“My accountant found it, during an audit I had to do for my business.”
“And what business is that?”
“I’m a movie director,” she said simply. Obviously her name hadn’t rung a bell for him. But as soon as she told him what she did, he realized why it had been familiar, and he felt foolish for not having recognized it immediately. He just didn’t expect to have a major movie director calling him at home. But he should have known. Meg had some very fancy clients and had made a good name for herself. She had tried several times to get him to come in with her, but he still liked working for the FBI. It suited him and he liked the prestige that went with it. And eventually, the pension.
“Of course, I’m sorry,” Jim said, still feeling silly for not knowing who she was immediately.
“It’s fine.” She didn’t seem to care if he knew who she was or not.
“You suspect your assistant?” he confirmed. People usually had some idea of who it was, although often it was the person they suspected least and trusted most. That was common in embezzlements, and he saw it all the time. And Meg had done the initial groundwork.
“At first I thought it was my … the … uh … the man I was living with. He just moved out yesterday,” she said, and he wondered if that was why she seemed confused. “Or my assistant. I can’t even imagine that, though. She’s the person I’ve trusted most in the world for seventeen years, but I also just discovered that she lied to me, and … uh … ah … she did some other things that have caused me to no longer trust her. I don’t know what to think, but Meg says I should check it out.”
“What kind of other things? Like theft?” He was being businesslike and thorough, like a doctor asking for her symptoms, and Tallie hesitated before she answered.
“No, of a more personal nature, but it makes me question everything now.”
“I understand. Would you like me to come out and see you this week?” he offered, and she sounded flustered again.
“I would. I’m actually shooting on location, in Palm Springs right now, but I’ll juggle my schedule and come in.” He was the FBI after all. “Just tell me when and I’ll work it out. I come home on most weekends anyway, and some nights. It’s no problem to drive in.” He felt sorry for her, she had a sad voice, and she was upset. He wondered what had happened, other than the money she’d lost. She sounded devastated.
“Are you in L.A. now?” he asked her.
“Yes, I am, till Monday morning. Or maybe I can go in late on Monday, and see you then.”
“Would it work for you if I come over tomorrow?” he offered, and she sounded relieved when she answered.
“That would be great, if you don’t mind seeing me on a Sunday.”
“That’s fine.” He knew Bobby had plans the next day, and he wouldn’t be seeing him till dinner. “How about eleven A.M.?”
“That would be perfect,” she said, sounding grateful again. “Really, thank you for seeing me on a Sunday … I’m sorry to bother you with this … maybe it’s nothing … and it might not even be my assistant. Maybe it’s all a big mistake.” She was embarrassed to be calling the FBI, but Meg had said she should.
“We’ll figure it out, and that’s a lot of money, if you’ve lost twenty-five thousand a month for three years. Don’t apologize. This is what we do.” He was calm and reassuring and very professional.
“Thank you … I really appreciate it.” Her noice was very small.
“Do you have any paperwork on it that I can look at?” he asked her, and she remembered the spreadsheet she had given her father. He still had it, and she could pick it up from him.
“Yes, I do. I have a spreadsheet, and my accountant has all the books. We just had an audit, for an investor.” She had already told him that and forgotten. She was obviously distracted, but most people were if they thought they’d been embezzled. He couldn’t know that she was also in a state of shock that her relationship with Hunt had ended. She gave him her address then, thanked him, and they hung up. And Jim called Meg Simpson after that. She was just about to go out with her husband and kids.
“Your client called me,” Jim told her quickly, so as not to delay her unduly. He could hear her children in the background and her husband telling her to hurry up. “I just called her back.”
“Tallie Jones?”
“Yeah. Moron that I am, I had no idea who she was until she told me she’s a director. You and your Hollywood clients. Why didn’t you warn me so I didn’t make an ass of myself?” he teased her, and she laughed.
“How could I know you’ve become a shut-in and don’t go to movies? What rock do you live under these days?”
“I’m busy with the boys, or with Bobby anyway. Josh is away in college.”
“How depressing. I remember when they were born.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said, sounding wistful for a minute. He and Jeannie had been so happy then.
“She needs your help.” She was talking about Tallie again. “She’s pretty shaken up. I gave her a heavy dose of bad news. Her boyfriend is cheating on her, and apparently before that he slept with her assistant, whom she considers her best friend and who has worked for her for seventeen years. And she may be stealing money from her too. Nice people. People in her position are such targets for every kind of bad behavior, exploitation, and theft. I hated to tell her, but that’s why she came to me. I think the money theft is serious, and you should give it a good look.”
“You think it’s the boyfriend?”
“I doubt it. He’s rolling in dough. He doesn’t need her money even if the guy is a shit.”
“She said something about his moving out yesterday.”
“That’s new,” Meg told him. “It must have happened after she left my office, with a folder full of photographs of him and his new girlfriend. As far as the money goes, I think it’s the accountant or the assistant. Or God knows who else, other people may have access that I don’t know about. She hired me mostly to check out the boyfriend, and figure out if her assistant had gone to a hotel and charged it to her. She did—with him.”
