by Trin Denise
“It’s open,” Sydney said as she placed her cup down on the desk.
Caitlyn pushed the door open and poked her head in. “What’s up, boss?”
“Come on in and close the door behind you, please,” Sydney said, motioning to Caitlyn with her hand. “Get yourself a cup of coffee, this could take awhile.”
Caitlyn’s right eyebrow shot upward. “We having a party?” she asked, looking at Jackie and then Sydney.
Sydney tried not to laugh at the characteristic eyebrow thingy that Caitlyn did. She looked just like Rachel when she did that. “I would never have a party without inviting you,” Sydney teased. “But to get to the heart of this little pow wow, Jackie has some info regarding our little problem,” Sydney said, making finger quotes in the air for emphasis.
“I have some news of my own concerning the same thing or at least I think there may be a connection,” Caitlyn said as she poured herself a cup of coffee and then sat down in the chair beside Jackie.
“Well, let’s get this party started then.” Sydney looked directly at Jackie. “So, out of all of the executives, you have two who you think may be the most likely to have pulled this off based on the background checks you ran. Is that correct?
“That would be correct,” Jackie said, nodding her head.
“I guess the floor is all yours.”
Jackie flipped open the folder lying on her lap. “I’ll start with the reports I just received last night and as you said, two in particular stand out.”
“I’m not sure that’s good news or bad news. I’ve been secretly hoping you would come up empty,” Sydney said, her brow furrowing into a frown.
“Well, at least this way we may be getting one-step closer to finding out who your embezzler is. Either of you care to take a guess which two it is?” Jackie asked, looking at Sydney first and then at Caitlyn.
“I’ll guess. One of them wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Allen Carmichael by chance?” Caitlyn asked.
Jackie grinned at her. “Give that girl a prize.”
Sydney looked at Caitlyn with a mild expression of shock on her face. “I’m not even gonna ask but I will say this ... you cannot have the red vacuum. I’ve already won that fair and square,” she said, winking at Caitlyn.
“Dang it and I needed a new vacuum worse than anything,” Caitlyn laughed.
“How about a brand new shiny silver blender instead?” Sydney asked, causing Caitlyn to chuckle.
Jackie looked at Sydney and then Caitlyn as if the two of them had completely lost their minds. “Am I missing something here?” she asked.
“Just a private little joke,” Caitlyn said as she wiped tears from her eyes. “Seriously though, I told you I had some news of my own,” she said, looking at Sydney.
Sydney got up from her chair. “I think I need a warm up. Would you like one?” she asked Caitlyn.
“Sure why not. I’ve only had two pots already this morning. What’s one more cup, right?” Caitlyn answered.
“Would you like some, Jackie?”
“No thanks. I’m all coffee’d out.” She looked at Caitlyn. “Two pots by yourself?”
“Probably three but who’s counting,” Caitlyn laughed as she held her cup up for Sydney.
“Who’s the other exec?” Sydney asked as she sat back down in her chair.
“The other is Robert VandDersmote,” Jackie answered.
Sydney leaned back in her chair and laced her hands over her head. “Okay fill us in about Allen first. What’s going on with him?”
“I’ll start by saying he likes to play the stock market and he’s not very good at it. Actually, he really sucks and he sucks so bad that his house is one month away from foreclosure.”
“Are you serious?” Sydney asked. She couldn’t believe it. Allen made over a half-million dollars a year just in salary. That didn’t include what he took home in bonuses.
Jackie nodded. “Yes ma’am and that’s not all. Last week he applied for a loan at one of Welsh’s credit unions.”
Sydney leaned forward in her chair. “Which one and for how much?”
“The East Dayton branch and,” Jackie flipped through the papers inside the folder and then said, “four hundred grand.”
Sydney shook her head as she digested the information. “You think he’s so far in debt that he would embezzle from Welsh?”
Jackie shrugged. “The question is do you think he’s capable of it.”
Sydney looked at Caitlyn. “What do you think?
“Do I think he’s capable or do I think he did it?”
“Both,” Sydney answered.
“I certainly think he’s capable but I really can’t say yet as to whether he did it without seeing the proof in black and white. I can tell you without a doubt that he certainly has the programming skills needed to pull it off and if I recall correctly, he graduated at the top of his class.”
“Where did he go to school, Jackie?” Sydney asked.
Jackie used her finger to scan down the top document on her lap. “B.A.S from the University of Dayton, Masters degree from Ohio State. He majored in computer programming at U.D. and as Caitlyn stated, he graduated at the top of his class at both colleges.”
“All right. What’s going on with Robert?” Sydney asked.
“Not quite as drastic as Allen but his financial problems could still be a red-flag. He has a very sick mother he’s been caring for financially. She has a rare blood disease and lung cancer on top of that. He’s been paying all of her medical bills in addition to covering several trips to Europe over the last year.”
“What’s in Europe?” Sydney and Caitlyn both asked at the same time.
“They say great minds think alike,” Jackie laughed. “To answer you both, experimental medicine is what’s in Europe, more specifically, a clinic just outside of London claims to have made a breakthrough in curing the blood disease. Some sort of multi-drug cocktail that’s not available here in the states.”
