Mercedes Houston was at her desk, the picture of poised, professional courtesy. Bright, inquisitive eyes seemed to recognize her as she greeted Kip with, “How may I help you?”
“I need you to give a message to Tam. Tamara. Ms. Sterling.”
One manicured and expressive eyebrow lifted though her expression remained impassive. “Yes?”
“I was followed to work. I think. I’m pretty sure. And there are FBI agents on their way to see her right now. Downstairs.”
Mercedes’ gaze flicked to the clock on her desk, her monitor, then back to Kip. She blinked once, then logged out of her workstation and rose. “Come with me.”
Kip imagined she heard the steady tread of Florsheims on the carpet outside. Mercedes led the way into Tam’s office. A good six inches taller than Kip, she moved with deliberate economy.
“Over here.” She popped open a small chest on a bookshelf, revealing a keypad. A few beeps later, she leaned on the left end of the bookcase and it smoothly slid to one side, revealing a utilitarian file area. “In.”
Kip had no sooner obeyed than Mercedes pushed the bookcase back into position. The beeps repeated and a soft click 125
meant she was locked in. She’d had no idea the space was here.
It struck her as a purely decorative choice because it wasn’t set up to be a safe room—she could see through gaps into Tamara’s office.
Mercedes had left the door between the offices open. “May I help you gentlemen?”
“We’d like to see Tamara Sterling.” Voice one was surprisingly deep.Whether the gaps in the seaming along the back of the bookcase were deliberate or not, she could see through it well enough to tell that Mercedes’ rigid back was to the open doorway between her office and Tam’s.
“Ms. Sterling isn’t in yet. Can I make an appointment for you?”
“Where is she?”
“As her personal assistant, I’m not at liberty to tell you that.”
The next bit was muffled, then the other officer finished speaking with, “So you should answer our questions.”
Mercedes, in a firm but very sweet voice, said, “I see very well why you believe I should answer your questions. You’ve been quite clear making your point and I thank you for taking the time to explain it to me. However, I prefer requests for information about private records in writing. For example, in the form of a warrant.”
“Do you have something to hide?”
“Prudence is not a sign of guilt, that’s what our head of legal was saying just the other day. I’m sure I can locate him for you.”
“Look, your boss is implicated in embezzlement and drug traffic—”
Mercedes’ amused laugh drowned out the rest. She still sounded merry when she said, “Anonymous is as anonymous does, gentlemen, and the only tip I prefer is on my embroidery needle. Now please let me get back to my work. I have no time today to help you fish.”
Mercedes moved out of sight, and something muffled ensued, then Mercedes, in a much louder voice said, “If you prevent me from using my phone or that door I believe that would constitute 126
illegal detention. Now you can do that if you want, you just step yourself right out on that tree branch and wave your badge around in the breeze, but I guarantee you that the branch won’t hold your weight. You can’t take that tone with me, sirs.”
A shadow across the light indicated someone had come into Tam’s office, but they were standing in the one spot Kip couldn’t clearly see. Then the second officer called from nearer to her than she expected, “There’s no one here.”
Kip stepped back and held her breath, but the shadow retreated.
Mercedes’ voice still carried well. “Please come back out here. You don’t have my permission to be in that office.”
“The door wasn’t shut, ma’am.”
Mercedes could have closed it, Kip thought, but perhaps she wanted them to be fully aware that Tam really wasn’t there. “I still want you to come back in here—David, hello. This is Mercedes Houston. I have two FBI agents in my office and they have no warrants and yet expect me to divulge Ms. Sterling’s calendar to them. Oh, thank you, you’re a dear.”
Voice one had grown quite annoyed. “Once again, your failure to cooperate will not bode well if it’s revealed that you aided and abetted a felony enterprise. You’re letting yourself in for a nightmare.”
“Well that will be my nightmare, won’t it?” Mercedes sounded cheerful. “Right now your nightmare has three lawyers on the way.”
Of all the stupid things to do, Tam thought, gingerly lifting her head. She eyed the whiskey bottle, gauging how much she’d had. Too many and not enough. Kip was still alive to her, though at the moment the thought of Kip’s scathing glare at the picture Tam made—waking up after deciding to sleep on the floor—only increased her headache.
She pulled herself upright, head swimming. Her business world was falling apart and she’d decided to get drunk? Someone 127
was doing a masterful job framing her for embezzlement and she thought she’d have a half-dozen shots of whiskey for a late-night snack?
That wasn’t why she had gotten drunk, she knew that. But the compelling need for her to focus on her company and her reputation should have stayed her hand on the bottle. She’d kept drinking out of panic, panic that she couldn’t put Kip out of her thoughts. The mental device of putting things in a locked room had let her lock away her childhood. It had always let her put away distractions and emotional confusions.
She forced her shaky legs underneath her and managed to make it through a shower. With each normal action her world steadied, and she could go on today as she did every day, the past at rest. She focused on brushing her teeth and planning her totally screwed up schedule.
That was when she wondered about her silent phone. Why hadn’t Mercedes called to find out where she was?
Kip hunkered down in the small anteroom, wondering how long it would be before she could leave. This was her reward for loyalty? Locked in with a bunch of file cabinets, ears straining to catch as much of the drama in the next office as possible? Her only thought had been to save Tam from the FBI.
There was a whole lot of bluster going on in Mercedes Houston’s office, but from what she could follow, the lawyers were winning because the agents not only didn’t have a warrant, they weren’t working on one. They’d gotten an anonymous tip that had excited the interest of one of their superiors and had been dispatched to make inquiries, and that was all.
Which made her an alarmist. Now she’d revealed to Mercedes Houston that she had a tie to Tam, when if she’d let things alone, Tam would have sent the agents on their way, at least for a while.
She expected Tam to arrive any minute, unless Mercedes had found a way to send a text or e-mail.
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One of the agents, the deep-voiced one who had been speaking less, asked if he could step into the other room to make a phone call. Mercedes agreed and a shadow crossed Kip’s line of vision.
The faint beep of buttons was followed by a quiet, “Thompson, checking in. No, this is a mess.”
Kip held her breath. It sounded like he was looking at the book titles on the case hiding her as he spoke.
“We might have gotten somewhere, but some assistant called legal and now Hardwell is practically measuring his dick with the lawyers. This wasn’t my idea, remember?”
There was a soft rustle as a book was pulled from the shelf.
“I don’t care if Sterling used to be one of us. I know—makes more money now than we’ll ever see. It was too soon to demand an interview. We’ve got nothing. Oh yeah? Like what?”