by S. E. Lund
Once we arrived back at the hotel, we both flopped down on the beds and watched some television for a while to decompress. I lay on the bed and scrolled through the images of me in various dresses, always returning to the one dress -- the vintage lace with the spaghetti straps and lace-embossed tulle overdress. It seemed appropriate for a small wedding and since the weather would be warm in April in LA, it would be possible to wear it without freezing.
"Which dress, Steph? Was there one you liked so much, it would be worth not going out another day in search of just the right dress?"
"The last one," she said. "With the lace. I really liked it."
I remembered my last plan to get married with Jerkface and felt a little sick. We'd gotten far enough to have picked a venue, and even looked at wedding invitations. We were going to do the whole shebang -- big wedding with three hundred guests, married in a church, reception at a hotel in Concord, dance with live band. I'd spent weeks looking at dresses and trying to decide where to go for our honeymoon.
Then I saw Jerkface boinking Bunni on the desk and that was that.
"Am I making a mistake, agreeing to marry Josh so quickly?" I asked in a small voice.
"Yes," Steph said and I rolled over onto my stomach, my mouth open in shock.
"You really think so?" I said, my throat choking with emotion. "But I love him!"
"Yes, I think you should break up with him."
Then she rolled over on her own bed and glanced at me, a smirk on her face.
"Steph!" I said and threw a pillow over at her. "Don't even joke about it."
"Sweetheart, if I could talk you out of it, you would be making a mistake. You know in your heart that it's not a mistake. You're just thinking about Jerkface and the wedding that never was. Don't. That was then. This is now."
I exhaled and lay on my back, staring at the wedding dress. "You're right. I just wanted you to reassure me. I love Josh. He's such a good man. We have so much fun together. We don't want to be apart. Ever."
"You're apart this weekend," Steph said.
"We mean, separated for any serious length of time. We want to live together and make our lives together and one day have a family."
"There," Steph said. "You've said it yourself. You love each other. You want to make your lives together and have a family. That's why you get married."
"It is," I said and put my cell down. "We both know what we want out of life. We just want to go for it together."
I rolled onto my stomach and watched Steph, who was filing her nails while lying on her back.
"Perfect," she said and sat up, dangling her legs over the side of the bed. "It's time to go meet Mr. Glutes and future Mr. Macintyre-Carlson for some food."
"Let's get ready."
The two of us got dressed and finished our makeup, and finally, I texted Josh to see if he was ready.
ELLA: We're hungry. Meet you downstairs like we planned?
There was a pause and I was curious why he didn't get right back to me. Finally, about five minutes later as Steph and I were sitting on the bed, watching local news, I got a text that made me frown.
JOSH: You two better go without me. Something came up that I have to deal with. Don't know how long I'll be, so go ahead and eat without me. I'm sorry about this but I have to deal with it. We'll have dinner tomorrow night okay? I'll text you later.
"Huh, that's weird," I said and texted him back. "Josh can't come right now. He says to go without him."
"Oh, that's too bad."
ELLA: No problem. See you tomorrow. Text me later so we can catch up.
I sent the text and shrugged.
I got off the bed and grabbed my bag then went to the door.
Steph came to my side and slipped her arm around my shoulders. "Well. Looks like it's just you and me, kid."
"That it does," I said and together, we went downstairs to the restaurant. "I hope everything's okay with Josh. He was kind of cryptic."
"That's text for you. Don't worry. I'm sure if it was really serious, he'd tell you. It's probably just something that came up at work he had to deal with at the last minute. These billionaires, you know. Always working."
"He's not a billionaire," I said, although I knew he would be one day unless things really fell apart.
"Okay, multi-millionaire," Steph said with a laugh, squeezing my shoulder. "If that makes you feel better."
"Just trying to be real," I said and pushed the elevator button. We rode down to the lobby and went to the restaurant, which wasn't a real restaurant, but was a bar that served appetizers that were so big and delicious, they could pass for full meals.
I wished Josh could be there with us, but it was fun being with Steph.
Luckily, we were able to get a nice table and were pampered by our waiter, who seemed really pleased to have a couple of young women to serve. Steph and I amused ourselves by examining all the guests and commenting on them all, trying to guess their occupations and life stories.
While I was happy to be there with Steph, I was so looking forward to being there with Josh, too, so they could get to know each other better.
That could wait. We had our whole lifetimes together.
20
Josh
It was about quarter to six when everything went to shit.
I was sitting in my office, my head in a spreadsheet, trying to get a grip on financial projections for the paper, when Keith called. I figured he was just calling to say goodbye, because he was planning on leaving early and had already passed the request for time off by me.
"What's up? You getting ready to leave?"
"Head's up. Two FBI Special Agents just visited my office with a warrant. They've taken my computer and phone."
"What?"
"They had a warrant to search my office and take my computer and cell phone. I think they're with the Financial Crimes Division."
"Did they say what they were looking for?"
Keith exhaled heavily on the other line. "Evidence of MBS using offshore accounts to evade taxes and money laundering."
