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“I don’t know who you are,” the man said, his tone carrying a whiff of threat. “But I know Alice lives there. Tell her Tyler Black called.”
I simply hung up the phone. I took a swallow of coffee as I turned to face her. “Who the hell is Tyler Black?”
Alice’s face turned ashen. “Oh god,” she muttered.
“Hey, are you okay?” I crossed over to her, stopping by the counter and resting my hand on it beside her.
She took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh before she took a gulp of her coffee. When she lowered her mug, she looked over at me. “He’s the guy who chased me out of my last job.”
“Uh, okay,” I said slowly. “Why the hell is he calling you, and how would he even get this number?”
She shrugged. “Seeing as I didn’t even know the phone was on, I have no idea. I’m assuming it’s still listed under my parents’ name. I’ll have to get it turned off.”
“Why would he be calling?”
“When I was in vet school, I interned at a local clinic and then took a job there. It’s a large clinic. They did pretty well, but they started to have problems with accounting. Because I helped with data entry, I figured out it was the son of one of the owners. Not a vet, but the person who handled the business end of things. He figured out that I figured it out, and I ended up leaving because it wasn’t worth dealing with him.”
“He accused you of something?”
Alice shook her head quickly. “No. He was siphoning money and creating problems with one of the main suppliers. Technically, he didn’t get me fired, but he made it very uncomfortable for me to stay. I ended up having a conversation with the owners about it. When this job came up, I decided to just cut my losses and come here. HR didn’t seem to care when I told them what I found. It wasn’t a secret where I was going, so maybe that’s how he found me.”
“Alice, I think you should just turn everything over and make a police report.” I sensed massive gaps in the information, but my gut told me something bad was happening here.
Alice let out another sigh, worry chasing through her eyes. “But then it’s a whole thing.” She bit her bottom lip, worrying it.
“Is there more to this?” I finally asked.
She took a deep breath, letting it out in a gust. “Unbeknownst to me, he took a photo of me in the locker room at the clinic and threatened me with it.”
Fury rose inside, hot and turning icy cold. “Alice, are you serious?”
Her cheeks went pink. She swallowed as she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Alice, he should be charged for that.”
She lifted a hand, letting it fall. “I don’t want to go through all of it. It’s not worth it. I cut my losses and left. I made sure that HR knew about the photo, and they told me they would address it, but they didn’t seem that concerned. I don’t know what they did, if anything, in response.”
All I wanted was to comfort her. I set my mug down and turned to face her, wrapping my arms around her. She tucked her head into my chest, and I could feel her taking slow deep breaths. I moved my hand up and down her back in a soothing pass.
After a moment, she lifted her head, peering up at me. “He’s just an asshole.”
“I learned something when I worked as a teacher.”
“What?”
“HR departments are fine, and they have a place. But they’re mostly there to protect the place they work for. When someone commits a crime, you can report it to HR, but you should also report it to the police. When I was a teacher, things happened all the time. Say a kid would literally assault someone or be sexually inappropriate. The school handled it internally. Even when they were acting with good intentions, they were always trying to take care of both sides and treat them as equals in the situation, and doing their best to make sure no one filed a complaint against the school. When it comes to minor stuff, whatever. But when it comes to crimes, like someone taking a picture of you changing somewhere in a public place and using it to threaten you, you should report it to HR and the police. When you have information that someone is basically embezzling money, you should report it to HR and the police. For all you know, they ran it up the chain, but the chain is covering it up. I don’t know why this guy’s calling you, but take it out of his hands.”
Alice studied me, uncertainty flickering in her gaze. “I hear you, but with his father being one of the owners, I don’t think they wanted to make waves.”
“Probably not. But the police don’t care about that. I’ll help you,” I added.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Alice
I’ll help you.
Jonah’s words replayed in my thoughts. Just thinking about everything that went down with Tyler made my skin crawl, and I felt a little sick. The whole thing had been exhausting. Even more so, I’d felt so disappointed at how nothing happened when I told HR. I’d felt powerless to handle the situation.
