Echoes of Titanic (28 page)

Needing to organize her thoughts, Kelsey took out pen and paper. At the top of the page, she began writing a list of every person and entity that had been involved thus far. She wrote out
Kelsey, Gloria, B & T, Rupert, Rhonda, Walter, Pamela, QFMG
—and then she stopped. Something with those last letters had caught her eye. She'd seen the same notation recently, QFMG. But where? Pulse surging, she opened her purse and dug around in the depths, feeling not unlike her cousin Rhonda. Finally, her hand closed around Gloria's scribble pad and she pulled it out. She scanned the scrawled notes until she found it, there on the third page and jotted in Gloria's handwriting:
Sched. mtg. with P @ QFMG
.

Kelsey closed her eyes for a moment. This whole thing seemed incredible. Had Gloria been working with Pamela in secret toward a hostile takeover of B & T? If so, how could she have done that? How could Gloria, one of the company's most loyal employees, have been such a traitor?

Most importantly, if she
had
done it, then why?

Doing the math, Kelsey quickly tried to figure out how much B & T stock Gloria owned. Between the shares granted to her as a member of management and additional incentive stock plan grants over the years, the woman had probably amassed enough stock by now that she owned a good five percent of the company. A percentage that high would have made her an appealing inside partner to Pamela in her attempt at a takeover. Had the two of them been working together?

Had Gloria been a traitor in their midst?

Kelsey mentally reviewed the consequences of Gloria's latest actions:

She had disparaged Adele's legacy
.

She had gotten Kelsey banned from her own office
.

She had caused the value of B & T to plummet
.

The thought hit Kelsey like a punch in the stomach. That had to be why Gloria had done all this: She'd wanted to devalue the stock! She'd used the Rupert mess to sully the company name and drive down the price
of shares, which in turn would make the hostile takeover possible and affordable.

That had to be it. Just look at how things were falling into place, she thought. The stockholders were probably frightened enough by the plummeting stock value by now to accept an outside offer. The employees were already eyeing the door. Soon, Pamela's bid for takeover would be a success, and B & T as they knew it would cease to exist.

Gloria and Pamela must have been working together all along. Despite Pamela's reputation for cleaning house, she had probably agreed to make an exception in this case, offering Gloria a tony position within the new, merged version of B & T—perhaps even the top spot. Gloria was all about power, and looking at the big picture made Kelsey realize that, sneaky as it was, this was the type of thing Gloria would have been capable of doing without another soul ever catching on.

But if things were going Gloria's way so perfectly, then why had she committed suicide?

And if she hadn't committed suicide, then why had someone killed her?

There were just so many questions and not nearly enough answers. And as desperately as Kelsey wanted to get to the bottom of things, she had to admit she would never be able to solve this alone—especially now that she wasn't even allowed in the building.

Quickly, she grabbed her phone and called Sharon again. This time she told her she wanted to assemble her research team, that she needed them to meet with her somewhere off-site to lay out a plan for how they could fix this situation. Sounding a little uncomfortable at the thought, Sharon nevertheless promised to talk to each of them and get back to her as soon as possible.

While she waited, Kelsey jotted down a list of the many questions that needed answers and the various ways the team could go about finding them. By the time she reached the city, she wanted to have mapped out a complete plan of attack. Half an hour later, just as the train was about to go into the tunnel, a text came through from Sharon.

Thank goodness, Kelsey thought, tucking her phone into her purse and gathering up her stuff. She hated to have to wait that long, but six o'clock
was better than not at all. And now that her team was behind her, at least she had a fighting chance

Closing her eyes, she whispered aloud as she waited for the train to come to a stop underneath the massive Penn Station. “Lord, please let me save my family's company as well as my great-grandmother's legacy.”

K
elsey made her way through busy Penn Station, switching over from New Jersey Transit to the subway system without ever having to go above ground. Soon she was crammed in tightly with her bags, rumbling south toward Rector Street Station. Half an hour later she emerged into the sunlight, jolted by the difference between the calm, salty sea air of the shore and the noisy, bustling city that surrounded her now. Hoisting her bags on her shoulders, she walked to her home a few blocks away.

As she neared her apartment building, she was relieved to see that it looked as if the reporters had all given up and gone away. She entered through the front door without being approached by anyone, and she was upstairs and in her apartment by two p.m. That gave her four hours until her meeting, which was plenty of time for both tasks she wanted to accomplish.

After making herself a late lunch, she took out her laptop and settled down at the kitchen bar. She pulled up her contact list and got ready to start making the calls she'd been trying to get around to for a day and a half. She had a feeling Walter would not be happy with her for doing so, but on this matter she would stand her ground. Distancing herself from the company for the world at large was one thing, but disappearing without a word to her clients was something else entirely.

She went through her entire list of active clients, dialing them up one at a time and giving them the same basic spiel. She said she was calling to touch base and to reassure them that while Brennan & Tate was currently facing some challenges, the company was actively working to solve those challenges
as quickly as possible. In the meantime, she added, though she might have to hand over some of her accounts to her coworkers temporarily, she wasn't going anywhere and, most importantly, the clients' interests were
not
going to be forgotten in the shuffle.

Fortunately, the calls went better than she had expected. There were a few clients with big deals pending who were understandably nervous, but otherwise almost everyone seemed appreciative that she had contacted them. In general, people seemed to be taking the situation in stride, sounding neither hostile nor skittish but primarily curious. Though she had no answers for most of their questions, she did what she could to be reassuring. By the time she was finished, she felt much better, and she hoped they did too. They certainly seemed to.

