Sheila pulled the search warrant out of her briefcase and handed it to Nathan. “We need to see H2’s audit files.”
Nathan read over the document, returned it to Sheila, and phoned the file room, instructing the clerk to pull the files and put them in the empty cubicles by the supply room. He returned the receiver to its cradle and stood. “Follow me, please.”
Macklin and the Hildebrand brothers remained behind while Sheila and I trailed Nathan out of his office. The smell of his Drakkar Noir was now mixed with a hint of nervous perspiration. Good. Let the guy sweat a little.
Another young woman walked past, this one a voluptuous African-American with mocha skin and dark, loose curls.. Her brown eyes darted to Nathan, then flung virtual darts at him. No doubt she was yet another of Nathan’s conquests. He sure did get around at the office. The guy was like a sexual bumper car.
He led us down the hall to two vacant cubicles situated in a windowless nook. When I’d worked at the firm, these particular cubicles were used by the summer interns. Of course, with it being September now, the interns had since returned to college.
“Make yourself at home,” he said.
As if. The only way I could feel at home in such a tiny, cramped space was if I were a chipmunk.
A male file clerk strode up, pushing a cart loaded with a dozen thick files. Finally, someone who hadn’t slept with Nathan. Or at least I assumed he hadn’t. The way Nathan plowed through the new hires, he might have run out of women and been forced to turn to the young men for new partners.
The clerk moved the files to the modular desktop in the first cubicle and rolled the cart away. Sheila slid into the cubicle, divided the stack of files in half, and handed one of the stacks to me. “See what you can find.”
I took the heavy files from her. I knew how to investigate a tax fraud case, but insider trading was something new to me. “What am I looking for exactly?” Maybe a spreadsheet titled “Dirty Little Secrets”?
“Any evidence the financial statements and audit weren’t on the up and up. The information included in the IPO made it appear as if the company was doing well, but I’ve got a hunch the glowing reports offered to the investors were pure hogwash.”
“Got it.” As I stepped inside the tiny four-by-four cubicle, my mind flashed back to the miserable years I’d spent caged in a cubicle when I worked at the firm. An instant and overwhelming sense of claustrophobia enveloped me. My heart raced. I felt trapped. The cubicle might as well have been a closed coffin. There wasn’t enough air!
I dropped the files on the desk and retreated to the hallway, gulping oxygen like I’d never get enough.
Sheila rolled her chair backwards and stuck her head out of her cube. “You okay?”
Sheesh. I was acting neurotic, wasn’t I? I nodded, clenched my fists in an effort to fortify myself, and returned to the cramped space. You can do this, I told myself. It’s only temporary. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it. Okay, that last part made no sense, but it nonetheless made me feel better. Thus resolved, I plopped myself down in the chair, grabbed a file, and set to work.
As I flipped through the pages, my ears picked up a barely audible screech coming from below. I looked down to see the bottom drawer of the cheap modular desk slowly rolling open. I pushed the drawer shut with my foot and waited a second. It seemed to be holding now. Good.
I set back to work.
Another screeeeech followed a few seconds later, this one a little louder. The damn thing sure could use a spritz of WD-40.
This time I kicked the drawer closed hard, causing the entire cubicle to shake. I waited a few seconds again, and again the drawer seemed to hold. I turned back to the files.
Screeeeech.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I muttered. I tried a different tack this go-round, pushing the drawer shut with my foot while simultaneously lifting up on the desktop, hoping the action would cause the drawers to realign. I waited a full ten seconds to see if the problem had been remedied, counting slowly to myself.
Eight. Nine. Ten. Good. The issue appeared to have been rectified. My attention turned back to the paperwork.
Screeeeech.
The drawer fell slowly open again. Fuming now, I opened the overhead cabinet and drawers, searching for something I could lodge under the cheap modular desk to level it. The only thing I could find was a half-used pack of Post-its. I shoved them under the trim beneath the bottom drawer and waited a few seconds. The Post-its seemed to have done the trick.
I returned to the file and resumed scanning the data.
