The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (56 page)

The emergency board meeting ended almost as quickly as it began.

Diana Crane snapped her black crocodile briefcase shut, rose from her seat and went with the other directors to where George stood at the head of the mahogany table.
 
“I just received a call from Ted Frostman,” he said only moments ago.
 
“And we have a commitment from Chase to go forward.
 
Now, more than ever, the deals with WestTex and Iran must go through.
 
For Celina.”

As Diana watched Harold Baines and the other directors pay their regrets to George, she was struck once more by the reality that Celina Redman had been murdered only that morning.

George extended a hand when she approached.
 
His face seemed cast in stone, his eyes empty and void of feeling.
 
Awkwardly, Diana moved his hand aside and gave him a tentative hug.
 
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
 
“I’ll miss her.”

George didn’t hug her back.

Diana pulled away from him and saw that his eyes had narrowed slightly.
 
He seemed to be looking straight through her.
 

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“From what I hear, your hands are pretty full these days, Diana.
 
Just take Celina’s place and fly to Iran with Jack and Harold.
 
Get the papers signed.
 
Make the trip a success.
 
That’s all I ask.”

And then you can go home to Eric.

Although George didn’t say those words, Diana knew he was thinking them.
 
She had shown no loyalty to Redman International by dating Eric Parker so soon after he was fired.
 
She had shown no loyalty to the Redman family by dating Eric so soon after Celina ended her relationship with him.
 
She deserved his cool reception now and she accepted it.

As she left the boardroom and walked down the hallway to her office, she felt oddly removed from the unusual quiet, from the senior secretaries sitting at their desks, from the tears being shed.
 
She had dealt with death when her own father died and she would deal with this now.
 
Since work always had been her escape, Diana would throw herself into this deal.
 
She would make certain the contracts were unbreakable, that each deal went smoothly.

Her secretary was waiting for her in her office. The woman was standing in the center of the room, her face slightly flushed.
 
She too had been crying.
 
Diana squeezed her arm as she passed. “I’ll tell you what,” she said.
 
“Pour each of us half a cup of coffee.
 
I’ve got a bottle of brandy in that desk for the other half.
 
We can use it.”

The woman managed a smile and left the room.

As Diana watched her leave, she wondered if something was wrong with herself.
 
Why couldn’t she feel the pain and loss these other people felt?
 
Before Eric, she had been friends with Celina for years—close friends.
 
Was she really so cold that she couldn’t show—let alone feel—any other emotion besides relief?
 
Was Eric Parker so important to her that she felt no loss for a woman she once held in such high esteem?

Best not to deal with this now.
 
Dealing meant coming to terms with who she was as a person and Diana wasn’t ready for that.
 
She expected she wouldn’t like the outcome.

She went to her desk.
 
If she was going to take Celina’s place on this trip, there were files she had to familiarize herself with before leaving.

She turned on her computer, pulled a slip of paper from the back of a drawer and entered her password.
 
She hit return and the computer did something it never had done.
 
A message appeared in the center of the screen:

**ACCESS DENIED**

TERMINAL B IN OPERATION

Diana stared at the screen, confused.
 
Terminal B was her computer at home—and this computer was saying that it was in use.
  
But that’s impossible
, she thought.
 
I shut it down this morning.

She entered her password again, thinking she’d made a mistake the first time.
 
She knew that only one of her computers could be used at a time.
 
It was an added security feature that let the user know if somebody else was on their system.

The screen flashed and again she was denied access.
 

For a moment, she remained puzzled.
 
And then realization struck.
 

She once gave Eric her password.
 
His computer wasn’t working and he needed to use her computer to finish a report.

A chill went through her.
 

Right now, a former Redman International executive was using her computer.

*
  
*
  
*

Eric stared at the computer.
 
“Come on,” he said aloud.
 
“Come on….”

A message appeared on the screen:
 
ACCESS DENIED.

He looked at the message with resentment, knowing he would never get the information Louis Ryan needed and that the check wouldn’t be his.

Enraged, he slammed a fist hard against the side of the computer—and sat back in surprise as the screen flashed and sparks erupted from the back.
 
As the screen turned in on itself, fading rapidly to black, he realized he’d just broken her computer.
 

