by Nella Tyler
“Go ahead, Evan, answer her.”
“Alicia, it’s not like she is making it sound.”
“So that’s a yes, Alicia. Yes. He brought me there and fucked me in my parents’ house.”
I couldn’t bear to look at Alicia again. Everything that Rebecca was saying was true, but she had twisted it all in her head. I knew that Alicia wouldn’t be able to understand right at that moment.
“Rebecca, what do you want? Are you here to kill me?”
The words came out much more annoyed than I had wanted them to be. I just wanted her to leave and had no idea how to make that happen. I certainly didn’t want to piss her off enough that she shot me.
“No, I’m not going to kill you, Evan. I just want you to own up to what you did to me and what you are doing to Alicia.”
“Can you let Alicia go to the bathroom and get dressed at least?”
I pointed to the bathroom on the other side of the room and Rebecca turned to look that way. It was just enough time to grab my cell phone off of the nightstand and slip it under the sheets and into Alicia’s hand.
“Fine, go get dressed. I want to talk to Evan anyways.”
Alicia grabbed one of the sheets from the bed and wrapped herself in it as she walked to the bathroom. She had my cell phone in her hand and I hoped she would be able to call the police and they could get there before Rebecca flipped out and shot one of us.
“Rebecca, I’m sorry if I led you on. I really did like you.”
“Oh, you liked me so much that you are here in bed with Alicia?”
“Yes I liked you. But you know we didn’t have that kind of chemistry to date. Plus, I’m a jerk. Why would you want to date me anyways?”
Rebecca let the gun go down to her side and she sat at the foot of my bed. She just stared out the window and quietly sat there. I didn’t know what to do.
I couldn’t go after the gun and risk her actually shooting me. At that moment she was calm and not threatening my life and I wanted to keep it that way. I decided to just wait her out. I sat there across from her and hoped she would come to her senses.
“Why don’t we have chemistry?” Rebecca finally asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just not there. I’m sure you will find a guy that you mix with better than me.
Tears started to roll down her cheek and I felt horrible. Somewhere in the mess of a woman that sat across from me was a real person who genuinely wanted to find a man that would love her. I felt terrible for taking advantage of the situation, but I honestly thought she was fine with our relationship. I thought she also liked the friends with benefit type of thing we had going on. I really wouldn’t have pushed a sexual relationship if I had known she was so vulnerable.
I heard noise coming from the other room. Rebecca and I both turned and faced the noise, but the man’s voice was there just as we did.
“Police!” A man’s voice came from the living room.
Rebecca froze for a second and I was prepared to try and wrestle the gun away from her if I had to.
“I’m going to tell him we are in here,” I said softly. “In here. She has a gun in her hand but she is going to put it down,” I said loudly.
I looked at Rebecca and the tears rolled down her face in rapid fashion. I could tell she had not thought this all through. Faced with the idea of being arrested, I saw her start to raise the gun up toward her own head.
“No!” I yelled out and pushed the gun away from her.
A shot fired out the window and the police officers came rushing into my room. They grabbed Rebecca and pushed her on the ground.
“Put your hands up,” they yelled.
She did as she was told and within moments, they had her gun secured and Rebecca was handcuffed.
Alicia came out of the bathroom and sat in the chair on the other end of the room. I knew there was going to be some explaining I had to do with her. But for the moment, I was extremely happy that we were both safe.
As they walked Rebecca out of my apartment, my neighbor was in the hallway with his wife. I waved to him as I heard his wife nagging him.
“See, look at that man. He is dangerous. It’s a good thing we are moving.” She grabbed her husband and pulled him back into their condo.
After about an hour of interviews and answering questions, Alicia and I were left alone in my apartment. The awkwardness was thick enough you could cut it with a knife.
I didn’t know what to say.
“So you got what you wanted, right? It sounds like my company is filled with fraud and I have failed at another business. I hope it was worth it to you.”
Alicia didn’t wait for me to answer and just grabbed her purse and made her way toward my door.
“It was real, Alicia. This, the feeling between us; it was real.”
She didn’t turn around at all and just continued out my door to the elevator. I stood in the doorway and watched her, hoping that she would turn around and look at me. Feeling like the only way things would work out was if she looked at me before she left.
Alicia didn’t turn around though. She got into the elevator with her back toward me.
Chapter 37
Just when I had convinced Alicia that I wasn’t a jerk and was there to help her, Rebecca had come along and totally ruined everything. There was nothing I could do about Alicia being angry with me, but I was going to help her figure out what was going on with her company.
“Ok, so I fucked things up with Alicia already,” I said to Natasha as I walked into the office.
“Well, I knew you would do that. What’s new?”
Her lack of empathy for me was oddly comforting. There was a certain honesty in my conversations with Natasha that felt like home to me. I could count on her to be utterly honest in every situation. She wasn’t just a good assistant, she was a good friend.
