Читать книгу Meet Me in Paris - Simona Taylor - Страница 9

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 edition. She wondered if he could recognize Prada when he saw it.

From the contempt on his face, she was quite sure he could. “Why not?” he persisted. “An orange jumpsuit not your style? You got a problem with the county not providing emerald-studded handcuffs for its inmates?”

“That’s unfair!”

“Unfair? Is fraud fair? And what about stealing money, falsifying invoices and milking your own employer, not once, not twice, but five times? How fair’s that?”

“You don’t understand!”

“What don’t I understand?” He was asking a question, but he looked as though no answer she could give him would satisfy. “Did you or didn’t you steal the money?”

“I’m not a thief!”

“Did you steal the money?” he roared.

“Yes!” she shouted back with equal amounts of chagrin and affront. Nobody raised their voice at her!

He gave her a cynical, satisfied smile. “Well, then, that makes you a thief.”

Even in the face of her own guilt, she was mulish. “You can’t talk to me that way.”

“I can, and I am. And I have to say I’m disappointed. Your employee record is impeccable. Mrs. Mertz says you’re a hard and productive worker….”

Kendra lifted her brows in surprise. Mrs. Mertz had said that?

“And it seems you’ve been promoted to special accounts executive faster than any employee in the history of the company. Even Shel Salomon seemed to like you. And you do something like this to him. He’s going to be disappointed.”

Kendra’s heart sank. “You’re going to tell him?”

“Why shouldn’t I? In the few months we held negotiations, I’ve never known him to be anything other than a fair, decent human being.”

“He’s a wonderful person,” she confirmed. “I’ve got nothing but respect—”

“You’ve got a fine way of showing it. He deserved more than to be gouged by a greedy, unscrupulous—” He halted his tirade with a sharp inhalation. Then he gathered up the documents—the evidence against her—and began replacing them in the folder. “So, what’s it to be? Cops?”

“No!”

Hammond’s eyes bored into her terrified ones. He seemed to be thinking. Kendra sensed she was balanced, barefoot, on the edge of a sharp sword. Which way would he make her fall?

“Very well,” he said finally. He picked up the phone and dialed. “Mrs. Mertz, Miss Forrest is leaving us. Could you kindly supervise her as she cleans out her desk?”

“You’re firing me?” she gasped.

He looked surprised that she had expected anything less. “Verbally, for the time being. You’ll have formal, written notification from human resources delivered to your home by courier this afternoon. But right now I want you off the premises.”

“But you can’t. I need this job. I need the money!”

His gaze swept her clothes and jewelry again. “Obviously, you’re a woman of expensive tastes. Nonetheless, I’m sure you’ll agree I can’t afford to keep an untrustworthy employee on staff.”

She was outraged by the slur. “I am not—”

He cut her off with an upraised hand, as though he’d had his fill of the unpleasantness and wanted to bring an end to it. “If I were you, I’d consider myself lucky the company isn’t pursuing prosecution.” He gave her a hard, dismissive look. “If I were you, I’d leave quietly.”

“But….” She flailed, unable to comprehend what was happening. Shock made her giddy.

“Good day, Miss Forrest.” He sat heavily in his big chair, and folded his hands on his desk. His expression invited neither opposition nor further conversation.

Struggling to maintain her balance, Kendra turned and walked away. Mrs. Mertz was waiting outside the door. Kendra expected gloating, but saw instead a mixture of surprise, curiosity and the tiniest sprinkling of compassion. She accompanied her downstairs in silence.

From the moment she set foot on the floor, it was evident the glass office above had worked to her disadvantage. Although they could hear nothing that had taken place, everyone knew something was afoot. As she approached her desk in the wake of an electric silence, she could sense every pair of eyes upon her, even though all and sundry were steadfastly pretending to mind their own business.

From the rubble in the corner of her cubicle, she fished out a cardboard box and slowly began to fill it with personal items. Spare makeup kit, toothbrush and toothpaste, thesaurus and atlas, candy jar and bud vase.

She hesitated over the mess of knickknacks given to her by grateful clients. Tiny rum bottles from Barbados. A stuffed camel. A Brazilian rain stick. They were hers, weren’t they? But if she took them, wouldn’t they all be an indictment of her and the trust her clients had placed in her? Could she ever bear to see them again?

She packed in as many as could fit, and left the rest on her desk. It was enough to take a walk of shame in front of one’s colleagues; it was too much to do it a second time just to pick up another box of stuff.

She said nothing as Mrs. Mertz, not being as mean as usual, silently took inventory of all she was taking, as per company procedure. Kendra signed her name at the bottom of the single sheet of yellow legal paper.

“Kendra,” Mrs. Mertz began.

“What?” Kendra asked wearily. It was only a little past ten, and already she felt like she’d put in a brutal day’s work.

“I know we haven’t always…I know sometimes I can be a little…well….” She coughed self-consciously. “I don’t know what made you do…this….”

Kendra looked away.

“But, well, it was a…a pleasure working with you.”

If there was anything more that could have surprised Kendra today, that would be it. She’d always thought her supervisor had hated her guts. She’d thought she was a horrible, mean person. Maybe she’d been wrong about that, too.

“Thank you.” There wasn’t anything else she could say.

“Take care of yourself,” Mrs. Mertz added. She sounded sincere.

Kendra nodded, balancing the box as best she could, and focusing dead ahead to blot out the gaping faces surrounding her, she walked out of the main doors and headed for the stairs.