I rubbed my forehead, a sense of dread filling me. "Tax evasion? Money laundering? What's going on, Keith? You're CFO. What could they mean?"
"It means they think we're criminals."
"We've been audited for the past five years by the IRS. How could we be evading taxes? How did that supposedly take place? What offshore accounts? Whose money?"
"They claim we've been taking money from criminal enterprises, inflating the cost of purchases and making it look like the money was spent on renovations and purchasing equipment. Inflating the cost of services and using that to both launder money and avoid taxes."
"What criminal enterprises? What could we possibly be laundering money for? We're a news organization."
"They claim that someone in the organization is involved in a criminal enterprise and has been laundering money through the corporation."
"Who?'
"They say it's me or one of my staff," Keith said.
"For fuck's sake," I said and opened my door to see two men dressed in what was clearly FBI identified jackets walking rapidly down the hall towards my office. "I see them. They're coming down the hallway."
"Just cooperate. I've done nothing wrong, Josh. This will all be cleared up."
"Okay. Call my lawyer."
"Already did. Sullivan is on his way."
I ended the call and waited for the two FBI Special Agents to arrive, a very upset Jenna trailing behind them.
She tried to push by them. "Mr. Macintyre, I wanted to call you but they--"
"It's okay, Jenna. I'll take care of this. Go back to your desk."
Jenna nodded and dropped back, allowing the two Special Agents to come through.
"Mr. Joshua Macintyre?" one of the two men said. Older with thinning blond hair and piercing blue eyes, he was tall and lean, reminding me of an old cowpoke if you put him in a horseman's duster and cowboy hat instead of the FBI jacket. Beside him stood a trim younger
man with dark hair and eyes.
"That's right. And you are?"
"Special Agent Stuart Thomas and this is my partner, Special Agent Glenn Woods. We're with the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force."
We shook hands and I led them into my office and offered them both a chair.
"I just spoke to my Chief Financial Officer, Keith Shepherd. He says you had a warrant to search his office and to seize his computer and business cell phone. Can you please tell me what this is about?"
The two men sat in the respective chairs and Special Agent Thomas cleared his throat. After adjusting his jacket, he glanced at me, his expression intense.
"We've received information that led to a Federal Judge issuing a search warrant for Mr. Shepherd's computer and cell. According to this information, MBS has been manipulating its accounts to avoid taxes for the past five years and hiding the money in illegal offshore accounts."
"That's impossible. We have been audited for the past five years by the IRS and each year, have been given a clean bill of health."
"Apparently, there was coordination with an officer in the IRS office in Manhattan. Here's the warrant."
Thomas placed a document on the desk in front of me. I glanced at it, noting that the warrant mentioned Keith by name and position and also mentioned several other people, whose names were redacted. It detailed actions Keith had taken to direct those working for him to falsify accounts.
"We wanted to ask you a few questions about Mr. Shepherd and his work for MBS," Thomas said.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to speak to my lawyer before I can answer any questions."
"Fine," Thomas said. "You could come down to the Field Office on Monday and meet with us, with your lawyer present."
The two men stood, and Thomas handed me his business card.
"Call my office to arrange a time to come in."
"I'll do that."
They left and I sat down behind my desk, my gut in a knot. Jenna came running in after they'd left.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Macintyre. I had no idea they were even in the building. They came in while I was in the washroom and--"
"Don't worry, Jenna," I said and waved my hand. "It's not your fault. They had a warrant to search Keith's office. There was nothing we could do. Go back to your desk. I'll take care of this. Send Mr. Sullivan down to my office when he arrives."
"I will," she said and left my office, closing the door behind her.
Just then, my cell chimed, and I checked it, remembering that I had promised to meet her and Steph for dinner and drinks at the Ritz. I begged off and told her something came up. She didn't need to worry about any of this until I knew more myself.
I sat for a moment with my head in my hands but glanced up when there came a knock at my door. Keith came in, shaking his head when his eyes met mine.
"I swear, Josh, I had no idea about any of this," he said and sat on the chair across from me, his face pale. "This is complete and utter bullshit. We haven't been evading taxes or laundering money. It's crazy. It's like we've been set up or something."
"I know," I said. "I'm thinking the same thing. Someone set us up and I think the hack has something to do with it. They hacked our servers and then probably used the hack to try to implicate us. We need access to those servers and all our data on the cloud. That should prove that we were above-board with all our financial deeds."
"Our hack was part of a larger attempt," Keith said. "I spoke with my guys in IT. Several other big news companies were also targeted, although not all of them were successfully breached. Whoever did this used pretty basic techniques to gain access to our email system, but then they were pretty damn expert in what they did after that. Our data was all corrupted. It had to be someone inside who could access our cloud data and then upload corrupted data. That's what the Feds got hold of. It's manufactured, Josh, to make us look like we were evading taxes and laundering money. But it should clear up fast, too, as long as we can prove that our system was hacked as part of a larger attempt to wipe out financial data and upload false data."
