Chapter 9

"What the hell do you want?"

James didn't have a good answer for that. He had felt compelled to call Jayla, his ex-girlfriend, at her office at Schumann, Crowe & Dyer, but now that she was barking in his ear on the other end of the phone, he wasn't exactly sure why.

"I, um, heard about Jason Whiteley and wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Compassionate as ever, thought James.

"I thought you might be upset."

"I liked Jason," Jayla admitted. "He was an aggressive, horny little bastard, but he was always decent to me."

"They say it was a heart attack," James said.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then Jayla asked, "How do you even know about this?"

He paused. "We have a temp at your PR firm."

"It's that little white bitch you're hot for," Jayla snarled.

"How many times do I have to tell you, there is absolutely nothing going on between us!"

"Mmm hmmmm," crowed Jayla.

From the first, Jayla had willfully misinterpreted his interest in Isobel. Besides, he had sworn off women altogether when they broke up, largely because he was still working on being sober.

"I was wondering...was he sick or anything?" James asked.

"Jason? I don't think so. He seemed perfectly healthy to me."

"Did he still drink a lot? Do you know if he did drugs?"

"What is this, a police inquiry?" Jayla snapped. "And why are you calling me, anyway? I thought we weren't speaking."

"How's Michael? You still seeing him?" James asked, trying to keep her on the line.

"None of your goddamn business," she shot back.

James had walked in on one of his best buddies hard at work between Jayla's legs, and that had been the last straw. He hadn't spoken to either of them since. Until now.

"Right. Okay. Forget I called. I just thought maybe somebody killed Jason."

"Yeah. Wait - what?!"

He smiled. That had certainly gotten her attention.

"Like you said, he seemed healthy. Unless it was the booze."

"Oh, I get it. You're worried the same thing might happen to you," Jayla said shrewdly.

James ignored the bait. "Do you know anyone who had it in for him?"

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Only you, baby," Jayla said finally.

He should never have told her about getting kicked out of Columbia and Jason getting off scot-free. It was just like Jayla to file away a piece of information like that to use against him when the moment presented itself.

"Anyone else? Anyone at work?"

"Not everyone liked Jason. But not everyone likes you either, James."

"We're not talking about me."

"Oh, my mistake," she said sweetly. "I didn't realize there was another topic."

"Come on, Jayla!"

Jayla let out a long, frustrated exhalation, and James could imagine her resting her head in her hands, her beautiful long dreadlocks falling in front of her face and brushing against her luxurious eyelashes.

"I'm sure there were people who had it in for Jason, but it was cardiac arrest, right? So why are you asking me?"

Because Isobel put a bug in my ear, that's why.

"Don't you think it's a little weird for someone our age to have a heart attack?" he pressed.

"Maybe he was born with a heart defect. What do you care, anyway?"

He had no good answer for that. Jayla was feeding him the same arguments he had given Isobel when she had raised these questions.

"You know what's wrong with you, Jayla? You've got no compassion or curiosity."

He could hear her cursing as she slammed down the phone.

James paced to his door and opened it. He contemplated getting another Coke from the office fridge, but decided against it. He'd already polished off two in the past hour.

What a hypocrite, he berated himself. Here I made Isobel promise not to nose around asking questions, and what am I doing? Exactly what I told her not to do.

Then again, he thought as he gave in and made his way down the narrow hall to the kitchenette, knowing Isobel, she had probably found a way around her promise by now.

Nobody at Dove & Flight was getting any work done. The combination of a death on the premises and a merger announcement had pretty much guaranteed what Katrina usually referred to as a "spa day." The atmosphere put Isobel in mind of a backstage farce, with everybody ducking in and out of each other's offices, spreading rumors, making predictions, and repeating the same conversations over and over, embellishing the details with each retelling.

The only person not participating was Katrina herself. She had taken an early lunch right after the staff meeting, and by two o'clock she still hadn't returned. After bopping past several open doors where she didn't quite feel comfortable dropping in for a chat, Isobel alighted in Liz Stewart's office. Liz had her feet up on her desk and was sipping milk out of a small carton.

"This is my post-lunch lunch," she explained. "I'm trying for the 'six small meals a day thing,' only it's turning into six large meals." She held up a packet of crackers. "I'm attempting to cut meals two and four down to size."

"Do you know what you're having?" Isobel asked.

"Mmmm...girl," Liz mumbled through a mouthful of crackers.

"Do you have a name picked out yet?"

Liz swallowed. "My husband wants Olivia, but we'll have to save that for number two." She touched her belly gently. "She's going to be Eleanor, after my sister."

"That's a lovely name," Isobel said. "What happened to your - "

A sharp knock on the wall behind Liz's chair made Isobel start. "I never noticed there was a door there!"

Liz's lip curled. "Only one person ever uses it. Wanna guess who?" She wheeled her chair to the side and opened it to Jimmy Rocket, who was holding out a blue plastic bin.

"Stick out your can, mama. Here comes yo' back door man!"

