Negotiation Tactics (11 page)

Kelly had given birth to Madeleine Sophie Sutton three hours earlier. Jennie couldn’t wait to hold such a tiny new life in her arms. Even the nerves she felt at the prospect of seeing Chad for the first time since they returned from Florida wasn’t scary enough to keep her away from her best friend today.

Jennie found the room and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” came Kelly’s voice from the other side.

Jennie pushed open the door and found Kelly sitting up in bed. A mass of pillows propped her up. She looked tired, but happier than Jennie had ever seen her. In her arms was a tiny pink creature with a scrunched up face. She was ugly and beautiful, all at the same time.

And she was awake! Wide eyes looked up at Kelly as Kelly beamed at Jennie.

“Oh, Kelly. She’s beautiful,” Jennie said as she sat on the edge of her friend’s bed.

“I can’t believe she’s finally here. I never want to put her down,” Kelly said.

“Does that mean I don’t get to hold her?” Jennie laughed. “I washed my hands and everything,” she said, holding her hands up.

Kelly laughed and transferred Maddy into Jennie’s arms. She was swaddled tightly in a striped blanket and she gazed up at Jennie. As Jennie watched, tired lids sank down over her eyes. Within minutes, Maddy slept soundly in her arms.

“Wow. I think I could watch her forever,” Jennie said.

“I know. They say newborns sleep for long stretches in the first one or two days. After that, we’re supposedly in for feedings every two hours and nights without a lot of sleep. I’m trying to soak up the fun stuff right now,” Kelly said.

“Well, I’ll come over and give you a break whenever you need it. You just call.” She looked around the room for Jack. “Speaking of breaks, where is Jack?”

“He and Chad went out to get me some real food. The nurses said I can eat soon and Jack didn’t want me to have to eat hospital food. I have to admit, I was a bit relieved. I’m starving after so many hours with nothing but ice chips and popsicles. And, hospital food doesn’t exactly sound appealing,” Kelly said.

The two women talked about babies and the size of tiny fingernails for another thirty minutes. Jennie suspected Kelly would bring up the Florida trip and she wasn’t wrong.

“So, does Chad think you guys are in danger because of what you found in Florida?” Kelly asked. She had a strange look on her face.

“We’re not sure what’s going to happen yet. We met with Jonathan Masters to tell him what I overheard and it was awful, Kelly. The poor man was so shocked. I think he always knew his nephews were lazy but you could tell he had no idea they would do something like this. Then it hit him that they’d put his whole family at risk with this. The federal government will most likely seize the resort and if they try to go after the winery, the rest of the family could lose everything. His grandkids would lose their inheritance, all of it. Never mind the fact that the feds could decide to arrest Jonathan as well,” Jennie said.

“I can’t believe how selfish and stupid the nephews have been. You met them, right? What are they like?” Kelly asked.

Jennie shook her head. “Just arrogant and useless, for the most part. I can tell you one thing; I doubt they were the brains behind this. They aren’t very bright at all. When you talk to Jonathan, it’s hard to believe they’re even related to him. He’s the sweetest man. He totally understood when Jack told him we needed to report this. He wasn’t angry at us at all.”

Kelly picked at the blanket covering her in the hospital bed. “So, you and Chad will have to testify?”

Jennie nodded. “Most likely. And, mostly me. They may not need Chad at all since it was me who heard the brothers talking. But, Chad said federal investigations take a very long time. The FBI is notorious for investigations that last as many as five years, or even more. They tie everything up in a bow and won’t go to trial until they have mountains of evidence ready to go. Jonathan Masters is getting his nephews a lawyer and he and the lawyer are going to get the nephews to turn themselves in. Chad says at that point the feds will probably send the brothers back in to feed them evidence against the building inspector. The amount of money that was going through there couldn’t be from a single inspector taking bribes. The FBI is going to want to know who they were cleaning money for. They may end up not needing my testimony at all when the brothers start collecting evidence for them.”

Jennie looked up to see that strange look on Kelly’s face again.

“Um, Jennie, I need to tell you––” Kelly started as the door opened and Chad and Jack walked back into the room.

