Deanna Lee

by Barenaked Jane (lit)

  Shaking myself loose from those thoughts, I stood and went to join Mathias in the large conference room. He was there, staring intently at his laptop when I entered. I poured myself some coffee, topped his off, and then took a place across the table from him.

  “So you’ve already vetted these guys?”

  “Yes.” He slid two files across the table. “They all have military or law enforcement backgrounds and no criminal records. Financials, personal life, and the like check out.”

  “Okay.”

  I opened up the first file and checked out the photo paper clipped to the inside. “He’s pretty.”

  Mathias snorted. “If you are going to base your recommendations on their appearance you can just go back to your office.”

  Laughing, I flipped past the cover letter and looked over the resume. “His computer skills are good; the BA in communications is a plus.” I cleared my throat and lifted my gaze. “But he’s spent nearly ten years in the marines.”

  “And?”

  “The last ten years haven’t been the best on a military level. How much combat do you suppose he’s seen?”

  “The marines do see a lot of combat. I fail to see how that has any bearing on the man’s ability to perform security tasks in the building.”

  “Combat makes men rough, even hard.”

  “I was in Afghanistan for two years before I joined the FBI. Then I was ‘borrowed’ by another government agency. During that time I was sent places that I cannot discuss and I did things I can’t even let myself think about. Do you think I’m rough and hard?”

  “No.” I wet my lips. “I’m just concerned.”

  “And I understand your concern. Remember, I promised you no blunt force on the team. I didn’t promise to hire a bunch of pansies who can’t even pick up a weapon.”

  “Understood.” I sat back from the table as I picked up the other file. “A woman.”

  “Yeah, she’s had several years of experience in the private sector as a bodyguard but is looking for something a little different.”

  “It irks you that I wanted to sit in on these interviews.” I tilted my head slightly as I looked over his face. “Doesn’t it?”

  “There is an implication there that you don’t trust me to do my job.”

  It had nothing to do with that. I frowned and considered my response. The fact was that it was my job to hire and fire in the building. It was the one duty that Mercy had placed in my lap the day she’d moved into the director’s office.

  “I have a job to do at Holman that goes far beyond the security personnel.”

  “True.”

  “I’m also ultimately responsible for the people that work in this building. While they may answer directly to the head of security in this building, and in turn your company, they are required to follow my direction, and I want that to be clear from the very beginning. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

  “So you’re here to establish the pecking order.” He summed up, amused.

  “Something like that.”

  If only I could establish a pecking order with Charlie and his mother. She was fairly easy to spot, since the current bane of my existence was sitting right beside her. Obviously Casey had not made it clear that I had asked for a lunch to explain the problems I was having with her son.

  I stopped just short of the third and only empty chair at the table and glared briefly at Charlie before focusing on his mother. “I asked to meet with you, Mrs. Wallace. I should’ve made it clear that I wanted to meet you alone.”

  “Anything you have to say to me, young lady, you can say in front of my son.” She glared at me pointedly. “Take a seat.”

  I sat down, which pissed me off. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.”

  “So give me three good reasons why I should allow your relationship with my son to continue.”

  Wow, maybe the whole family is crazy.

  I picked up a water glass near my place setting and drank from it as I considered how I should phrase the unpleasant thoughts running through my head. “I dumped your son, Mrs. Wallace. I’m done with him and have no interest whatsoever in getting in your good graces. I asked you here to discuss the fact that your son has stolen a key to my apartment, which he used to enter my residence uninvited so that he could sit in a chair and watch me sleep. As if that was not enough, last night he parked himself outside my apartment building for several hours, to what end I’m not sure. Since your family is well respected in Boston, I’m doing you this favor.”

  “Charles?” She turned and glared at him. “Is this true?”

  “Mother, I’m in love with this woman. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

  Oh for the love of everything on Earth. “The next time he shows up at my door or approaches me, Mrs. Wallace, I will be calling the police.”

  “Janie, you don’t mean it.” He reached out and grabbed my hand.

  I shook my head and pulled my hand free. “I never made you any promises, Charlie. Whatever fictional relationship you’ve created between us is not my problem.”

  “You love me.”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t even like you right now.” Standing from the table, I looked around the crowded café and then settled my gaze on his mother. “I find this whole thing distasteful and uncomfortable, a feeling I’m sure you share. It’s in the best interest of your family’s reputation that this situation vanish. I’m not sure if he’s stupid or insane, but I expect you to resolve this matter for me. You won’t like it if I have to.”

