Underwater (21 page)

“The end of November. But twins are sometimes born prematurely.”

“Well. I hope I haven’t upset you. I just needed to let you know the truth.”

“It’s okay. We’ll make it. We don’t have a house payment, and now that we don’t have to make payments to the bank, we should be able to get by, especially with Monty working. We’re going to have to downsize and cut our expenses. When I get a job, we can start to get back on our feet.”

“Monty simply has to bring in an income. Once the house sells, you’ll be responsible for your rent payment over there. I’m not going to pay it anymore. That could happen before you start working again. You can’t do everything, Helen. Not with three kids.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Candace paused. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t know how we would have maintained that house on Arcadia anyway, even if we did own it free and clear. The property taxes are exorbitant, and the utilities won’t be cheap. Even if both of us are working, after day care costs, it would be a huge struggle to live there and keep it up.”

“You can rent for a while and save your money. Then buy a house you can afford. Since housing prices are down everywhere, you’ll probably be able to find something when you’re ready.”

“We should never have gotten into that house on Arcadia. I’m sorry we’ve put you through all of this, Candace.”

“Let’s just focus on the exit strategy. Now you know what’s going on, and I’m glad you were able to digest it.”

“If David finds out anything—”

“I’ll call you. Oh, and Helen?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not going to tell Monty we’ve spoken, or that I’ve told you anything. Our priority is verifying that he’s working, and I don’t want anything to happen right now to set him off.”

“Believe me, I don’t either. I won’t say a word.”

At one o’clock on Friday night, Monty slid behind the wheel of the BMW parked in the garage at his Midtown condominium. He had just spent the evening with Rachel, who was asleep upstairs, naked. They’d gone out for dinner and drinks at a hot nightclub two blocks away, then returned for a two-hour session of mind-boggling sex.

He turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the parking space. Helen and Adele should be asleep now. He had told his wife that he’d had to go out with Mack and Jeremy, the two guys who ran the fictitious media company he said he was working for. She had been bugging him the last two days to tell her more about it, but so far he had gotten away with saying little. He had claimed that everything was very hush-hush, and that he had been ordered not to divulge anything about the business, not even to his wife.

When she gave him questioning looks, he’d ignored her. As long as he made deposits in their joint checking account, he said, she should be happy, and he would be getting paid once a week, on Fridays. He’d made a deposit in their checking account today, in cash of course. He knew she would freak, but he planned to tell her that Mack and Jeremy were Dutch and the company wasn’t even registered yet in the U.S.

He had taken the money out of his other bank account, the one he used for the condo and for his purchases for himself and Rachel. He also had cash in a safe deposit box there. That way, he could keep it hidden with no one tracking it and there was no trace of it online. He’d decided to pay himself a weekly salary of $1,920. Annually, it worked out to about a buck and a quarter—$125,000—with a tax rate of 20 percent. A take-home monthly pay of almost eight grand should satisfy Helen, and would be more than enough to keep them afloat. It was also plausible compensation for the kind of job he’d created for himself.

It didn’t matter, though. In a couple of months, he would tell her that his employers had decided to go back to Europe, but that before they did, they had paid him a large consulting fee. By then, he would have millions of dollars in the bank. His family would be living in comfort at 710 Arcadia Lane, with two new cars and no debt. He didn’t care anymore that Candace had forced him out of the renovation project. Once he moved back in, he could change anything her cheap contractor had done; all it would take was enough money, and by then he would have plenty.

He approached a red light and slowed to a stop. The night air was sultry. The weather in Atlanta would stay hot and humid until at least mid-September. But when the weather changed, so would his life.

Finally.

16

Leak

D
avid Shepherd sat down at his desk on a Thursday morning. Checking his email, he saw a message from Ken Samuels, the contractor on Arcadia. The work over there wasn’t finished, even though Ken had promised it would be done by the fifteenth. Today was August nineteenth, and Candace wasn’t happy.

David opened the message and braced himself for bad news.

He got it. Evidently Ken’s team had found some issues that required more time to address: an active leak had been discovered, the result of a drain that had been improperly installed by Monty. There was also some damage behind the drywall and under the carpeting, and the wood floors in the den were cupped due to moisture. Mold had been found all through the home, although it had only been evident in the basement initially.

Ken had been working hard during the last two weeks to finish the cabinet installation, repair and restain the trim, and reinstall some windows that had been set incorrectly. Earlier, his team had had to spend their time removing debris and redoing the electrical wiring as well as the waterproofing. With the latest mold and leak discoveries, Ken believed the waterproofing had to be redone again, unfortunately. The bottom line equaled an additional $30,000 and at least three more weeks.

