like, the new celebrity. You bagged another PG. I can’t believe it. That’s legendary, you know. Are you going for the full set? That would be a coup.”
Thank goodness they’d made it to her office. She slipped inside, Scott right behind her, and thought seriously about never coming out again. “What are you talking about? Full set of what?”
Scott gave her a sad shake of his head as he shut the door behind them. “Perfect Gentlemen. You really need to read more. Gabriel Bond and his five best friends were called the Perfect Gentlemen at Creighton Academy.”
She didn’t need a history lesson. “I remember some negative campaign ads about Zack Hayes. They called him an imperfect gentleman, I guess in reference to his prep school gang.”
“I’m sure.” Scott rubbed his hands together, obviously warming to his subject. “Six of the most powerful men in America, and they’re childhood friends. They stick together. They all backed Hayes when he was running for president. Roman Calder even left his prestigious and very lucrative law firm to become Hayes’s campaign manager.”
“Well, I think Hayes repaid him by making him the White House chief of staff. None of this explains why you think I would pursue a ‘full set.’” Her desk was covered in mail. Where had it all come from?
He shrugged as he sat in the chair facing her desk. “Two very prominent actresses challenged one another last year. The first one who slept with all six got bragging rights and dibs on a major movie role that had Oscar written all over it. Rumor has it they both got Bond and Crawford. One of them screwed Roman Calder, while the other found her way into Captain Daxton Spencer’s bed at a USO show she gave for the troops. But neither one could get Sparks or Hayes. Sparks is only a rumor. He doesn’t really fit with the rest of them and he’s never seen with them, so I wonder if there are really only five.”
Sparks wasn’t a rumor. Maddox had mentioned him fondly, but she tried to stay on subject. “That’s horrible. Why would any woman think it’s a good idea to ‘collect’ them all?”
“Because they’re hot and to show you can,” Scott said suggestively. “You’ve already had two of them.”
“No, I haven’t.” The idea that people believed she was collecting bed partners made her ill.
He winced a little. “So the rumors about you and Crawford are untrue?”
She was so sick of that. Scott had never asked, but Everly wished they’d already crossed that bridge so she didn’t have to discuss it now. “I never slept with that man. We were friends. Is that so hard to believe?”
“No one imagined that Crawford had female friends.”
“He did. Look, I had no idea the man I left with on Friday night was some bad boy from Wall Street. If I had, I would have stayed away from him.”
Would she really? Would she have had the strength to refuse Gabriel?
It didn’t matter at this point because it was over. Tavia was right. In a few days, the rumors would die off and they would find someone else to talk about.
“I’m sorry,” Scott murmured, giving her shoulder a little squeeze. “I shouldn’t have assumed you were sleeping with the boss. You’re not that kind of person. I’m trying to take my mind off the fact that I struck out Friday night.” He sighed. “Rumor is that the new boss will be here tomorrow. I know everyone thinks the nonexecutive employees are safe, but I don’t buy it.”
“Tomorrow?” Wow, whoever the new CEO was, he wasn’t wasting time.
Scott nodded. “Yeah, though no one knows his name. The rumor is Crawford always intended to leave everything to some animal charity. Or his favorite hookers. So we’ll either be taken over by elderly cats or a woman covered in body glitter calling herself Crystal Clit. I’m hoping for the hooker. A couple of strategically placed stripper poles would liven up the place. But I’m betting on the charity because they’ve already sent in a man who’s interviewing some of the employees. Hot guy. He didn’t set my gaydar off, though. I think he plays for your team.” He hesitated. “Sorry if I upset you.”
Weariness dropped over her like a blanket. So much rumor and innuendo . . . And tomorrow she got to deal with the person or cat who would likely kill her career. “It’s all right, but I think I should get to work. If the executioner is coming, I need to be ready.”
Scott sighed and nodded, then headed for the door.
“Hey.” She couldn’t let him leave without knowing one thing.
“Yes?”
“So Gabriel Bond isn’t a nice man, is he?” He’d seemed nice. He’d seemed real.
Scott shrugged, his face softening with sympathy. “I don’t know that he’s mean. But he’s rich and I doubt he’s ever been refused anything in his life. He’s pretty much American royalty, and they don’t tend to give a crap about the little people, you know? You’re better off without him.”
His words detonated like a bomb inside her, destroying what small hope she’d had that Gabriel wouldn’t leave a dent in her heart. Scott departed, leaving her alone again. She had things to do anyway.
She pulled out the new external hard drive and plugged it in. She didn’t trust the Cloud services of the world. They were far too easy to hack into. And she should know; she’d done it. So she only backed up to external hard drives she could control.
