Alone in the Dark (18 page)

Lisette reached for it, her own hand trembling. ‘You do so get pissy,’ she muttered. ‘Who is this Bishop woman? Can she be trusted?’

‘No,’ Stone said.

‘Yes,’ Marcus said at the same time.

Diesel resettled himself in his chair. ‘Now this just got interesting.’

Marcus rolled his eyes. ‘God help me,’ he murmured. ‘She’s a good cop,’ he told Lisette. ‘She and Stone have history, so you have to take his opinion with a grain of salt.’

‘I remember her,’ Phillip said, looking up from his phone. He held it up so that everyone could see the photo of Scarlett he’d pulled off Google. ‘She was at Mikhail’s funeral. I’m not ashamed to say that she scared the livin’ shit out of me.’

Lisette studied Scarlett’s photo on Phillip’s phone. ‘Why?’ she asked her brother.

‘Because she looked . . . cold. Like she’d freeze a guy’s balls with a single look.’

‘Told you so,’ Stone muttered under his breath.

‘I’d like to let her try,’ Diesel said, speaking to Phillip, but his curious gaze never left Marcus’s face.

Marcus sighed. ‘If you’re expecting me to go all jealous caveman, you’ll be disappointed,’ he said to Diesel, then turned to Cal. ‘I’d like you to find a consultant who does training in sexual harassment in the workplace. Schedule a session for Monday at the latest. Everyone attends. Everyone.’

Everyone except Cal groaned.

‘I don’t need no training on that,’ Diesel said.

‘He’s plenty good at it already,’ Lisette said. ‘They all are.’

‘Which is why we’re having it,’ Marcus said firmly. ‘Phillip, you know you shouldn’t talk like that. I don’t care if you’re talking about a cop or a hooker or the lady who makes the damn doughnuts. And if you say it about a woman like Scarlett Bishop, be prepared for unpleasant consequences if she finds out, because she’s every bit as tough as you think she is. And Diesel, no more comments like “Miss Lush-n-Lusty”. What the hell was that about anyway?’

Diesel just smiled his curly-mouthed Grinch smile. ‘She has been snuggling up to Stone ever since she started working here. Even a blind man could have seen it. Oh, wait. Sorry. Was I supposed to filter stuff about disabled people too? And minorities, too, I bet. Damn. What’s left to say?’

‘You’re an asshole, Diesel,’ Stone said, shaking his head. But he was biting back a smile.

‘Thank you,’ Diesel said with a magnanimous nod. ‘I strive for perfection in all things.’

Lisette sighed loudly. ‘Back to the Jill issue. She’s been angling for Stone even before she started working here. I really can’t believe you didn’t notice, Marcus. Even I feel sorry for Stone. The child is relentless.’

Marcus turned to Stone, who looked uncomfortable. ‘Is this true? Why didn’t you say something? I wouldn’t have put you with her if I’d known.’

‘She’s had a crush on me since forever,’ Stone said. ‘She’s just a kid and I didn’t want to hurt her. I was always able to hide from her because I was off on assignment, but the past nine months since I’ve been home have been increasingly . . . difficult. I had to confront her about it sooner or later, so I did it this morning, since we’d be spending time together on this list project you gave me.’

‘How’d she take that?’ Cal asked quietly.

Stone’s answer was terse. ‘She cried. I feel like shit. We both decided we should complete this task and never speak of it again. So please don’t tease her.’

Lisette rose and gave Stone a hug. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘Thanks.’ Stone sighed, patting her shoulder. ‘Though every time anyone says that, they sound so damn surprised. Anyway, we’re going over the old list and the one Jill had been keeping from Gayle. There are some pretty explicit threats on it. I don’t think Jill understood all of them, but at least she doesn’t think you’re a mob boss anymore, Marcus.’

Lisette took her seat, eyes wide. ‘She thought you were a mob boss?’

Marcus nodded dryly. ‘She thought I was rubbing out my detractors, which was why they stopped threatening me.’

‘Now
there’s
an idea,’ Diesel said.

‘Shut up, Diesel,’ everyone said together.

