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Nope. No pastor or priest.
Unless…
St. Andrew’s. I was stronger now. I grabbed my phone and did a search.
Father James Wilkins. St. Andrew’s. I had a credit card with a small line. I could take a cab…
I could confront my demons.
Once and for all.
I dressed quickly. Now what? Reid had my number. He’d call when they needed me, and I’d come back. After all, I hadn’t told him I wouldn’t leave the building.
It was time.
Time to take back my life in more ways than one.
32
Reid
I sat in my office while Hank Morgan questioned Rock. I was next, but in the meantime, I wanted to check in with my man on the inside.
I looked up when someone knocked on the door.
“Yeah. Come on in.”
A young man entered.
“Speak of the devil,” I said. “I was just going to call you. Have a seat.”
Leif Ramsey, a former Navy SEAL who’d been discharged due to a hip injury in the line of duty, sat down to face me. I’d hired him a few years ago as a kind of in-house spy. He was on the company’s payroll as an administrative assistant, but he was also on my personal payroll.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“I’ve asked around as well as I can without raising suspicion. No one remembers seeing your father access your office that day, but it was weeks ago and no one would really think twice if he went into your office.”
“Right. Why would they?”
“But there’s one thing that doesn’t quite jibe.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“Your assistant. Terrence.”
Terrence? He’d been with me a while and did an incredible job. The guy got things done that no one else would be able to. He got me those great seats at Zee’s show in the middle of the night. He had contacts.
I inhaled deeply. “Spill it.”
Leif cleared his throat. “Terrence claims he doesn’t remember seeing anyone access your office on the day in question, but his calendar tells a different tale.”
“How so?”
“Luckily, I hacked into several personal calendars before I started questioning. I wanted to see if anything stood out before I asked questions. Otherwise, they might do some deleting. Not that I couldn’t recover deletions, but it would take time and energy that we don’t really have right now.”
“Got it. Go on.”
“His calendar indicates, or at least it indicated, that he was out of the office that day.”
“Where?”
“It didn’t say. Just said he took a personal day. So I figured when I questioned him, that’s what he’d tell me. But he didn’t. He said he didn’t remember seeing anyone access your office that day.”
Hmm. Strange. I wrinkled my forehead.
“Does Terrence take a lot of personal days?” Leif asked.
“No more than anyone else.” I opened my phone to my own calendar, pulling up the date of the phone call. “Strange. If he’d taken a personal day, I’d have had to approve it, and it would show on my calendar.”
“Do you always approve his personal days?”
“I can’t think of a time I haven’t,” I said. “Like I said, he doesn’t abuse the privilege.”
“This could mean nothing,” Leif said, “but it stood out to me. Seems like a red flag.”
“Yeah, it does.”
Terrence. Really? I paid him handsomely, but like most others in the world, if he saw dollar signs elsewhere…
“Also,” Leif continued, “remember that your father was still head of the company at that time, so if he asked Terrence to do something—”
“He trumped me.” I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. Something about that stinks. Did you ask Terrence about what his calendar indicated?”
“I didn’t, because he appeared to pull up his calendar when I talked to him. So he would have seen that he wasn’t in, and he would have said so.”
“So one would think.”
“Yeah. Red flag.”
“All right. What’s Terrence’s calendar say now?”
“As I suspected, it no longer shows a personal day that day.”
“Did you screenshot the original, showing the personal day?”
Leif smiled. “Of course I did.”
“All right. It’s possible that he meant to take a personal day and then decided not to but forgot to delete the entry in his calendar.”
“It’s possible,” Leif agreed.
“Still…”
“How long has Terrence been working for you?”
“A few years. I hired him—”
I stopped with an abruptness that surprised me.
I did hire Terrence. He had impeccable qualifications and his references gave him glowing reviews. He fit right in and even started a bromance with my father’s assistant, Jarrod, who now worked for Rock.
But…I hadn’t found him myself.
Oh, God.
I remembered clearly now.
My father had brought his resume to me.
Sure, I’d been looking for a new executive assistant, as my former one had moved to Hawaii after her husband got transferred. Him handing me a resume hadn’t seemed odd.
Until now.
Still, it could all mean nothing.
“Anything else?” I asked Leif.
“That’s all I’ve got for now. It’s small, but it could be significant.”
“Yeah, it could be.” I twisted my lips as my mind raced. “Thanks, Leif. Keep looking.”