With a few keystrokes, Everly started a complete system backup. Once she was sure her files were secure, she could run diagnostics and figure out why her system was running as if it was powered by a tired hamster.
As the task ran, she sat back. Tears pricked her eyes, but she took a deep breath to banish them. She’d made a mistake and she was going to forgive herself. After all, they’d just shared a fling—even if it had felt like more. Now it was over, and she’d learned the hard way to never look back. Always keep moving.
And she had to deal with mail. Somehow even knowing she was very likely to be let go, she couldn’t just leave this stack here. There were tons of invoices and interoffice memos. Despite the fact that Crawford was a high-tech company, they still used an awful lot of paper. She’d been trying to fix that.
She picked up a small padded envelope. No return address, though it was postmarked from DC. The package was addressed to her, the mailing label typed and taped securely on. She turned it over and opened it. Two things fell out, a camera and a handwritten note.
To Alice,
Drink me. Let’s go down the rabbit hole together.
Crap. She’d received a package from a weirdo.
Everly stared at the digital camera for a moment. It wasn’t an expensive model, more like the kind a mom might buy to put in her purse and take pictures of her kids at the park. These days, though, everyone used their phones. This was at least five years old.
Curious.
She turned it over to flip on the screen and see the pictures this new crazy had sent her. Damn. The screen was cracked, a perfect starburst of destruction right from the center, almost as if someone had destroyed the viewer on purpose. If she wanted to see whatever images the camera might have captured, she had only one option.
Everly opened the camera and located the micro SD card, flicking the lever that held it in. The little square that likely contained something super gross popped right out.
Drink me, the note had said.
Why the Alice in Wonderland reference? Alice had imbibed a potion that enabled her to go down the rabbit hole and enter Wonderland. If Everly viewed the contents of this card, where would it lead her?
She couldn’t help but think about the texts she’d received.
“If I get a virus from this, someone dies.” Everly shoved the card into the slot on the side of her laptop. The backup was running in the background, but she could still pull this information up.
A few hums later, the machine identified the card. Someone had named the little disc “red pill.”
Awesome. So the loon had mixed Alice metaphors with references from The Matrix. She frowned. In that movie, taking the red pill meant facing reality while the blue pill all
owed a person to go back to their happy, completely false life. She clicked on the red pill, and her screen blinked, bringing up the menu. It appeared to be a series of pictures. All had been labeled with one date, nine days earlier.
The day before Maddox Crawford died.
A chill zipped through her. She clicked on the first photo, and the room turned even colder.
Everly recognized the apartment building immediately because it was hers. A man stood outside, pressing his finger against the intercom door. Maddox. He’d come to see her that night.
Evidence. Instinct told her she was looking at evidence, but she wasn’t sure of what.
She moved down to the second photo. The photographer must have been in the building across the street because he’d captured a shot of her through her open living room window. She’d opened it that night because the evening had been cool and she’d wanted the breeze.
A knock sounded on her office door, startling her out of her memories.
Everly looked up in time to see Scott poke his head in. “Hey, you’re needed in a meeting. Something about a breach in our retail sector.”
She nodded stiffly. Because backing up to the external drive was taking up CPU cycles, she couldn’t save the pictures on the SD card anywhere else. Damn it. She’d have to come back to this later.
“Of course.” She released the SD card and shut her laptop. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Scott gave her a little salute, then ducked out again.
Before she could make a clean exit, her phone chimed with a text. She glanced at the screen. Naturally, it was from an unknown number again.
Meet me on Thursday to discuss your trip down the rabbit hole. Tell no one, sweet Alice, or I’ll disappear and you’ll never know the truth about what happened to our poor Mad Hatter.
Shit. This was all about Maddox, and she couldn’t tell anyone.
Everly thought briefly about taking everything she’d received to the police, but whoever had found this evidence wanted her to have it, not the cops. If she did give it to the authorities, would the source disappear, along with the truth about what happened to Maddox?
She locked up the SD card and the camera in her safe. She would have to think about the best course to take later. For now, she had a job to do.
SIX
So Mad dumped Sara to nail a woman who worked for him? Fucking bastard. I knew he’d found someone else.” The following morning, Gabe sat in Mad’s chair at Mad’s desk. In Mad’s corner office. In Mad’s building. He took a deep breath, trying to quell his anger. Mad had bequeathed him everything—including his problems.
“It’s only a rumor.” Connor sank into the chair across from him. “I heard it from several of the employees I talked to, but there’s no solid proof.”
His friend was dressed for business in a tailored suit and tie, his Italian loafers finishing off the ensemble. With dark blond hair that had just started to gray at the temples, Connor looked like any of the thousands of wealthy, successful executives who walked the streets of Manhattan every day. Gabe knew that was a mask. Connor possessed a ruthlessness under his facade. He’d always been far too serious, but that focus had turned darker in the last few years. Sometimes Gabe wondered if the boy who had taught him to play lacrosse had been wiped out completely by the spy.
