Prism (Awakened Chronicles Book 3)

by Harley Austin

  “I wouldn’t wear those in pubic if I were you.”

  “I wasn’t in public last night when we were getting dressed to sit by the fire.”

  “Nooo,” Brayden stood up to stretch with a long yawn. “We weren’t.”

  “Merry Christmas, Bray.” Parker walked up to him and with a warm hug, giving him a sweet kiss.

  “Hmmm,” Brayden returned his kiss. “Merry Christmas, Winter.”

  “You know, I think I like it when you call me that.”

  “I like calling you Winter. It’s kind of cool.”

  “Oh, you are bad.” He mock-frowned.

  Brayden chuckled. “So is there anything to eat around here?”

  “I found a pantry in the kitchen with a lot of canned everything. Take your pick. I had baked beans for breakfast.”

  “That doesn’t sound half bad at the moment actually.”

  Parker went back to poking at the fire. It wasn’t long before Brayden was back out in the warmth of the main room from the kitchen with an opened can of beans and a spoon.

  “You look sad,” Brayden offered sitting on the hearth next to Parker.

  “I am sad. And angry.”

  Brayden pulled the spoon from his mouth upside down, licking it clean. The dark Boston-style beans tasted fabulous.

  “About your boss, Mauri.”

  “I can’t believe she’s gone. Did I tell you she’d just given me a promotion?”

  “You never mentioned it. But after what Christie and that Jack guy said last night, it sounded like they weren’t happy about it.”

  Parker nodded. “Mauri has, had, a small but growing staffing company. She built it from the ground up—from nothing. I’ve been with the company almost as long as it’s been up and running.

  “Sounds like you were her new VP?”

  Parker nodded. “I went from an assistant recruiter to a VP in-charge of my own division.”

  “Sweet.”

  “It was sweet.”

  “What do you mean, ‘was’?”

  “Mauri’s dead, Brayden. Without her the company’s toast.”

  “Why? Do you still know how to do your job?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about the other people there? Do they still know how to do theirs?”

  “Yea.”

  “Mauri has other family, right? I mean besides Christie.”

  “Her brother and his wife and kids.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s not part of the company.”

  “Who’s the highest ranking member of the company now?”

  Parker thought for a moment. “Jesus, I guess that’s me now. I reported directly to Mauri, just like Jack did.”

  “Jack’s dead.”

  “Yea, I guess he is. I hope he rots in hell for what he did to Mauri.”

  “Yea, well, let God worry about Jack. You have employees to worry about now.”

  “Employees?! I don’t know anything about employees?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m a CPA, remember?”

  “You look more like a bartender to me.” Parker grinned.

  “The way I see it, you have a couple of choices here, Parker. Cry in your beer that Mauri’s gone, quit, and the whole company collapses, and everyone loses their jobs.”

  “Or take over?”

  “Not take over, just take charge, like you should be doing. You know the business, right?”

  “Not the accounting side.”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “I don’t know that I can trust you around money.” Parker smirked.

  “Oh.” Brayden frowned, suddenly feeling a lump rising in his throat. “Dude, that’s—that’s really painful. Seriously. I didn’t—” Brayden set down the can of beans and drooped his head.

  Parker heard the emotion in his tone. “Oh, Bray, man; I’m sorry. Bad joke. Really bad.” Parker knelt in front of him. Brayden’s face had flushed a little. “C’mon. I should never have said that. It was stupid of me. I’m sorry.”

  Brayden’s eyes had watered even. He couldn’t even speak.

  “Please. I’m really sorry. I was just trying—” Parker moved his hands over Brayden’s shoulders. “It was my fault. I never should have said that.”

  Now Brayden could see new pain moving all over Parker’s face. He could tell Parker hadn’t meant it. In another place and time the joke would have been funny, but the timing was crass; it had hit him totally sideways.

  “I think you’re the only guy who’s ever been able to make me well-up like this.” Brayden admitted, his voice half cracked with emotion.

  “I’ll never do it ever again, Bray. I’m so sorry.”

  Brayden nodded, the lump lessening in his throat. “I’ll help you out in whatever way I can, Park. And I won’t steal from you. I promise.”

  “Let’s not bring up the stealing thing ever again. I mean it. Truce?”

  Brayden nodded again bumping his fist and then giving him a firm hug.

  It took long minutes for the emotion to pass, for the both of them.

  “I want you to take charge of operations,” Parker offered. “I can’t do it. I wouldn’t know the first thing of what to do.”

  “I do.” Brayden assured. “I’ll keep us afloat.”

  “I can land us all kinds of new accounts,” Parker assured. “But Mauri controlled all of our finances. How do we just move into the company and take over?”

  “I’m not worried about taking over operations, Park. I can do that in my sleep. As long as our cash flow is strong and you can keep the existing accounts happy, we’ll do fine. It’s Queen Bitch of the Universe we need to worry about. That girl is evil. We both saw what she did. Killed someone in cold blood just to keep him quiet. And she’d have done the same to us if it hadn’t been for Carissa’s little magic ring.”