“No wonder she sounded like she’d been hit over the head with a hammer. I don’t know how you tell people stuff like that. All I do is tell them they’re going to jail.” It was more complicated than that, and they both knew it, but he did admire the work she did. Meg was smart and thorough, and worked fast. He had really missed her when she left. And if he ever left the Bureau, which he had no intention of doing for the moment, he would go to work with her in a flash. She was still hoping he would one day.
“Are you seeing her?” Meg asked as her husband shouted again that they were late, and Jim could hear a child crying. It sounded like a normal family Saturday to him, and made him miss his wife even more.
“I’m going over to her house tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m glad she called you. Be nice to her. She’s having a tough time.”
“I’m always nice,” he laughed at Meg. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Fine. Take care.” And then she rushed off the phone to go out with her husband and kids, and Jim sat thinking for a minute, about everything Meg had said about Tallie. It sounded to him like she had gotten a raw deal from the boyfriend and her assistant, and was being embezzled on top of it. Without even knowing her, he felt badly for her.
Tallie called her father after speaking to the FBI agent. She wanted to get the spreadsheet back from him that Victor had prepared, and she told him that she wanted to pick it up, which Sam said was fine. She didn’t say anything about Hunt, but when he saw her that afternoon when she came by the house, he was shocked. She looked awful and like she’d been through the wars. She was deathly pale and there were dark circles under eyes.
“Are you okay?” He was genuinely worried about her.
“I’m just tired.”
“What’s wrong?” He knew her better than that, and before she could stop herself, she was crying and told him about Hunt. Sam was furious when he heard.
Hunt had cheated on her with not just one woman but two? And what was wrong with Brigitte? How could she do a thing like that to her employer and friend? He was disgusted with them both, and sorry for Tallie. It was a terrible blow. “Men are such fools sometimes,” he said as he hugged his daughter, and then handed her the spreadsheet she had come for. “What a stupid, rotten thing for him to do. And I always liked the guy. What a dishonest little shit.” He was livid, and Tallie laughed through her tears.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I think too.”
“What are you doing about Brigitte?”
“I don’t know yet. The investigator I used told me to call the FBI and have them check it out. An agent is coming over tomorrow, which is why I want the spreadsheet, to give to him. I don’t know if Brigitte is taking the money or not, but she slept with Hunt for three years, so I guess that’s grounds to fire her. I just haven’t had the heart to deal with it yet. I’m still reeling over Hunt. He moved out last night.”
“Does Max know?” He looked worried, and Tallie was too.
“I haven’t told her yet. It’s all a little fresh. I just found out at four o’clock yesterday afternoon. His girlfriend is pregnant on top of it, so I guess they’re getting married. I asked him if he’d give her up, and he wouldn’t. So that’s that.” She tried to sound blithe about it, and failed abysmally. She looked and sounded devastated, and she was. But they both knew that Max had adored him, and it would be a terrible shock to her too.
“What are you going to do about your next movie with him?” This touched on so many areas of her life. Her father was genuinely concerned.
“I won’t do it. I told him that last night. I couldn’t work with him now. I’ll finish this one, and that’s it. End of a partnership and a romance.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” her father said, touching her cheek with his gnarled hand. “You two were good together, in a lot of ways. You didn’t deserve this to happen. I guess he wasn’t the man we thought he was, if he cheated on you for all four years. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” he said, trying to cheer her up, but she wasn’t ready for that yet.
“I’m a little tired of this kind of blessing, the ones in disguise. I like the ones that sound like good news, not the ones that break your heart.”
“I know, I know … someone else will come along,” he said convincingly, although no one ever had for him. He had never had another serious woman in his life after Tallie’s mother died. He always said she had been the love of his life. Hunt hadn’t been that to her, but he had been very important to her. They had been comfortable and happy, and she had loved him a lot.
“That’s the last thing I want, Dad,” she said somberly, “for someone else to come along. This is it for me. I think I’m done. Three strikes, I’m out.”
“At least you weren’t married to him. There won’t be a lot of legal complications. And you never bought any property together. That’s always a disaster when things go sour, and you have to take it all apart.” He had always told her not to, and she had listened to him. Her father gave good advice. Except when he had made her marry Max’s father when she was twenty, but he had done that for Max, not for her, and maybe he was right about that too. At least she knew her parents had been married, if she cared. “I think you ought to fire Brigitte immediately,” he added. He was furious with her. Tallie was less angry than deeply hurt. She was profoundly wounded by what Brigitte had done, her affair with Hunt and her lies for years.
“I’ll deal with it on Monday,” she said sadly. She couldn’t imagine life without Brigitte either. They had worked together forever. Seventeen years. It was almost like a marriage. And they were best friends, as well as employer and employee. And Brigitte made her life run so smoothly. It was going to be chaos for a while. She didn’t have the heart to look for a new assistant either. Tallie felt like her whole life was upside down and broken to bits, like her heart.
Her father asked her about the Academy Awards before she left. It was coming up soon, and he wondered if she was going. She said she didn’t have the heart to now, and she didn’t want to run into Hunt, and her father agreed. Particularly if the other woman was with him.
