Читать книгу Protecting the Heiress - Martha Kennerson - Страница 12

Chapter 5

As expected, Bill Morgan’s and Tiffany Tanner’s eyes grew wide as the sisters entered the room. Francine smiled and extended her hand to their guests, who had risen from their seats. “Mr. Morgan. Tiffany. Nice to see you again. This is my sister and business partner, Farrah Blake. Farrah’s our chief legal officer, and she ensures that your, as well as our, legal rights and responsibilities are well protected. And from time to time, as in this instance, we work together and act as case leads.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Farrah said as Mr. Morgan took the hand she offered and gave it a small shake.

“That’s great news,” Mr. Morgan said on a sigh.

“Oh, my,” Tiffany said, flashing looks between the two women. “You’re twins... Identical.”

“Not quite identical, and we’re actually two-thirds of a set of triplets. When we were born, our eyes were all the same shade of green. As we grew, the color changed. Now we all have different eye colors. Mine are blue,” Farrah explained, fluttering her lashes. “Francine’s stayed green, and our baby sister Felicia has hazel eyes.”

“Wow. Does your other sister work here, too?” Tiffany asked as she took a seat at the end of the table closest to both the window and the door.

“No, she works in another industry. She’s a doctor, actually,” Francine said proudly. “I really don’t think our clients could take all of us working here.”

“Or our staff, for that matter,” Farrah added.

“It must be nice to have two other people in the world that you can depend on no matter what,” Tiffany said, sliding down farther into the chair, her wistful tone speaking more to the loneliness she felt at being an only child than any actual jealousy she had toward the sisters’ relationship. The twenty-one-year-old beauty pulled out her cell phone and began tapping her index finger on the screen as though she was suddenly disinterested in what was happening around her.

Francine and Farrah gave each other a knowing glance.

“Please sit,” Francine said to Mr. Morgan, who focused his blue-eyed gaze on his client. “This shouldn’t take very long. I just have a few follow-up questions for you.”

“No problem...whatever you need,” Mr. Morgan replied, taking a seat next to Tiffany. “We’re just happy you’ll be handling this case yourself.”

Bill Morgan had been a family friend and attorney to the Tanner family for years. He’d played a significant role in helping the Tanners nurture Tiffany’s career. In fact, he’d become Tiffany’s legal guardian and business manager after her parents were killed in a tragic boating accident when she was twelve. By all accounts, at the time, the recently divorced thirty-two-year-old had been an excellent father figure for the shell-shocked child and a stern guiding hand during those highly publicized and turbulent adolescent years. When Tiffany turned twenty-one, she took control of her career and gained access to a multimillion-dollar fortune that her parents had left her. By the looks of things, Tiffany and Mr. Morgan were still adjusting to their new relationship.

“I see Kelly has taken care of you already,” Francine said, gesturing to the water and coffee that had been provided. “Would you like anything else? A refill?”

“No, thanks. We’re fine,” Mr. Morgan replied after checking with Tiffany, who signaled her disinterest with a wave of her hand.

Francine cracked open her tablet. “All right then, let’s get started. We checked out—”

“I have to know,” Farrah said with a quick glance that silenced Francine. “Why us? What made you decide to pick Blake & Montgomery to replace your old security firm?”

Mr. Morgan’s jaw was clenched but relaxed before he answered. “According to our reports, you’re the best firm in the country. Especially when it comes to dealing with personal security,” he explained.

“As you know, Tiffany is the biggest celebrity client we’ve ever agreed to manage. While we’ve assisted other agencies with their celebrity client base, Tiffany will be the first we’ve agreed to handle exclusively.”

“You’ve made that perfectly clear, and as I said before, your company’s reputation in international security rivals no other. We’re honored to be your first official celebrity client,” he said with a slight nod and a curve of his lip.

“Then why didn’t you come to us in the first place? It’s not like you knew for sure we didn’t cater to celebrities at that time. There’s always an exception to every rule,” Farrah asked.

“Farrah!” Francine warned.

“It’s okay,” Tiffany defended, waving off Francine’s concern with a flip of her diamond-studded hand and a wide smile. “The other company came highly recommended from a reputable source,” she explained with a look at both Francine and Farrah.

“So why the change?” Farrah pressed.

“We thought it would be nice if there were more female agents around,” Mr. Morgan said before Tiffany could answer.

“Female agents...what are we missing?” Farrah continued to question.

Mr. Morgan looked at Tiffany, who was putting her phone into her Prada bag. Before he could say anything, Tiffany sat up in her chair, pushed a wayward strand of blond hair behind her ear and said, “I have a stalker.”

“Okay. Any firm can deal with that,” Farrah said with a small frown and a slight tilt of her head.

“He was a part of my security detail,” she added.

“We think he might have been a part of the security team,” Mr. Morgan corrected. He was clearly not convinced, and he gave Tiffany’s hand a small, condescending pat. “We don’t know for sure.”

“Why do you think that? I mean you’ve had the same team for two years, and they’re all good men,” she said, shaking her head. “We’ve checked them out.”

Tiffany stood, walked to the window and stared out at downtown Houston. The room was quiet for several moments before she spoke.

“I found notes and gifts in my bedroom...in my underwear drawer. Every time I get a new phone number, my stalker seems to get it,” Tiffany explained without facing the group. “The last straw was when I started receiving pictures of naked body parts in my personal email.” She looked over her shoulder at Francine. “The only people who had access to my home and private numbers, other than my family and a few close friends, were the members of my security team.”

“We’ll need a list of those names—both family and friends,” Francine said.

Tiffany turned and faced the group. “Why?” she asked, frowning.

