Chapter 105

Phil settled into the aisle seat beside his mother after stowing both of their carry-on bags above his head.

He wished Hailey was with him but there was too much work to be done at the office. The trip out west would take six days. It would be a week before he saw her again. The first order of business would be sorting out the executives at Travel Corp.

The change in procedure had alerted Julie Marshall that something wasn’t kosher and she had submitted her resignation early Friday morning. The private investigators had revealed Ms. Marshall had a long-term gambling addiction and had been stealing from Travel Corp. for years – or long before Barton Holdings purchased the company out of receivership.

She had started out small – like most embezzlers, the investigators said – and had gradually grown bolder. When Marshall was stealing a few hundred dollars a month, no one noticed. In the previous fiscal year, the 14^th year of her employment and the 13^th year of her embezzlement, Julie Marshall had pilfered almost $45,000 from the company’s discretionary accounts.

The second thief was, as Rob Costello had suggested, a low-level employee in the Internet Technology division. He didn’t have a vice he was supporting. Instead he stole simply because he believed he was worth more than he was compensated for his work. While Julie Marshall had lifted a huge sum over her employment, Adrian Karl had taken slightly less than $1,000 from the cookie jar.

It didn’t matter. In the State of California any amount larger than $500 would result in grand theft charges for the perpetrator. Both would be charged as soon as the investigation was complete and turned over to the Los Angeles County prosecutors.

Hailey and Morrie Greenbaum, the former Secret Service accountant, had been tasked with tracking every withdrawal from a discretionary account for the previous five years – the statute of limitation on grand theft in most states. That’s why she was still in Calder City while her boyfriend and her boss headed out west.

Once Beth and Phil dealt with Travel Corp., they had other meetings with Barton assets on the West Coast – including Lambswool Productions. The opening scenes of “Kismet,” Courtney Hollings’ first movie since her release from jail, would be shot during the week and the producer had invited Beth and her son to accompany him to the set for the event.

For Hailey, her job led to conflicting emotions.

She was excited to be given the responsibility of tracking down those who would take advantage of Beth Warner’s generosity. On the other hand, she was dismayed to spend so much time away from Phil. Even during his spring baseball schedule they would be in proximity to each other for at least a few hours of every day. She had driven Phil and Beth to the airport on Saturday morning before parking in the garage beneath the apartment complex and crossing the street to Barton headquarters. She knew no one expected her to work on Saturdays or Sundays but she wanted to tie everything up in a neat bow for Beth.

Deirdre Coleman-Jennings smiled to herself when she looked out her sixth-floor office window and turned to her niece.

“I told you,” she said smugly. “I knew she would have to come in on Saturday in order to finish whatever mundane tasks she’s been assigned. She’s too stupid to get her work done in just 40 hours. Come on.”

Deirdre and Alexa left the office and hurried to the elevator and hit the up button. Hailey was alone on the elevator when it stopped on the way to her office on the top floor. She stifled a groan when she recognized who awaited the car.

“Good morning,” Deirdre said brightly. “Alexa, you remember Hailey, don’t you? I introduced you to her last weekend.”

“Of course,” Alexa said, feigning happiness as she extended her hand in greeting. “It’s good to see you again, Hailey.”

“You, too,” Hailey said in a bland voice.

“What brings you in on a Saturday morning?” Deirdre asked.

“I just have a few things to catch up on,” Hailey replied.

“Of course,” Deirdre remarked with a laugh. “Never enough time in the day, is there? The symphony performance last weekend was amazing. Didn’t you say that one of your friends is a member?”

“Molly is in the cello section,” Hailey answered as the door opened on the top floor. She was surprised when Deirdre and her niece got off with her.

“I was just showing Alexa around,” Deirdre answered the unasked question. “She’s always asking me about where I work so I thought I’d give her a tour while it wasn’t so hectic. Can we take a look at your office?”

Hailey pondered if there were any confidential papers on her desk. Once she realized there weren’t, she nodded her agreement. She unlocked her office and stepped aside while the corporate attorney and the business student entered.

