Rough Harbor (11 page)

“Miss Montgomery, so nice to finally speak to you again.” Peter Flynn’s voice poured from the phone and over her. Whatever glow Caitlyn had on arriving at the office evaporated, and she cursed herself for answering the phone. Of course Heather was nowhere to be seen, probably sucking up to Sam Harris, the jerk.

Caitlyn considered hanging up the phone right then and there.

“I hear you’re getting closer to the boss.”

She waited, suspended, barely breathing. “Are you spying on me?”

There was a chuckle. “I don’t have to, now do I?”

Caitlyn cursed herself silently. She’d just fallen into the oldest trap in the book.

“So, Miss Montgomery, are you ready to deal?”

“Deal what?”

“I think you know. In fact, I think you know more than you’ve been letting on this whole time.”

Caitlyn hunched over in her chair, leaning down close over her desk, concentrating fully, trying to imagine the man on the other end of the line.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hedged.

“It’s funny what waiters and busboys, even valets, remember. Anonymous to most of us, but so many of them have very sharp hearing and very acute memories, especially when offered an incentive.”

He was talking about the night at the club, the last night Maxwell had been alive. She had been ready, ready to demand more from him.

Maxwell had been through one cocktail and a full bottle of wine by then. By the second bottle of wine, he had said it was a mistake to hire her, that maybe she was really tainted – and then he had threatened her.

“We had a disagreement,” Caitlyn said. “That’s common knowledge.” The police had asked her about it. Just about everyone at the club had heard them – or Maxwell, at least. After Caitlyn had been rebuffed, she had been mostly silent and fuming, taking Maxwell’s abuse, not because she thought she deserved it, but because she saw that, despite the kindness towards her, he was old, sad, and a broken man.

And she owed him. A little bit. So, she had endured his barbs and his rants, and yes, even his threats until the club manager had stepped in and quietly convinced him to go home.

“Yes, a disagreement. The cause, well, no one is quite sure what it was, but they certainly heard Maxwell take you to task. Tsk, tsk.”

Peter Flynn’s voice hissed on the last words, and Caitlyn felt a shiver run down her back. This guy was a first-class creep.

“Don’t you want what I’m selling Caitlyn? I told you what you know isn’t the whole story. Don’t you want the truth? It’s a doozy of a story. I call it the Curse of the Sound.”

“How come you know so much about it?” Caitlyn asked, stalling for time. Her eyes closed, and she rubbed one hand against her forehead. Migraines, sweat, nausea, that’s what she got when she thought about that time. Ten years ago, and it still had the power to stir up those feelings. Rage, powerlessness, hopelessness. Her grandfather was gone, and Maxwell had taken it all.

“Let’s just say I have been following the Montgomery-Randall Group for a number of years, off and on. I will give old Maxwell credit. He was a tough son of a bitch to pin anything on.” “What are you talking about?” Caitlyn’s voice was stronger, and she had straightened up. She could see Noah through the front wall of her office, all glass, see him moving down the aisle of desks, greeting people by name.

“The truth. What I will tell will blow your mind. I can prove to you that what happened to your grandfather was not your fault. In fact, you’d be surprised about who you’ll be able to blame.”

Caitlyn kept her eyes on Noah, watching him, tall, trim, so self-assured, greeting, smiling, taking the time to get to know everyone. Did she want to reopen old wounds? Wasn’t she ready for healing? Wasn’t that what last night had been about?

“Come on, Caitlyn, when was the last time you dreamed about him? About how they found him?” God, Flynn knew her too well. The image of her grandfather, lying in his car, haunted her, invaded her dreams still.

Caitlyn was about to agree when there was a sound on the other end, a loud honk, something whizzing by, then an angry shout.

“Gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” Flynn clicked off, and Caitlyn was left looking at the phone.

She glanced up. Noah was almost at her office door. Quickly, she disconnected the call on her end just as he leaned in her door.

“Hello, Mr. Randall,” she said, trying to smile. “You seem awfully happy today.”

He grinned at her. “I had a very interesting meeting last night, Miss Montgomery.”

Well aware that the door was open and that their conversation could be overheard by the entire office, she asked, “Business or pleasure?”

“Why, a little bit of both,” he took two long strides across the carpet until he was standing in front of her desk, hands resting on the back of one of the chairs.

