by S. E. Lund
"I saw you speaking with someone in a black sedan," I replied. "Who was that?"
"It was one of my colleagues, Mitch, who is tailing the man. We're going to find out who this sonofabitch is one way or another."
I nodded, glad that they might be able to find out what he was doing. Then, maybe I could put Mr. Fedora out of my mind.
9
Ella
We closed the deal on the Park Avenue fixer-upper the first week that both Josh and I were back at work.
It was an extremely fast decision, but we both felt the location was perfect and the project would allow us to have our dream apartment. My office and Josh's office would both look out over Central Park, so it was perfect. I couldn't wait to sit down with Michael and his designers and builders to talk about what we wanted done. The prospect of Josh and I going out to choose appliances and furniture and decorations made me extremely happy.
So it was that I had a spring in my step as I walked across the crosswalk to the coffee shop, Blaine, my bodyguard for the day, in tow. My first few weeks back at work were busy as I tried to catch up with the influx of manuscripts that came over the transom during the holidays. One day, towards the end of January, Josh came down to the office and sat in the chair across from my desk.
"What are you doing here? I thought we were going to keep work and pleasure separate," I said, putting on a serious expression, although I was just teasing.
"You're too tempting," Josh said. "Besides, we're going to be married in April. We've been really good, avoiding each other for the past couple of weeks, but now that everyone knows we're engaged, I figured we could come out of the closet." He stood and came around my desk, sitting on the edge beside me. He leaned down and kissed me. "Finally, I don't really care anymore what anyone thinks. We're going to be married and what's mine will be yours, and what's yours will be mine. You'll be a part owner as well as an employee."
"I'll expect a bigger office, if that's the case," I said, folding my arms, my expression serious.
"Shall I fire Sharon and install you in her place?" Josh asked and for a moment, I thought he was being serious, but then I saw the gleam in his eyes.
"Sharon can stay. I want you to get rid of that new manager and install me there instead. His office is much bigger that Sharon's."
We both laughed, because neither of us were serious.
"Seriously," I said. "I'm happy to learn the ropes by working as Sharon's assistant. That's good enough for me for now. I'm not arrogant enough to think I should be put in any position beyond that. For now. Maybe one day, I might like to take over the business and run it, but I'm nowhere near that now. I'm still learning."
Josh nodded. "That's a good attitude to have. Ambitious, but aware of your need to learn and grow. One day, when you feel ready, Dominion Publishing will be yours if you want it. But if you want a bigger office, I could probably justify it because you're going to be my wife. Everyone would understand."
"Never," I said and shook my head. "That would be seen as being selfish and arrogant. I love my office. There's nothing wrong with it and a bigger office wouldn't make me any happier."
"Good," Josh said and leaned down to kiss me again. "Now, I have to go back to work. Do you feel like some Vietnamese spring rolls and pho for supper? I have a coupon," he said and held out a flyer he must have picked up somewhere for 10% off our next order.
"Any excuse for Vietnamese, I always say," I replied. I was already imagining the spicy spring rolls, the noodle soup and the other dishes we always ordered. It had become one of our favorite takeout meals and when we ordered it, I always made sure there was enough left over so I could have it the next day for lunch.
"Good. There's a Knicks game on tonight, and I want to watch. I'll get some beer while I'm out."
"Sounds like the perfect way to pass a cold winter night. You have a meeting at the main office?" I asked, curious why he was going out.
"No, I have a meeting with a lead on a story we're working on for the Chronicle. It's cloak and dagger stuff." He wagged his eyebrows.
"Cloak and dagger?" I said, frowning. "Is it political? Economic? Crime?"
He smiled. "Maybe a little of all three."
"Be careful," I said, and stood, slipping my arms around his neck. "I don't like the thought of you meeting with unsavory types for a story that your reporters should be doing. You're the boss. You should be safely ensconced in your big corner desk overlooking the newsroom. Or is that just the way it is in the movies?"
"It's that way in real life, too, but this is something I want to take care of personally."
"You can't tell me about it?" I asked, pouting.
"No can do," Josh said. "But maybe one day, you'll read about it in the papers."
"You don't trust me to keep silent about whatever it is?" I asked, feeling a bit hurt. "I'd never say anything to anyone about it."
"It's not that," Josh said, his tone serious. "It's that I wouldn't want to put you in any danger. There are some stories that have big powerful players involved who use unsavory tactics to keep the story quiet. I don't want you to ever be in danger because of something I told you."
"Josh, what kind of story is this?" I asked, suddenly alarmed. "Does it involve the mafia or something?"
Josh shrugged. "Something like that, and I'm not going to say anything more, okay?"
"Is that why Mr. Fedora has been following us?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. Until I know who he is and who he works for, I can't say. But I want to be safe, just in case. Can you trust me with this?" he said, meeting my eyes, his expression firm.
I nodded, knowing Josh had to keep some things private until he felt he could talk about it to me. Some stories were still in the early stages and he needed to keep quiet about them.