  “Yea. Carissa. At some point we need to find her.”

  “You still think she’s alive?”

  Parker stood up, pulling Brayden up with him. “We’re alive.”

  Brayden agreed.

  “If she had one of these on her finger,” Parker held up his hand. “Damn straight she’s still alive.”

  18

  Y ou’re going to just love it here, Mr. Sands.” She escorted him through the sets of short cubicles introducing the new middle-aged Operations VP to all of the staff working on their healthcare accounts.

  The grand tour now crossed the elevator lobby and continued within the upscale oak-paneled offices until they’d come to a closed door. She stopped and looked at the name placard. It still read Winter Parker, Vice President. She was sure that had been changed this morning by maintenance.

  “This is going to be your new office, Mr. Sands. I thought we’d already changed the name on the office, but, I’ll get it fixed for you. She opened the door and entered finding someone already standing in the office, his back to her.

  “Excuse me, but, who are you?”

  “Don’t you already know, Christie?” the stranger said.

  That voice! She froze, suddenly numb.

  Parker turned around to look at her. “Hello, Christie.”

  “Ah, P-Parker.” She dropped into a kind of smiling giddiness. “What a—ah surprise. You’re back.”

  “Oh yea.” Parker glared at her. “I’m back.”

  “I had no idea—”

  “What are you doing in my office? Come to think about it. What are you doing in my company?” Parker asked.

  “Your company? I—I think you have a misunderstanding.”

  “Oh, no. It’s no misunderstanding at all.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You don’t own Signature. Mauri does.”

  “Mauri’s dead, Parker.”

  “She is. No thanks to you. But that fact doesn’t give you control of Signature. At least not until the probate court awards it to you from her estate; an event that is at best, years away at this point. You’re t
respassing. Get out.”

  “You can’t talk to me that way! I own Signature!”

  “No. You don’t. I’m the senior executive here at Signature, duly appointed to that role by your late sister.”

  Christie guffawed. “You have no business here! You get out of here now! Before I call the police!”

  “Go ahead. Call them. Would you like to use my phone?” He walked past his desk, slipping the device off of it and holding it out to her.

  “I could have you arrested!” her voice cracked as her demeanor grew more unhinged.

  “Likewise,” Parker quipped. “For Jack’s murder.”

  “GET OUT OF MY OFFICES!” she yelled like spoiled brat. “YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE!” She was even stomping her foot.

  Parker wasn’t sure if she was going to cool or go off even more. “Please escort Miss Carlivati and her guest out of the building and deactivate her access card. She is not and has never been an employee of Signature.”

  Christie turned to see two uniformed building security guards standing behind her. Both of them armed.

  Christie lost it the moment they touched her. “Get your fucking hands off of me!” she cursed and then let loose with a litany of profane expletives as the two burly guards wrestled her out of the office. “YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD PARKER! YOU HEAR ME! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU FOR MESSING WITH ME!”

  The whole office heard her going off until the guards were able to get her stuffed into the elevator. Soon the floor was quiet again.

  “Mr. Sands,” Parker looked at the middle-aged man in near shock still standing in his office. “I’m sorry to say that you were hired by someone not authorized to hire for Signature.”

  “So I gathered,” the near balding man offered. “I withdraw my application. I don’t think I want to work for your company—Mr. Parker.” Then he pointed out the door. “Not with that nipping at my heels.”

  “Join the club, Mr. Sands. Believe me.” Parker frowned.

  * * * * *

  “You missed the fireworks.” Parker walked into Brayden’s new office.

  “No I didn’t. You could hear her all over the floor.”

  “You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me. It was like she was looking at a ghost.”

  “I’m sure it was priceless.”

  “How are we doing with keeping things going?” Parker sat on the edge of his desk, straightening the tie of his fine suit.

  “I hired the law firm that used to be in this space, actually. The partners knew Mauri really well. I haven’t told them all of the sordid details, but they have enough to know they don’t want Christie anywhere near Signature. That’s the good news.”

  “Oh? What’s the bad news?”

  “Mauri ran a pretty tight ship. No one else has access to the existing bank accounts. Those funds are going to be tied up in probate until hell freezes over.”

  “We can’t keep going without money, Bray. We have payroll to meet this week.”

  “I know. I’ve already looked at the QuickBooks accounts.”

  “How did you login?”

  “Mauri had the foresight to at least trust Tricia with an admin login. I sent you an email. Now you and I are the only ones with admin rights to the books.”

  “But we’re still broke.”

  “Not exactly. This was evidently sitting in the Mauri stack of mail from last week.” Brayden handed him an opened letter with a window on the front. A check was inside from one of their healthcare clients.

  “Holy shit. This is almost eight hundred thousand, Bray! And this was in the mail?!”

  “Those kinds of checks and bigger get sent through the mail every day. You should have seen the ones I was processing for the cruise line when I worked for them. They were a lot bigger than this.”

  “I had no idea Mauri was bringing in this kind of money.”

  “Staffing companies are very profitable, Parker. It’s why they’re everywhere. But we’re still going to need more to make payroll for the consultants and the staff.”