Now she would know he had been using it.

Frantic, he unplugged the machine in case of fire and looked around the room, knowing she could be home at any moment.
 
He was about to say to hell with this, to hell with Ryan and leave the office when he glimpsed the long line of file cabinets across the room.
 
He wondered if the information he needed was there, already stored for him in neat files….

Grimacing, he reached for his crutches and went to the nearest cabinet.
 
He tugged on one of the four drawers and found it locked.
 
That was no surprise, but with any luck, perhaps somewhere in this room were the keys to unlock them.

He went back to her desk.

He opened the top drawer, carefully moved aside stacks of papers and found no set of keys.
 
He opened the drawers to his right, found nothing but thick, deep green folders, and then he opened the drawer to his left.
 
Gleaming inside was a slick black crocodile briefcase, one of several Diana owned.
 
Eric was about to move it aside and look underneath it when he stopped.
 
And wondered.

He removed the briefcase and put it on the desk.
 
The briefcase was unlocked and he opened it. Crammed inside were files on the takeover of WestTex Incorporated.

His heart lifted.
 

He quickly scanned the hundreds of pages of information and saw that everything Ryan needed was there, in this briefcase.
 
Not believing his luck, he reached for one of the phones beside the computer and punched Ryan’s number.
 
The man answered on the second ring.

“What took you so long, Eric?”

Eric ignored the sarcasm.
 
Things were different now.
 
Now it was he who had the upper hand—not Ryan.
 
“I have everything you’ve requested,” he said.
 
“But time is running out.
 
She’ll be back shortly.
 
How soon before you can have somebody here to pick it up?”

“Ten minutes.”

“I said shortly,” Eric said.
 
“Make it five.
 
And here’s something else, Ryan.
 
I want that check tripled or there’s no deal.”

There was a silence.

“Answer me,” Eric said.
 
“It’s all here.
 
But it’s triple or nothing.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Louis said. “I’m not paying you—”

“The information’s worth ten times that amount and you know it,” Eric interrupted.
 
“Now, what’s it going to be?
 
You’re down to four minutes.”

“All right,” Louis said.
 
“I’ll triple it.”

Eric smiled grimly, his stomach tense.
 
Now for the bluff.
 
“And, Louis, in case you decide not to come through with that check, and in case anything happens to me, I want you to know that before I called you, I called a friend about this.
 
If he reads my obituary, the world soon will be reading yours.
 
Remember that.
 
Don’t fuck this up.
 
Don’t fuck with me.
 
I’ve already set things into motion should anything happen.”

He severed the connection and dialed the front desk.

“This is Eric Parker,” he said to one of the doormen on duty.
 
“I’m expecting friends.
 
No need to call me when they arrive.
 
Just send them up to Diana Crane’s apartment.”

He put down the phone, removed the files from Diana’s briefcase and substituted them for the files he had seen in the drawers to his right.
 
The folders were an identical deep green.
 
He snapped the briefcase shut and put it back as he had found it.
 
By the time Diana realized the switch, Eric hoped to be somewhere in Europe, perhaps Switzerland, with the money Louis Ryan owed him.

He tucked the folders beneath his arm and reached for his crutches.
 
No sooner had he left the room and tackled the winding staircase that he heard someone ringing the doorbell.

He hesitated, wondering if Ryan had believed his bluff.
 
He knew there was a chance that he might open that door and take a series of bullets in the chest.
 

It was a risk he’d have to take.

He went to the door and looked through the peephole.
 
Standing in the hallway was a tall, rugged-looking man in his early thirties with tousled dark hair.
 
He was wearing an unseasonably warm black leather jacket.
 
His hands were cupped behind his back.

Eric wished the man’s hands weren’t concealed, but he opened the door anyway.

They stared at each other.

The man in the hallway looked at the folders beneath Eric’s arm, then at the cast on his leg, the bruises on his face.
 
The edge of his mouth lifted into a smile.

Eric held out a hand for the check.

The man’s smile faded.
 
He reached into his jacket pocket, removed the check and handed it to Eric.
 
“Give me the files,” he said.

Eric unfolded the check and saw that the amount had indeed been tripled.
 
Relief overcame him.