“Take a seat,” I say, following her in and shutting the door. Adrian will come in when he’s ready, but he’ll text first.
Jaclyn looks around my office, then drops into a chair in front of my desk. Instead of relaxing, she sits on the edge of the seat and clasps her hands in her lap, looking as if she’ll run at the first opportunity. My poor girl. I know she’s worried about what’s going to happen. I’ll try to assuage her nerves, but ultimately, it won’t be possible—not with my plan.
“Relax, you’re not in trouble, Jaclyn. This isn’t the principal’s office.” I’m trying to ease the tension, but her shoulders are practically at her ears. God knows what she’s imagining is going to happen right now.
“Can you just tell me whatever it is and let me go home?” Her voice is firm, but she can’t mask the subtle tremble of her body.
As I sit behind my large desk, I fight the urge to take the seat next to hers. I will, but not yet. First, I have to figure out what she knows, hopefully without throwing her into a full-blown panic attack.
“Of course. I want to circle back to what we spoke about yesterday. The email you sent. What prompted you to write to me? Why not just go to Snyder? Why write to me at all?”
She sucks in a huge breath and seems to deflate in her chair. Every instinct I have is telling me to pull her into my arms and hold her while we talk, but we’re not there yet. Jaclyn is stronger than she believes. I just need to prove it to her.
Her gaze meets mine, but she doesn’t look away. When I think she’s going to refuse to answer, she nods, then begins speaking.
“Honestly, I’m not sure why I emailed you. A gut feeling, I guess. I don’t know how else to explain it. After reading through JNG contracts for three months, it was the first one with that addendum. Something about it felt wrong—it didn’t match with the company’s mission statement or anything I’d read about what your family stands for.” Her shoulders relax, and she leans back in her chair as I let her continue without interrupting.
“As for why I didn’t contact Snyder. Ugh. I don’t like talking badly about others, but he’s not the most approachable boss, not that I’ve had many. My coworkers haven’t made it easy for me, either. They barely acknowledge me—I’m an outsider—I didn’t graduate from an Ivy League school, I don’t have fancy connections, just a plain old law school grad, working her first job.
“The contracts hit my desk last, usually for me to proofread. Most of the time, I seriously doubt any of the other attorneys look at the contracts, dumping them on me or their paralegals instead. I wasn’t sure you’d even get the email or pay attention to it.” Her voice trails off, and she murmurs, “I wish I’d never sent it,” though I doubt I’m supposed to hear it.
“Jaclyn, you did everything right. You found a discrepancy and contacted the person you thought could handle it best. It’s all I ask of any of my employees. To be honest, we’ve known something was going on, but hadn’t found any traces of it. There have been too many attempted hacks into our company servers containing our top-secret information lately; your email was our first big break.”
Her head pops up, and her eyes grow wide. “Really? What else is going on?”
“We’ll get to that. But first I need to know, have you seen any other issues with the contracts, or is this the first one?”
“It’s actually the second one. The other one didn’t have this addendum, but the last paragraph had minor changes from the usual template. It was signed and initialed by you, like all the others. I went to a coworker, and he told me not to worry about it, that it happens all the time. But I swear, in three months, it’s only been those two.” She stops talking and looks thoughtful.
“What did you remember?” I ask. I can almost see the wheels turning in her brain. Her eyes take on a faraway look, and she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth.
“Both of them were handled by the same attorney in our office. And he assigned them to me specifically, is that weird?”
Weird? It’s much worse than that. I’m praying she doesn’t say it’s Snyder. I release the breath I’ve been holding when she says David Mercier’s name.
“Has he sent you any other contracts to review for him?” I ask. We only hired Mercier because his grandparents were friends with our parents. Sure, he went to Harvard, but barely skated through. He was one of the newer attorneys I interviewed. I didn’t like him then, but I hired him anyway. If there is a rat in the house, I can’t blame anyone but myself.
“Only one other during the first week I was there, but they all give me stuff. Usually, I’m the last stage of review since I’m still in my probationary period. But he brings them directly to me and tells me he needs them back the same day. I don’t like to do that. I know they’re mostly based on templates, but I like to review the verbiage carefully. I even found a few paragraphs that needed reworking due to the new laws enacted in the last six months. I told David, and he said he’d take care of it.”
I’m sure he did, the fucktard. “Why were you so afraid to tell me this yesterday, little bit?” I ask gently, as I lean forward and rest my elbows on the desk. Then I steeple my fingers beneath my chin.
“You’re going to think this is stupid.”
Smiling, I shake my head. “Try me.”
“I’ve never flown before. My roommate gave me Valium to keep me from panicking. It knocked me out. Then there was the drive, you and your brothers, and I was totally overwhelmed. I felt like you were interrogating me, and I couldn’t imagine what I’d done that was so bad. I mean, it was just an email.” Her voice drops off, and she turns her head to look out the window.
“Baby, you did everything right. Your email sent off red flags, and I’m sorry you were frightened. But I’m not sorry you’re here,” I say, sitting next to her and lifting her onto my lap.
Jaclyn stiffens in my arms, but I don’t release her. I won’t. Pulling her closer, I settle back with my chin on her head and hold her until her breathing calms and she relaxes against me.
My phone vibrates, where I left it on my desk when I came in. Leaning forward, I grab it and see Adrian’s name.
Adrian: I’ve got everything together. Just need whatever else you found out.
Me: Good. C’mon in. I think we found our rat.
Adrian: Fuck yeah.