  Shaking loose the guilt that I felt for hurting Charlie, I walked away from the table and out of the building. I didn’t realize he’d followed me until I was opening my car door. He shoved it shut and whipped me around.

  “We aren’t done until I say we are.”

  “The night you were in my apartment…what did you really come there to do?” I pulled free of his hands. “Did you come there to hurt me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Jane. You’re very important to me.”

  “I told you that there is nothing more between us. If you don’t leave me alone, Charlie, I’m going to be forced to do something neither one of us will like. We had a good time, but that is all it was and now it’s over.”

  “I deserve better than this from you.” His eyes darkened and his hands tightened into fists. For just a few seconds, I thought he might hit me, and then he took a few steps back. “This isn’t over, Jane.”

  “It’s over, or I will report you to the police for stalking. How would all those people at your job feel when they find out you’ve been charged with a crime? Is that included in your five-year plan to make partner?”

  “You owe me.”

  I frowned and glared at him. “Owe you for what?”

  “Do you think you would have landed that job at Holman’s without me? I called James Brooks personally and asked him to give you the assistant director job. Just like I called when you wanted to leave the sales staff and go to the administration level. So you owe me.” He moved toward me but paused when I backed up and hit my car. “I’ve done all I can to remake you into a woman my mother would approve of, and you come here and tell her this bullshit?”

  “My life is my own, and I don’t owe you a damn thing.” I pulled open the car door, never letting my gaze leave him, and tossed my purse in. “Don’t make this situation worse, Charlie. I’ve killed one man, and I know I could do it again if I was placed in the situation of defending myself.”

  He paled a little and stepped back.

  I slid into the car, locked the doors, and dug through my purse for my keys with shaking hands. His words were whipping around in my head. It couldn’t be true. Mercy had told me that was her decision. She’d wanted me in the assistant director position. I could still remember how she’d smiled and waved the salary offer package she’d prepared and motioned me into her office. I considered it
one of the best days of my life, and Charlie had tainted it.

  I engaged the engine and shot into traffic without looking back. Picking up my cell phone, I called Casey and told her to cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. I needed time to collect myself before I returned to the gallery. It couldn’t be true, but if I asked her and there was even a hint that it might be true, I’d probably cry like a baby.

  At home, I shrugged off my work clothes, wrapped myself up in my favorite flannel granny nightgown, and turned on the television. It rankled that he’d upset me with his absurd declaration. But his family did have a lot of connections, and James Brooks socialized in those same circles.

  The former director, Milton Storey, had never liked me, so I’d been surprised when he’d offered me a job in the admin area. I went from the lead on the sales team to the senior buyer, over the heads of several people that had been there longer.

  Would Mercy tell me if James had pressured her into making me assistant director? If Charlie had influenced that, I would never feel right about the gallery again.

  14

  I raised my head from the pillow on the couch and watched Mathias come in. He pulled off his jacket and walked to the couch.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” He squatted down in front of me and touched my cheek. “What’s up with you?”

  “Just had a headache after lunch.”

  “I know you spent your lunchtime with Charlie’s mother. Did she upset you?”

  “I ought to fire that girl.” I punched my pillow and pulled my blanket up to my shoulder. “She’s lucky I couldn’t live without her.”

  “She confessed the truth under duress. Mercy can be intimidating when she wants to be.”

  “It isn’t a big deal; I can take the afternoon off if I want to.”

  “Sure you can, it’s just that you never have. Not once. No sick days, no half days, and as few vacation days as you can get by with. I’ve been through your personnel records, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I closed my eyes briefly and then sat up. “Charlie was at the lunch with his mother.”

  “Did he get rough with you?”

  “Since you didn’t get a call from me asking you to post bail, the answer to that would be no.”

  He sat down on the couch and pulled me up into his lap. “Then tell me what’s wrong.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because men suck at this stuff. I’ll tell you and then you’ll want to fix it. All I really want is someone to bitch with and for him to agree with me. But you can’t do that because men are ‘fixers.’” I leaned against him. “I’m just a little upset.”

  “You’re a lot upset. I’ve seen you a little upset, and this is not it.” He hugged me tight and sighed. “And yes, I want to fix this. If need be I can go find him and kick his ass.”

  “He didn’t hurt me.” My fingers curled into his shirt and fisted briefly before I could help it. I released the cloth quickly and tucked my face into the side of his neck. “He just told me something that he did. I don’t know if I believe him or not, but it bothers me.”