Liz laughed and reached under her desk for the wastepaper basket. She dumped the contents into Jimmy's bin.

"For the shredder," Liz explained over her shoulder.

"As you were!" Jimmy saluted with his free hand and pulled the door shut behind him.

Isobel shook her head. "I just can't get over him. Why do you have two doors, anyway?"

Liz rearranged her chair and swung her legs back onto the desk. "Only the group heads get windows. The more junior you are, the farther away you are from any source of natural light. But you're also closer to the bathroom, which for me in my current predicament is eminently preferable. The second door is just a bonus."

"Where does it come out?"

"By the kitchen." Liz winked and held out her crackers.

Isobel accepted the offering. "So what's really behind this merger? Is it what Barnaby said?"

Liz nodded as she crunched. "Probably. I mean, at his age, the thrill of living from retainer check to retainer check has to be long gone. He wants to play with the big boys, and ICG can hand him the kind of Fortune 500 companies he's spent his whole career chasing. This is his last chance to kick it up a level before he retires."

"What about Angus?"

"My guess is Angus would be just as happy to leave his nameplate on the door until it can be buried with him."

Isobel pulled her ponytail tighter and leaned forward. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Why were you guys nervous about meeting with Jason Whiteley yesterday?"

Liz frowned. "Who said we were nervous?"

"Katrina."

Liz swung her legs off the desk, knocking her crackers to the floor in the process. She ducked down to collect them, and when she sat up again, Isobel had the distinct impression that Liz had been gathering her thoughts as well as her snack.

"There was a little dust-up a few weeks ago, and this was our first meeting since then. We weren't sure what Jason was going to say." Liz chuckled as if it were all no big deal. "We were half convinced he was going to fire us. Or at the very least, slash our retainer."

"What happened?"

Liz's expression darkened. "It was really Aaron's fault, although he'll never admit it. We pitched an important new exec of theirs named Cal Erskine as a spokesperson on Brazil. You know, consulting in an emerging market. Turns out Erskine has experience in emerging markets, but he's never set foot in Brazil. Not only that, Schumann, Crowe & Dyer doesn't have a single office anywhere in South America."

Isobel grimaced. "That's not good."

"Gets worse. John Fothergill, the São Paulo bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, interviewed Erskine, and the story we were hoping for turned into a slash-and-burn piece on the company for putting themselves forward as experts in Brazil when their guy couldn't even name the capital."

"Ouch! What was the fallout?"

"Well, that's what we were going to find out yesterday. The thing is, it wasn't just that Fothergill made the company look bad - he tore apart Erskine personally."

"Why was it Aaron's fault?"

Liz flourished her milk carton. "Because I asked him point-blank what specific experience the guy had in Brazil. He admitted that he had none, but insisted it didn't matter. He said emerging markets are emerging markets, and it's transferable knowledge. He basically gave me the old, 'the client's signed off on it, so just do your job and don't ask questions, you silly girl' routine."

"I gather Aaron doesn't care much for working women," Isobel observed. "Against his religion?"

"I imagine that's part of it, but he's also ambitious, and his family and religious obligations make it harder to climb the old corporate ladder. They finally made him a senior associate, but how much farther can he reasonably go? He can't be a director if he isn't willing to stay late at the drop of a hat for deal work."

"But what does that have to do with women?"

"He's jealous of anyone who's unencumbered, and if it's a woman, it's adding insult to injury. Someone like Katrina can leave him in the dust. He can tolerate me a little better, because I've got my own automatic glass ceiling."

"How so?"

Liz gestured to her belly. "I don't have a wife at home to take care of Eleanor when she arrives. When I factor in childcare, it doesn't make sense for me to work, since I'll never advance to the salary that would make it worthwhile. The difference is, I'm not bitter about it."

Isobel absorbed all of this. "So Jason Whiteley was going to throw you all under the bus at the meeting yesterday?"

Liz nodded. "In all likelihood. That's why Katrina was dreading it."

"Why Katrina?"

Liz took a deep breath. "She was the one who sent Fothergill the Brazil pitch. Fothergill wrote back something like, 'I think the fact that Schumann, Crowe & Dyer consider themselves experts in Brazil would make a great story.' If you read between the lines, you can tell he'd sniffed out their lack of expertise and wanted to expose them. A more experienced eye would have caught on to what he was planning, but Katrina didn't pick up on it."

"That's pretty subtle. I'm sure anyone would have missed that."

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Point is, she had a chance to nip it in the bud, and she didn't."

"And Jason is dead," Isobel mused. "So now what?"

Liz shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe we'll lose the account, maybe we won't. I suspect we won't."

"Why not?"

"Because Schumann, Crowe & Dyer is also owned by ICG. We're going to be sister companies."

Curiouser and curiouser, thought Isobel, as she left Liz to her milk and crackers and wandered back to her desk to pretend to update a press list. A merger, a heart attack, a little bad publicity...

There was definitely more going on at Dove & Flight than met the eye, and Isobel was more determined than ever to figure out what.