He was wearing a blue checked collared shirt, open, no tie, and a dark blazer, with dark blue jeans, a belt and brown shoes. He looked casual, yet commanding, and Caitlyn felt her heart race and her stomach flip as she remembered just how those long, elegant fingers had made her feel the night before.

Noah caught the drift of her gaze, and he flexed his hands while the smile disappeared from his face to be replaced with a harder, more considering look.

“If only you didn’t have a wall full of windows, Miss Montgomery, I think I might just be able to show you a little more of that pleasure.”

“Oh.” Caitlyn felt her stomach turn to jelly and realized she had forgotten to breathe.

“But,” he said, standing back up, his voice still low enough that it couldn’t be heard out in the hallway, “I was thinking maybe we could just have dinner?”

She swallowed, tried to speak, and nodded. “My place or yours?”

“How about yours?”

“Eight o’clock then?” Caitlyn said, well aware that Heather was back at her desk, her chair tilted back, straining to hear every word.

“Delighted. Glad we’ll get to talk business, Miss Montgomery,” he said, winking at her and turning to go.

“My pleasure, Mr. Randall.”

He stopped, looked at her and dropped his voice, “I sure hope it is. See you later.”

And with that, he turned and walked out the door.

Heather was up out of her chair and in her office in an instant. “Can I get you anything, a cup of coffee?”

Caitlyn busied herself with her computer screen, pretending to type, trying to keep her head down, trying to let her heart rate return to normal. She knew Heather was being nosy. Though Caitlyn had never expected Heather to fetch her coffee, Heather had never offered to either.

“No, I’m fine.” Caitlyn thought for a moment. “But you know I do need some files, maybe you could help with those?”

Heather nodded, and Caitlyn gave her instructions.

It was after lunch that she finally got around to finding Tommy Anderson. He looked up from his computer, surprise on his face.

“May I come in?” She hadn’t really spoken to him since the day of the funeral. His office was at the other end of the floor, and they rarely met each other, even in passing. She supposed it also had to do with the fact that they were technically rivals. Maxwell had made no bones about that.

“Sure, come in.” She took her seat, looking around the office and at Tommy. He dressed expensively, in French cuff shirts and well-tailored suits. His straight brown hair was slicked back so that it looked permanently wet, and he sometimes wore tortoise shell glasses. Even in his pictures, which showed him with his wife and his son, he looked over-dressed, as if it were difficult for him to be comfortable, casual.

But she needed to talk to him. He happened to have what she wanted. Caitlyn knew she needed to wow Tony Biddle, give him access to something he hadn’t seen before – something like the Platinum Fund. And now, with Maxwell gone, Tommy controlled it completely.

“You look pleased with yourself,” he said.

Caitlyn just smiled. Tommy had asked her out for a ‘casual’ drink after work when she first started working here. She’d been almost certain he’d made a pass at her, a subtle one, since he was married, but a pass nonetheless. Since then, she’d done her best to avoid him.

“We seem to be doing well. Sam Harris said profits were up, client retention had been fine since Maxwell passed away. I guess stories of our demise were greatly exaggerated.”

“Good, no hard feelings against the new owner, I hope?” Tommy smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing, I suppose,” Tommy leaned back in his chair, his hands twirling a pen. “I just heard you two had a history. A fiery one.”

Caitlyn felt her own face grow tight and considered leaving Tommy’s office right then and there. But she smiled, thinking of the bigger picture. She needed information, and right now, Tommy had the keys to the kingdom.

“Well, that’s good,” Tommy said when Caitlyn didn’t answer.

Caitlyn pressed on. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I had a few questions about some of the deals we had in the works.”

She’d been thinking about Tony Biddle, almost constantly. What would make a man like that interested in paying them to help with his money? It couldn’t be opportunities he got just anywhere. He would want access to a special deal, the status of the insider, or at the very least, he would want to know that firm could get him there.

“Okay,” he paused for a beat, “may I ask why?”

It was his right, since he was the one responsible for monitoring their performance.

“I’m working with a client, a potential client, and I think the fact that we have access to some of these special, private deals would be a big selling point.”

Tommy looked at her. “We usually don’t get new clients involved in these limited partnerships. We have to know that they can handle the risk before they’re allowed in.”

