Soliman, Wendy - The Name of the Game (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (28 page)

“What!” His incredulous look made Ashley smile. “You’d take me back after what Claire and I have both done?” He shook his head. “Is this a windup?”

“Just make sure your expenses are one hundred percent legit.”

“Don’t worry about that.” He still looked bemused. “You can count on me. I won’t let you down again.”

“I know you won’t,” Charlie said, clapping him on the back and leading him to the door. “Gloria,” he said. “We’re re-employing Paul. Can you take him up to Human Resources and get the paperwork sorted out?”

“Sure,” she said, smiling. “Come on, Paul, and you can tell me all about your gorgeous new son on the way up.”

Charlie closed the door again and all but fell into his seat.

“Well,” he said into the heavy silence. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Nor me,” Matt said, looking as though he badly needed a drink.

“It explains a hell of a lot,” Ashley said. “For a start, her close friendship with Philip Roker. The two of them must be in it together.”

Matt nodded. “It looks that way.”

“It also explains why she wanted to cling to you, Matt, and tried to frighten me off.” Ashley paused, nibbling at her lower lip as she reasoned things through. “I reckon that Philip Roker recognized what was going on with us, Matt. Perhaps at that dinner, or maybe even before then. Eve must have known you were seeing someone else but didn’t particularly care because she obviously was, too. She and Roker put their plan into action when the amalgamation talks started in earnest, which is when she needed to be sure that you weren’t on the point of leaving her for someone else.”

“I hate to say it, babe, but when you’re right, you’re right.”

“Roker probably had you followed to my place. You spent enough nights there to bear out their suspicions, which is probably why I felt Roker always looked at me as though he knew stuff about me that he shouldn’t.” Ashley shook her head. “No wonder he made me so uncomfortable.”

“My car being in your garage would fool a casual observer,” Matt agreed. “Which is all we thought we were up against. We couldn’t risk someone from the office seeing it parked outside on the street and recognising it.”

“If she no longer cares about you, why would Eve be bothered if you were having an affair, Matt?” Charlie asked, shaking his head. “She’d still have her shares in Interactive and could just openly ally herself with Roker.”

“I suppose,” Ashley responded, “because she’s picking up the information about pending claims from Matt’s laptop when he’s at home.”

“Yes, that’s what I just figured out, too,” Matt said. “I’m always on the system when at home, chasing up something or other.”

“Would she know her way round it, though?” Ashley asked.

“Oh yes. Eve’s very bright,
and
she knows a hell of a lot more about computers than I do.” Matt thumped his thigh. “I’m paranoid about Internet security, but it never occurred to me that I needed to protect myself against my own wife.”

“For their plan to work, Eve needed to be the inside person at Interactive, getting the information about claims, and presumably, it’s Roker who has something on that doctor and got him to do their bidding.” Ashley shook her head. “But I can’t see him breaking into the policyholders’ houses to destroy their paperwork.”

“So there must be someone else in on it,” Charlie said.

“Right,” agreed Matt. “But I’d give a lot to know why Eve got involved.”

“Who do you think fathered her baby?” Charlie put into words the question that had been plaguing Ashley.

“Presumably the third member of their little tribe,” Matt said.

“It must have come as a hell of a shock,” Ashley mused. “I can’t imagine she intended it to happen. Not if she wanted to keep you close, Matt. She must have realized you’d know the baby isn’t yours. She might not know about the vasectomy, but she sure as hell knows you haven’t slept together for months.”

“Perhaps that’s what that charade was about at my place,” Charlie suggested.

“You did say that she pretended you’d had sex that night, Matt,” Ashley reminded him.

“Yes, but I knew we hadn’t. I wasn’t capable.”

“Why the hell is she doing this to us?” Charlie asked plaintively. “What does she expect to get out of it?”

“Hell if I know,” Matt said. “Presumably Eve and the mystery third person would benefit financially and perhaps get board positions with Stevenson’s when they become the senior partner in the amalgamation, which they almost certainly will if it becomes public knowledge that we tamped with genuine claims.”

“Eve is a board member here.”

“Yes, but she has no power.”

“She’s never shown the slightest inclination to become involved,” Charlie pointed out.

“I’ve no idea what’s motivated her,” Matt said, sighing. “But at least one thing has happened in our favour.”

“What’s that?” Charlie and Ashley asked in unison.

“Well, I think they were hoping to do it one more time. They’ve done three trial runs, got a journalist sniffing round, sown the seeds of doubt about our integrity. Then, just as the amalgamation talks reach their pinnacle, the journalist would print what he’d been fed and another dodgy claim would show up.”

“How could they engineer another claim involving a patient of Dr. Andrews?” Ashley asked. “It’s too much to just hope another of his patients, with a policy with us, would conveniently die to order.”

“They wouldn’t need to. They could just alter the records on a suitable claim, get rid of the paperwork from the policyholder’s house, which they appear adept at managing, and raise the alarm.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Ashley finished, grimly. “Our integrity would be shot to pieces, even if we could subsequently prove our innocence.”

