The Great Baby Caper (26 page)

“Very well,” May conceded
reluctantly.

Courtney asked Chris to make
copies of the papers, and afterward returned the originals to the women. She
thanked Chris for his patience, promised him plenty of help on the cleanup, and
was grateful to see Mark ushering everyone out the door. He and Courtney were
leaving themselves when they all but collided with M. Billingham.

Glancing askance at the store, he
demanded, “Courtney, what in heaven’s name is going on here? I called
headquarters, and Mildred informed me about the latest assault on our
enterprises. Three stores hit by these brats on wheels. I’ve never heard of
anything so preposterous. However could you have allowed this to happen?”

Before Courtney could manage a
retort, Mark spoke up sharply. “Hello, Grandfather, it’s jolly good to see you
again. As for what has transpired here, my wife had nothing whatsoever to do
with this, thank you.”

Courtney elbowed Mark and spoke
under her breath. “Mark, I don’t need you defending me.”

“Aha,” interjected M. Billingham
with a superior look. “So you
are
responsible for this calamity,
Courtney?”

“Of course not.”

The old man frowned fiercely.
“Well, I’m beginning to suspect that marriage has softened your brain,
Courtney. You’ve clearly lost your killer instincts.”

“I’ve lost nothing of the kind.”

“Our product line has been
tampered with, our stores buried in egg rolls—and now we’re ransacked by these
spawns of hell. If you were still performing up to snuff, you would have stopped
this malarkey long before now. Well, if you can’t put an end to this rein of
terror, I’ll find someone who will.”

Courtney was all set to issue a
blistering retort when Mark again spoke up for her, his voice cold with anger.
“Sir, your attack on Courtney is totally unwarranted. Don’t you ever speak to
her that way again. You’re addressing my wife, and the mother of my child.”

M. Billingham’s face went utterly
blank. “Courtney’s pregnant?” Abruptly, he broke into a delighted grin. “Why,
what splendid news. And no wonder the little mother has lost charge of things.”

Courtney was exasperated. “I’ve
lost charge of nothing, sir. And you are a male chauvinist pig.” She spun about
and exited the store.

“Ditto,” snapped Mark, rushing
after her, leaving a perplexed M. Billingham to stare after them.

***

Mark caught up with Courtney in
the parking lot, touching her arm. “Mark, don’t start,” she warned.

“Damn it, Courtney, don’t be mad
at me.”

“Don’t be mad when you spoke for
me again?”

“Grandfather was totally out of
line. No one speaks to my wife that way.”

Although Mark’s defense of her was
commendable, Courtney chafed at the knowledge that he felt she was all but
helpless against his grandfather. “Mark, I’m not your possession. I can stand
up for myself. Furthermore, you had no right to tell M. Billingham about the
baby.”

He flung a hand outward. “Who
would you have tell him, and your family? The stork?”

She shot him a frustrated look. He
had a point.

“Besides, he was bound to find out
soon anyway, after I let the cat out of the bag back at the store.”

“Right. Thanks for that too.”

He grasped her by the shoulders.
“Courtney, how can you allow Grandfather to speak to you in such a manner, and
not resign on the spot?”

She lifted her chin. “Is that what
you want?”

“Oh, so we’re back to blaming me
again. Are you keeping your job to spite me?”

“No. I’m keeping it because I want
it.”

“You want to work for a man who
has no respect for you?”

Courtney caught a deep, bracing
breath. “Mark, I can understand how outraged you are. But you can’t make M.
Billingham respect me. Only I can.”

“Right. Then why do you need me?”

Courtney thought of replying, then
bit her tongue.

***

When they entered Courtney’s
apartment half an hour later, the tension between them remained thick. Glancing
at his watch, Mark at once grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned
on the TV. “It’s five o’clock. Want to see if the local news ran the piece?”

“Sure.” Going into the kitchen to
grab a glass of water, Courtney watched Mark seat himself on the couch. “Mark,
I don’t mind if you watch the news, but I’m not sure you should be staying here
right now.”

He shot to his feet. “Courtney,
are you going to put me out like a naughty tomcat every time we have a little
tiff?”

She was about to reply when she
was distracted by a reporter’s voice. Glancing at the TV at the grinning
anchorman, she heard him say, “Our top story of the day: Who is terrorizing
BBB, the Denver-based baby products company?”