“And his education is in what?” Sydney asked.
Jackie pulled out the sheets from the folder she had written up on Robert. “Same as Allen’s except his B.A.S. is from Wright State University.”
Sydney leaned forward, lacing her fingers together on top of the desk. She took a deep breath. “Just how much in debt is Allen?”
“Almost a million,” Jackie answered.
“And Robert?”
“One point six.”
“Holy shit,” Sydney said, shaking her head. She looked at Caitlyn. “So which of those two would you put your money on?”
“Allen,” Caitlyn answered without hesitation.
“Why?” Sydney asked.
“Remember me saying I had some news of my own?”
Sydney nodded.
“A few minutes before you called and asked me to join you and Jackie, I caught Allen in my office. He was going through my desk drawers.”
“He was doing what?” Sydney asked, not believing what she was hearing.
“You heard me right. He was going through my drawers.”
“What did you say to him?” Sydney asked.
“I asked him what the hell he was doing. He gave me some lame excuse about wanting to see the Dem Project files.”
“I take it you didn’t believe him?” Jackie asked.
Caitlyn shook her head. “Not for a minute. If you could have seen the look on his face, you wouldn’t have believed him either. He was looking for something specific and it wasn’t the Dem Project files. I told him that if he ever did it again, I would talk to Sydney about it.”
“Do you have the slightest idea of what he was looking for?” Sydney asked.
Caitlyn shook her head. “Not a clue but I will figure it out.”
Sydney looked at Jackie. “Are you any closer to tracking down the owner of the checking account where the funds are being dumped?”
“Not as close as I’d like to be. Whoever he is, he’s a lot smarter than I thought. The funds have been funneled through several d
ifferent accounts, ending in the Bahamas’s.”
Sydney sighed in frustration. “I think until we know who this man truly is, it makes it hard to pin anything on Allen or Robert or anyone for that matter.”
“I know you’re frustrated but we will get this guy,” Jackie said.
Sydney stood up from her chair. “Just keep me updated, please.”
“I’ll keep at it on my end and hopefully I’ll have some concrete answers for you soon.”
“I sure hope so,” Sydney said.
Jackie got up from her chair. She walked over to the door. She stopped, turned, and smiled at Sydney. “Have I ever failed you?”
Sydney smiled and then shook her head. “No you haven’t and believe me when I say, I appreciate everything you’re doing now and everything you’ve helped me with in the past.”
“I’ll catch you gals later.”
“See ya,” Caitlyn said with a wave of her hand.
Sydney waited for Jackie to close the door. She came out from behind her desk and leaned against it. She crossed her arms over her chest. “All right, out with it.”
Caitlyn laughed. “Out with what?”
“You know what. Tell me what you’re really thinking about Allen.”
“Honestly, I’m not really sure what to think.”
“I can see those little wheels turning in your head.”
“Seriously, Syd. This whole thing is kinda crazy but I’m willing to bet a year’s salary that Allen was looking for something else.”
“And I agree with you, so how do we figure out what that something is?”
“I’m going to start by running a key log report on his laptop and desktop. I’m guessing that I will be able to find some kind of trail indicating what he’s been searching for. Whatever it is, he’s obviously convinced that I have it and if I do, I will find out what it is.”
Sydney grinned at her. “I have no doubt about that at all.” Sydney glanced at her watch. “I’m going to be working at home for the rest of the day so if you need me, that’s where I will be.”
“Yeah, I heard that you put Mom on a special project to redecorate your house,” Caitlyn said, grinning from ear to ear.
Sydney frowned. “She told you?”
“I didn’t give her much choice. The duffle bag with a change of blue jeans and a t-shirt gave her away.”
Sydney’s thoughts automatically took a wrong turn as she imagined Rachel wearing a very tight pair of jeans and an extremely snug t-shirt. The image made her smile and she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to get the hell out of there.
“Uh, hello ... earth calling Sydney,” Caitlyn said, waving her hand in front of Sydney’s face.
Sydney shook her head as if the motion would somehow clear the thoughts from her mind. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” she asked.
“I asked you if it would be okay if I dropped by later?”
“Caitlyn, you don’t need an invitation to come to my house. You’re always welcome anytime you feel like it.”
Caitlyn stood up from her chair. She ran her hands down her slacks. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Hopefully I will have some info about Allen when I come.”
“Sounds good. I will see you later than.”
Caitlyn walked over to the door. She stopped and turned to look at Sydney. “Tell Mom I said not do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said with a wink and then shut the door behind her, leaving Sydney standing there with her mouth hanging open. “What the hell?” Sydney smiled as she pulled her jacket off the hanger. “Time to face the firing squad,” she laughed as she grabbed her keys and laptop bag off the desk.
Chapter 7
Rachel, having changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in spite of the small bruise on her arm, looked around the home theater room. “This is insane,” she said as she counted sixteen movie chair recliners.
“You have to admit that watching movies on a screen bigger than a highway billboard is awfully nice,” Edna said.