“But Claire going into labour early has put the kibosh on their plans,” Matt said. “I doubt whether they have any other tame systems analysts waiting in the wings. Only people on Ashley’s grade or higher have access to the system on their home computers.”

“They can still make a hell of a fuss about the three cases they’ve already rigged,” Ashley pointed out.

“Unless we stop them.”

“How do you plan to do that, Matt?” Charlie asked.

“By fighting fire with fire. They’re not the only ones with connections in the local media.” He paused, absently brushing a strand of hair that had escaped Ashley’s chignon away from her shoulder. “Philip has his man at
The Echo
,
but I know a guy on a national Sunday tabloid who owes me a favour.”

“Would he care about our problems?” Ashley asked.

“If I sell it to him right. It would make a great feature. How one business played fast and loose with the bereaved, just to get a jump in amalgamation negotiations.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Charlie said. “But you’d have to trust the guy with the truth. It’s a hell of a risk, and if you openly accuse Stevenson’s, then you can kiss good-bye to the amalgamation altogether.”

“I’ll have to take that chance. It’s the only option we have, given the time scales involved. This guy of mine does those double-page exposés that get readers up in arms.” Matt threw his head back and closed his eyes. Ashley could see tiredness and strain etched on his face and ached to hold him. She folded her hands in her lap before they developed a mind of their own and reached for him. “And to do that, he has to be a bit of a sleuth, or at least have access to people who can dig the dirt.”

“Dr. Andrews,” Ashley said, realizing where Matt was going with this. “You want to find out quickly what Roker could possibly have on him that made him agree to destroy patients’ records.”

“Precisely!”

“And persuade him to tell all in order to save his career.”

“Whatever happens, his career is history,” Matt said fiercely. “I can’t abide a doctor who puts his own interests about those of his patients.”

“You can’t tell him that, though, or he’ll never cooperate,” Charlie pointed out.

“I don’t plan to tell him anything. I’ll wait to see what my guy finds out, and then we’ll decide how to play it.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Charlie leaned back in his chair and grinned at Matt and Ashley. “If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, I might almost enjoy trying to outwit them,” he said, his eyes lingering on Matt. “It’s good to be back on the same team, cousin,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Matt agreed, and Ashley could tell that he meant it. However this thing worked itself out, at least Matt and Charlie had made their peace. Matt’s mother would be glad about that.

“I still can’t believe it of Eve,” Charlie mused. “I thought I knew her backward.” He shrugged. “It just goes to show.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Okay then. Let’s get this show on the road.” Matt stood up. “I guess I need to call my journo friend, first off.”

He flipped through his mobile phone directory and hit on a contact. It obviously went straight through to the guy’s cell because he answered almost immediately. Matt introduced himself but didn’t waste time with small talk.

“I might have something interesting for you, Nate. Can you meet me in Southampton tonight?” he asked. “This isn’t something for the phone. You can? Great. Just one thing before you come down, though. Get your research bod to look into a Dr. Andrews and his wife Dr. Simpson.” Matt consulted the pad Ashley held up and reeled off the addresses of their practises. They’re a married couple, but there’s something off about one of them. Probably him.”

Matt listened for a bit, nodded, and then named a top end hotel on Southampton waterfront. “I’ll be registered there. Shall we say seven o’clock? Ask for me at reception and come right on up. I’ll tell them to expect you. Oh, and, Nate, keep this under your hat. Strictly between you and me for now. Right, good. I’ll see you tonight then.”

“What do you want us to do?” Ashley asked.

“I want you to gather up all the evidence we have. If we’re to have any chance of pulling this off, I need to be completely straight with this guy and place my trust in him.”

“Okay,” Ashley said. “I can do that.”

“Then I want you there with me tonight.” He winked at her. “All night. Tomorrow’s meeting has been postponed, and I’m supposed to be going back in Reigate. Eve won’t question my disappearance, but I don’t want her hanging round you instead. Besides, we’ve earned a bit of luxury.”

“Just make sure no one tails you there,” Charlie said.

“Good point. We’ll go separately by cab. Do you want in on it, too, Charlie?”

“Thanks for the offer, but three’s a crowd,” he said, grinning at Ashley. “Besides, I’d be better employed keeping Roker occupied. I’ll ring him and suggest we meet for a working dinner. Try and iron out some of the snags that led to the postponement of tomorrow’s meeting.”

“That would be a great help, if you don’t mind doing it.”

“I might even call Eve and suggest she comes along, too. That way I’ll have them both in the same place, under my beady eye. Not much I can do about the mystery third party, though.”

“You’re doing more than enough as it is,” Matt assured him.

“Right, just don’t forget to call me and let me know how it went with the journo.” He flashed another grin at Ashley. “Before other occupations make you forget about poor old me.”

“Business before pleasure,” Matt said, sighing.

“For what it’s worth, I might think you’re overcautious, anal retentive, and all that other shit I’ve thrown at you over the years, but I can’t fault your taste in women.”