Numbly Courtney went to sit down
beside Mark, and watched the news footage flash by of the Brat Brigade
attacking their south Denver store, while a grinning young female reporter
described their antics. A few times she caught Mark struggling not to laugh.
Finally, at her wit’s end, she grabbed the remote out of his hand and flipped
off the TV.

He glanced at her sympathetically.
“Too bad your PR person wasn’t able to talk them out of running the spot.”

She laughed ruefully. “Try talking
a reporter out of running anything. It’s almost as frustrating as trying to get
you to change your mind.”

“What do you mean by that crack?”

Courtney gazed at him narrowly.
“You really don’t want me working for BBB, do you, Mark?”

He flashed her a cajoling look.
“Courtney, I just feel it’s a bit much, what with your pregnancy and all. Now
all of these new frustrations added to the brew.”

“You find all of this pretty
funny, don’t you?”

“Funny?”

“Admit you were struggling not to
laugh over that news broadcast.”

“Courtney, have mercy. The antics
of ‘The Brat Brigade’ are rather amusing.”

“Well, I’m not laughing. In fact,
I’m wondering . . .”

“What?”

Taking a deep breath, she asked,
“Mark, are you involved in this?”

He went pale. “This? You mean the
industrial sabotage at BBB?”

“It all began when we moved back to
Denver together. It stopped while you were gone in London, then started up
again on your return.”

He appeared incredulous. “I can’t
believe I’m hearing this.”

“So you’re telling me all of this
is just coincidence?”

“Yes. Damn right, I’m telling
you.”

“And you don’t want me gone from
the corporation?”

He sprang to his feet, facing her
with eyes snapping. “Yes, I want you gone. But do you honestly think I would
stoop to terrorizing my pregnant wife and sabotaging my grandfather’s company
just to get my way?”

Courtney fell silent, already
regretting having accused him. It
was
far-fetched. But so was everything
that had happened to her ever since she’d met Mark Billingham.

He continued speaking with an air
of hurt. “Courtney, how could you mistrust me so? I’d think you’d suspect
Grandfather before me.”

“Actually, I do suspect your
grandfather.”

He slowly shook his head. “My
heavens, don’t you trust anyone?”

“Well, maybe all that has happened
to me doesn’t inspire a lot of trust.”

He snapped his fingers. “I knew
it! You are still angry.”

“Well, maybe I am.”

His expression was one of keen
disappointment. “Courtney, all along I’ve tried to hold out hope for us but now
. . . I just don’t know.”

Courtney stared at him, feeling
miserably torn. She knew she had hurt him and she longed to apologize, to
comfort him, to make things right. But the truth was, she just didn’t know,
either.

Back
to Contents

“All right—who’s responsible for
this?” Courtney demanded.

That afternoon, she stood in the
conference room at work, waving the bogus corporate authorization papers in the
blank faces of half a dozen of her colleagues. After a very tense moment, her
legal counsel, Milton Davies, cleared his throat. “Courtney, anyone could have
forged those documents.”

“Anyone working for us, you mean.”

“Not necessarily,” he replied.
“Anyone who has ever received a correspondence from us could have copied or
cloned our stationery.”

Courtney glanced at the documents
again, then groaned. “Yes, you’re right. Sorry, folks. Between scanners and
desktop publishing software, it would be simple enough.”

Her head of security, Lon Wilson,
spoke up. “Courtney, do you have the original letters? We can check them for
our watermark, and also dust them for fingerprints.”

“Good suggestion. The people from
the theater troupe insisted on keeping the originals—but you could try them
again.”

“I’ll definitely do so. With all
the handling, I wouldn’t expect much, but it’s worth a try.”

“Sure. I’ll give you the women’s
phone numbers after the meeting.”

He frowned. “And don’t you think
it’s time for us to involve the police? These incidents are becoming serious.”

Courtney hesitated, then shook her
head. “No, let’s try to keep this in house. It’s bad enough that the media is
involved.” She turned to Janis Jacobs. “How are we doing on that front? I
noticed a blurb on us in the
Denver Times
this morning—basically a
rehash of the television news story yesterday evening.”