  “What was it?”

  I frowned. Suddenly it was entirely too horrible to repeat. “It’s about the gallery.”

  “He has no power in the gallery. How could he do anything to affect your job?”

  “Well, his family gives generously to the Holman Foundation every year. But he wasn’t threatening me. Charlie told me that he asked James Brooks to give me the job I have now, that I would still be a commissioned sales clerk otherwise.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Like all the work I’d done had been for nothing. It made everything I’ve done at Holman feel empty and stupid.”

  “Jane, I don’t believe Mercy would have you be the assistant director of the gallery if she didn’t believe you could do it.”

  “And if you found out that Shamus had influenced James’s decision about hiring you?”

  He stiffened briefly and then relaxed. “Okay, that would be unsettling and I would be angry. But I also wouldn’t just blindly believe it. I’d go to Shamus and ask him.”

  “So I should ask James Brooks if he allowed a social acquaintance to sway his judgment in the placement of administrative staff in the crown jewel of the Holman Foundation’s holdings?”

  “Put that way, it seems ridiculous that Brooks would do something like that.”

  “Smart-ass.” I slid off his lap and stood. “I need some food.”

  “So what happened at the lunch meeting with his mother?”

  “Well I got there and found that Charlie accompanied her.” I glanced over my shoulder as I opened the refrigerator to look at him. He looked ready to pounce on someone and kick the shit out of him. “And he’d told her that I’d arranged the meeting with her to convince her that I was worthy of being romantically involved with her son.”

  “Great.” He laughed, pulled out a kitchen chair, and sat.

  “I corrected his and her assumption, made it clear that I would involve the police if he didn’t leave me alone, and left. He followed me out to my car and told me he’d influenced both of my last promotions at the gallery.” I pulled out some deli meat and cheese. “I left and came home.”

  “And he hasn’t shown up here?”

  “Not yet.” I shut the frig with my hip and shrugged. “But that could be because I threatened to kill him.”

  “Good.”

  “Not good. I shouldn’t do that to people. I did it to that scumbag ex-husband of Lisa’s too. People are going to start reporting me to the police for menacing.” I snagged the loaf of bread from the counter and went to the table. “You didn’t want to eat out, did you?”

  “I grabbed a pizza with the guys after the last interview. I would’ve been here sooner, but I haven’t spent a lot of time with the team lately.”

  “How did the interviews go?”

  “The woman is a yes, the rest are a no.”

  That was a relief; I hadn’t been pleased with the candidates I’d met. “When is the next round?”

  “Next week. I have a few guys coming in from New York and Atlanta to interview. I knew a few of them when I was with the Bureau. I have five positions left to fill.”

  “Is the face guy here yet?”

  “Actually, he arrives tomorrow. He’s promised to bring all of his new little toys for us to play with. We should have that system up and running well before the Castlemen show. I want a few days to test it. I’ve contacted Interpol, and they’ll be sending me files on the people they are watching. The high-dollar thieves from the Bureau list are mostly involved with the fencing of jewelry.”

  “Do you honestly think that someone would break into the gallery?”

  “Yes. Castlemen’s collection rarely travels and is practically priceless; the black market would soak it up like a fine wine. The pieces wouldn’t surface for years.”

  “So, this face guy? He just travels around the world setting up face-recognition software?”

  “Casinos were his main line of business until 9/11. Since then he’s done a great deal of government work on and off the radar. I was lucky to catch him at a point where he’s not working for them.”

  “And how does it work?”

  “You’ll have to ask him the specifics, but the software is designed to take apart each face it scans and categorize it into sections. Some sections of the face are very difficult to alter without major reconstruction.”

  “Okay. So what happens if we spot someone in the gallery who is suspect?”

  “We put a name to his face. Security will monitor his or her movements around the gallery. Depending on the person’s background and if there are outstanding arrest warrants, they will be authorized to notify the authorities of the person’s presence in the gallery. If instructed by law enforcement to hold the person, they will make every effort to secure him without causing a scene in the gallery.”

  “Th
at’s reasonable.” I picked up my sandwich with both hands and eyed it with some satisfaction. Not eating lunch and sleeping through dinner had me starving.

  I took a big bite and the doorbell rang. I glared in the direction of the door and nodded when Mathias rose to answer it. After wiping my mouth, I barely had time to stand as Mercy came into the kitchen and looked at me, hard.