“How do I fix it, Natasha? I’m not interested in letting this one go.”
She could tell I was serious and when I was serious about something, Natasha was going to make it happen.
“Save her company. If you can save her company from whatever is going on, that will win her back.”
“Oh, God. That’s all I have to do?”
I put my head into my hands and tried to think about how I could actually save her company. There was no clear clue to who all was involved. I needed more evidence. But to get good evidence I needed Alicia to help me.
It was a double edged sword. Alicia wasn’t going to trust me unless I saved her company. I couldn’t save her company unless she trusted me. I had no idea what I was going to do.
“I have a friend with the FBI, she can help you.”
Natasha dialed a number on her phone and someone answered.
“He’s going to need your help. Can you come to the office and save him?”
There was a pause and then Natasha responded and was off the phone all in the span of about two minutes.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that. You need to get Alicia to come over here. Can you make that happened?”
“I don’t know. She probably won’t answer her phone but I’ll give it a try.”
“Here, call her from my number. Maybe she will answer.”
I had zero expectation that Alicia would answer a call from me, but from a different number maybe I had a chance.
I dialed her number and held my breath while it rang on the other end.
“Hello,” Alicia answered.
“Don’t hang up please,” I said softly. “The least I can do is help you figure out if someone is stealing from you. Please come to my office, I have a plan.”
She was silent and I had to look at the phone screen to see if the phone was still connected. I knew she wanted to hang up, I just hoped she would come to my office so we could get to the bottom of what was going on.
“Ok,” she said quietly. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
“She’s coming,” I told Natasha as I handed her the ph
one. “Who did you call?”
“I called Rosalynn.”
I paused for a minute and looked at Natasha. Why would she of called Darla’s wife? That seemed really odd.
“Why?” I asked.
“She works for the FBI; she’s going to help you.”
My mind was blown as I remembered sweet, friendly Rosalynn from the dinner party. She certainly didn’t look like someone who worked for the FBI. Or if she did work for them, Rosalynn looked more like a secretary than an agent.
We called Mike into my office and I proceeded to explain to them about what had happened with Alicia and with Rebecca earlier in the morning. The funny thing was, neither of them seemed fazed by the news. I suspected they thought I had something like that coming for how I had behaved for the last several years with women.
Luckily, they were both good friends and didn’t react to me or tell me “I told you so.” Although they had both, at one time or another, warned me that one of the women I slept with could go crazy on me. I never believed them.
There was a knock at my office door and I jumped up to let Alicia into my office. Natasha and Mike had decided the best way to go about this process was that I was going to have to be one hundred percent honest with Alicia. I couldn’t hold anything back. She was going to have to see all the records I had requested. She was going to have to see all the background checks I had done. It was the only way to get her to trust me.
Shortly after Alicia arrived, so did Rosalynn. We all sat around the table for a minute and I introduced everyone, although most everybody already knew each other.
I took a deep breath before I continued on.
“Here’s the deal. I’ve been reviewing your company for weeks and I know there is something fishy going on. I went out to that warehouse here in New York State and it was empty without any product in there. But what I did find was stacks and stacks of cash there.”
Alicia just looked up at me and then over at Rosalynn. I could tell Alicia was afraid she was going to get in trouble for the cash, but I didn’t think she would. The whole purpose of her coming to my office was so we could all work together and figure out who was stealing from her.
“Miss Warren, did you know anything about this cash?” Rosalynn asked?
“No, ma’am.”
Alicia looked like she was about to cry.
“In my investigation, I found a lot of clues but no real evidence. There is an offshore bank account in Alicia’s name, but it sounds like someone else opened it. There is a second name on it, but we weren’t able to get that information. Rosalynn, maybe your contacts would have better luck?”
“Of course, give me the information.”
Rosalynn took the folder I handed her and went to the other end of the room to make a phone call.
“Alicia, Bill Yobi lives in a thirty-four million dollar Upper East Side condo. Do you know how he can afford a place like that?”
Alicia just shook her head back and forth. She looked like she was going to cry and didn’t want to try and speak because of it.
“Evan said you thought and employee named Ryan might be involved. What’s his last name?” Mike asked.
“Um, yes…” Alicia said as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “His name is Ryan Anderson. His girlfriend is Isabella Stern.”
“Do you suspect these two might be involved with Bill Yobi?” Rosalynn asked as she returned to the table.
By this time, Alicia was in full blown tears and unable to answer. I decided to try and step in to fill in the blanks a little bit.
“Bill has worked with Alicia since she first started. Alicia told me she trusted him and didn’t think he would do anything to hurt her. She did say that he blew up and started yelling at her when she told him that I had been snooping around.”
Alicia looked up at me and smiled. She seemed to be telling me thank you for talking so she didn’t have to.