“It’s actually incredible,” Rachel said as she continued to look around the large room. If she had to guess, she would say that the room measured at least forty-feet long by thirty-feet wide and the viewing screen was almost as wide as the room itself.
The two sidewalls as well as the back wall were completely covered with red-velvet drapes. Hanging on each wall and evenly spaced two-feet apart were lighted movie boxes that contained full size movie posters of various films. At the back of the room was an oak and glass concession stand filled with every type of candy imaginable. Next to the stand was a floor sized popcorn maker and cotton candy machine. On the opposite side of the concession stand was a full service soft-drink fountain machine and hot dog cooker.
“The floor is even carpeted and ramped just like a theater,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “My youngest daughter would fall in love with this room.”
Edna laughed. “Trust me, quite a few adults would fall in love with it as well.”
“My daughter is a huge movie buff, to the point that she can recite the dialogue right along with the characters.”
“Sounds like Sydney,” Edna chuckled.
“She does that, too?”
Edna nodded. “Sometimes it’s maddening.”
“Believe me, I know,” Rachel laughed as she glanced up at the ceiling.
“Pretty amazing isn’t it?” Edna asked as she followed Rachel’s eyes.
“That’s an understatement,” Rachel answered as she looked at the gold-colored octagon shaped boxes that made up the design on the ceiling, giving it the appearance of a giant honeycomb.
“If you like this room, wait until you see the indoor-outdoor pool,” Edna said as she headed toward the door.
“Exactly how many rooms does this house have?” Rachel asked as she followed Edna out into the hallway.
Edna used her fingers to count as she mentally calculated the number in her head. “Twenty-three,” she finally answered.
“How many of those are bedrooms?”
Edna smiled. “Eight with nine and half baths and that doesn’t count the ones in the guest house.”
“Good grief. How do you keep from getting lost?”
“It happened often when she first had the house built. I still have days where I get all twisted around.”
Rachel let out a deep breath. “I think I need a map.”
“Knowing Sydney, she’s probably already laid one out for you,” Edna said with a chuckle. “Come on, I wanna show you the pool. If you think the home theater room was something else, you’ll probably have a heart attack when you see it.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t see it then,” Rachel laughed.
“I think you’re gonna love it,” Edna said as she headed down the hallway and through an open archway that led down another long hallway. She stopped next to a marble column and waited for Rachel. “After you,” she said, motioning with her hand for Rachel to go first.
Rachel’s mouth gaped open as she stepped into the pool room. In all of her life, she had never seen anything like what she was now looking at.
Edna looked at Rachel and laughed. “I take it I was right?”
“You were more than right. It’s beautiful,” Rachel said as she continued to look around the room. The back wall surrounding the kidney-shaped pool was rounded and looked like what you would see in a Greek coliseum. Large marble columns, interlaced with tiny flecks of gold leaf overlays were spaced every four feet and were connected to each other by scalloped archways, which sat directly atop the column. Sitting inside the archways were floor to ceiling windows that offered an exquisite view of the back area of the property, which included a huge lake.
The sidewalls were covered with murals of mountains and the ceiling was painted to resemble a crystal blue sky with clouds so white, they looked like cotton candy. The scenes created were so realistic that Rachel felt as if she were standing in the hills of Tennessee.
Her eyes settled on the pool itself. It was recessed into the floor with one-foot
high blond-colored Italian pavers circling it. At the small end of the pool were stacks of various types of rock formations that were shaped to resemble the side of a mountain. All throughout the spacing between the rocks, water seeped out, running back down into the pool, giving it the appearance of natural flowing springs. To the right of the rock formations was a spiral slide that ended next to a large glass window that with a push of a button, rose to allow access to the outdoor pool on the other side of the wall.
The outdoor pool was almost as spectacular as the one on the inside and was a continuation of the rock formation theme. The main difference between the two pools was that the one on the outside also included a low and high set of diving boards.
“Simply incredible,” Rachel said, shaking her head.
“Just wait until you see it at night when it’s all lit up,” Edna said as she linked her arm through Rachel’s arm.
“I can only imagine,” Rachel said as she allowed Edna to lead her out of the room.
“How about we go check out that new design room of yours?” Edna asked.
Rachel smiled at her. “I’d like that very much, thank you.”
Sydney stopped at Karen’s desk. She waited patiently for her to finish her phone conversation.
Karen disconnected the line and pulled the head set off and laid it on the desk. She smiled at Sydney. “And what can I do for you my wonderful, charming employer who has the sun set and rise in her eyes every morning of her esteemed life?”
Sydney laughed as she shook her head. “Just when I think you can’t shock me any further, you—”
“What do you mean further?” Karen asked, interrupting Sydney before she could finish the sentence.
“Have you ever thought about going into the theater?” Sydney asked.
Karen smiled. “Of course, I make it a regular habit of seeing at least one movie per week. As a matter of fact I saw a classic just this week.”
Sydney ran her fingers through her hair and then laughed. “You are a classic and you’re in a world all of your own.”
“Okay now that we’ve got that all cleared up, my illustrious supreme employer, is there something I can help you with?” Karen asked with a crooked grin on her face.