Caitlin stared at the soccer field, watching the children play. Michelle thought they looked to be about seven or eight years old. They played with a combination of intensity, laughter and tears.
Had her little boy, Alex, played soccer?
He probably had, Michelle thought. Most kids his age did these days.
They stood outside Shutters
by Troy's Pathfinder, where valets parked a succession of BMWs, Porsches and Benzes.
“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me today,” he said.
Troy had driven them back to their hotel. “Come on, it'll take forever for a cab to come. And it's really no problem. I need to get back to the office, anyway.”
“Well, thank
you
for the discussion and tour.” Caitlin shook herself, like a cat who'd gotten sprinkled with water. “And I mean that.”
“I don't imagine I talked you into anything though.”
Caitlin stood just at the edge of his open car door. “It's a little soon for that.”
Troy paused by the door frame. “Can we keep talking?”
“I can't see any reason why not.”
“Good.”
They smiled at each other. He got into the car, swung his legs inside like his back was hurting, reached to close the door.
“Lead,” Caitlin said.
“Lead?”
She seemed almost embarrassed. “I read somewhere that there's a strong correlation between lead in the environment and violent crime. And the decline of lead tracks with the decline of crime.”
“Really? I'd love to read that.”
“I'll see if I can dig up the link.”
Watching the two, Michelle could still sense tension between them, but a different kind than there had been before.
She'd bet money what she was seeing now was attraction.
The back of her neck prickled.
She was pretty sure that this could not be good.
Chapter Sixteen
Well, so what?
Michelle leaned back in her business class seat and sipped her wine. Caitlin dozed in the seat next to her. It was about 8:30
p.m.
Los Angeles time.
So what if Caitlin liked Troy? So what if the feeling was mutual? Caitlin was flying back to Houston. He was in Los Angeles.
Of course, with Caitlin's money, she could fly back to LA any time she wanted. And with this election going on, she'd have plenty of reasons to be in LA.
Just because they were attracted to each other didn't mean they'd get together, Michelle told herself.
What if they did?
You're not thinking this through, she told herself. It wasn't the attraction that was the problem. The problem was Caitlin coming out of her shell. Opening herself up to new ideas. Maybe wanting to quit Safer America.
Or worse. What if Caitlin decided to steer Safer America in a different direction?
Follow the money. She was assuming a lot of things, but if it all came down to money, the people funding Safer America expected results from their contributions.
Who exactly was funding Safer America?
Was there any way she could find out?
Don't go there, she told herself. She needed to focus, on doing her job and not pissing off Gary. On getting Danny out of jail.
But if her “job” was taking care of Caitlin
. . .
what did she owe Caitlin? Anything?
And Gary would almost certainly fuck her over in the end.
It wouldn't hurt to know more about what she was up against. There were things she could find out without taking stupid risksâmore about the backgrounds of the board members, for one. She could do that on her iPad.
That
shouldn't be dangerous.
Assuming Gary hadn't somehow hacked it.
Michelle had arranged for
a car service to pick them up at the airport. Caitlin was mostly silent on the ride. Tired, Michelle supposed, and feeling the effects of the wine she'd had on the plane. As they approached River Oaks, Caitlin stirred. A smile crossed her face, as though she'd recalled a pleasant memory.
“You know, that was a really great trip,” she said.
“It was,” Michelle said, mustering whatever fake enthusiasm she had left.
Caitlin suddenly turned to her.
“I know I make a lot of jokes, but you really have been a great help to me. And, okay, I'll admit it, a good influence.” She reached out and briefly rested her hand on top of Michelle's. “Thank you.”
You need to tell her, Michelle thought. You have to.
“You're welcome,” she said.
Her apartment felt like
a stale sauna, smelling faintly of old moldy carpet. She switched on the air conditioner. Dumped her suitcase by the bed. Checked to see if her cash was still in the other suitcase in the closet. She was a little surprised and vaguely pleased to see that it was.