“Hey, Sweetheart, how are my girls?” asked Jack. He looked almost as worn out as Kelly but every bit as happy.

Jennie felt Chad’s eyes on her and then the walls seemed to be closing in as if the room was filled with too many people. Oh, who was she kidding? It was Chad’s presence that made the walls close in on her. Jennie suddenly felt like she’d never be able to take a deep breath again. She hated that her body responded so strongly to him – even more so, since their one night in Florida. It was as if her body now knew what it could have and it wasn’t willing to let go, even though Jennie ordered it to forget.

“I’m going to get going, guys. Kelly, I’ll stop by tomorrow. They’ll keep you here for two days, right? I can bring lunch tomorrow if you want,” Jennie said as she scooped up her purse and moved to the door.

“Oh, you don’t have to go. You just got here,” Kelly said.

Jennie smiled and shook her head. “I’ll be back. I’ll come hold her while you nap tomorrow. Promise. I’ve got some errands to run now, though.”

They said good-byes and Jennie slipped from the room, finally taking a deep breath as she started down the hall.

“Jen!” Chad called from behind her.

Damn.

Jennie turned to find Chad coming toward her, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Hey,” she said, smiling at him, but feeling like she couldn’t breathe again.

He towered over her and she could see the concern in his eyes. “Are we okay, Jennie? Can we go back to the way things were between us? Before?”

He didn’t have to clarify what he meant by ‘before.’ She knew perfectly well what he was asking about.

Jennie nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak but he still watched her intently and she knew he wanted her confirmation. And, the truth was, Jennie didn’t want to lose Chad. Their time in Florida before ‘that night’ had brought them a lot closer than they used to be. They’d talked about so many things and spent more time with each other than she ever thought they would.

“We’re good. It’s okay, Chad,” Jennie said. She put on her brightest smile and ordered her nipples to stand down. “We really are okay, Chad, I promise.”

He smiled. “Okay. See you at work then, Jen.”

Jennie turned and walked down the hall, hoping she was right. She didn’t want to lose a friend she’d only begun to truly know.

***

Assistant United States Attorney, Caroline Waters, steered her sedan down the dirt driveway that served as the entrance to the abandoned building site. The location should have been an enormous mall by now, but the owner had run out of funds and the project was on hold. The lot was sufficiently isolated to serve Caroline’s needs today.

She spotted Bandon waiting for her in his truck and pulled alongside him. She didn’t plan to get out of the car for this talk. She hated coming to the filthy job sites he was used to and, in fact, she hated dealing with Bandon at all. She found him tactless and rude and he certainly didn’t go to any lengths to hide the slimy, appreciative looks he gave her body whenever they met. It made her skin crawl, but he was a necessary evil at this point in her life.

When Caroline discovered just how hard it really was to pay off her law school debt on fifty thousand dollars a year, she decided there were two options. Go to work as a defense attorney instead of a prosecutor or pick and choose the crimes she really cared about prosecuting. When she found a crime she didn’t feel truly
needed
to be prosecuted, she offered the accused a chance to pay their way out of trouble. Then it was simply a matter of telling her boss the case they had wouldn’t stick, there had been errors in the collection of evidence that would damage the case – or she’d come up with any number of other excuses. On a few occasions, she’d had to go a little further and arrange for evidence to disappear so no one would begin to see a pattern in her ‘dropped’ cases and suspect her.

Rick Bandon was a necessary evil in cleaning her funds for her. Things were getting to the point where she was going to need to buy shares in his little marina company to keep everything looking above board, but with this recent complication, she was relieved her name wasn’t on any of the books yet.

Bandon rolled down his window. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit, Caroline? Not that I’m not always happy to get a call from you, but I hadn’t expected to see you again until next month.”

Caroline suppressed a shudder at the leer on Bandon’s face. “We have a problem. The FBI has opened an investigation into Florifish. Those brothers you swore to me were so malleable and loyal are now feeding information to the FBI about your little endeavor.”

She saw the swagger drain from Bandon’s body as he slumped in his truck, absorbing the shock of the news.

“Luckily for you, I was assigned to the case. They haven’t brought in any information to implicate anyone other than you yet and I expect you to keep it that way,” Caroline said.

