Honor passed around copies of the new member application form. “Remember, The Circle is no place for modesty or insecurity. Goals can be as outrageous as your imagination allows. But they should also be real goals that you are willing to work hard to achieve. And one more thing: Please keep The Circle confidential until we work out all the details.” Secretly, Honor reasoned the fewer people who knew she was developing allies, the better.”
Everyone agreed to complete their applications by the following Monday and send them to Honor in Florida, where she would be busy perfecting The Circle’s data base system. Honor was enjoying the discussion, but because the group had attracted attention when they left work, she insisted they return to the office on time.
As soon as they entered the building, Honor noticed William milling around the lobby trying, but not succeeding, to appear nonchalant. He sauntered over to them.
“So, where have all you ladies been?”
Honor gave him one of her sweetest smiles. “I took a group of employees from various departments to lunch, to discuss how we might better support one another in the future.”
Debbie smiled at Honor’s misleading remark as she turned to hang her jacket on the nearby coat rack. Then she strutted to the reception station, her tight skirt drawing William’s attention until she disappeared behind the desk.
Still distracted, William turned back to Honor. “Um, when are you going back to Florida to finish up?”
William’s subtle attempt to continue directing Honor’s life irked her. “I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon, but as I already told you, I won’t be finishing up anytime soon. I’ll be telecommuting for a while.”
William glared at her, displeased, but Honor stood her ground, drawing strength from her new allies. “Don’t worry, William. As your partner, I’m still committed to taking excellent care of our customers. The work processes my engineering team and I put in place should allow us to coordinate seamlessly on technical assignments. But as I mentioned the other day, I need to understand our corporate finances better, so I can keep up when attending meetings virtually. For starters, I need some tutoring on a few financial reports. Do you have some time to help me… or could you loan me Ben for a while this afternoon?”
William’s eyes narrowed, but he flashed a broad smile. “Gosh, I’m swamped today, Honor… and so is Ben. Maybe we could go over some things when you return.”
William’s smile used to charm Honor, but these days it held all the appeal of an oil slick. She started to respond, but he took her arm and skillfully maneuvered her away from the group.
When he spoke, his voice was almost a whisper. “Honor, even though we’re not married anymore, I still care about you and have only your best interest at heart. You know that, right?”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. “So listen to me. You don’t belong in the Retirement Capitol of the USA, shacking up with some beach bum. You belong in Chicago…here with your Soft Fix family… where you fit in.”
Honor despised William for attempting to conceal his self-serving motives behind a false sense of concern for her welfare. She gently removed his hand from her arm, struggling to hide her true emotions.
“Thanks for your concern, William, but I’m fine…really. And listen, since you and Ben are both busy today, perhaps one of your other finance employees could help me out this afternoon. I don’t need much… just an overview of our weekly financials, and maybe a key that shows what items make up each of the numbers on the reports.”
William paled, his smile now a sneer. His voice boomed. “You’re being ridiculous. We don’t have time for this. Besides, you know we’ve always kept the technical and financial divisions separate because you can’t grasp the principles of strategic marketing and finance and I gave up trying to teach you!”
Honor shrank from him, her resolve crumbling into embarrassment. Was that the truth? Frantically, she recalled how she had tried to learn everything about the business in the beginning. Learning about corporate finances was like trying to learn a foreign language and William teased her relentlessly. Before long, she stopped trying; opting to focus all of her attention on the technical side of the business, where she could shine.
With his back turned, William didn’t see Debbie stand up behind the reception desk. She struck a boxer’s pose, encouraging Honor to fight back. Her demonstration of support was exactly what Honor needed to regain her voice.
“William, I’m determined to overcome my aversion to corporate finances. I want to be able to help out whenever you’re away, the same way you’ve been able to help run the technical division while I was in Florida. You always say, ‘You and I need to trust in each other one hundred and ten percent, and trust in outsiders zero percent.’ But how can you trust me when I don’t actually understand how our business operates?”
William scowled, frustrated by Honor’s uncharacteristic persistence.
“Maybe the new intern, Melody, could work with me a little bit today.”
“God, Honor, give it a rest already,” William snapped. “I told you that my division is really busy this time of year.” An instant later, his insincere smile reappeared. “I’ll try to free Melody up, but no promises, okay? And meanwhile, I want you think about what I said.” As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, “You belong here.”
Debbie gave Honor a thumbs-up sign and answered the phone.
