Do-Over Read Free Page B

departure rather disturbing,” he said. “We trust that you have, too.”
    Cara had never been sure whether Howard’s use of “we” was meant to be a Partnership We or a Royal We. All she knew was in her current stressed state, she wanted to blurt, “We, who? You and the rat in your pocket?” Sadly, she had never responded well to authority figures other than Rory. Saperstein wasn’t bad, either, but of course he was dead.
    “Rory’s leaving came as a shock to me, too, Howard,” she replied.
    “Really?”
    Cara looked down at her hands. They had somehow knotted in her lap. Her knuckles shone white. She carefully placed one palm on each knee and adjusted her posture to a less defensive stance.
    “I had no clue,” she said.
    “That’s surprising. After all, there’s been no one in this firm closer to Rory. One might even say that the two of you were intimate.”
    His implication was clear in the way he sounded out each syllable of in-ti-mate. Cara leaned forward in her chair and placed her hands on Howard’s desk; she knew he hated having his belongings touched.
    “ One had better think carefully before saying that. That is, if one isn’t up for some very unfriendly litigation.”
    “Well, certainly I wasn’t referring to myself.”
    At least he was rattled enough that the Royal We had disappeared. She watched as he straightened the stacks of paper she’d moved minutely out of place.
    “For the benefit of the other partners who might be thinking those rather, um, incendiary thoughts, here’s the scoop, Howard. Rory and I have never had any relationshipother than a business one. And obviously, even that didn’t run very deep.”
    Howard had already recovered his cool. “We’ll withhold judgment on just how deep your relationship runs. We want you to know that for now, we’ll be checking your work and limiting client contact. Also, you will use our secretary, Jane—”
    “Her name is Jan.” Howard went through secretaries the way a marathon runner goes through bottled water.
    “Jan, then,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You will use Jan until such time as our confidence in you is restored, and we replace Leigh.”
    “Re—replace?” she stammered. “She didn’t leave with Rory, did she?”
    “If only she had. We were forced to terminate her.”
    “Why?”
    She could have sworn he shuddered before he said, “For matters that will not be discussed with other employees of Saperstein, Underwood.”
    The bummer of it was that if she wanted to know what had happened to Leigh, her best chance of getting the real scoop would have been from…Leigh.
    “Fine,” she said.
    Howard’s phone rang. When he took the call, Cara stood to leave. Howard raised his index finger in a you-have-not-been-excused gesture. She sat, then waited through an interminable call conducted over the speakerphone as Howard and a car salesman debated the respective merits of parchment, ivory or sand-colored leather for Howard’s new Range Rover. The options hadn’t been so fine-tuned in her Saturn.
    Finally, Howard hung up. He launched back intotheir conversation—if it could be called that—as though the ten minute delay had never occurred.
    “The partners have decided that a weekend retreat is needed. We’ll be in Bay Harbor, and while we’re gone, we’d appreciate it if you would keep clear of the building. Your access card must be on my desk before five this evening.”
    “You’ve got to be joking.”
    “I never joke.”
    He had that right. Only the fact that she could understand the tack he was taking stopped her from going for his throat.
    Without her access card, once the front doors were locked for the night, she’d have a better chance of breaking into a bank vault. From the partners’ point of view, they were protecting firm assets—the remaining finance clients not lured away by Rory McLohne.
    Still, her fury was a burning thing to swallow. She could remind Howard how she’d