“I think this one is different. He has a higher risk tolerance.”

“Well, they are very risky. Right now there’s a bankruptcy bailout in Tennessee that looks like we may take a bath on.”

He let that sink in. “However, a number of our standard funds are doing quite well. I know that you are looking for something, that thing that will get him, but I would suggest that you stick with what you know. These limited partnerships are tricky, difficult to value. You need to know your way around accounting, business, finance. Lots of people come to us with bum deals, touting the very next thing. You have to be able to pick the potential winners from the real dogs. And even the potential winners, most of them are dogs anyway.”

Tommy smiled blandly as if he hadn’t just blown her off, told her to mind her own business.

“So, you’re telling me that you don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be recommending these to my clients.” She managed to match his blandness, but she was seething on the inside.

“Well, that determination is usually up to Sam. I assess the deal, but who we bring into them, that has to go past him.”

“Then do you have anything I could look through, just to get a better sense of what we have, what type of deals we are involved in?” she said in her sweetest voice.

Tommy looked at her and blinked, head tilted slightly to one side.

“Well, sure, I guess.” He turned around, his arm reaching towards a row of heavy-duty three-ring binders.

He paused. “Do you need it now? It would be so much easier if I could have someone make a copy of it and then give it to you later.”

Caitlyn wanted to see the binder now, but she realized that, technically, Tommy did not have to show her anything. If she made too big a fuss over this, then Sam might even take away her responsibility for working on Tony’s portfolio plan in the first place.

Sam Harris was supposed to look at client plans before they went out. Caitlyn was trying to circumvent the process, deliberately, an effort to show Sam that she was more than just the party girl, more than the one they sent out to Garden Club meetings and fundraisers to collect business cards.

She swallowed her defeat. “That would be fine. I would appreciate that. Thanks, Tommy.”

He smiled at her as she left, and she couldn’t help thinking for an instant that this might have gone just a little bit better if she had taken him up on the offer he’d made over drinks.

Caitlyn went back to her office. She stared at the phone, but perversely it didn’t ring. The talk with Tommy had been a little off, though he was probably just being a jerk, protecting his territory. It was a delicate situation, she understood. He didn’t want to share his hard work, run the risk of someone else taking credit, but still, it wasn’t his firm, any more than it was hers. It was, after all, their clients, the people they were supposed to be helping.

It wasn’t long before she pulled her computer to her and did a search on “Peter Flynn.” She was surprised when the name came up immediately, a few pages of results, and she wondered why she hadn’t heard of him before.

Peter Flynn had started out writing about financial matters for a small newspaper in Massachusetts and then steadily worked his way up to a column with
The Wall Street Journal
, diving into any scandal it seemed he could get his hands on. No, there were no dry and dull spreadsheets for Mr. Flynn. He preferred to talk about how people lost it all, how many mistresses they’d had, and whether or not they had hidden all their money on a tropical island.

He’d branched into writing books, one a bestseller, as far as Caitlyn could tell, about a gold fraud case. The second book, about corn futures, hadn’t been such a big hit, and Flynn had become embroiled in a few libel suits. Caitlyn saw that his name had slipped from
The Wall Street Journal
, but now he wrote a blog.

There were even some stories covering her grandfather’s death and Maxwell’s takeover. Those appeared in his column, all archived online. But more recently, on his blog, Flynn was spinning conspiracy theories about just about everything. He even had one post, titled “Curse of the Sound,” where he mentioned Maxwell’s death and dredged up all the old facts.

Of course, there were pictures, too, ones that she couldn’t believe he’d found, of her, with Michael, a society photographer’s picture, where he pretty much called her a gold digger. Then there was a picture of Noah, obviously a publicity shot, naming him the prodigal son.

Caitlyn sat back in her chair, looking at the screen, wondering why she had never heard of him before. True, she hadn’t started reading finance papers until well after Flynn had been pushed aside, but it seemed that when he was writing online, he had no problem writing things that bordered on libelous.

She flipped through the pictures on the blog and through its archive, reading everything she could. Flynn apparently had some sort of obsession with Maxwell and the Randall Group’s every move – whether it was a new hire, a charity event, or a new investment detailed.

There was a phone number on the blog, and she wrote it down, not sure what she was going to do with it, if anything.