Deceptive Nights (18 page)

Chapter 21

After the doctor’s appointment, she came home
and waited for her mother to come home. When Patricia came in the
door, Phoebe was just about to start looking into the books. She
had realized this morning, unlike all other mornings; Patricia had
put the bill ledger up instead of it laying out on the end of the
table.

“
Don’t you go worrying
about the bills today,” Patricia said, taking the ledger gently
away from Phoebe and putting it back up on the shelf in the
kitchen.

“
I just wanted to see where
we were?”

“
You really don’t need to
have more to worry about Phoebe. I’ll take care of these while you
clear your mind about other things.”

Phoebe sighed tiredly knowing her mother was
determined to get her mind off of Jacoby. “Mother, my mind is clear
about everything.”

“
If it was so clear, then
you wouldn’t look like someone broke your heart.”

“
No one broke my heart,
Mother,” she protested.

Patricia looked very doubtful. “So why did
you avoid Lawrence’s call last night?”

“
I just wanted to spend
time with the kids, plus I told you what happened
yesterday.”

“
Are you still going to go
back to work after what you know?”

“
Until the end of this
week. I don’t want anyone to get suspicious about anything yet. Not
until I get all the information that I need,” Phoebe
answered.

The doorbell rung followed by an impatient
knock on the door. At the same time, Stephanie could be heard on
the monitor awaking from her nap.

“
You go check on Stephanie
and I’ll take care of the door,” Phoebe said going towards the
door.

When she opened the door, she was leery to
see that no one was standing on the porch, but someone had left a
dozen roses by the door. Opening the security screen door, she
looked around warily and picked up the vase the flowers were in and
went back in the house closing the door behind her.

Reading the card, it only read, “Missing
you.” No one had signed it, but she knew who the writing was from
and dropped the flowers in the nearest garbage. Patricia was just
coming down the stairs to see her throw away the flowers.

“
Who sent those to
you?’

“
Daniel. I guess he thought
I wouldn’t know, but I know his handwriting.” She handed her mother
the card.

“
Well it’s a nice vase,”
Patricia noted getting the vase out and leaving the flowers in the
garbage.

“
Which he probably spent my
money on,” Phoebe snapped.

“
No need to waste money
then.” Patricia took the vase in the kitchen.

Phoebe on rolled her eyes in exasperation
following her mother. After asking about the children and getting a
positive response she told her mother, “I going to the office while
no one is expecting me until tomorrow to get some more files I need
for me.”

“
Are you going to do what
you spoke about yesterday?”

“
Yes, but I do need some
more information before I proceed and before they have time to
trash anything.”

Patricia kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Be
careful, Phoebe. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Phoebe chortled. “Madeline wouldn’t dare do
something that could send her to jail. She would find that a waste
to the half a million dollar plastic surgery she paid for earlier
last year for her to look so good.”

****

Arriving at the offices quietly Phoebe
checked to see if anyone was there. She didn’t bother to check the
two back offices that had just been clean because she figured most
likely he wasn’t here. He probably didn’t want to be around unless
Madeline was around.

Moving quickly, she put her brief down on the
nearby table in the copier room she got the key out and opened up
the cabinets leaving her brief wide open to put the rest of the
papers in there that she found today. Finding the file marked
Phoebe Green, she opened it up and began to look through the
papers.

Latrice always kept good files and Phoebe
didn’t have a hard time finding the agreements that had been signed
by Madeline for a raise in pay for each accomplishment she had
already done. Madeline always said the raises would come, but when
they didn’t Madeline would tell her the pay system was messed up
and she would get back pay. Phoebe most times felt like a dog being
led on a bone above her head too high for her to reach.

She hurriedly made copies of the agreements
and other information that she would need, then found the past
supervisor’s file and made a necessary copies from that file. Just
as she was about to close the drawer, her eyes landed on Simon’s
file. Picking it up, she briefly flipped through the papers until
she came to an agreement form. Simon didn’t have the skills to work
in an office, but according to his resume he did have a good
college background and had majored in a managerial field, yet why
had he chosen to be an assistant if he was geared to do so much
more.

Reading the agreement deep in her own
thoughts, she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until it was too
late. Screaming in fright, she whirled around to glare at Jacoby
who stood directly behind.

“
What the hell do you think
you’re doing?” Jacoby asked suspicious as the papers in her hand
began to fly around.

Hurriedly she knelt down and picked up the
papers glaring up at him as if he had just lost his mind. “Do you
know how to announce yourself instead of scaring people half to
death?”

“
What are you doing here?”
he asked suspiciously.

“
That’s what I should be
asking you.” She finished straightening out the papers and quickly
put the file back in its place. Facing him, angrily she continued
to glare up at him.

“
Isn’t it too late for you
to be out? Mothers need to be at home with their
children.”

“
Where I go is none of your
business,” she snapped.

He looked over at her brief to the papers
sticking out. She picked up the papers she had just copied to avoid
him from looking at them, but he snatched them out her hands and
stepped away.

“
Give them back!” she
ordered.

“
Why?” He was looking
through them quickly.

“
What are you? Madeline’s
spy and lover?”

Jacoby glanced at her for a moment and then
went back to his reading. The frown on his face started getting
even grimmer.

“
This is none of your
business!” she snapped.

“
Good thing it isn’t
because I’d choke Madeline’s scrawny neck if she did this shit to
me. You’re being paid fifteen grand less than what the last manager
was getting paid and on top of that in the contract it states all
managers are being paid forty five thousand dollars. I wouldn’t
choke her - I would shoot her. And I’m not her spy.”