“Alicia, how do you feel about wearing a wire?” Rosalynn asked.
She said there and wiped her tears and thought about the proposition for a moment. There would be no turning back after this. She would have to go through with it, no matter what the outcome was.
“I could do that,” Alicia managed to say.
“Who are we going to have her talk to with the wire on?” I asked.
I was concerned for Alicia’s safety. Probably because I had been so blindsided by Rebecca just a few hours earlier. But I also thought that whoever was stealing from her company would be desperate to get away with it and might come after Alicia. It was highly likely whomever was steeling would panic if they thought they had been figured out.
“I think we should start with Bill,” Alicia said.
I saw the sadness in her face as she said it. She really did trust him and it obviously killed her to think that he was the one steeling from her.
After working so hard for the last five years, Alicia couldn’t afford for there to be another scandal with her company. After going public as an IPO, it was more important than ever that Alicia keep her business operating totally within all legal guidelines.
“Perfect. Why don’t you call him and set up a meeting at your office later today. Tell him it’s urgent,” Rosalynn said as she wrote down some notes.
Alicia went with Rosalynn to the far side of the room and they huddled together for a minute and talked. Rosalynn wrote down some notes on a piece of paper and then had Alicia call Bill. He must have answered because I saw her talking for a minute and then she hung up.
We all sat around the table in silence as we waited for Rosalynn to get off the phone with her superiors. She had called them to help arrange the necessary recording equipment so Alicia could get the evidence against Bill.
“Are you hungry?” I asked Alicia.
“Not really.”
“Let me know if you need anything. I can get you a drink, or a sandwich, or anything else you need.”
“Alright.”
Alicia didn’t seem happy with me, but she certainly didn’t seem as mad as she had been before. I hoped that bringing the thief to justice within her organization would be all it took for Alicia to at least consider forgiving me.
We all sat back and observed Rosalynn and Alicia as they discussed what Alicia would need to get Bill to confess to. They couldn’t come in and stop everything until that had all the evidence they needed. It would be Alicia’s job to insure she asked Bill the right questions so she could get the answers a court needed if they were going to convict someone of embezzlement.
As the two women talked, Alicia appeared to get more and more confident about the whole situation. It was nice to see because Alicia was a strong woman who had a lot going on for her. Even if she decided not to be with me, I only wanted the best for her.
We rounded everyone up and drove to Rosalynn’s office. She had worked to get approval for us to listen to the recording of Alicia and Bill so we could help figure out if there were any other people involved in the illegal activity. The truth was, I hadn’t had time to research anyone else that had come up in discussion. Bill’s expensive condo had made him such a visible target that I had forgotten to look at anyone else.
Mike, Natasha, and I sat in the back of the room as Rosalynn put the microphone onto Alicia.
“You’re going to be fine. Just talk normally and don’t worry about anything else. He will incriminate himself once you two get talking.”
“Okay, I should head over to my office now,” Alicia said.
Before she left the room, Alicia turned toward me and I felt that electricity between us. I hoped that after all was said and done Alicia would forgive me in the end.
Chapter 38
Alicia was all set in her office and ready to talk to Bill. I felt like I was going to puke. Alicia was so brave to move forward with this investigation and to agree to wear a wire. It surprised me just how strong she was.
We waited patiently for Bill to arrive at Alicia’s office. In painful silence, we all looked around th
e room and tired to be patient.
“Hi, Bill,” Alicia said.
We could hear her over the recording device that Rosalynn had set up in the room.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you before. I’m just so tired of people thinking I had something to do with the fraud before. I love you like you’re my own daughter. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
I felt like puking as I heard Bill laying on the suck-up nice and thick for Alicia. I wasn’t sure what their conversations were normally like, but I suspected that didn’t sound anything like the one that was going on.
“Bill, I have evidence that you are living in a multi-million dollar condo here in New York. How can you afford something like that?”
Bill laughed and then saw that Alicia was serious because his voice calmed down right away and he answered her question seriously.
“It’s my parent’s condo.”
Alicia was silent. We all waited patiently to see what she would say next.
“That’s an awfully expensive condo for your parents.”
“My father didn’t believe in investing his money in the stock market. Instead, he wanted to have his money in real estate so when he died he could be guaranteed of the value of his estate.”
“Oh, yes,” Alicia said. “I remember you said your mother didn’t want to live there after you father passed away because it was too big.”
“Exactly,” Bill replied.
There was another long silence and Alicia seemed to be stuck. She didn’t know what to say and there was no way to communicate with her.
“Bill, someone’s stealing from me. Is it you?”
The direct approach was something I was very fond of. Even if someone lied to you it was typically possible to see their physical reaction to the question at the very least. I hated that we weren’t able to see how Bill had reacted when Alicia asked him if he was stealing from her.
“No, I wouldn’t do such a thing and I think you know it.”