Then she changed into one of her favorite tailored jackets, a pale beige blouse, and black jeans. She completed the outfit by fastening to her lapel the pin Lou had given her. She would wear it with pride, hoping it would continue to remind her of her hard work at B & T and all that she'd done there. No one was going to take that away from her without a fight.

Before going to the meeting, she would be making a detour on the way to pay a visit to Vern Poole. Kelsey hated to drop in unannounced, but she wouldn't stay long. She just wanted to ask him some quick questions, make sure he was okay, and find out if any funeral plans had been firmed up yet. As angry as Kelsey was at Gloria, and as confused as she was about her recent behavior, she still felt bad for the woman's husband. The poor guy had been such a mess the other night, and her heart had really gone out to him.

On the way from the apartment to the subway station, she slipped into her favorite neighborhood bakery and bought a delicious-looking lemon cream Bundt cake. Then, with the box in one hand and her purse in the other, she got on the train at Rector Street and rode until she reached Union Square station. From there it was a quick five blocks straight up, from Fifteenth to Twentieth, before she reached Gramercy Park and the gorgeous old red brick building that Vern and Gloria had called home for the last twenty or so years.

Kelsey was standing directly across the street, waiting for the light to change, when she saw a familiar figure emerge from the building's front door. Despite her four-inch heels, the woman glided gracefully down the steps and across the wide pavement, coming to a stop on the other side of the street at the same light Kelsey was waiting for. It was Yanni, looking strikingly beautiful as usual in a light gray dress-length all-weather coat,
cinched at her tiny waist by a wide silver belt. When the light turned, rather than crossing, Kelsey stepped back out of the way of the other pedestrians and waited there as Yanni came toward her. She'd probably gone by Gloria's place to drop off some of her personal things from the office. If so, perhaps she would be able to give Kelsey an idea of how Vern was doing before she headed up there herself.

Yanni didn't notice Kelsey waiting, so she called out her name before she was all the way past. In response, Yanni jumped, clearly startled.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you,” Kelsey said with a smile, stepping closer. “I saw you crossing the street and thought I'd wait on this side for you. I wanted to ask you a question.”

Yanni forced a smile in return, though she did not look at all pleased to have run into Kelsey. In fact, she looked downright upset, as if she were ready to bolt at any moment. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Kelsey wondered if Walter had been turning the employees against her, starting with his own assistant.

“Kelsey, hello,” Yanni said, recovering from her surprise. She gestured off behind her and to the right, speaking more quickly than usual. “I was just over at the salon, getting a blowout. Big date tonight. You know how it is.” She smiled even wider, but that smile did not reach her eyes.

Kelsey hesitated, the situation shifting in her mind. There was no salon in Gloria's building, not that she could recall. More significantly, Yanni's hair did not look freshly styled at all. If anything, it looked disheveled, as did her makeup, for that matter. If this was Yanni's idea of dressing up for a hot date, she needed a better mirror.

Clearing her throat, Kelsey tried to sound nonchalant as she said, “Oh? Who do you use? I've been looking for somewhere new ever since my last haircut. My girl butchered me.”

“No way,” Yanni said, her cheeks coloring a bright pink. “Your hair looks beautiful. It always does. If I were you, I wouldn't change a thing.”

“Still, it never hurts to get a good lead on a new place. What's the salon called?”

Yanni faltered for a moment and then said, “My stylist is Maurice, but I can never remember the name of the place. ‘Hair' something. It's a couple of blocks that way.” She pointed up the street before turning to Kelsey again. “But from what I understand they might be going out of business soon. No point in starting up somewhere new if they're only going to close down anyway.”

Kelsey nodded, her face neutral but her mind spinning. What was Yanni trying to hide?

“Anyway, I need to get going. Mr. Hallerman thinks I left early today to run to the bank, so I would appreciate it if you don't say anything to anyone about seeing me here.”

“Sure. No problem. Since I'm banned from the office right now anyway, I don't know who I would tell.” She was about to meet up at a restaurant with her EA and her whole team, but she didn't think it necessary to mention that fact. She had no intention of telling anyone about her encounter with Yanni—at least, not unless the need arose for some reason.

As the woman turned to go, Kelsey decided to push things a little bit further. “I was just about to check on Vern and drop off a little something. I never know what to bring when someone has passed away, but I figure you can't go wrong with dessert, right?”

“Guess not.”

“That's their building across the street there. They have a condo on the sixth floor.”

Yanni hesitated, clearly flustered, and then she pointedly looked at her watch and took another step away. “I'm sure he'll appreciate that,” she said evenly. “This can't be easy for him. Gotta go. See you around.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Kelsey stood there at the corner and watched Yanni walk away, wondering what that had been about. As Gloria's executive assistant, she could have had plenty of legitimate reasons for being in the building, especially now in the wake of the woman's death, such as dropping something off or getting something signed.

So why had she lied?

The light changed and Kelsey stepped in with the crowd to move across the street. She had to give her name to the doorman in the lobby, and after he called upstairs to announce her arrival, she continued on to the elevator. Her mind was still rolling around various possibilities when she reached Vern's door. She was about to knock when it swung open and he stood there waiting for her. Unlike Yanni, he didn't seem flustered at all. For a moment, she wondered if he even knew the woman had been in the building.