“Well, Courtney, I was sorry I
couldn’t stop the local channel from running the piece. As you’re aware, I
wanted to keep a lid on this because I was afraid we’d be hit by copycats. But
actually, the news coverage has been a blessing in disguise. As you’ve noted,
the local papers and several other TV stations have picked up the story, and as
a result traffic has increased at all our stores.”

“Gracious—perhaps it’s true then
that
all
publicity is good,” Courtney commented ruefully.

“I spoke with Roger Cambridge
right before this meeting, and he’s already had two mothers come in today with
their children, hoping to get free egg rolls.”

As laughter erupted around the
table, Courtney shook her head. “So there’s actually an upside to our being
targeted?”

“So it seems,” replied Janis. “Several
other managers have reported shoppers coming in hoping to catch some of the
shenanigans. And of course most have made purchases while in the stores.”

“Amazing,” murmured Courtney.

“In fact, I was thinking we could
really turn this around to our advantage,” Janis went on. “Enlist the public in
finding the culprit.”

“How on earth would we do that?”
asked Gil Getz.

“Well, we could organize a contest
to find the guilty party. We could put entry blanks in the stores, asking
customers to guess who is terrorizing BBB. Those who guess the true culprit or
culprits would be finalists for a drawing, with the prize being a
thousand-dollar shopping spree at BBB. Of course we would need to offer smaller
prizes for second and third places.”

Lon Wilson whistled. “Hey, I like
that idea. That could be a couple of thou well spent, like a reward for turning
in the perp.”

“Exactly,” said Janis.

“But what if the perpetrator is
never found?” posed Al Gideon. “He’s shown himself to be a pretty crafty
individual so far.”

Courtney couldn’t resist raising
an eyebrow at Al. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”

Before he could reply, Gil Getz
snapped, “Yeah, Al and me, we engineered this whole scheme together. Everyone
knows we’re criminals at heart.”

Courtney held up a hand. “Very
well, gentlemen. I was only trying to add a bit of levity.”

“No, Courtney, I think you were
trying to accuse me,” Al tensely rejoined.

Courtney resisted the urge to
comment. “Janis, please continue.”

“Well, we’d need to put a time
limit on the contest. If no one correctly guesses the perp, or if he’s never
found, then we’d just have a drawing for the winners.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” agreed
Courtney. “Janis, I’m counting on you to spearhead this.”

“Will do. And when I break this to
the press, we can count on lots more free publicity.”

“Good going.” Courtney consulted
her agenda. “Okay, then, let’s move on. I want reports on the investigations
all of you are doing. Lon, let’s start with you and Milton. What have you heard
from the private detectives and the digital expert?”

During the next half hour,
Courtney listened to reports from each of her executives and learned the
disappointing news that the contractors had yet to pan out a successful lead,
and that none of her staff had made any real progress in tracking the
criminals, either. Though dispirited, she politely thanked everyone and
adjourned the meeting.

In the hallway, she ran across a
frowning M. Billingham. “Well, Courtney, I see that on top of everything else,
we got pilloried on the local news last night.”

She felt her hackles rising.
“Actually, Mr. Bootle, if you’d bothered to attend the meeting this morning,
you’d know that Janis Jacobs just reported that the attacks on our stores have
actually increased our traffic—and sales.”

He raised a white brow. “Really?
How very amusing. But this is a conservative company, Courtney. That’s not how
I want to expand our business.”

Courtney gave an incredulous
laugh. “This from the man who staged an Old West shootout at last year’s
convention, and an insane scavenger hunt at this year’s?”

He had the grace to appear
chagrined. “Look, Courtney, I really didn’t want to have another argument with
you today.”

Stunned by his show of humility,
she replied, “Well, you could have fooled me.”

He flashed her a conciliatory
smile. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to offer you and Mark my sincere
congratulations on your coming child.”

“Thank you,” she crisply replied.
“Mark will be thrilled to hear it. Is there anything else?”

His expression grew troubled.
“Well, yes. Are you sure you’re up to continuing with your duties now that
you’re expecting my grandchild—and especially considering all these assaults on
our stores?”

“Don’t worry, I’m on top of the
sabotage.”

“Are you? Don’t forget what I
said—”

“Right. Resolve this, or I’m
history.”