Screeeeeeeeeech.
The drawer rolled open yet again, the grating noise threatening to give me an aneurysm.
“Dammit!”
This time I scurried to the supply closet and grabbed a roll of tape. I couldn’t find a dispenser, so I was forced to yank lengths from the roll and tear them with my teeth. Classy, huh? I adhered five long vertical rows of tape up and down the drawers.
Take that, cubicle!
I stepped back, holding my breath. The tape seemed to be doing its job. Thank God.
I tossed the roll of tape into the overhead bin and began looking over H2’s files once again. A few seconds later, an earsplitting screeeeech came from the drawers. All three of them slid open together now.
I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, cube. You win.” I gave up trying to fix the drawers and simply pulled them out of their tracks and stacked them under the desk before getting back to work.
An hour later, my urge to kick down the cubicle walls told me that my decision to leave the firm for the IRS had been a good one. The rumbling in my stomach told me it was time for lunch. Sheila had packed a sandwich in her briefcase and planned to eat at her desk. I was free to make my own plans.
I took off across the tax department, stopping for a quick catch-up chat with a couple of former coworkers. I showed off my badge and gun, while they showed off wedding rings and baby pictures. Although I hoped to get married someday and have a baby or two of my own, I’d stick with my gun for now. I wasn’t nearly as afraid of a bullet as I was of the icky things a baby discharged.
Eventually I reached Alicia Shenkman’s digs, a small office down a side hall. Alicia and I had been best friends since we met in Accounting 101 years ago at the University of Texas in Austin. We both accepted jobs at Martin and McGee upon graduation and moved to Dallas together. We’d shared an apartment until she met an attorney named Daniel Blowitz, fell in love, and decided to shack up with him instead. I couldn’t blame her. His place was newer, more conveniently located, and had far more closet space, especially once she’d thrown out his clothes she didn’t care for, which was pretty much all of them.
Alicia was promoted to a management position shortly after I’d left the firm to join the IRS. She didn’t yet have a high-backed chair or a window but she did have a door, which gave her far more privacy than a cubicle. Her office had far more square footage than the cubes, too, as well as real furniture rather than the modular crap. Her white walls were adorned with Georgia O’Keeffe prints, poppies in bold shades of red and orange. Her bookshelf served as a virtual shrine to her boyfriend, supporting an eight-by-ten framed portrait of Daniel standing in front of a collection of legal texts, his arms crossed in a don’t mess with me, I’m a tough lawyer stance. Situated around his portrait were candid photos of the two of them at a black tie dinner, the two of them on a trip to Cozumel, the two of them on the balcony of their downtown loft.
Alicia obviously didn’t suffer the type of relationship uncertainties I did. She knew without a doubt that Daniel was the right man for her. The two of them weren’t yet officially engaged, but it was just a matter of time.
Alicia’s back was to me as she rummaged through a file cabinet.
I tiptoed inside, put my hands over her eyes, and said, “Guess who,” in a singsong voice.
“Tara?”
I removed my hands from her eyes, holding them out to my sides, palms up. “Surprise!”
She turned around, a smile on her lips. As always, Alicia’s appearance was impeccable. Her platinum blond hair framed her face in an angular, asymmetric style. Très chic. She wore a satin blouse with a fitted black skirt and sling-back pumps. The look was classic, in a trendy sort of way.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Weren’t you afraid you’d suffer posttraumatic stress disorder if you ever came back?”
“I had a battle with the cubicle this morning,” I admitted, “but I powered through it. I’m here to investigate Nathan Jamison.”
Her eyes grew wide and she emitted a sound that was a half snort, half laugh. “Wow. That’s not just justice, that’s poetic justice.”
Yep, Alicia knew all about the weeks of seduction that had led to my brief briefless encounter with Nathan.
I gave her the quick scoop on the case. “Nathan’s probably innocent,” I said, “but a girl can still dream, can’t she?”
“Sounds like an interesting investigation,” she said.