Gabe snorted. “Rumors usually have some kernel of truth to them.”
The kernel of truth would be that Mad had spent time with this woman. Gabe only knew one way Mad had ever spent time with any woman, and that was between her legs. While Sara had been pining and dealing with morning sickness, Mad had moved on to the next bed.
Connor nodded, conceding the point.
“Who is she?” Gabe wanted to know so he could put her severance package together. The one good thing that could come from knowing was the pleasure of firing the woman Maddox had left his sister for.
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m letting her go. I can’t have her here.” Surely Connor would understand that. “And while we’re at it, I want to hire an investigator to pull up any and all dirt on this woman.”
“Then I won’t tell you her name. Even if it’s more than a rumor, you have no idea what this woman’s situation is. She might not have even been aware of Mad’s relationship with Sara. You know how persuasive Mad could be when he wanted something . . .” Connor shot him a cynical glance. “Give the bastard points for one thing: he kept Sara out of the press, unlike that pretty redhead you took to bed over the weekend.”
Gabe had seen the pictures. Eve’s hair had been blowing in her face, obscuring most everything except her big hazel-green eyes and the intriguing tilt of her chin. Guilt sat in his gut. He should have told her to leave out the back. Hell, he should have escorted her home. He should have protected her. Eve didn’t understand his world.
He hadn’t called her yet for two reasons: he wasn’t sure what to say and he wasn’t sure if he had anything to offer her right now except a whole lot of trouble. So he’d forced himself to stop dialing her number about a hundred times. She’d already been punished for spending the night with him. He couldn’t imagine what the press would write about her for actually dating him.
“They’ll leave her alone if I walk away now. I’ll go to dinner with some vapid model tonight and the press will forget.”
He maintained acquaintances with a few women who made their living in front of a camera. They were casual, mutually beneficial dates. The women were guaranteed to be photographed for stepping out with one of Manhattan’s most eligible bachelors. And he was guaranteed casual sex.
But he wouldn’t sleep with his date tonight, not when he wanted Eve so much.
“Agreed. I’ll have your assistant give Ashton a call and find a date for Roman, too. If the two of you are seen with a couple of models, the press will likely forget about Eve.” Connor sat back casually. “Do you want me to dig for her last name? As far as I know the press is still scrambling to find it, but I’m sure I could figure it out.”
Gabe didn’t doubt Connor could find out everything from her last name to what she ate for breakfast, but it wouldn’t change the problems in his life. “Not now. Maybe if things die down in a couple of weeks . . .” He winced with regret. “Even then, she’s probably better off without me.” He had to focus on the clusterfuck he’d inherited, not his love life. “Now tell me the name of Mad’s mistress.”
“Mistress sounds nice, considering I expected you to call her a whore.”
He’d thought it. “Tell me. I’ll find out anyway. I’m serious about the PI. I have to find out every bit of dirt I can use against her. We don’t know who she is or what she’s capable of. I’d rather be prepared if she tries to come after Mad’s fortune or decides to use the press to make a name for herself. I don’t want Sara to have to read whatever interviews this woman gives.”
“Fine. I’ve mostly talked to entry-level employees and various worker bees, since they’re the most likely to answer honestly. I didn’t bother with the executives. They’re too worried about their jobs to talk about anything else. You should know that we’ve managed to keep the news about Mad’s will out of the press. If you work fast, the employees’ first word about their new CEO will come from you.”
“I snuck in this morning at five. I didn’t want any questions.” Gabe was already tired. He didn’t admit to Connor that he’d come in so early because he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think. He wanted Eve and he couldn’t have her.
“Good thinking.”
“I’ll meet with the four VPs before lunch. The minute we’re through, I’ll release a company-wide announcement so they don’t have time to gossip.” He sent Connor an impatient glare. “Now stop stalling. Who was Mad’s last mistress?”
“Come on, Gabe. You can’t fire this woman. The last thing you need is a lawsuit, and if you let her go based on gossip, that’s what you’ll get. If we believe all the watercooler fodder, Mad slept with at leas
t one of his VPs, several department directors, and a good portion of the secretarial pool. You know how Mad was. His dick did not discriminate. He had a very egalitarian sex drive.”
“I don’t give a crap who he slept with before Sara,” Gabe admitted. “I want to know who he dumped her for. I won’t do anything stupid.”
With a frustrated groan, Connor shook his head. “Yes, you will. No matter what I do, you’ll probably hear her name anyway. According to the rumors, he was spending a lot of time with his VP of information security. Her name is Everly Parker. I haven’t had