Diesel shrugged. ‘I’m just sayin’.’

‘Well stop sayin’,’ Cal said. ‘What kind of threats are we talking about this time?’

‘Mostly more of the same,’ Stone said, ticking them off in an affected bored voice that fooled no one. Stone took these threats as seriously as any of them did. ‘I’m going to gut you, shoot you, slit your throat, ruin you. About half are targeted at Lisette, Phillip and me for reporting the stories. But the worst ones were targeted at Marcus as the publisher of “that rag”.’

‘Same old, same old,’ Marcus said, playing it down like he always did. Play it down and never go anywhere unarmed was pretty much his motto. ‘Any escalations?’

‘Just one – a woman who said she was going to stake “that lying reporter” down, pour honey on him and leave him for the fire ants for even suggesting that her “innocent” husband – “the real victim here” – could have molested young girls. The “lying reporter” was you, Phillip.’

‘I guess the fire ants are a nice touch,’ Phillip said lightly.

‘I bet that came from the drama coach,’ Lisette said. ‘The one whose husband had recorded said molestations with his iPhone and uploaded them to the cloud.’

‘Breaking into his account was child’s play,’ Diesel said with disgust. ‘His password was the name of his dog.’

‘At least the wife is consistent,’ Stone said. ‘There’s drama in her threat just like there was in her denial, even though the police showed her the evidence in full color. We didn’t address the first threat, because we didn’t see it – because Jill was sitting on it – and this woman ended up making others, the most recent just last week. Said she was going to make you suffer by hitting you where it really hurts. That she was losing her house because her husband had lost his job after being arrested and the bank is foreclosing on them. She says she’s planning to sue the paper and you personally, Marcus, for slander.’

‘She’s not suing me,’ Phillip said, tongue in cheek, ‘because I have nothing of any value for her to win. Sucks to be the rich boss.’

‘Let Rex deal with that one,’ Marcus said. ‘A week’s gone by since she threatened to sue. He can find out if she’s retained an attorney in the meantime and do that lawyer-to-lawyer thing that he does so well.’

Cal got up to refill his coffee cup. ‘This doesn’t worry me at all. When they start talking money, a lot of the unpredictable emotional responses disappear. If they’re truly after cold, hard cash, they’ll refrain from doing anything violent that jeopardizes that.’

‘Hopefully it is just about money,’ Stone said, ‘because if the woman truly intends to follow through, we may not be able to tie the threats to her.’ He scowled. ‘Because Jill moved them from the corporate server to her own laptop. Hopefully she didn’t destroy the electronic trail.’

‘Stupid kid,’ Diesel muttered, then glanced at Marcus from the corner of his eye. ‘Can I at least call her “stupid”?’

‘Yes, you can. Even though you were just saying that I should trust her.’

‘And then I said you were better at judging people than I am,’ Diesel fired back. ‘I need Jill’s laptop. Tell her it is not negotiable. That if she refuses, you will fire her ass. May I say “ass”, boss, in this context?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘Only if I can tell you to shut up,’ Marcus said. ‘Stone, if she gives you any problems, tell her I will terminate her. Make me the bad guy if you want. She already thinks the worst of me. Until Diesel tracks this threat, we all take precautions, especially at night.’ Nods around the table. ‘Okay, what actual business do we have? Special business,’ he clarified.

As opposed to their legit business, which they saved for the end.

Lisette opened her file. ‘Two investigations ongoing. One’s domestic violence and the other is suspected foster family molestation. The domestic violence came through our friend.’

Their ‘friend’ was officially an anonymous source, but was in reality a woman in the hierarchy of Children’s Services. Only Lisette knew her true identity. Marcus didn’t want to know, for their informant’s protection. He couldn’t tell what he didn’t know.

Their first case had come five years ago. Since then, the social worker had sent a number of very unofficial referrals their way, cases in which Children’s Services suspected abuse but hadn’t been able to prove it. Just like the one Lisette now summarized.

