped her mom’s number.
“Hey, sweetheart how are you and Danny doing?”
“Mom.” Feeling her voice crack, she cleared her throat, sat straighter in her chair and started again. “Hi, mom. We’re good. Danny’s friends are leaving tomorrow. I’m sorry we didn’t get over to meet you and dad, but you’ll meet them next time. I promise.”
“Oh, don’t worry, honey. We completely understand and your dad's traveling right now anyway, so, we’ll meet them next time. But, I do expect you and Danny for Thanksgiving on Saturday.”
“Yep. We’ll be there.”
Tammy relayed the story as she knew it and forwarded the pictures to her mom. She knew she should talk to Attorney Gratz herself, she was a grown up, but her mom had a way of handling the crotchety old bugger and Tammy didn’t much like him or that snippy receptionist in his office. Ending the call with her mom, Tammy stood and started clearing her desk for the evening.
One light tap on her door and she heard the handle turn. She knew who it was before she even looked up. “What do you want?” she snapped.
Zeke’s stupid eyebrow raised and a smirk slid across his face as he walked through the door, hands in the perfectly tailored pockets of his perfectly tailored suit. Dammit, he was a smug bastard.
“While I hoped for a better reception, I’ll take that one. What has you knotted up?”
Tammy stopped moving papers for a split second before continuing. When she'd closed the last drawer and righted the step file on her desktop, she calmly slid her hands in her front slacks pocket and met his gaze.
“What makes you think I’m knotted up?”
“You’ve never spoken to me like that before. I don’t know if I find it sexy or irritating.”
Slightly shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t really care how you find it.”
Now his smirk turned into a smile. “What happened, the boyfriend let you down? He’s a cripple, so he probably can’t satisfy you, for long anyway.”
Raising her voice, she almost yelled, “He. Is. Not. A. Cripple.”
“Well, potāto, potato. Missing a leg, even though he can camouflage it.”
Zeke sauntered further into the room, his eyes never leaving hers. Tammy remained firmly fixed behind her desk.
“I’m getting ready to leave for the evening. What did you want?”
Unbuttoning the button on his suit jacket, Zeke sat in one of the brown leather chairs in front of her desk. Tammy watched him get comfortable, crossing his right ankle over his left knee and casually draping his right wrist over his leg. Refusing to get comfortable herself, she remained standing, coolly staring him in the eye.
“I thought we could talk about the job offer a bit more. At least, you should hear what it is.”
Shaking her head, Tammy kept her voice calm and even. “You must have a hearing problem, Mr. Hamilton, I believe I’ve told you three or more times now that I’m simply not interested. Quite frankly, you could give me your job and I wouldn’t be interested.”
Zeke silently assessed her face. His eyes traveled down her body, stopping at her breasts which thankfully were encased in a bright yellow sweater. His eyes continued to travel until he got to the desktop. Slowly sliding them up her body he looked her straight in the eye, his mouth forming what could only be called a sneer.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to discount what my job might entail, Ms. Davis.”
Tammy refused to answer him, she simply stood staring. When he realized she wasn’t going to inquire, he stood, reached into his front pocket and pulled out the thumb drive he’d purchased from Scott.
“If you accept my job offer, I can make that nasty video of you go away forever.”
Tammy’s hands balled in her pockets. She continued to remain stone still staring at him. When she didn’t act surprised he raised both brows and slightly nodded.
“You’re not surprised I have this.”
“Nope.”
“How could you possibly know I have it?”
Remembering Danny’s email telling her not to tell Zeke about the pictures, she pursed her lips tighter.
“Maybe you should be more careful in selecting the location for transacting a purchase.”
Zeke’s head snapped back just a bit and Tammy actually smirked to see the surprise on his face.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s not illegal to help a friend out financially.”
Tammy merely shrugged. Friend, right.
Zeke leaned forward placing both palms on her desk as he leaned in. She could smell his aftershave, surprised at the fact that the first time she met him and smelled him, she thought he was rather sexy. Now she thought he was a bastard and though he smelled of money, he was the lowest form of life.
“My offer is this, Ms. Davis.” Leaning forward just a bit more, his voice took on the tone of a man negotiating a deal - - even, cool, emotionless. “You come and work for me in Seattle. We’ve created a position there for you where you'll be in charge of locating charities for us to work with. We assume you’ll no doubt gravitate to Veteran’s charities and causes, and we’ll speak to that at a later date. We find we have to siphon off a few million dollars each year to charities for tax purposes. Plus, it keeps the public happy. You will of course, report directly to me. Then, I’ll give you this video and make sure it's never seen again.”
Tammy’s throat became dry and she needed to lick her lips. He was offering her
something she'd dreamed about since Scott released that video in the first place. He slowly deposited the thumb drive into his pocket, buttoned his jacket and moved away from the desk. He started to turn to leave, when he stopped. “I’ll give you two hours to decide. I’ll call you later.”
Before Tammy could say anything he was gone. She stood transfixed on the door, her knees shaking as she thought about it. She could go to Seattle, get the video, wait for him to wipe it away from the internet and quit. She’d come back here to Danny and it would all be good for them.
CHAPTER 40
ENTERING THE KITCHEN from the garage, Tammy smelled something delicious. “Hey, Tammy, welcome home.” Lex’s smile was electric.
“Hi, Lex. Wow, you look happy.” Tammy returned his smile with a brilliant one of her own.
“Hey, stop flirting with my girl.” Danny walked into the kitchen wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, the ridges and planes of his muscles shown easily through the soft gray material. Sexy.
He walked straight to Tammy and wrapped her in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and breathed in deeply. She felt his heart beating strongly against her cheek and she closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. This. Is. Where. She. Wanted. To. Always. Be.
Danny felt a shiver run through Tammy’s body and he squeezed. He knew she'd been having a rough time of it lately. His guilt that he'd been enjoying his friends visiting and failed to see all that she'd been going through made him feel like a dick. Sucky boyfriend he was. He needed to start thinking like a teammate and less like an individual, because, he wanted Tammy here with him.
Pulling back he looked into her eyes. “Wine?”
Her full lips spread into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. “Yes, please.”
Danny kissed her nose and turned to pull the wine out of the refrigerator. Tammy watched him a moment and then realized Lex was…cooking. She cocked her head and Lex smirked.