“Well, where the hell will that leave me? Don’t think I’ll let you leave me hanging out to dry on this one, Ms. Big Wig Attorney. If I go down for this, I’ll take you down, too,” Bandon sneered.

Caroline held out a hand to stop him. She’d already thought this through. She knew perfectly well Bandon would turn against her if he were arrested for money laundering and she wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out he had some kind of document or tape or something to hold over her head if push came to shove.

“I’ll take care of the investigation, but you need to take care of those Masters brothers. They can’t make their next meeting with their handler. There was, apparently, one other witness. I’ll get her name and location for you as soon as I can. In the meantime, I suggest you keep that business running as a legitimate business and put all your other activities on hold for now. We need to do damage control.”

Bandon stared at her for a few minutes.

She’d always suspected he was a sick bastard who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and she was right. He voice was cold and unfeeling when he spoke. “I’ll take care of the brothers. You get working on that other witness,” he said with a curt nod before he drove away. 

Chapter Nineteen

For weeks, Chad and Jennie were a little stiff and awkward around one another, but it gradually began to go away. They fell back into the swing of things, with Jennie being a wise ass and Chad laughing at her like he used to. Since Chad wasn’t willing to lose her as a friend, it was the way things had to be. There wasn’t any getting around it.

Thanks to Mrs. Poole, Jack and Kelly were back to hosting get-togethers at their house on a regular basis despite the fact that they had a three-week-old baby.

Chad stepped out onto the porch and couldn’t hold back his smile. His tough cousin, a man who ran a Fortune 500 company and often had grown men trembling in their boardroom chairs, was cooing and babbling like an idiot for his tiny baby girl.

Before Chad could even scan the rest of the group to see who was there, his eyes went to Jennie. She stuck her tongue out at him. He laughed and shook his head before grabbing a beer and joining her. She stood talking to their friend Gabe Sawyer. Gabe owned a string of hotels across the country and in several other countries as well. Andrew and Jill walked up to join them at the same time Chad did.

Chad had no idea he could have so many warring emotions at once. He was relieved he and Jennie seemed to be back to being friends, even though he wanted a lot more than that. He was turned on beyond belief at the sight of her in the peach-colored sundress she wore, with her hair pulled up off her shoulders.

Shoulders he wanted to touch and kiss and taste.

And he was fighting an internal rage at the fact that Gabe was standing there talking to
his
Jennie. No way in hell was he letting Gabe, a notorious womanizer, get anywhere near Jennie. The man traveled around the world, living in his hotels, entertaining different women every night.

Chad probably stood a little closer to Jennie than he should have, but he didn’t want Gabe getting any ideas about chasing after her.

Jennie cocked her head at him with that saucy little smile of hers as if to silently ask what he was doing. Chad let his eyes slide to Gabe for a split second but he saw Jennie pick up on his silent communication.

“Really, Big Man? Really?”
she asked and laughed.

“Wow. You two go away for two weeks and you’re suddenly telepathic. You just had a whole conversation without us, didn’t you?” Andrew asked

Chad and Jennie laughed. Andrew and Jack had cornered Chad after Florida, but he’d lied flat out to them. Told them nothing happened. The look on Andrew’s face right now said he wasn’t buying Chad’s lie. Time to redirect.

“Yeah. Jennie told me to do this,” Chad said as he tossed Andrew into the pool with his clothes on.

Andrew managed to grab onto Chad’s arm as he went into the water. Chad was struggling to right his balance on the edge of the pool when he felt two hands he recognized on his back. The little vixen pushed him right in behind Andrew. Well, that took care of any unwanted attention on Jennie. The whole group gathered around to laugh at Chad and Andrew as they wrestled in the pool. It had been too damn long since they’d done anything like this, Chad thought, as he shoved Andrew’s head under the water again.

He was grinning like an idiot when Andrew grabbed his legs under the water, pulling him down and causing him to swallow a hell of a lot of pool water.

He didn’t care. He was feeling better than he had since he and Jennie had returned from Florida. It felt good to be around his friends again, including Jennie. He would always want her. Always ache for her in a way that she clearly wouldn’t ever ache for him. But, at least they could be around each other without being insanely uncomfortable.