  Parker nodded. “I can make some calls to see if we can fast-track payment on some invoices.”

  “That would be good.” Brayden got up from his desk grabbing his overcoat. “This will tide us over for about two weeks, but we’re going to need a few more of those to keep the lights on.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We are going out to find a new bank.”

  “You don’t want to just open a new account using the old one?”

  “Not even. We need to keep operating funds as far away from the probate funds as possible.”

  * * * * *

  “He’s taken over our family’s business, Jeff!” Christie sobbed over the phone. “I was trying to keep things going, just like we talked about on the cruise, but Parker just threw me out. It was so humiliating. I don’t know what to do?”

  “I’ll call Parker and find out what’s going on. I’m sure it’s just a huge misunderstanding.”

  “We need to call the police. He can’t just throw me out of our own company.”

  “That won’t do any good. They’ll just see this as a contract dispute, Christie. It’s civil, not criminal. The police won’t get involved in contract disputes. Parker is an employee of the company. I kind of understand what he’s probably thinking.”

  “It’s criminal to me. He’s taking our family’s money!”

  “Let me call Parker. I’ll see what’s going on. I’ll call you back this afternoon.”

  * * * * *

  Jeff just stared at both Parker and Brayden for long moments, like a deer in headlights. It was like his brain couldn’t process the news he’d just heard.

  “She what?” Jeff asked. He thought it might be some kind of joke; but neither Parker nor Brayden were smiling. The atmosphere of Signature’s conference room was dead serious.

  “I watched her do it, Jeff.” Parker finally said.

  “She’s only twenty-five. She’s not capable. I don’t think she even owns a gun; in fact, I know for a fact Christie hates guns.”

  “She knew her way around this one,” Brayden muttered.

  “Jack wouldn’t be able to get a gun. Mauri told me he was on medication for PTSD after he served in Iraq.”

  “We don’t know where the weapons came from, Jeff. We’re just telling you what they said and what we saw.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m—I don’t know what I am at the moment. I’m just, stunned.”

  “Jack murdered your sister, Jeff. In cold blood.” Parker reiterated. “And Christie was in on it.”

  “Jack wasn’t even on the ship. Mauri never invited him.”

  “He obviously got his own cabin. Then kept out of sight.”

  “I’ll have to check with the cruise line.”

  “They’re not going to tell you anything, Jeff,” Brayden assured. “You’ll have to get the police to do it.”

  “I’m not filing a report! I wasn’t there. You two should be the one’s filing the report!”

  “We did. They’re working on it.”

  “But Jack’s still missing.”

  “He’s not missing, Jeff,” Parker said it again. “She killed him and then pushed him over the side.”

  “You told the police this?”

  “Every detail.”

  “Why haven’t they arrested her?”

  “They’re not going to arrest someone until they have evidence of who did it. Right now it’s just our word against hers.”

  “There are cameras all over those ships, guys. Someone would have seen her shoot someone.”

  “We’re pretty sure the police are collecting that evidence.”

  Jeff shook his head.

  “Jeff, did the Canadian authorities ever tell you how Mauri died?” Brayden asked.

  “No. They just said her death looked suspicious. They’re still investigating. That’s all I heard.”

  “Jack shot your sister, Jeff. He and Christie were planning on taking over Sig
nature. Only Jack hadn’t planned on your little sister double-crossing him.”

  “Christie can get a little emotional, guys—”

  “A little?” Brayden raised his brow.

  “No. Very. That’s true. But she’s not capable of murder.”

  “You don’t know what your sister is capable of, Jeff,” Parker countered. “You’re a decade older than she is.”

  “Twelve years, actually. Christie was sort of an oops baby. Mauri and I were graduating by the time Christie entered elementary school.”

  “So you really didn’t know her.” Brayden leveled.

  Jeff pursed his lips. “We sort of knew her. I mean, she was our sister, but,” he nodded. “Mauri and I were close. We never had the chance to get close with Christie. We were two totally different generations. I just—can’t believe she would do something like this. She just—shot him?”

  “Four times,” Parker added.

  “And then you two jumped?”

  “I was a little stunned, Jeff,” Parker admitted.

  “I was the one who pulled the two of us over the side, Jeff,” Brayden admitted. “Freezing to death would have been better than getting shot.”

  “But you actually swam to shore.”

  Both nodded. “We found a fishing lodge and built a fire.”

  “I’m surprised. That water is cold.”

  “Believe me, I noticed,” Brayden frowned.

  Parker said nothing.

  “Well—I can see why you don’t want Christie anywhere near Signature.”

  “Jeff, we’re not trying to take your sister’s company,” Brayden continued. “We’re trying to keep it from falling into the hands of Mauri’s murderer.”

  “I’m still having a hard time buying that story, guys. Honestly. Christie can throw a tantrum like she invented them, but murder? With a gun?” He shook his head. “She hates guns, I’m telling you. She even goes on those anti-gun marches whenever they show up in town. She wouldn’t even know how to use one.”

  “She knew how to use this one. It even had a silencer,” Parker added.