Again he appeared contrite.
“Courtney, when I said those things, I had no idea you were—”

“In this delicate condition? Don’t
worry, I don’t expect you to cut me any slack because of my pregnancy, Mr.
Bootle.”

Now he appeared annoyed, his mouth
tensing. “Courtney, I’m trying to extend an olive branch here. And I must say
you’re being most uncooperative, even abrasive.”

“I’m being abrasive? You know, for
a man who’s supposed to be spending his retirement years trotting around the
globe, you sure are in the office a lot these days. Every time one of these
terrorist incidents occurs, you show up conveniently to give me the third
degree. Makes me wonder how deeply you really are involved in this.”

For once, instead of denying any
connection, M. Billingham flashed her a cagey smile. “Well, you won’t really
know until you nab the culprit, will you, Courtney?”

Before she could challenge him
further, he strode away. She watched him, open-mouthed. Had her illustrious
boss just admitted he was involved in this?

***

Feeling at her wit’s end, Courtney
called Vanessa and invited her to lunch. The two women met in the coffee shop
of a nearby hotel. Courtney told her friend about the latest incidents of
industrial espionage—how they’d made no progress in tracking the responsible
party, and how M. Billingham was blaming her for the incidents, while
audaciously hinting he might even be involved.

“Why, that old snake,” declared
Vanessa afterward. “Talk about the guilty party pointing a finger. How on earth
does Ham Bootle justify blaming you for the crimes of an industrial
terrorist—who may even be Ham himself?”

Courtney sighed. “Well, it’s all
happening on my shift, which I guess means the buck stops with me. He says I’m
losing control of our operations.”

“The arrogant ass. I could slap
him senseless.”

“Well, he does have a point.”

“Maybe—assuming
he
isn’t
responsible.”

“Agreed.”

Vanessa frowned in concentration,
tapping her fingernails on the tabletop. “I think you should have those PIs you
hired follow Ham around and get the goods on him.”

Courtney mulled over the
suggestion. “Well, it’s a thought, but . . . Vanessa, it’s still his company.
Whatever I do will get back to him.”

“What does Mark think of his
grandfather’s trying to blame you?”

Courtney gave a dry laugh.
“Actually, when Mark and I ran across his grandfather at the south Denver
store, and M. Billingham gave me such a hard time, Mark really lit into him,
insisting his grandfather not treat his wife—and the mother of his child—that
way.”

Vanessa chortled. “So now Ham
knows about the baby?”

Courtney sighed. “I think half the
world knows by now. Mark announced my pregnancy to everyone at the store. The
man must lose all sense of discretion when he’s angry.”

Vanessa could hardly contain her
laughter. “My dear, you can’t hope to keep it secret much longer.”

“I know. I’m going to have to tell
my family. I can’t wait to hear all the whispers and snickering.”

“Your family will snicker?”

Courtney’s expression hardened.
“They’ll find it amusing. Courtney, the liberated career woman, becomes a
little mother like the rest of her sisters.”

“And you don’t think heads will
turn if the baby simply arrives six months after you married Mark?”

“You’re right.” Courtney patted
her stomach. “I’m already more than four months along. Pretty soon I’m going to
be out of my regular clothes, and unable to hide it, anyway.”

Vanessa stirred her tea. “How are
you and Mark getting along?”

Courtney glanced away. “Well,
there are still many of the same tensions between us.”

“Still separate bedrooms?” Vanessa
pressed.

“Vanessa!” Courtney blushed.

Vanessa clapped her hands. “Oh, I
knew it. You’re back together, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I guess we are,”
Courtney admitted. “Sometimes I wonder if we were ever really apart. And after
he returned from London—well, I just missed him so.”

“Who wouldn’t? Why don’t you just
kiss old Ham good-bye and go live with Mark in merry old England?”

“But what about what I want? My
goals and dreams? Vanessa, you’re the last person who should be urging me to
give up my life for Mark, as you did with Floyd.”

Vanessa’s expression was troubled.
“But darling, the truth of the matter is, I never loved Floyd as much as I
suspect you love Mark. You must ask yourself what matters most.”

As usual, Vanessa had brilliantly
put her finger on the heart of the matter:
What matters most
. Was
Vanessa right? Did she love Mark? Courtney could think of little else for the
remainder of the day.