She took a quick shower, changed into a pair of jersey shorts and Danny's old Air Force T-shirt. Powered up her Emily phone.
One message.
“This is a collect call from an inmate in
. . .
” A pause. “Harris County Jail
. . .
If you are willing to accept, press one.”
Click. A hangup.
Danny.
He called again the
next day, while she was dropping off Caitlin's clothes at the dry cleaner. She'd risked keeping her Emily phone on, in case he called back.
She waited for the prompt from the recorded voice, pressed the button to accept the call.
“I'm sorry,” she said to the clerk at the cleaner's. “I, I have to take this.” Scooping up the clothes she'd laid on the counter, she slung the laundry bag over her shoulder and left the air-conditioning to stand outside on the sidewalk, in the steaming heat of a Houston late morning.
“Hey,” he said. “Hope this is an okay time.”
“It's fine.”
For a moment, there was silence on the line.
“I
. . .
I'm sorry, ” she said.
She wasn't even sure why she was apologizing. For not being there at the hearing. For the way the hearing had worked out. For everything.
She was crying now, and she didn't know why she was doing that, either.
“Listen,” he said. “Calls get dropped a lot, so I need you to listen.” He sounded exhausted. But not just that. There was something else, something underneath. Something urgent.
“I miss you,” he said. “I
. . .
I just want to see you. I know it's a lot to ask, with everything you've got going on.”
He couldn't be asking to see her just because he missed her. There had to be something else. Something he didn't want to communicate through the lawyers.
Something important.
The thought steadied her somewhat.
“I miss you too. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
Whatever it was, good or bad, she needed to keep herself together.
When she got back
to the house, she found Caitlin sitting on the oatmeal couch in the Great Room, tapping away on her laptop.
“The dry cleaning will be ready tomorrow afternoon,” Michelle said.
“Oh, hi.” Caitlin continued to stare at the screen. “Thanks for taking care of that.”
“No problem. Is there anything I can help you with right now?”
“Mmm, not really. I'm just finding that article for Troy. The one about lead and criminal behavior.”
Now what, Michelle thought? There was nothing on the schedule for today. No plans for upcoming events that she knew of. No work she could do. And if she took the afternoon off, she still couldn't see Danny. There were no visiting hours today.
What was it he needed to tell her?
“Is there anything in particular you'd like for lunch?”
“Lunch?” The little wave. “Whatever you feel like.”
“Well, okay, I'll figure out something.”
Caitlin nodded, attention fixed on her screen.
“I'll be in the office if you need me,” Michelle said.
When she checked the
Outlook calendar on the office desktop, she saw an event had been added for Friday.
She went back into the living room. Caitlin was still working on her laptop.
“There's a staff meeting tomorrow?” Michelle asked.
“Yeah. A sort of debrief on the LA event and a pre-planning meeting for the next swing through California.”
“Okay. I'll try to get up to speed on that.”
“I already heard back from Troy on that lead article. He really liked it.” Caitlin's lips curved in a small smile.
Michelle managed a smile of her own.
“That's great!”
Maybe Caitlin's connecting with Troy was nothing to worry about, she thought. Maybe she was overreacting.
And maybe Safer America was a perfectly legitimate non-profit doing perfectly legal election work.
Figure the odds.
She couldn't see Danny
until Saturday. There were no visiting hours until then. That left the rest of today and tomorrow to occupy herself, somehow.
The staff meeting tomorrow, that could be interesting.
How much could she investigate Safer America without arousing suspicion?
Whatever was on the office computer was fair game, she figured. If there was some kind of scam, some kind of money laundering or illegal donations going on, the evidence probably wasn't going to be sitting on the computer here in plain sight.
And the board members, who they were, what interests they represented, surely there was nothing too suspicious about her looking into their backgrounds, was there? As Caitlin's assistant, she should have an idea who the players in the organization were, shouldn't she?
