Love.com (25 page)

“Uh huh
, I can see my raise flying away like some migratin’ bird too,” Daisy muttered and clucked her tongue. “Seems to me everybody need to know the truth.”

Emily glared at the smug look on the woman’s
round face. It was clear Daisy wasn’t budging on her pay raise or she was going to tell tales. “Fine, consider you have a six percent increase.  I’ll make sure you’re paid from the time the testing was submitted. From now on, you come to me if anyone in this company is flagged like this again. This should have come out long before now.”

“I like you, Miss Emily,” Daisy replied sweetly as she rose from the chair
and stretched her round shape. Then her manner changed to fire and brimstone, dark eyes filled with ire. “I like you enough to tell you not to tell me how to do my job! I been sending emails to Mr. Stiles for over a year! He told me he would handle it personally! Since Mr. Stiles ain’t here anymore, I follow my chain of command, bein’ you now in Mister Evan’s absence! Don’t tell me I didn’t do what I was supposed to do! I did my job!”

Emily was startled to know Stu had been covering for Tabitha from the start. She realized how the two had worked together all along. Stephanie promised Stu a partnership if he helped her
regain a piece of her inheritance. Incredible!

No, Evan
wouldn’t appreciate how cleverly he was being manipulated from the start. She doubted it would make him feel better to know he had Daisy to thank for this near-miss.

  
“I thank you for your diligence in this matter, Daisy,” Emily finally allowed, knowing the woman wouldn’t leave her office until she got ample credit for her going above and beyond her duties to expose Tabitha Meyer. “You’ve done an amazing job on this.”

“Uh huh,” the black woman drawled as she waited
, tapping her foot. “You got somethin’ else to say to me, Miss Emily? I been waitin’ to hear that for a whole damn year. I got all the time you need.”

“I’m sorry for snapping at you?
Thank you, you did a great job?” Emily could see she guessed correctly. Daisy beamed and tossed her the file, before turning and leaving the office, humming one of her favorite church hymns under her breath.

Emily let out her breath in a rush and shook her head, unable to believe what she just learned. The work Daisy did was thorough
enough to make her wonder if the woman shouldn’t work for CSI.

Stephanie
Watterman worked at Saving Grace Nursing Facility as an aide from 2009 to 2012. She took the identity of one of its former patients to expedite her scheme. She arrived in California four months before she met Evan Stone. It was obvious what her goals had been all along.

Emily closed the file, reasoning Tabitha/Stephanie was gone for good. There was little point in
calling the police. Fraud was a serious crime, but Tabitha hadn’t had time to follow through on her true goals, getting ownership of Stone and Watterman Agency through the death of its co-founder.

Evan owed her big time for this
, Emily thought and the headache she feared arrived making her reach for aspirin to get through the coming meeting.

The Ambidor people arrived in dark suits and were ushered to the conference room. Emily was grateful Janice saw to refreshments as they all conversed among the team before the meeting began.

Mitchell Phelan wasn’t at all what she expected. The seemingly soft-spoken executive with his southern charm and friendly handshake couldn’t possibly be as ruthless as Ian indicated. His counterpart, Vince DeWitt, looked like a computer geek. Somehow neither of them impressed her or intimidated her until they spoke. The tall, dark-haired man who accompanied them was Ian’s replacement. He said nothing during the meeting. His cryptic grey eyes scanned her and her team without expression. His name was Derrick Masterson. He was a dark, cold version of Ian.

“We need to feel sure your agency is representing what we want the public to see, Mrs. Walker,” Mitch began when they were all seated. “
The reports we’ve been getting don’t quite imply that.”

“Such as?” Emily waited for Mitch to tip his hand as Ian advised.

“We received word you’re using unsolicited artwork for the ad, for one,” Mitch countered with a raised eyebrow. “The releases haven’t been signed yet, Mrs. Walker.”

“To the contrary, Anne-Marie
Berkowitz signed the release for her son over an hour ago,” Emily returned and shrugged. “Ida Berkowitz is in poor health. She’s in the hospital. Until this morning, she wasn’t stable enough to sign off. I planned to meet with her at lunchtime to get the release signed. I apologize for the delay, but the woman’s health has been the issue all along. I couldn’t get in to see her until now.”

“Who is the photographer you used, Mrs. Walker,” Vince asked then, his dark eyes gleaming with intelligence. “That information
was also not provided by your agency.”

“I took the pictures,” Emily said and there were gasps of surprise all around.
Even Desiree appeared shocked. “I minored in photography in college. I was taking random shots one day in the park, and I took them. The problem began when Mrs. Berkowitz turned for the worst.”

“You took the pictures?” Mitch and Vince regarded one another with a look she couldn’t
decipher. Mitch smiled at her patronizingly then. “Is that the truth, Mrs. Walker?”

“
Yes, I can assure you that I took the pictures. Was there anything else you were concerned with?” Emily didn’t bat an eyelash as she met both men’s scrutinizing looks, not breathing in those moments. “Didn’t you like them?”

“We loved them. They represent exactly what this company desires,” Mitch responded with a
sincere smile. “You did a fine job capturing what this company needs. It appears we were misled by inaccurate details as to who might have taken the photos.”

“And who might that have been, Mitch, if not for myself?” Emily raised an eyebrow, daring the man to say it was Ian Sawyer, their former consultant, proving they’d been spying on the agency from day one. They had an informant in the office. She bristled to know it had to be Stephanie
Watterman a.k.a Tabitha Meyer, the one who had been undermining them the moment she blew the whistle on Ian.   

“That’s what we’re here to find out, Mrs. Walker.”

“Please, call me Emily.”