Did I detect a hint of jealousy? I couldn’t really blame her. The tax file she’d pulled from her cabinet belonged to Jeffrey Baumberg, a poor schmuck who’d tried every get-rich-quick scheme in the book and failed miserably at them all. He never learned his lesson. Though he considered himself an eternal optimist, everyone else considered him an infernal idiot. He was a problem client who never got his records in on time, yet expected his CPAs to make his tax return their top priority. He always complained about how much tax he owed, complained about the firm’s fees, too. He’d once tried to pay his bill in Amway products. If not for the fact that his uncle was a multimillionaire real estate developer and one of Martin and McGee’s biggest clients, Jeffrey would’ve been given the boot a long time ago.
“What’s Baumberg put his money into now?” I asked. “Earthworm farms? Space tourism? Solar-powered tanning beds?”
“Iraqi dinars,” Alicia replied. “He’s certain he’s going to become a billionaire when the currency is revalued.”
“When’s that going to happen?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” Alicia replied with a heavy sigh. “Always tomorrow.”
“Want to do lunch?” I asked.
“I’d love to.” She dropped the file on her desk and grabbed her purse from the desk drawer. “How about the Fairmont? We can eat by the pool.”
“Perfect.”
We headed down in the elevator and walked across the street, chatting all the while. We greeted the uniformed doorman and entered the Fairmont Hotel, asking the hostess at the hotel’s restaurant to seat us poolside so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. We’d done just the same many a time when I’d still worked at Martin and McGee.
The pool was situated on a large rooftop patio on the third floor and afforded us an impressive view of downtown and relatively fresh air without the interruptions from panhandlers that lunching in one of the downtown green spaces guaranteed.
We took seats at a table near the railing, our butts sinking into the comfy red-cushioned chairs. The only other diners were a trio of older businessmen sitting on the far side of the pool, smoking cigars, and yukking it up over martinis, old-school style.
Alicia ordered the tropical fruit bowl, while I opted for the Greek salad. After the waitress left, Alicia turned to me. “Are you free Thursday night? The firm gave everyone tickets to the new art exhibit.”
“Count me in.” I’d always enjoyed the art shows. Not that I knew anything whatsoever about art, but the events were a good excuse to get dolled up, drink too much, and sample fancy froufrou food, like roasted artichokes with chipotle aioli dip or caramelized ostrich testicles with a garlic butter glaze.
As we waited for our food, we sipped our drinks and watched the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks three stories below. Nathan emerged from the bank across the street and headed down the sidewalk. Alicia noticed him, too.
“What did I ever see in that guy?” I asked.
“Besides the good looks, fashion sense, and intelligence?” Alicia said, defending me against myself. “You really need to quit beating yourself up over what happened with him. He seemed like a good catch. You had no way of knowing he’d turn out to be a sleazeball.”
“He made a fool of me.”
“Get over it,” she said. “We’ve all been fools for love at one time or another.”
True. And, given that I’d been thinking about Nick Pratt all morning, I had to wonder whether I was being a fool once again to deny my feelings for him. Or was I being a fool to think of Nick when I already had a wonderful guy like Brett on the hook?
I fingered my knife and raised it into the air, closing one eye to get a sight on Nathan, wondering if I could hurl the knife all the way across the street and into his back.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Alicia said, watching me from across the table. “I don’t think you can throw that far.”
“Too bad.” I set my knife down. “Watch this,” I told her. I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered, “Hey, loser!”
As expected, Nathan didn’t miss a step, continuing down the sidewalk. I gave Alicia a knowing look, cupped my hands again, and hollered, “Yoo-hoo! Hey, sexy!”
Nathan came to an instant stop, his head turning as he sought the source of the shout.
I sat back and rolled my eyes. “What an ego.”
Our food arrived and we dug in. But no matter how much I ate, I couldn’t fill the hollow feeling inside me. I wasn’t sure whether the sense of emptiness had something to do with my unresolved feelings for Nick or my unfulfilled desire for revenge on Nathan, but either way, the void remained even after I’d gorged myself with a coconut panna cotta for dessert.