In the nearly two weeks she'd been working for Caitlin, Michelle hadn't spent a lot of time on the computer in Caitlin's office. Mostly she'd used the laptop, and the times she'd been on the desktop, she'd been doing scheduling and researching hotels. Hell, most of what she'd been doing had been exactly what Gary had said it would be: Babysitting Caitlin. Chaperoning her on the trip to Los Angeles. Monitoring her drinking, which so far had been excessive but not drowning-in-a-bathtub drunk. Michelle wondered about that. Maybe she'd been lucky so far. Or maybe Gary's version of Caitlin was an exaggeration, if not an outright lie, to suit his own purpose, whatever it was.
Or maybe Caitlin had changed. Was changing. The doubts she'd expressed about Safer America, meeting with Troy Stone
. . .
And asking if Michelle wanted to work out with her tomorrow morning at a local River Oaks gym.
“If you don't mind,” Caitlin had said, with some hesitation. Might as well, Michelle had thought. The River Oaks gym had to be better than the shitty “fitness center” at her apartment complex.
Now, she was here in the office with nothing to do, except possibly arrange lunch.
She booted up the computer.
There weren't that many folders on the desktop. “Speeches.” “Research.” “Receipts.” “Contacts.” “Disclosures.”
She checked the applications menu. One of the icons was a stylized globe held up in cupped hands. “DonorSoft.”
As good a place to start as any. Michelle clicked on the application.
It opened onto a welcome page. She could see a menu bar across the top: “Home.” “Search.” “Accounting.” “Reports.” “Donors.” “Campaigns.” “Events.” “Volunteers.” “Preferences.” “Help.”
She felt a tingling in her hands. She clicked on “Donors.”
A pop-up box appeared. User Name. Password.
“Shit,” she muttered.
She entered the user name and password she'd been given to log on to the computer here.
User name or password not recognized.
Hardly a surprise.
She tried a couple of the other tabs, less sensitive areas, like “Volunteers” and “Help” and got the same result.
Could she go to Caitlin, ask for access?
What would her excuse be?
I'll think about it, she told herself. Come up with something.
What else could she explore?
“Disclosures” sounded promising.
She clicked on the folder.
Eight PDFs with the file names “Public” followed by years. Half were labeled “SAF,” the others, “SAA,” one from each year. The most recent were from last year. She clicked on the one labeled “SAA.”
It looked like a tax return. “Form 990. **Public Disclosure Copy** Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax.”
The name of the organization was “Safer America Action.”
She started paging down.
The first page looked a lot like a 1040. Caitlin was identified as the “principal officer” of a “501(c)4.” There was a brief description of the organization's mission: “To advocate for the victims of crime in the United States and for effective strategies to reduce crime and build safer communities.” Then, a checklist for “Activities and Governance,” followed by “Revenue,” “Expenses” and “Net Assets.”
They'd raised over $32 million last year.
She kept scrolling. The document looked to be around fifty pages.
Statement of Program Service Accomplishments. Checklist of Required Schedules. Statements Regarding Other IRS Filings and Tax Compliance. Governance, Management and Disclosure.
Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors.
There was a long list of directors, forty-one of them in alphabetical order, split in two for some reason, with some names that Michelle recognized: several retired politicians, a few famous businessmen, Perry Aisles, the television producer who had introduced Caitlin in Los Angeles. That was where she found Michael Campbell, the Santa Claus representing ALEAAG, the law enforcement officers lobby; Randall Gates, the man from Prostasis, whatever that was; and Debbie Landry, the board secretary.
All of the directors were listed as working for two hours a week, one hour at Safer America Action, the other at a “related organization,” for zero compensation.
The directors' list was interrupted by a section for “Independent Contractors.” A couple of them were easy enough to figure out: The travel service they used for hotels and airfare. Professional fundraisers. A company that printed annual reports and mailers. A hotel in town that seemed to be where Safer America booked its guests.
But two of the contractors were simply listed as “Consulting Services”: Edgemore Media Consulting and Red Seas Research Ltd.