“Wow!” Deirdre said, looking around at the spacious office. “I had no idea this was so large. Who uses it while you’re at school?”

“No one,” Hailey answered. “It used to be Beth’s – Mrs. Barton-Warner’s – office when her father ran the company. Right now Phil and I share it.”

“I heard he and Elizabeth were out of town for the next few days,” Deirdre said. “Where are they off to?”

“Here and there,” Hailey replied noncommittally. “I think their itinerary is fluid at this point.”

“So you’re in charge?” Alexa asked.

“Of course not!” Hailey answered with a frown. “I’m a junior in college. Beth is available at almost every hour. I’m sure nothing will crop up that she can’t handle over Skype.”

“So, what are you working on?” Deirdre asked, sitting down in the spare chair in the room. Hailey’s frown deepened.

“I’m not at liberty to say right now,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll be apprised when Mrs. Barton-Warner feels the time is right.”

“Of course,” Deirdre answered. She saw her niece rolling her eyes behind Hailey’s back. Both suspected that the answer meant Hailey was working on the menu for the company picnic or something of equal importance.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have a lot to do and I don’t want to be stuck here all evening,” Hailey told them.

“Do you have plans tonight?” Alexa asked, not moving from the window where she was staring out at the large apartment building across the street.

“Not if I don’t finish my work,” Hailey said acidly.

“Oh, sure,” Alexa said. “I’m sorry. It’s just ... it’s just that I don’t really know many people my own age. I was really happy when I saw you in the elevator. I saw you with a big group of people at the concert and I thought maybe we could all get together. I mean, you know, your boyfriend is out of town. I thought maybe we could go out and do something this weekend.”

Hailey let out a long breath. It was obvious that neither of the interlopers would leave until she acquiesced.

“I’m not sure how late I’ll be,” she said in lieu of an answer. “How about if I call you if my friends have something planned? I can’t promise anything but it’s possible that we might go out to dinner or something later.”

“Cool,” Alexa said, almost choking on the colloquial slang that she’d forced herself to use. She wrote her number on a notepad on Hailey’s desk – and tried unsuccessfully to steal a glimpse at anything Hailey might be working on. “I’ll be around all evening. Maybe we can hit a club or something later. I hear there are a lot of hot spots in the city.”

“No thanks,” Hailey answered immediately. “We don’t do things like that. We might go out to dinner but none of us are old enough to drink.”

“Oh, please,” Alexa said dismissively. “Live a little!”

“I’ve lived a lot already,” Hailey answered. “We’re not interested in bars or clubs.”

“OK, fine,” Alexa answered. “Dinner and a movie sounds more fun than playing Words With Friends for another night.”

Hailey stood, walked to her office door and pushed it open.

“Really, I have a great deal to do,” she said. “If we’re going to be able to have dinner, I’ll need to get started. I hope you enjoy your tour.”

“Thanks, Hailey,” Alexa said brightly. “I’ll look forward to your call.”

Alexa waited to board the elevator before she spoke.

“This is ridiculous,” she spat when the door closed.

Her aunt turned to her with a look that urged her to go on. Alexa did just that.

“This whole scenario is ridiculous!” Alexa raged. “Why in the world do you think I would be interested in stepping in for that stupid girl? Why do you think the Barton scion would be led around by his dick?”

Deirdre snagged her niece by the arm and dragged her out of the elevator and into the lawyer’s office. Alexa was startled but came along meekly.

“I think that because I’ve seen it work!” Deirdre said in a low voice. “I wasn’t much older than you when I saw it work the first time. Let me ask you a question. Who do you think holds the power in your family?”

“My father,” Alexa answered instantly. Her father was a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and came from an influential family.

