Chapter 399

“Come on into the conference room,” Garrison said once the cops talked with him for another minute and then headed for the elevators.

You’d watched from the door to the office you’d been in, and you shut off the light and followed him in. Sabrina was already sitting with Gemma and Becks, and you went around to your usual seat while Garrison took the chair on the opposite side next to Sabrina. As you came in Gemma gave you a reassuring look, and was running her fingers through her hair, obviously a little stressed. Becks looked like she felt out of place, and considering she didn’t work directly for the firm you could understand why. Other than saying hello in the mornings or directing calls or visitors up to his office you weren’t sure if she really interacted with Garrison at all.

“Well,” Garrison said as he settled himself and then sighed as he shook his head. “Somehow you three continue to be at the centre of absolute fucking chaos.”

“Sir-” Gemma started, but cut off when Garrison held up a hand.

“No, no,” he said. “I know this wasn’t your fault. Joy is ... She’s a problem that I should have recognized years ago. The fact that she felt confident enough to waltz up here and begin rifling through people’s offices is a major issue. Outside of dealing with her, we’re going to need to do a full security audit now for the building. The fact that our security guards weren’t informed that she’d been fired is a mitigating factor that our own HR will need to step up on, too.” He blew out another heavy sigh. “Honestly, for all that it’s going to cause some big discussions and issues for us in the near future, you three also headed off what might have been much larger issues for us.”

“Did you find out what she was actually doing?” you asked.

“No,” Garrison said. “She might not have even known herself, but it’s fairly obvious she knew she shouldn’t have been here, or going into offices to look through files. Maybe she’d been looking to sabotage us, or maybe she was going to try and sell privileged information - it’s really immaterial now because either way the other Partners and I will be pushing the police hard to press the heaviest charges possible. Especially after getting what in my mind amounts to a verbal confession of all the accusations you had built up prior against her, John.”

“The cops mentioned that she had lawyered up,” Sabrina said. “Was it her Mom? What’s going to happen with her?”

Garrison grimaced and shook his head. “The rest of the Partners are on their way in,” he said. “We’re going to be having an emergency meeting. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll have some space opening up for one of the Juniors to move into shortly.”