"Okay, I understand."
We kissed again and Josh turned to leave. "I'll be home at around seven with the beer and Korean food, so have the television warmed up so we can watch the pre-game talk before it starts."
"I'll be waiting."
Josh left and I exhaled, worried about whatever story his paper was chasing down that he thought was dangerous enough that he couldn't tell me about it for my own safety. I hoped it wasn't the mafia, whether the Italian or the Russian version. It could even be the Irish mafia for all I knew. Each group had their own territories and areas of dominance. Building, shipping, drugs, prostitution... They tended to leave civilians alone as long as you weren't involved in any of their business dealings, but a civilian could be targeted as a way to pay back someone who messed with them. That much I did know from reading about them.
For his sake, I hoped whatever it was, Josh wasn't in any danger.
* * *
I met with Sharon later in the afternoon, and together, we went over the latest manuscripts I'd done coverage of for the editorial team. She was happy with my work and so I left the meeting feeling really positive about how things were going on the job side. I was pretty sure that even if Josh wasn't going to be my husband, Sharon would want to keep me on as a paid employee, and that's what mattered to me.
I knew that I could probably slide by on my connection to Josh, but I didn't want to. I wanted to go into publishing before I ever met Josh and so I was prepared to work hard and put in the hours, do the grueling thankless work of being an unpaid assistant for six months to prove myself. When I did get a job, I wanted it to be because of my own hard work and not who my future husband was.
I had pride in my abilities and work ethic. I didn't want people whispering behind my back that I got my job with the publisher because of Josh.
I closed my computer and cleaned off my desk, then took the elevator up to the penthouse, wanting to change into some more comfortable clothes for Josh and my evening watching basketball and eating Korean food. When I got inside the apartment, I went right to the bathroom and had a quick shower, just in case Josh had something else on his mind before we ate, which was often the case. When I was finished, I
dressed in something sexy but comfortable and went to the kitchen to get out plates and serving spoons for our meal. Then, as Josh instructed, I turned on the flatscreen and turned to the sports channel that carried the Knicks games and plopped down on the sofa in wait.
While I waited, I listened to the chatter on the sports channel as the announcers talked about the game and the season, half an ear on them and half of my mind focused on my Twitter feed, reading the latest news. It was now seven o'clock and I expected Josh home any time with our food and beer. When another fifteen minutes passed without any Josh, I checked my texts and email to see if he had sent a message about being late, but there was nothing. At seven thirty, I started to get alarmed. He usually was really good at sending me text messages if he was going to be late for our plans, and so I was surprised that he hadn't already.
Finally, at 7:45, after the game had already been on for a quarter of an hour, I got a text from him.
JOSH: Sorry I'm going to be late, but something came up about that thing I was talking about and I had to stay later than I planned. I'm on my way now and will be there in twenty minutes with food and beer in hand.
I smiled to myself and sighed with relief.
ELLA: Okay, the game is on and I'm waiting for you. Hope everything is okay...
JOSH: Everything's fine. Don't worry -- just a delay in the meeting I was going to have, so it screwed up my schedule. I'll be there soon.
ELLA: K.
I leaned back, glad that he was fine and there was nothing dangerous about him being so late.
* * *
Josh finally arrived close to eight thirty, a bag of Vietnamese food in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the other.
"Here I am," he said and placed the beer and food on the kitchen island. "Let the bells right out and the banners fly. Feast your eyes on me."
I laughed at the reference to an old cartoon we'd both seen on television one Saturday morning when we were scanning the channels for something to watch before a game.
We sat together at the coffee table and opened the food, grabbed a beer each and watched the game, which was already in progress.
"Cheers," Josh said and held up his bottle of beer. "Sorry I'm late but I hope the food and of course, the company, will make up for it."
"It does," I said and clinked the neck of my beer against his. "More than makes up for it."
"Good," he said and took a sip. He placed his beer down and had a serious expression on his face. "I got delayed due to a thing, and then my other thing was pushed back as a result."
"You sound busy with things," I replied, smiling at his choice of words. "Don't worry. I won't ask about the thing and the other thing."
"Thank you," he said and dug into his spicy beef stir fry. "Because I won't tell you."
I shrugged. "Luckily, you talk in your sleep, so I'll probably find out anyway," I said with an exaggerated sigh.
"I don't talk in my sleep," he said with a huff. Then he glanced at me. "Do I?"
I laughed. "No, you don't. Don't worry. I was just teasing you since you're determined to be all secretive and mysterious."
"Ella, it's not that I want to be secretive. I want to share everything with you, but this particular story is sensitive, and I don't want to risk it. You'll find out if it comes to anything. For all I know right now, it could be just gossip and disinformation."
"It's okay," I said and squeezed his arm. "I understand. I really do. You won't hear another word from me about the stories you work on at the Chronicle, okay?"
He looked in my eyes. "Thanks. I'll tell you everything I can."