David sat back in his chair and reread the message with its list of bullet points. Candace was going to be furious. He would tell her what Ken had explained to him the last time they had spoken: that the moisture issues were due to shoddy work previously done by her brother, or by the people he had hired before Ken’s team took over. She would still hit the roof, and David would be the recipient of her wrath. She would require him to argue with Ken about the additional charges, and to micromanage all the remaining work on the house—two things David didn’t want to do.

He had to tell her about the situation, though, and he had to do it today. Earlier this week, she and Monty had argued over how much to list the house for, exchanging emails and copying David. Candace had instructed David not to forward them to Helen—she was six months pregnant now, but looked as if she were eight and a half months, according to her husband. Candace had said that she would personally handle any communication with Helen by phone and that she didn’t want to upset her right now with any bad news.

When the house was ready to go on the market, Monty wanted to list it for $2.1 million, with the expectation of getting just under two. Candace believed the house wouldn’t bring in half that amount. David felt she was right. The Carawans weren’t going to make any money, and David’s task was to minimize how much his client lost. Then she—and he—could remove it from her list of investments.

However, Ken needed to finish the work first, and then he had to be paid. A contract had to be signed with a realtor, who had to locate a buyer, a task that wouldn’t be easy. David just hoped that potential buyers wouldn’t meet the neighbors and find out how long the renovation had taken to complete.

Fashion Week was scheduled to begin in just over three weeks, and Candace was looking forward to unveiling SwimZ.

The samples were ready in every color and pattern that she had approved. She had tried on each style and was pleased with all of them. Of course, no one in the industry (or the general public) knew about the line—everyone at SlimZ was sworn to obey the commandment
thou shalt not leak.
Breaking that commandment meant losing one’s job.

Previous new garments the company had shown to buyers during Fashion Week had wowed everyone, creating that sought-after buzz before the product became available in stores a few months later. The new SwimZ line would do the same. Candace was proud of her achievement in making it a reality; it had been in development for years, and now was the right time.

She looked over the photos on the SlimZ internal system. Everything looked great. Her competitors would be stunned with the new line and would scramble to imitate the designs. But they wouldn’t succeed. In the spring, SwimZ would be the must-have swimsuit, and no other apparel company’s product would come close to its customer appeal. The SlimZ brand name was a major positive in marketing and was worth quite a bit of money. With an average unit retail price of $200, Candace expected to sell about 1.25 million units, yielding sales of $250 million, which equaled a gross profit of $125 million.

She enjoyed making a profit, but money wasn’t what she worked for—at least not anymore, and not for its own sake. The money was an added bonus, a way to measure success, like an SAT score or an index of accomplishment. Candace liked earning high scores. As long as she kept working and SlimZ kept thriving, her money kept coming in, and her success increased.

She had a passion for her products and for the company she had founded. She was proud of the fact that she had done all the research herself and had created products that had never existed before. The fact that she had been financially secure at the time and could afford to take a chance on a new idea had helped, but it wasn’t the reason for her success. She had been a creative visionary then and she was still one today. She thoroughly enjoyed the process;
that
was the reason she kept on working. Besides, if she ever stepped aside, what would she do? She didn’t want to retire. She had created her ideal job.

She also enjoyed her social connections to the super-wealthy in business and to many New York and Hollywood celebrities. She thrived on their admiration for what she had done professionally. She couldn’t imagine herself without the financial status she had achieved. It was an integral part of who she was, like her IQ or the shape of her nose.

And in recent years, she’d grown very accustomed to the finer things: well-made designer clothing, bags, and shoes; luxury vehicles; private jets; fine hotels; expensive wine. She’d become quite used to getting exactly what she wanted, when she wanted it. The things that she wanted added up to thousands of dollars—tens of thousands—but that wasn’t extravagant, given her net worth. They added up, but she didn’t intend to live without them, or to feel guilty for the lifestyle she led.

She didn’t see herself as pretentious in any way, though, or as a snob. She had never hidden—or been ashamed of—her middle-class family upbringing. She couldn’t help it if she counted her pennies; she had inherited the trait of frugality from her father. Like him, she had an irrational, deep fear of losing everything that she had saved and everything that she had built for reasons beyond her control. It was a fear she had had to push away more than once. The French had an expression she often repeated to herself when her fear surfaced:
gardez votre sang-froid.
Keep your sangfroid, your composure. Your cool.

