"Make up something else."
"He's not going to like it. You've already got him muttering to himself."
"What time is it?"
"They don't have clocks in that hotel?"
"Molly…"
"It's almost noon. You want to tell me what's going on?"
"Not really. Any messages?"
She was quiet, deciding if she was going to be put off that easily. She must have calculated her odds of success from the sound of my voice and found them to be not in her favor.
"Matt Levesque called. He wants you to call him back. And Johnny McTavish called."
"What did he say?"
"That he was returning your call."
"Did he leave a number?"
"Are you kidding? He wouldn't even leave his name, but I knew it was him."
"All right. Call me here if anything else comes up."
"Are you sure you're-"
"I'm fine, Molly."
"Suit yourself."
She hung up in a huff. I flipped the cloth to the cool side and drifted back into my half sleep.
I thought about letting the phone ring this time, but the hotel had no voice mail, just one overburdened desk clerk that might never get around to taking a message.
"Hello."
"Someone knows."
It was Matt. I'd been dozing long enough that the washcloth was dry and stiff. I pushed it off and covered my aching eyes with my hand. "Who knows what?"
"I got nailed. My boss called me in this morning. She wanted to know why I requested that pre-purchase agreement file from archives, and I couldn't exactly say it was for any project I'm working on now."
"How'd she know?"
"She didn't share that with me."
Dan was the only person who knew I had been talking to Matt and why. I tried not to think about that. "What did you tell her?"
"I told her the truth, that you called and asked me as a personal favor to pull the files. You didn't think I was going to throw myself in front of that train for you, did you?"
"I didn't ask you to lie for me. Did you say anything about Ellen?"
"She didn't ask and I didn't tell. But she did rip me a new asshole for not keeping her informed of a request from outside the department. I think that satisfied her for the time being."
"I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't intend for you to get into trouble. It's not worth it." I swung my feet to the floor, but couldn't find the energy to move from the edge of the bed. So that's where I sat, my head in my free hand. "None of this was worth it."
"I detect a note of despair, of profound disappointment, perhaps a hint of cynicism… definitely bitterness-"
"I'm not bitter," I snapped rather bitterly. "I'm just done. This was never my fight to begin with. And now it's over."
According to the clock-radio, it was 1:27 in the afternoon, but the room was still dark, almost all natural light blacked out by those mausoleum hotel draperies. Very disorienting. I went to the bathroom to check the damages in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot from crying, the bags underneath disturbingly pronounced, and my hair, which had been wet from the shower when I'd gone to bed, had dried into a free-form fright wig.
"Am I talking to myself here?"
"I'm sorry, Matt. Did you say something?"
He let out an exasperated sigh. "I said, when the files never showed up from archives, I started thinking about who else might have kept a copy of the pre-purchase adjustment schedule. And then it hit me-our outside accounting firm keeps copies of everything. So I called a guy who worked with us on the deal, one of the baby bean counters they had in here and he had it on disk. Pulled it right up. He was so proud of himself. Probably figures there's a promotion in it. What would that make him? A senior bean counter?"
"This is the schedule Ellen created? The one she was looking for?"
" 'Majestic Airlines Proposed Acquisition of Nor'easter Airlines. Pre-purchase Adjustments for the Twelve-Month Period August 1994 through July 1995.' I've got it right here in front of me. There's a list of vendors with the date and amounts paid. But if you don't want to hear about it, that's fine. It just seemed important to you at the time, which is why I went out on a limb for you, but don't let that influence your decision in any way. Don't worry about any possible damage to my career, and just forget the fact that I was sneaky enough to find-"
"Matt."
"What?"
"Be quiet."
"Okay."
I was trying to decide whether the soft pounding in my head was a headache or the faint heartbeat of a curiosity that refused to die. Across the room, a sliver of bright light shone through where the curtains almost met. The telephone cord was just long enough for me to walk over there. The drapes felt nubby when I ran my finger along the edges, and I wondered if I would see Dan if I opened them. The thought of him still sitting in the bleachers with his head down made me sad. Angry. No, sad.
"You're still there, right, because I don't have all day to work on this."
"I'm thinking," I said.
I could hang up. I could refuse to learn whatever it was he was dying to tell me. I could skate through the rest of my time in Boston, letting Big Pete run the place, doing what Lenny wanted, never questioning his motives, never knowing what really happened to Ellen, or what was in that package. I'd probably even get promoted. I'd become the first female vice president for Majestic Airlines in the field-my dream come true.
And it would never feel right. Never.
I pulled the curtains back and let the afternoon light come in. "Read me the list."
"Now you're talking." Matt began to read, ticking vendors off the list so quickly at first, I had to slow him down. We'd gone through about twenty names, and he was getting bored and speeding up again, when I heard it.
"Stop. Back up and read me that last one."
"Cavenaugh Leasing?"
"That one just after that."
"Crescent Consulting."
"Crescent Consulting? Not Security?"
"Believe it or not, I can read."
"Majestic made payments to Crescent Consulting? Is that what that means?"
"Yep."
"Before the merger?"
"That's what this says."
"How much?"
Pages shuffled at his end while I looked around for my briefcase. Where the hell had I dropped it? The room wasn't that big.
"Roughly three quarters of a million bucks over eight months."
"Three quarters of a million?" My heart thumped an exclamation point. "That's it. That's got to be it."
"Got to be what?"
The corner of my briefcase peeked out from under the bedspread. I dropped to my knees, opened the case, and found the file on Crescent inside. With the phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, I began digging, looking for Molly's computer printout. "What was the timing of the payments, Matt?"
"Three installments-two hundred thousand in October '94, two hundred more in December of that year, and three hundred in July of '95."
I sat on the floor, leaned back against the bed, and flipped through the printout until I found what I needed. Molly had said that the IBG contract vote had ruined everyone's Thanksgiving. I'd made a note of the specific date-November 20, 1994. So, a payment in October, the contract vote in November, and a payment in December. Merry Christmas, Lenny.
"When did the Majestic-Nor'easter deal close?"
"July 21, 1995."
And one big incentive bonus the next year when the deal closed.
"Are you going to tell me what this Crescent Consulting is?"
"I told you before. It's that local vendor used by Nor'easter in Boston in the early nineties, allegedly for background checks and other odd jobs. It turns out that Crescent Security is also Lenny Caseaux. I suspect Crescent Consulting is, too."
"Can't be. It's a conflict of interest to be the vendor providing services to the company you work for."
"He didn't provide any services."
It took him a nanosecond to work through the logic. "No way."
"Way."
"That's embezzling."