‘This started out as a suspected child abuse, called in to the hotline,’ she said. ‘A neighbor saw that one of the children had a friction burn on his arm. He said he got it playing with his friends, but she didn’t believe that and called it in. The kid’s dad is some corporate VP and had a high-priced attorney. None of the other neighbors would comment, but a couple of the neighbors’ maids did – all under condition of anonymity. Nobody wanted to get any of the people in this neighborhood angry with them. The child confided in his social worker that his father hit him and his mother, but later recanted. The father’s attorneys claimed the social worker coerced the child to speak against his father. That she bribed him with candy. And now the social worker is under investigation, suspended without pay.’

‘Why does that tactic still hold any water?’ Cal murmured.

‘Good question,’ Lisette said grimly. ‘Our friend doesn’t like being forced to walk away from a child because the parent has enough money to buy his way out of the legal system. She also doesn’t like that the other employees are going to be gun-shy around any accused parent with influence, financial or political. She’s asked us to find out what we can.’

‘Sounds like he didn’t even get close to the legal system,’ Marcus said.

‘Exactly. So what’s the plan?’

Everyone went quiet, thinking of their next steps. This was what they did. When the legal way didn’t work, Marcus’s team skirted the accepted rules.

They all had reasons for what they did, but not the reasons one might think. Only Diesel had been knocked around as a kid. Phillip and Lisette joined the team because Phillip’s childhood friend had been killed by an abusive father. Lisette had been the child’s babysitter, and both siblings had tried to tell their parents that something was not right in that home, but the Cauldwells had been convinced that the friend’s parents were good church-going people and that Lisette and Phillip had been watching too much television. When the child died from a beating at the hands of his father, Lisette’s parents had become two of the city’s leading advocates for children.

Marcus’s grandfather had contributed a significant chunk of his own millions to child-rescue charities, instructing Cal to ensure they had free advertising space in the
Ledger
for fund-raising. Cal had continued that work after Marcus’s grandfather had died. Cal’s reasons had always been his own, and even Marcus had never learned what they were. But Marcus knew exactly why his grandfather had become a supporter of child advocates.

Because of what happened to us
, he thought now. But those were words he and Stone never spoke aloud. They were too painful, and simply . . . not available. Marcus always panicked and froze, unable to make the words exit his mouth when the subject arose – which was thankfully infrequently. Stone coped by getting mad and hitting things. And people. It hadn’t been a problem when he was a scrawny kid who no one could tempt with food. But later . . . he had grown so large that he could make grown men piss themselves with a single angry look. Underneath the rage, he was a decent, kind man. But the rage ran really, really deep.

‘The tried-and-true income tax evasion won’t work this time,’ Cal said. ‘This guy probably has expensive accountants who cover his ass six ways to Sunday.’

They’d used that approach a few times, with Diesel creatively accessing the suspects’ personal computers to see expenses versus what had been declared to the IRS. The tax fraud had to be excessive for it to result in any jail time for the abusers, but when it worked, it got the abuser out of the home, which was their team’s ultimate goal.

These abusers weren’t being punished for beating their children, but they were being punished – and most people were more terrified of the IRS than they were of the cops. Marcus figured if it had been good enough for
The People v. Al Capone
, it was good enough for them.

‘You’re probably right, Cal,’ he said. ‘This guy is too smart to openly cheat on his taxes, but let’s let Diesel take a look anyway. He’s had too many easy cases recently. Too much low-hanging fruit. We need to keep his skills sharp.’

‘I’m sitting right here, asshole,’ Diesel snarled, but his eyes were bright with the challenge. ‘If I don’t find any tax irregularities, I might find something else we can use. This guy may have a secret porn collection he doesn’t want anyone to know about, or he may be having an affair he wants to keep secret. I’ll need to know more about him to guess his passwords – hobbies, friends, old lovers. This’ll be too much fun.’

Lisette’s lips curved even as she shook her head. ‘Be careful, big guy. Don’t get so excited that you trip any alarms.’

Diesel gave her an injured look. ‘You wound me, Lissy.’

‘I will totally wound you if you expose us,’ she warned, but it was without heat. ‘I was wondering if this prince has assaulted anyone outside his immediate family. Maybe someone who works for him. His household staff wouldn’t talk, but one of his employees might.’