She left a little while after that, and when she went home, she looked in all the closets and looked at Hunt’s things. He had a whole dressing room full of clothes, a kitchen full of equipment he had brought with him and added to in three years, two bookcases full of books, a home office full of his work, and odds and ends all over the house, tennis rackets, his rowing machine, a treadmill they had bought together. She didn’t know where to start. She went to the supermarket that night and got some boxes, and little by little she started packing up, and the whole time she did, she cried. Normally, she would have asked Brigitte to help her with it, but she didn’t want to do that now, not after what she’d done. She was going to pack it all herself, and then call a moving company to drop it off. She didn’t want to see him again.
Her cell phone rang at midnight, and it was Hunt. She didn’t know whether to answer it or not, but she missed him so much, she took the call.
“Are you okay?” he asked as soon as she picked it up. He sounded worried about her and unhappy. Angela had been thrilled when he showed up the night before, particularly since she was expecting his baby, but Hunt was sad. Not sad enough to want to come back and give up Angela, but sad anyway. Angela was his future now, and Tallie was his past. She had become ancient history in his life overnight. It had all happened so fast.
“No, I’m not okay,” she said, deciding to be honest about it. “I’m falling apart.” She started crying again as soon as she said it. “How would you be if you found out all those things about me?”
“Homicidal. Or suicidal. I’m not sure which. But I don’t think I’d be as decent about it as you are. Tallie, I’m so sorry.”
“You should be. It was such a rotten thing to do to me, for the whole time we were together,” she sobbed, and he felt like a total bastard.
“I don’t know what happened. Things got off on the wrong foot, when I got involved with Brig. I swear she did it on purpose. She wants to be you, Tallie, even if that meant sleeping with me. I never knew what hit me after that first time, and I couldn’t get away from her. She got me in her web.” He portrayed her as someone evil and himself as her victim, and Tallie still couldn’t see her that way. Hunt was absolving himself from all responsibility and blaming Brigitte. Tallie thought he should have had more balls than that, and never gotten involved with her in the first place. She hadn’t held a gun to his head after all. And she said as much to him.
“No, but she threatened to tell you if I stopped, and I didn’t want her to do that. I thought I’d lose you, and I did anyway.”
“That doesn’t explain why you got involved with someone else after her. Did Angela blackmail you too?”
“No, I was just a fool, and she’s a sweet girl. This isn’t her fault, or Brig’s, I guess. It’s mine. I did the wrong thing all the way.”
“Yes, you did,” Tallie agreed.
“Did you tell your father?”
“Yes.”
“He must hate me.” He was embarrassed to have Sam know how badly he’d behaved.
“He’s pretty pissed.” And he was right.
“Did you tell Max?”
“Not yet. She’s going to be heartbroken. She loves you,” Tallie said, crying. “So did I.”
“I do too. I love you both … I told you that … I love you and Angela … and Max, and your father. This is such a fucking mess.”
“Yes, it is,” Tallie agreed. And he was having a baby, which added insult to injury. Tallie wanted to hate him, but she couldn’t. She was just crushed, and he felt like a total heel. “I’ll pack your stuff up and send it to you next week,” she said sadly. It was the end of an era for both of them. He was embarrassed to tell her to send it all to Angela’s, although he had just agreed to move in with her, because of the baby. And Tallie didn’t want to ask, so she told h
im she’d send it to his office, and he said that was fine. There was nothing left to say except goodbye after that.
Tallie had never stopped crying during the entire conversation, and Hunt felt like a monster by the time he hung up. He didn’t know how he had expected it to end, but he realized now that if you were involved with two people and lied to one of them, this was what happened. He felt terrible about what he’d done to Tallie, and now it looked like he was jumping from one woman to the next, which was in fact what he was doing by moving in with Angela right away. But he also wanted to protect her from her ex-husband now that she was carrying his baby. That was a new concept for him too since he had never had kids nor wanted them before. And now he would have two almost immediately, since she was already four months pregnant. She had waited to tell him until it was too late to have an abortion, because she wanted his baby so much. Hunt was feeling overwhelmed too.
Tallie went on packing his things until two o’clock in the morning. She had cleared two closets and some of his books by then. He had a mountain of stuff. She wasn’t even sure she could pack it all before she left for Palm Springs. And she went back to work on it at nine in the morning on Sunday. She wanted to get it done, so she didn’t just stand there and cry every time she opened a closet and saw his things. It took two boxes just to pack everything in his bathroom. She had never realized he had this much stuff.
She was working on his office when the doorbell rang and it was Senior Special Agent Jim Kingston from the FBI. She found herself looking up at a tall, dark-haired man with blue eyes and a pleasant face, wearing a shirt, tie, blazer, and gray slacks with loafers. He had come dressed for work since it was an official visit. He introduced himself immediately and she invited him in. There were boxes everywhere. She apologized, and he could guess what they were for, but he didn’t comment.
She took him into the kitchen and offered him a cup of coffee or tea. He said he was fine, and didn’t want either. They sat down at the kitchen table, and she handed him the spreadsheet she had retrieved from her father. He glanced at it for a minute and then found himself looking into her big green eyes. She looked sad, and he could see that she was in pain.
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