"I know," I said and turned back to my food, picking up a spicy spring roll with my chopsticks and dipped it into the sauce.
I hoped Josh wasn't just minimizing the risks he and the paper were taking with the story he was working on. There was nothing I could do about it anyway, so I tried to push it out of my mind.
10
Josh
I checked my watch and hoped I wasn't making a big mistake.
I met with Reg at his office after my brief stop in Ella's office, planning to go over what news he'd found about Mr. Fedora. Reg's Private Detective Colin had been following Mr. Fedora to find out who the hell he was and why he was tracking us. He'd submitted his first report.
"What have you got for me?" I asked, sitting on the chair across from Reg's desk in the security office.
He flipped open a file and turned a few pages.
"Turns out that his name is Grant McPherson. He's a former cop and worked the fraud squad for a decade before he semi-retired to a life as a private investigator."
"How did you find that out?"
"Face recognition software, the origins of which I won't tell you for your own security."
"That's cool. Who is he?"
"McPherson works for Brentford, Wallace and Conroy, a law firm that deals with Wall Street types, doing investigations of clients and companies the law firm represents or is involved in suing."
The name seemed familiar, so I must have heard about the firm in the news.
"I have nothing to do with Wall Street, other than investments the company has made over the years."
"My guess is that he's been investigating MBS for some company that wants to sue or invest in the Chronicle. I can't think of any other reason."
Josh nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The invest part I'm not concerned with, but the sue part I am. I'll have to go back through our stories on business fraud over the past few years to see which ones might have led to charges. If he keeps trailing us, I'll have to go speak to Messrs. Brentford, Wallace and Conroy and ask them to explain."
"If your paper or one of MBS's news programs did an expose on one of their clients, it would be enough to make then look for dirt on MBS that they could use as leverage -- to get us to shut up about them."
"We have the First Amendment on our side, if it comes to a defamation lawsuit," Josh said. "But it could get very expensive defending the paper if it comes to that."
I thanked Reg and asked him to keep track of the man while I tried to figure out what story might have led to the law firm researching me and MBS. Not that I was worried about Mr. Fedora any longer. He wasn't personally a threat to either me or Ella, but if he started to harass us, I'd go to the company and demand they explain and call off their dog.
My next task was more research on the story about Ella's father and Henry Garner. MBS had done many investigative reports of a political and economic nature over the years. My father had been particularly interested in financial fraud. He was an idealist, who believed that it was wrong for the rich and powerful to hide their money from the IRS, even if there were legitimate offshore investments that could be made to keep it from taxation.
My father was even more adamant about politicians who used their insider knowledge of economic conditions to profit by buying or selling stocks based on upcoming deals or stock performance or company intelligence. That had been the case with Garner and the whole business from before he was governor. Garner learned about an upcoming financial report of a company under federal investigation for fraud and had sold his stock, taking a big profit the day before the news was made public and the stock price fell precipitously.
That was against the law, and as a result, Garner was charged and convicted. He'd had a couple other previous charges against him for financial fraud that had never resulted in anything but fines, but finally, he must have reached the threshold for fraud with a judge and he got time.
What aroused suspicion on my part had been the fact that Carlson hadn't been charged. I figured he'd either been a witness for the government's financial crimes unit or had got away with his involvement for some reason. I feared it might have been because of a bribe he'd paid. One of the contacts I'd discussed the case with had said he'd always been suspicious about why Carlson hadn't been charged along with Garner.
I'd arranged to meet with Tim Mathis, a veteran in the news world and one of
my father's former reporters who worked on the case years earlier. Tim agreed to meet with me at a bar in the financial district, and I'd taken Reg with me when I went, just to be on the safe side. While I went inside, Reg stayed on the sidewalk outside the bar and watched the area in case we'd been followed. While I wasn't worried about any threat from Mr. Fedora, aka Grant McPherson, any longer, I was interested in whether he kept following me.
* * *
The bar wasn't too packed when Reg and I arrived, with the happy hour crowd limited and so I joined Tim Mathis, a grey-haired man wearing half-eye glasses, sitting at a table by the storefront, reading a copy of the New York Times and drinking a beer.
"Tim Mathis?" I asked and waited for his response.
"That's me," he replied. He glanced up at me and then at Reg, who nodded and went to sit at a nearby table.
I extended my hand to Mathis and we shook, then I sat on the chair across from him while he folded up his paper.
"Sorry to hear about your father," Tim said after I had given my order of a beer to the waitress.
"Thanks," I said. "It was fast. We were all shocked even though we knew he was dying."
"He was a great man," Tim said softly. "Self-made, totally committed to journalism. He will be missed."
"He will be," I replied. "Thanks for your card and flowers."
"Don't mention it. I hear you're the big cheese now at the Chronicle," Tim said, a good-natured ribbing in his tone. "I was just reading your competition."
I nodded. "We're hoping to resurrect it. It has a great history."