Her inbox signaled a new message. It was from Darlene, who handled public relations and social media, and it was marked urgent. She clicked on it, skimmed it, and reread it with alarm.

Candace,

I just saw this blurb on woohoo.com:

“SlimZ, the fabulous shapewear company founded by Candace Morgan, is about to unveil a new line to store buyers at New York’s Fashion Week: Swimsuits! We can’t wait to see them, and we know you can’t, either. No word yet on colors, designs, or even the new logo, but check back often: we will post more info as we get it!”

Darlene

Candace rose from her desk, her heart racing, and walked from her office straight to Darlene’s desk. Then she leaned down to her.

“How did this happen?” Candace whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Someone must have talked.”

“Everyone here knows not to say a word about the line. Not to their friends, not to their families, not even to their husbands.”

“Evidently, someone did, and now it’s on Woohoo, a site millions of people read every day.”

Darlene bit her lip. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing, yet. I’m going to have Jess call the department heads in, and after I talk with them, I’ll send for you to come over. So stay here, and stay mum.”

“Oh my God, Candace.”

Candace gave her a stern look. “Continue your work, as if nothing’s going on.”

“Okay.”

Candace walked to Jess’s desk and stopped in front of her. “Call Amanda, Paula, Ginger, and Courtney to my office, right now.”

Fifteen minutes later, Darlene’s phone buzzed. It was Jess.

“Candace would like you to come to her office right away.”

Darlene rose from her desk and walked down the hall toward the CEO’s office door. Passing by Jess, she glanced at her with a nervous smile, then paused before opening Candace’s door.

The four SlimZ department heads stood opposite the CEO, who was standing behind her desk. “Darlene,” she said in a low tone. “Come in, and shut the door.”

Darlene did as she was bid, then turned and stopped, looking around.

“Have you seen anything else online?” asked Candace.

Darlene shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Okay. As we all know, this is a very unexpected and unwelcome development. It’s not the end of the world, though. Before we get to how it happened, we need to talk about what to do next.”

Darlene nodded.

Candace continued to address the group. “A leak like this has never happened to us before. We’ve always been able to control the news of what we’re doing and manage our narrative. We can still do that.”

Amanda piped up. “We need to know who leaked it.”

Candace held her hand up, palm out. “First, we need to know exactly what got leaked. The fact that we are about to unveil a new line of swimsuits is out there. What else?”

“The blurb on Woohoo said, ‘We will post more info as we get it,’ ” said Amanda. “They’ve got a source. When they get more info, they’ll disclose more, and that means our competitors will know more.”

The other women in the room looked at each other with worried expressions. Candace leaned toward them and placed her hands on her desk. “It’s important that we keep calm. The SwimZ line will be shown in three weeks. That’s going to happen. Somehow, Woohoo knows about it. We don’t know if they know anything more. If they had renderings of our designs, I suspect they would have already put them out there. They’ve made a connection with someone who wanted to make some money, and evidently that person hasn’t given them anything else yet.”

Darlene looked at Amanda. “We can take control of this. We can act like we meant to let it out, to garner attention pre–Fashion Week. A teaser.”

“That’s exactly what we need to do,” said Candace. “But we do need to trace this.”

Paula looked around. “No one on my team would leak it.”

“Nonetheless,” said Candace, looking from Paula to Amanda, then to Ginger, then Courtney, “I need for all of you to take a new look at each of your direct reports. You know them. You know their personalities. You know how long they’ve been here. You know who they live with, who they call on the phone.” She paused for a few seconds. “I’m sure that no one in the company did something stupid like talk about SwimZ in an email or on their Facebook page. But someone told Woohoo—or they told someone else, who told Woohoo. It may not have even been someone here at the company. It could have been a seamstress, or even a fabric vendor who wanted to make some cash. So we need to widen the search beyond SlimZ employees. Paula, see what you can find out. Get Shelly on it, too, and get back to me as soon as you know anything.”

The following Friday afternoon—eight days later—Monty dialed Candace’s number.

He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t take his call. After the beep, he left a message, speaking in a cheerful tone. “Hey, Candace. Just wanted to ask how everything’s going over at the company. I’ve seen some stuff about you online. Something about a new line of bathing suits coming out soon? Good luck with that. Call me back as soon as you can. I need to talk to you about a proposal. And about Helen.”

He clicked the phone off and put it down. It was almost four o’clock, and Rachel would be getting back to the condo soon. She never worked much past four on Fridays; none of her decorator clients would schedule an appointment so close to rush hour at the beginning of a weekend.