"Damn," I said. "What's with these hackers? So, we weren't the main target? It wasn't personal?"
"Who can say? Until we know who the hackers were, or who they were working for, it's impossible to tell. Trying to hack other news organizations might be cover to hit us without it being seen to be personal."
"In the meantime?" I asked, closing the file in front of me. "What do we do?"
"Cooperate with the Feds. We have no other choice, but we've done nothing wrong, Josh. I've done nothing wrong. You know you can trust me. We've been friends since college."
"I know I can trust you," I said, and I meant it. Keith was not only my CFO, he was a friend. "Let's just wait to see what our lawyers say about how to handle this. We'll do what they say. That's why we pay them the big bucks."
"Exactly," Keith said and exhaled, sounding relieved that I was being reasonable. Of course, there was no reason not to suspect he or someone in his department was cheating, but he was a friend and I trusted my instincts.
I hoped I wasn't wrong to do so.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, one of MBS’s corporate lawyers, Trent Sullivan, arrived and came right into my office. His expression was grim, and I knew he was shocked at this turn of events. An older man with wispy grey hair, a silver goatee and thin metal glasses, he wore an impeccable three-piece suit. He'd been a corporate lawyer for years and he had worked for my father for most of the last decade. He knew the ins and outs of corporate law.
I went over to him and we shook hands.
"Thank God you're here," I said and ushered him to his chair. He took a seat and I went back around my desk and sat behind it.
"I heard about the hack through the grapevine but this visit by the FBI is a real shock," he said and removed his glasses, cleaning them with a kerchief retrieved from a pocket in his suit jacket.
"Tell me about it," I said and handed him the copy of the warrant the police and Feds had to search Keith's office and take evidence.
He finished cleaning his glasses and then read it over for a few moments, stroking his goatee while he did. "Yep. This is legit. I hope to hell Keith is telling the truth and he hasn't been screwing the company over all this time."
"I trust him," I said. "He's one of my oldest friends. I don't think he'd do this. He has a great income, stock options, great future ahead of him. Why would he jeopardize it by cooking the books?"
"Greed?" Trent leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Unfortunately, I've seen it all before. People who think they're smarter than the Feds and the IRS. People whose desire for more -- money, sex, fame -- will do anything to increase their own bottom line. Sometimes, they have an addiction and get in over their heads and end up stealing from the corporation to cover debts."
"I never took Keith as someone who was reckless or deceitful. He's ambitious but he seems like he understands and respects the law."
"Let's hope so, for MBS's sake."
We discussed the possible outcomes for a while and finally, Keith showed up, knocking at the door.
"Come in," I called out when he popped his head inside. "Have a seat. Trent and I were just going over the warrant and what happens next."
"Good," Keith said and came over to shake Trent's hand. "Sorry you had to be called in on this."
"That's what you pay me to do," Trent said while Keith took a seat across from me.
Keith spent the next fifteen minutes going over the hack and what the IT and security people found, and then the arrival of the FinCEN people and FBI with their warrant.
"I'm going down on Monday to meet with the FBI to discuss the case," Keith said.
"Me as well."
"I'll come with you," Trent replied. "The three of us will meet before and go together. We can take the car to the FBI's field office for the interview."
"Sounds good." Keith stood up. "Is there anything else?"
"No, you're free to go fo
rth and prepare. Try to get some rest this weekend so you're in top shape mentally on Monday."
"I'm really sorry about all this," Keith said. "But don't worry. There's nothing to find. If they get access to our original server, they can see how it was hacked and it must have been altered. There's no way there's any tax evasion or money laundering going on in my shop. None. If anything unlawful happened, I wasn't aware of it."
"I hope you're right," I said. "We just have to get through the next few weeks while they do the audit and hopefully, everything will clear up."
Keith said goodbye to Trent and on his part, Trent remained behind.
"Can you think of anyone who would try to hurt you by hacking MBS and planting false data?"
I shrugged. "I'm not an expert in this area of corporate espionage. I have no idea."
Trent nodded. "I'll talk to someone I know. Get him on the case. Maybe he can do some sleuthing and find out who might have a grudge."
"Thanks, Trent. I appreciate it. I know my father would be pleased to have you taking care of this, if he were still alive."
"I miss him," Trent said and shook my hand before slipping on his jacket. "He was such a force of nature."
"That he was," I said and thought about my father, who owned every room he walked into. He had very big shoes and I knew I'd never really fill them.
"I'll come by Monday morning. Until then, try not to worry too much."
"I'll try."
He left and I sat alone in my office for a few moments, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and who had it in for me and MBS...
21
Ella
Friday night, after Steph and I went back to the hotel and lazed around, watching a movie on the movie channel and generally indulging ourselves in popcorn and candy, we went to bed with plans to shop until we dropped the next day.
Josh texted me late that night and it wasn't good news.
JOSH: Hey, how are you? Tired out after a day of shopping? Did you find anything you liked?
I smiled and texted back the photo of me in the dress I really liked.