But he’d told her about the rentals. Why?
Well, easy one. Because she already knew. And he was trying to find out how much.
Her office suddenly seemed perfectly silent. As if the world had stopped, and time had stopped, and her brain was the only thing working.
She pulled the metal handle of her desk’s top drawer, hearing the whisk of the metal runners, the click as the drawer opened all the way. She pulled out those leases he’d created, one, then the next, on the triple folded white paper. Saw those college kids, paying Aaron to living illicitly in the bank’s houses. Saw the words in black and white. Saw Aaron’s double-dealing and downright theft.
What he was doing was wrong. There was no way around that. It was bank robbery.
He didn’t care about her. How could she ever have thought he did?
He was using her. To get access to bank records. Her files. Her connections.
Rohypnol, her monitor said. A colorless, tasteless…
The intercom buzzed.
“They’re gone,” Stephanie’s voice crackled though the metal mesh. “You heard?”
“I did,” Lizzie said. “Great job on the speaker thing.”
“And your appointment is here, early,” Stephanie said. “The Gantrys.”
Cole and Donna. Deep in debt, after Cole’s once-thriving company’d lost a government contract, but about to enjoy a financial surprise. Their mortgage numbers had gotten the Liz treatment. The bank’s “mistake.” They would keep their home.
Elbows on her desk, Liz clasped her hands in front of her mouth, fingers intertwined. Aaron was using her. Of course. She was an incredible dupe.
“Give me a moment,” Liz said into the intercom.
And what about her own system? Doing the wrong thing for the right reason still made her a liar. Grateful customers or not. What she was doing was just as-immoral-as what Aaron was doing.
Well, no. Not really. Aaron was benefiting from his deals. Taking the money. Stealing the money. Not doing it for the renters. Doing it for himself.
She was getting nothing from her system. Nothing. Except the justice of it.
It was doing good. But it was still wrong.
She stuffed the leases back into the drawer, closed it, locked it.
Maybe just this once more. Then she would stop. There was still time to change everything, anyway. She could help her clients in other ways.
Which left the Aaron problem.
He expected to see her tonight. She should simply call it off. Leave it alone. Problem was, Aaron knew that she knew. He would never go away.
She closed her page of research, erased the history.
She blinked at the blank screen.
Erased the history.
She had an idea. About tonight, and about the Aaron situation. It was a little risky, maybe a lot risky, but this time she had all the cards. She’d have time to think it through before this evening.
“Okay, ready,” Liz said into the speaker. She straightened the pencils on her desk, saluted the photo of Aaron, and flapped it facedown on her desk. She was ready. Ready for more than the soon-to-be surprised Gantrys. “Send them in.”
She loved her job. The realization washed over her with the glow of sunshine from her third-floor window. And she loved her life.
Things all worked out. Eventually. Even growing up with her father, and his criticism, and his focus on his precious bank. She wouldn’t be here, now, without that difficult journey of the past. She wouldn’t trade it. Her father being who he was had put her in the position to help people. Really help them. She’d had a difficult childhood, well, so what, so did lots of people. It had made her who she was today. And that was worth it.
All worth it.
41
“Just look at me, Mr. Ackerman, not at the camera, okay? I know you’ve done this before. TJ will make sure it looks good.” TJ’s portable minicam allowed them to bang out quick sound bites without white-balancing or searching for electrical outlets for the lights. “Now, tell me your name and title.”
Colin Ackerman’s assistant, all navy blazer and prep school attitude, had tapped a pass card on a black-box locking device, ushering Jane and TJ through massive double-paneled doors into the conference room, an homage to sleek mahogany and cordovan leather. No wonder you needed a special escort to get to the executive floor. Customers might not be pleased to discover their fees and service charges were spent on fancy chairs and lavish conference tables. Ackerman had kept them waiting for an hour, a pitiful power play, but whatever. She needed the interview.
TJ finally placed Ackerman in front of the bank’s ubiquitous anchor logo, this one in gold, wall-mounted on a navy blue suede background. Suede and mahogany. Jane remembered the shabby vinyl of the empty house on Waverly Road.
“You set, TJ?” The recitation of the name and title wasn’t only for Jane’s reference, but to allow TJ to check audio levels and camera angles. “Great. Mr. Ackerman? Tell me about the bank’s focus on customer service,” Jane said.
“Certainly, Jane. As a mortgage customer of the bank yourself, you know Atlantic and Anchor’s primary concern is for…”
The “concern” part was bull, but was Ackerman trying to telegraph that he knew her mortgage information? Creepy, and totally inappropriate, if he’d looked her up. Jane rolled her eyes, mentally at least. Public relations guys.
Ackerman continued with canned PR prattle about customers and personal relationships, using her name in every sentence. In a usual taped interview, she’d let him say whatever he wanted, get that over with, then ask the tough questions she actually cared about. But in this case, all she needed was a perfunctory twenty or so seconds for an online sidebar. She’d gotten the video, and that would please multimedia Marcotte, and if Victoria was happy, Jane was happy. And soon she could go home and take a nap.
Sleep. Her thoughts half-wandered as Ackerman continued his boilerplate. Bed. Which reminded her of Jake. Who was in Boston, not D.C. Who hadn’t called.
She’d phone Marcotte, give her the good news about this interview, and say she’d bang out the story tomorrow, plenty of time. What she wouldn’t say was-she was not about to let cleaning up Chrystal’s journalism leftovers distract her from the potential headlines she was pursuing on her own. Sandoval. Peter Hardesty. Her foreclosure story. And, perhaps, even Gordon Thorley.
A nap would have to wait. A good story trumped sleep.
“Vierra? It’s Jake Brogan. Listen, can you run an address for me at the Registry of Deeds? I need to know the owner of the house.” Jake could have run the Moulten Road address through the Registry of Deeds himself, but not while he was driving. Officer Vierra in Records had offered to help. Jake still felt weird to be on the job without DeLuca, and the empty passenger seat changed the whole atmosphere of the cruiser, making Jake feel as though he’d forgotten something. Still, he preferred working alone to warding off the nonstop rancor and “in the old days” complaining that spewed from Bing Sherrey.
Sherrey was assigned as primary on Moulten Road, with Jake as backup. So far, Sherrey seemed to be content with watching Crime Scene do its thing rather than initiate any investigation of his own. But that was not Jake’s problem. Until it was.
“Yeah,” Jake told Vierra. “It’s two-zero-zero-two Moulten Road. Let me know ASAP, okay? And one more thing-call the MBTA flak, make him give us the video from the buses that took the Moulten Street route-you know? Between say, five P.M. and ten P.M. Tuesday night. Got it?”
He paused, heard Vierra sneeze. “Bless you,” Jake said. “Got it?”