Honor smiled at her; but as she watched William disappear down the hallway, she knew it would be a tremendous challenge to outsmart him.
Back in her office, Honor considered whether William was cocky enough to keep records of his illegal activities on the company’s computer network. Paper records might be easier to keep hidden, but manual bookkeeping was also a lot more work. William tended to be lazy, so it was likely that he would take the easier route as long as he believed she would never catch on.
Honor perked up at the thought. Although she hadn’t worked on the company’s computer network recently, she still had all the passwords necessary for backdoor access to everything. She could log into the system and pull out all the information Sarah needed to prosecute her case.
That is, provided she could figure out what she was looking for and where to find it.
Honor pushed open the doors to the Corporate Finance department, ready to begin her quest. She approached Ben Dugan with what she hoped was an exaggeration rather than an out-right lie. “Hey, Ben, William said he’d try to free-up Melody’s schedule for an hour or so, to work with me on some stuff.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “Uh oh. From the look on your face, I’m guessing he forgot.”
“He didn’t mention it, but sure, Melody can help you for the rest of the afternoon. She’s just reviewing old timesheets, and that chore can easily wait.”
As Ben escorted her to the intern’s cubicle, Honor hoped for Julie’s sake that he wasn’t involved with William’s crooked activities. She pushed the worrisome thoughts from her mind and focused on the task at hand: how to make the most out of her time with Melody.
Once Ben was out of earshot, she asked, “Melody, can you print me a copy of our financial account legend… you know, a report that itemizes the content of each account?”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure that report exists…at least I haven’t seen anything like that. What if I print out a report that lists all the account numbers and their titles? From there, we might be able to figure out what each account contains. Would that help?”
“That sounds like a great place to start.”
Melody tapped her keyboard a few seconds and a report began to print. While they waited for it to finish, Honor ventured, “Debbie said you’ve been assigned grunt work as punishment for asking questions about fleet vehicle costs. Care to fill me in on the details?”
Melody nodded and whispered conspiratorially, “I have sort of a photographic memory for numbers, but since I’m the lowly intern, I get stuck with most of the boring filing. To keep from going stir-crazy, I started reviewing everything before I filed it. That’s when I noticed the fleet vehicle insurance premiums seemed too high to be accurate. I decided to dig into it and called the vendor to see why they were charging such high premiums for a few cargo vans. Well, the insurance agent told me our fleet included a Porsche and a Jaguar, which he assumed were company perks for you and William. I know you drive a BMW, so I asked Ben about it. He didn’t know the answer, but said he would ask William. The next thing I know, William takes my insurance file and says he’ll handle the matter himself. When I asked if I had done anything wrong, he smiled and pretended he wasn’t mad, but I could tell he was totally pissed. Then he said I had a good eye for detail, which would be helpful in reviewing time cards and presto.” She pointed to the large stack on her desk. “I’ve been watching the parking lot ever since, to see who drives what. William drives a Porsche, but I still don’t know who drives the Jag.”
“William took the file?”
“Yeah, he took everything. But remember my photographic memory?” Melody smiled. “Since William was acting so weird, I decided to write down the key information while the details were still fresh in my mind.” She opened her desk drawer, retrieved a thin file, and handed it to Honor.
Just then, Ben returned, obviously agitated. “I’m sorry, Honor, but I forgot I need Melody to work on something for me for the rest of the day. I don’t know how it slipped my mind, but it’s really important.”
Honor smiled and stood, knowing very well that Ben had been sent by William to stop her from learning any key financial information. With her hands behind her back, she discreetly lifted the report from Melody’s printer.
“No problem, Ben. Unfortunately, Melody and I were just getting started, so I guess my education will have to wait. What’s the critical project you need her to work on?”
Ben looked down at his shoes. “Just some finance stuff…deadlines…you know. Uh…Melody, I’ll be right back with the, um…project.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
Honor didn’t buy his routine, but apparently Melody did.
“Ben is a great guy, but he’s always forgetting stuff like that. He’s not much of a planner, which makes it hard to work for him. He’s always shooting from the seat of his pants and then the rest of us have to scurry around getting stuff done at the last minute.”
Honor laughed. “Melody! If Ben doesn’t plan things in advance, then you say ‘he shoots from his hip’ or ‘he flies by the seat of his pants’, but trust me… what you said he does is a whole different kind of problem.”
Melody thought about it for a second, then her eyes widened. “Yeah, I guess that would be pretty bad.”