Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
She smiled halfheartedly. “I think he’s trying to get even with me for embarrassing him publicly. His family has a staff of in-house attorneys, so there isn’t any cost for him. But I’m sure it will wind up costing me a fortune I don’t have. The ironic thing is, I didn’t even want a big, expensive wedding. Christian and his family did. They had more business associates on the guest list than I did friends and family.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks. But I do have a good attorney to recommend, and he owes me a favor or two. I’ll call him tomorrow and see what he can do.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
I nodded. “Not a problem.”
The waitress came with our dinners. I’d ordered the salmon while Evie had chosen the chicken piccata. She licked her lips, looking over at my plate. “Yours looks good. Are you sharing?”
I shook my head with a chuckle. “Sure. Anything else you’d like?”
Evie reached over and grabbed my plate. She smiled while cutting off a piece of my salmon and replacing it with a piece of her chicken. “Actually there is.”
“Why am I not surprised…”
“Oh, pipe down. I just want to ask you some questions about the office.”
I took my plate back. “What would you like to know?”
For the next half hour, she peppered me with questions about trading, mostly how things ran and what my staff were and weren’t authorized to do. She seemed to have a pretty good grasp on a lot of industry terminology.
“You don’t have any experience in a brokerage house,” I said. “Yet you seem to understand a lot about how things work.”
“I read a bunch of books when I was offered the job.”
I nodded. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
“Actually…” She drummed her fingers on the table. “When I was reading up on your company, I found an old article from the year you opened. It said you had a partner. But I read your last few prospectuses, and the name disappeared from the stockholder section a couple of years back. Amelia…Evans, I think it was?”
I looked away. “That’s right.”
“What happened with her?”
I looked around for the waitress. Catching her eye, I raised my hand to call her over before returning my attention to Evie. “I don’t think that’s relevant to the job you were hired to do.” When the waitress walked over, I requested the check.
She slipped a leather padfolio from her apron pocket and set it on the table. “I’ll take it whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.” I pulled out my wallet and tucked a credit card into the slot before handing it back.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Evie waited until the waitress disappeared, but didn’t miss a beat picking up right where she’d left off. “I’m asking because oftentimes a change in management can have a major effect on employees.”
“If anything, Amelia’s departure relieved the firm of stress, not added to it. She ran the IPO division—bringing companies public for the first time. There’s a lot of pressure involved with that type of deal. We no longer take on that type of work.”
“Oh…okay. How long ago did she leave the company?”
“Three years.”
“Did any staff go with her when she left?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Was the split amicable? Did she start her own firm?”
The waitress returned with the credit card receipt, so I scribbled my name. When I looked up, Evie was still waiting for an answer. So I gave her one.
“There was no split. Amelia Evans died.”
CHAPTER 8
Merrick
Nine years ago
“Who’s filling in for Decker tonight?” I ripped open the cardboard Budweiser case and bent to fill the mini fridge—the one we kept in the living room next to the card table because we were all too lazy to get up and walk the ten steps to the kitchen.
“Someone from my stats class,” Travis said. “Her name is Amelia. She’s going to let me cheat off her for Tuesday’s midterm if she can play.”
My head swung up. “She? You invited a girl to play cards with us?”
Travis shrugged. “I gotta pass this damn test. Besides, it’s not like we ever made a rule that girls couldn’t play.”
Maybe we hadn’t. But the four of us had been playing cards once a week since freshman year. For three-and-a-half years it had been a guys’ night. Whenever one of us couldn’t make it, we got someone to fill in. Up until today, that had always been a guy. One of our regular foursome was doing a semester abroad this term, so we’d been taking turns recruiting his replacement each week. “I guess we never needed a rule because we all had a silent understanding.”
Our friend Will Silver walked in. He set a bottle of Jack in the middle of the card table.
“Hey, Will,” I said. “How come you never invited a girl to play cards with us?”