Phoebe snorted. “Just her lover?” She
snatched the papers from him and stuffed them back in her brief
case. Turning her back to him as she did this, she asked, “So you
won’t be telling Madeline what I’m doing?”

“
Why should I? I am the one
who gave you the advice to do this. And for your information, I’m
not her lover anymore since our first night. I’m staying in the
hotel. I’m sure you remember what hotel room, don’t
you?”

She stiffened as memories of their erotic
last night together went racing through her mind. Jacoby had not
brought up that memory for her to cause the stimulation it caused
upon thinking about it, but instead, she assumed, he had brought it
up to deceitfully call her another whore without even saying
it.

He was only being vindictive and her
animosity for him clearly rose to the surface. When he was nice, he
could be so nice, but when he was mean, he definitely did that all
too well. Jacoby knew how to hit way below the belt.

Facing him, narrowing her eyes, she asked,
“Am I suppose to be grateful to you because you gave me that
advice?” She wanted to call him a big fat liar because no man with
his sexual insatiability could go too long without being without a
woman. She refused to believe he was passing up sex with Madeline
and was actually waiting on Phoebe. That would be too impossible to
believe because that meant that he wanted only her. She quickly
pushed this thought from her head.

“
You should be
appreciative.” There was a wicked light in his eyes and she decided
his proximity was started to effect her senses, so she left out the
copier room and went into Madeline’s office and began to replace
the key touching as little as possible then using a Kleenex to wipe
fingerprints off as she finished up.

He leaned against the doorframe watching her
quietly. When she was done, he said, “You do that well.”

“
If that’s a compliment,
thank you.” Again she had to walk past him, but this time he
blocked her way forcing her to look up at him.

“
What do you plan on doing
with this information?”

“
Get money that’s owed to
me.”

“
What about her business?
You sue her enough you could ruin her, take over her clients and
get your own business.”

The thought had crossed her mind, but this
wasn’t the kind of business she would like to have. “No thanks. I
just want what’s mine so my mother doesn’t have to worry about
money again.”

He frowned disturbed. “When will it be
enough, Phoebe? When do you actually think you’ll have enough
money?”

“
When I don’t have to worry
about what will I be feeding my babies tomorrow. When I don’t have
to look into their faces and tell them we can’t afford to buy them
the things they see other children have or things on television.
When they have to pretend to have the things they want. When I have
to pass up the things in the store I need so bad just to make sure
my babies live comfortably. That’s when it will be enough. Their
happiness means the world to me,” she stated heatedly.

“
And your
happiness?”

She shrugged. “No one much cares about my
happiness and I’ve stopped caring. It’s not important. My children
are my happiness.” Phoebe pulled her worn brown coat around her
shoulders and closed it up. “Goodnight Mr. Knight. Make sure you
lock up when you are done.”

Jacoby watched her until she was gone then
cursed under his breath. He was wound tighter than a ball of yarn.
Seeing her had made it even more difficult to concentrate on
getting her off his mind, which had been his intentions of coming
in this late into the office. He had fully thrown himself into his
work today to keep him distracted all day, and it was working until
now.

He swore if this kept up, he would have to
jam ice down his damn pants to avoid an embarrassing bulge that
would certainly draw attention.

Chapter 22

Simon came in her office Wednesday morning to
let her know Carolyn and Rhonda’s computers - two of the
transcriptionists - were on the fritz and were locking up on them.
He had tried to figure out what was wrong with them, but had no
success. When Phoebe looked at them it was to see that somehow a
file from both of the computers was deleted along with a years’
worth of work plus their backup copies. She checked the server and
saw that the reports were missing from there also.

“
What are we going to do?”
Simon asked nervously.

Phoebe frowned confused. It all seemed rather
strange but she didn’t feel like going into depth with this. “It
looks like the current reports are still there. Reinstall the
transcription programs so it will replace the missing files it
needs to work, then do another find on their computers for the
reports. If we still can’t find them, we’ll go from there.”

Simon reported back to her right before lunch
that the reports were gone. “Luckily though I’ve printed the
reports they have already done today so we should be okay because
we are all caught up.”

This put Phoebe’s mind somewhat at eased, but
she did want to research it all just a little bit more wondering
what had Simon done while she was off yesterday. She decided to
forget lunch and check into the matter, but Lawrence showed up and
asked if she was free for lunch.

“
I really should work,” she
insisted.

He looked like a lost puppy dog. “You’ll have
me eat alone?”

“
You aren’t trying to start
something again between Jacoby and you again.”

Lawrence smirked. “I could care less about
what he thinks. I even made sure he wouldn’t be in the office when
Madeline called me just a few minutes ago. So I ask again, can two
good friends go out and enjoy a nice hour of lunch and good talk
together?”

She agreed and he escorted her out. She
needed a lift and Lawrence was a breath of fresh air when they
spoke. He was the epitome of being a gentleman and he made her
laugh relaxing her and getting her mind off of Jacoby and the
office. She could deal with the office weighing heavily on her
mind, but she really hated the fact that as much as Lawrence was a
distraction mildly, any free second her mind had, her thoughts
would turn to Jacoby. Seeing him last night had not deflated any
feelings whatsoever in her body and her mind for him.

When Madeline called her up to speak with her
after lunch, Phoebe thought for sure this was about what she had
been doing the night before. Jacoby had told her he wasn’t
Madeline’s spy, but she was positive he still hated her for
something she didn’t even do, but he was too stubborn to believe
her from his own mind’s machinations.