“You’d be wrong,” Deirdre said flatly. “Your father, my brother, was too stupid to get out of his own way. He spent the majority of his teenage years stepping on his own dick. He was a loudmouth drunk who spent his trust fund money on fast cars and loose women. Your mother is a cagey woman who was at least smart enough to keep her transgressions out of the news. You should be thankful that Google didn’t exist in the late 1980s. You would never have been able to go to that trendy prep school in D.C., that’s for damned sure. In fact, you probably would have been forced to survive on your father’s Kentucky Fried Chicken wages – because that was the sort of job he was looking at until your mother came along.”

“My mother?” Alexa wondered aloud. “They hate each other!”

“Oh, of course they do,” Deirdre answered with a shrug. “They always have. It was a match made in heaven and hell at the same time. My parents needed someone to settle Cooper down. Your mother’s parents needed some additional money in the family coffers. They convinced your mother of the benefits of pulling the reins on your father. She shepherded him through the last year of law school and into the political spectrum. She walked him through the intricacies of the state house and into Congress.”

“Why didn’t she just take the job herself?” Alexa wondered. She had never spent time around her parents. She had been packed off to a prep school in Washington, D.C., when her father was elected to Congress and stayed there after he decided one term was enough. She hadn’t lived full-time with her parents since she was 12 years old. Much of the family dichotomy had escaped her.

Deirdre let out a long sigh. She had lost her temper and revealed things to her niece that she didn’t need to know.

“Your mother is unelectable,” Deirdre said sadly. “You see, she had an abortion when she was in her teens. It’s also pretty well known that she has kept up a dalliance with a college boyfriend for the last 20 years. That’s why your father stepped aside after one term. The woman running against him in the primary threatened to reveal that information to the press.”

“That shouldn’t have mattered to Dad!” Alexa hissed. Her father’s decision to step aside had cost her a great deal of prestige while she was in high school.

“No man is willing to be perceived as a cuckold,” Deirdre answered with another shrug. “It would be emasculating and he would have been ridiculed in the House. At least that was the worry of the party. The fact that your mother isn’t ... well, she isn’t a likeable woman ... that didn’t help things any. She is combative. She is opinionated. When your father was in politics, her peccadilloes aside, she was the backbone that he needed. She stayed in the background, smiled sweetly and worked behind the scenes to dig up dirt on his opponents and contributors alike. That kept the opponents from mounting a decent challenge and his contributors putting dollars in his campaign funds. If this dirt came out, people would have come out of the woodwork to pile it on.”

“I don’t understand why they stay married,” Alexa said dejectedly.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Deirdre inquired. “They both have a comfortable existence. Your mother is free to do what she wants and so is your father. They live their lives separately and discreetly. Just like you and Philip Warner will learn to do – or at least you will learn to do after you push him aside and take over the helm. Oh, he can be the figurehead but it will fall to you – and to me – to make all the decisions. That’s the way it worked for your mother and father and that’s the way it will work for you, too. You just have to be more careful than your mother was. That’s all.”

Alexa, still stunned by all the news she’d heard, simply nodded.

“Now, I think I have a plan for how to get rid of Hailey,” Deirdre continued. “I think it will be pretty easy to convince her and her friends to go out for a night. I know some people who can get you some things that will make her pretty malleable, if you follow what I’m saying.”

“I don’t,” Alexa admitted.

“You get her and her clique stoned and they wind up in bed with a frat boy or something,” Deirdre said, irked that her niece needed to have every little detail explained. “We get some pictures that wind up in one of the tabloids and, well, just like your father, the Bartons will have to cut ties with her.”

“You just heard her tell me that they weren’t into the club scene,” Alexa said.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to use your charm, won’t you?” Deirdre asserted.

Hailey sat back at her desk and looked at the door that had just closed behind Deirdre Coleman-Jennings and Alexa Coleman. Her mouth was pursed in a frown. She was not so far removed from her freshman year of college that she didn’t recognize Alexa Coleman for what she was. To Hailey, it wasn’t a sin for someone to think she was smarter than everyone else. It became a mortal offense for someone to take a run at Phil or his parents. She couldn’t count the number of times Phil or his parents had stepped in front of Hailey and her friends to protect them from someone else or from themselves.