Bathroom!
“Need some water? You aren’t…” she looked around to see if anyone was listening, and then hissed in a voice that would unavoidably be heard by anyone who was, “You aren’t pregnant, are you?”
Kendra managed to shake her head. Her phone started ringing.
“Want me to answer that? Want a paper bag for your head?”
Only if it comes with a cyanide pill, Kendra thought.
The phone stopped ringing. Kendra evaded Iris and hurried up the corridor. The ladies’ room, and refuge, were in sight. Mrs. Mertz loomed, cutting off any hope of escape. “Miss Forrest! Didn’t you hear your phone?”
“No, I…” Kendra answered weakly. “I…uh…was on my way to the ladies’ room. I didn’t—”
“I was calling you.”
“I’m…sorry?”
“Mr. Hammond wants to see you in his office.” This seemed to make her extremely happy.
Kendra hesitated, looking past the woman’s angular shoulder to the swinging door with its familiar icon, a white-painted female in a triangular skirt. Had she been three seconds faster, she would have been on the other side of that door.
Mrs. Mertz followed Kendra’s longing gaze to the bathroom door. “You’re just going to have to hold it.”
Just going to have to hold it? On any other day, she would have laughed off the directive, suggested to Mrs. Mertz that a cup of tea might improve her mood, and continued on her intended trajectory.
But not today.
Wordlessly, she turned, the terror that had replaced her initial dread eliminating any need to hit the bathroom anyway. She walked back into the main working area. Past her own desk. Mercifully, Iris had left. As she mounted the curved staircase leading to the CEO’s office, she wondered briefly what Marie Antoinette must have felt like as she climbed the scaffold. At least the peasants weren’t hurling insults and rotten cabbages in her general direction. Yet.
The big glass door was etched with the words, T REY H AMMOND , C HIEF E XECUTIVE O FFICER . Beyond it, she could see Hammond and Petreena. The latter was still agitatedly clutching her notepad, reading aloud from it. The former had stopped pacing, and was standing stock still. He was looking right at her.
In one imperious gesture, he motioned for her to enter. The soft pile of the carpet was familiar, as were the warm earth tones of the decor—harvest gold and pumpkin, olive green and cranberry. That was one thing Hammond hadn’t gotten around to changing in the rampage of evaluation and modification he’d gone on.
The warmth of the office was in stark contrast to the demeanor of its occupant. Trey Hammond couldn’t have been thirty-five, but his conservative suit made him seem older. His face was as somber as a graveyard. “Miss Forrest?” he confirmed.
“Yes.” By rights, she should have extended her hand to shake his, but something told her he wouldn’t be keen on taking it. She kept it at her side.
“Have a seat,” he said. It was not a request.
In spite of her churning stomach, Kendra raised her head and held his stare. “I prefer to stand.”
He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “Suit yourself.” The desk between them was littered with files, documents, and boxes of papers. Right before him, however, in a clear space among the rubble, was a manila folder.
He opened it and removed a single sheet of paper, glanced at it, and lifted his eyes to hers. The much-discussed gray eyes were now a flat, cold, gunmetal gray that sent chills down Kendra’s back. Hammond held the document out to her.
When she didn’t take it, he set it down, turning it around so she could read it. It was printed on the letterhead of a large and respected auditing firm, and appeared to be the cover sheet of the report that still lay in the folder. The word “fraud” leaped out at her.
When Hammond spoke again, she couldn’t bear to look up. His voice was clipped, cold and disdainful. “Miss Forrest,” he began, “can you give me one good reason I shouldn’t call the police?”
Chapter 2
Busted
D eny, deny, deny. The liar’s mantra. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of your guilt, deny. But she was a lousy liar. Hell, she wasn’t even a good thief. The piece of paper between them was a stark, accusing white. She looked away. As she did so, she caught sight of Petreena, standing anxiously nearby, head dipped, avoiding the unpleasant scene.
Kendra tried to catch her eye, pleading silently for the smallest gesture of support, but Petreena determinedly avoided her. If there was to be any tarring and feathering, she was loath to come anywhere near the brush.
Hammond caught the wordless exchange, and was merciful, at least toward Petreena. “Miss Rai, would you leave us?”
Petreena was off like a bullet, scurrying as fast as her pencil skirt—an excellent Givenchy knockoff that would have fooled anyone who didn’t have Kendra’s discerning eye—would let her.
Then Kendra and Hammond were alone. More damning papers appeared from some infernal place. Kendra recognized most of them.
“As you’ve probably heard, I’ve been meeting with managers, examining the books, and conducting a series of audits.” He waved his hand. “Standard procedure after any takeover. Helps me understand where the company is and decide how I’m going to take it where I want. One of the auditors noticed something.”
He stabbed at a piece of paper with a long finger. “Over the past few months, five payment vouchers were made up to cash, signed off and settled. All were charged to accounts you’re responsible for, but my auditors inform me there’s no way of determining whether the services being invoiced were rendered. Have they?”
Kendra said nothing.
“You should know, Miss Forrest. The signature on the vouchers is yours, I presume?” He waved one of the documents before her face. She flinched, but didn’t need to look at it. Instead, she nodded.
“Have these services been rendered?” He didn’t raise his voice, but the dangerous chill conveyed his anger. “Because if you’re unable to verify otherwise, I’ll have to assume the beneficiary of these payments—fourteen thousand, six hundred and eleven dollars in payments—is you.”
Kendra expelled the breath she’d been holding. It hurt.
“So, let me ask you once again, is there any reason, any reason you can give me, why I shouldn’t call the police?”
“Don’t,” she managed. “Please.”
“Why not?”
She hated the way he was looking at her, taking in her short, glass-smooth pixie cut, carefully made-up face and hand-tailored business suit. The run in her pantyhose felt incongruous in comparison. His eyes moved to the emerald studs in her ears, and then to the matching tennis bracelet, pendant and ring. Her wristwatch wasn’t one of a kind, but it was limited