“Because they’ll need to be checked out,” Farrah said. “All of them.”

“Did you report this to the police?” Francine asked as she reached for her cell phone. While she waited for a response, she texted Meeks: Conference room. Now. And bring Robert.

“No,” Mr. Morgan said, again looking at Tiffany as if taking direction from her as to how much he should share.

“Why the hell not?” Farrah asked through narrowed eyes.

“Farrah...” Francine said with a warning glance in her sister’s direction.

Tiffany returned to her chair and took a long sip of her water.

Before she could reply, Meeks and Robert walked through the door. “Bill Morgan, Tiffany Tanner, this is our chief operations officer, Meeks Montgomery, and head of our corporate security division and resident computer expert, Robert Gold. He helped develop the systems we’ll be installing in your home,” Francine introduced.

After handshakes all around, Meeks and Robert took seats at the conference table.

“I asked them to join us because in a case like this,” Francine said, looking around the table, “it’s best to not only get the police involved, but to make sure all parties involved in your security are fully aware of the situation.”

“What situation would that be exactly?” Meeks asked Francine with narrowed eyes.

Francine brought Meeks and Robert up to speed on the situation as they knew it, and as expected, Meeks took over the questioning.

“Stalkers aren’t to be played with,” he explained with a pointed look at Tiffany. “What makes you think it’s someone from your former security team?”

Tiffany took another sip of water and said, “I had an affair with a couple of guys on my security team.”

“A couple?” Robert asked, his eyes wide.

Both sisters glared at Robert. He shrugged and mouthed, “What?”

Mr. Morgan reached for Tiffany’s hand and gave it a supportive squeeze before saying, “Tiffany, you don’t have to—”

“Yes, she does,” Meeks said. “We need to know everything if you want us to be able to protect her.”

“It’s okay, Bill,” Tiffany said before removing her hand from his grip and taking another sip of her water. “I’m twenty-one years old, and I’ve been working in this industry for ten years. For the past four years I’ve had some exceptionally good luck, which required me to be even more selective with the people I associate with.”

“Exceptionally good luck?” Robert said sarcastically as he too flipped through his electronic tablet. “You’ve had three back-to-back blockbuster movies and gained access to a fifty-million-dollar trust fund. Yeah, I’d say that’s some exceptionally good luck.”

Tiffany smiled. “I’ve never wanted to be one of those childhood stars that ended up broke and in the gutter somewhere, and my family and Bill made sure that would never happen.”

Tiffany gave Bill a smile that clearly expressed gratitude, but his responding smile seemed to offer more than paternal love.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to make friends? I mean, real friends?” she asked, her voice rising an octave. “Let alone trying to find a nice guy? Trust me, it’s not easy. So I find myself gravitating toward my security team.”

Tiffany got up and walked around the table and stared out the clear glass wall of windows that looked out over the city. She wrapped her arms around her body and slowly moved her hands up and down her arms. The room was at a comfortable temperature so Farrah recognized the gesture as a defense mechanism and asked, “Tiffany, would you like to take a break?”

Tiffany turned away from the windows and faced her. She wiped away a lone tear that had escaped her left eye and said, “No...I’m fine. What more do you need to know?”

“Is this really necessary?” Bill demanded as he made his way around the table to stand next to Tiffany, where he placed his arm around her.

“I’m afraid so,” Francine said before she continued to question Tiffany about her relationships with members of her former security team, her friends and her normal routine—all under Meeks’s heated scrutiny, which appeared to have made the air slowly evaporate from the room.

Another hour and several cups of coffee later, Tiffany had finally decided she’d had enough. “I’m exhausted, and I have an event tonight,” she said, gathering her things. “So if you need any more information, feel free to join me at the house.”

“I’ll accompany Ms. Tanner home and get the team in place,” Robert said as he too gathered his things to leave. “While I’m there, I’ll figure out what updates her current security system may need.”

Meeks nodded. “And we’ll have any necessary adjustments made first thing in the morning.”

“That’s great. Robert and Farrah and I will accompany you to your event this evening until we can assign someone to watch over you on a more permanent basis,” Francine explained to Tiffany.

Tiffany breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Thank you.”

Francine could feel Meeks’s eyes on her, but she ignored him and continued to go through her security checklist.

Meeks pulled out his cell phone and started dialing. “I’ll contact a friend of mine at the police department—”

“Is that necessary?” Mr. Morgan questioned Meeks. “The way I understand it, you have better resources than most police departments across the country. Besides, we really don’t want the press to get wind of any of this. Why can’t you just handle this on your own?”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Meeks added. “I’ll see if he’s willing to make a house call and take the police report there. That way, there’s less of a chance of this news getting out. There are protocols with everything we do, and while we will do everything in our power to find the person that’s behind all this, our priority has to be to keep Tiffany...” he slid a glance at Francine, “and our team safe,” Meeks told Mr. Morgan, leaving no question as to his priorities.

“Having the police work with us on finding Tiffany’s stalker will hopefully make apprehending him that much easier,” Francine offered. “And the sooner we can put that person behind bars, the sooner we can get Tiffany settled into that routine we discussed earlier,” she reminded Mr. Morgan, who acknowledged her statement with a simple nod.

“Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” Tiffany said, making her way to the door. “The less publicity this thing generates, the better.”

“Farrah and Robert will see you out,” Francine said.

Farrah gave her sister a small nod and said, “After you,” to their guest.

Francine waited for the room to clear before she turned to pick up her tablet and found Meeks glaring at her. “What? Go ahead, say it. I’d hate for you to spontaneously combust from holding back,” she declared as she retreated to her office, knowing that he would follow.