“There have been
some serious allegations made that one of your female executives engaged in inappropriate conduct with our consultant, initiating his recent resignation,” Vince stated and noted her unshakeable demeanor with a raised eyebrow. “I realize Mr. Sawyer isn’t here to deny such claims, Emily. You do realize how this looks? Again, Ian isn’t here to defend himself.”

“
Neither is the one who made the allegations against him, Mitch,” Emily said with a sad sigh. “It comes as a great shock to us one of our employees is an imposter. Tabitha Meyer has worked here for over a year. We just discovered that is not her name at all. Because of the sensitivity of the situation, I will allow you both to see her file. We only found out last week. Mr. Stone promptly terminated her. She has reasons to create problems for Stone and Watterman that are personal in nature. I’m not at liberty to disclose what those are to the group.”

That seemed to effectively end whatever further arguments Mitch and Vince had. She passed them the file
. She watched the pair seem to wilt to discover the person who’d been informing for them was a criminal, wanted for check fraud in five different Florida counties. The fact the same person was impersonating a dead woman when she came to work at the agency further discredited her claims.

Emily smiled coolly at their obvious discomfort.
She didn’t want to use the information, but she’d be damned if she’d allow them to make Ian look as though he did anything wrong. Evan might not like it getting out he was banging his sister-in-law, but she cared more about Ian’s reputation right now.

“A pity we didn’t have this meeting before Mr. Sawyer
resigned. I can assure you the claims this woman made against him were bogus, due to his investigation of her while he was here,” Emily continued, knowing the facts on the recordings would exonerate Ian. “If anything, he did his job, quite well, I might add.” Mitch and Vince were looking at the reports Ian filed during his stay, both clearly disturbed they’d been misled. “I hope this satisfies you that Stone and Watterman is doing everything to meet Ambidor’s needs,” Emily said with a suddenly exuberant smile despite her frayed nerves. “Was there anything else before we go over our presentation for you?”

The rest of the meeting was to show the current run for the ad, one that seemed to impress both men they were getting exactly what they asked for. When they retreated back to their hotel, she breathed a sigh of relief. They would go back to New York
happy; with no further doubt the agency wasn’t doing their job. The account was secure, at least for now.

Later in her office
, Emily heard her email notification go off. She glanced over in disinterest until she realized it was from Ian. She opened the email, ignoring the way her heart beat rapidly as she opened the message.

I knew you could do it

Just six words made her heart soar. But wait? How could he have known how well the meeting went? Her eyes narrowed. She went back to the conference room. She was certain Ian had bugs all over the office. How else did he know what transpired here so quickly? He was listening in! She tiptoed around; looking everywhere for what looked like a listening device. She found it in the potted plant situated behind her seat. She picked it up, smiling in amusement at the small plastic object.

“I knew there was something about you that bugged me, Ian, and now I know what it is,”
Emily said as she held it in her hand. “You better hope I don’t find any of these in my house.”

Emily took the bug he planted in the conference room and marched to the men’s room. It was empty. She grinned as she put it behind a toilet. That should give him plenty to listen to
while he was in Luxemburg. If he wanted to know what was going on in her life, he could walk back into it. He wasn’t going to listen in on the fringe.

Emily went back to her office, giggling to see he sent another email in her absence.

Very funny, Emily

The day flew by. Evan called her before lunch to say the meeting got them all off the hook. The Ambidor executives were leaving the next day, satisfied the ad was exactly what they wanted. Emily left the office for the parking garage. She smiled to see Anne-Marie waiting at her car with Andy.

The redhead wasn’t happy about allowing her son to accompany Emily to the hospital, but a deal was a deal. Emily made sure she got a five thousand dollar fee just to insure Andy got to see his grandmother today. She knew the elder Berkowitz was failing quickly. Emily needed the release signed.

Later, after Emily dropped Andy at home, she reflected upon the conversation she shared with Ida Berkowitz. She was in her early eighties, but her eyes were
still sharp, a vivid blue, gazing up at her shrewdly after Andy showed her the poster-sized picture of Ambidor’s newest advertisement.

“I want Andy to have the money,” the old woman said raggedly and coughed. “Then I sign off. You tell me the money goes to him and I die happy.”

“I can have it put into a trust for him. Is that what you want?” Emily could see the old woman had little time. She had tubes and IV’s running everywhere.

“I want my grandson to have something one day, Mrs. Walker. It’s all I ever wanted
for him. That mother of his will spend it all and not think about him. His dad is no different. Both selfish and thinking only of themselves. That is what I want.”

Emily called the accounting department. A trust for Andy Berkowitz would be set up by his grandmother to be distributed to him on the day he turned eighteen. By the end of the day, the papers were all signed, and Ida’s five
-thousand dollar fee was secured for her only grandchild. In addition to the rest of her money; a considerable amount her son wished to get his hands on in the event of her death.

The manager of the bank came
by the hospital and saw to it all personally. Ida ran out of time to see to her affairs before she took sick. Her son, Martin, made it difficult by refusing to help her, thinking she would die before she could change her will to protect her grandson’s future.

Emily knew the reasons Anne-Marie despised her mother-in-law.
Ida saw Anne-Marie as the one who negatively influenced her son from the start. Anne-Marie had a gambling problem. She squandered every bit of money they had at the bingo hall. They lost everything before long, both taking odd jobs and relying on Ida. The old woman gave her son an ultimatum finally he would leave his wife or he was cut out of her will. The pair went through the motions of separating, but were very much still together, waiting for Ida to die so they could cash in. They would have to be happy with the five thousand dollars Anne-Marie got for her son. They wouldn’t get a penny more.

  
Emily fumed to think people could treat their own family that way when she headed back to the office to fax the signed releases to New York. Martin had a rude one coming when Ida passed away and he and his greedy wife got nothing. Emily believed in karma more today than she ever had before.