Page 18 of Indecent Secrets

Bryce

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Oh boy, was I going to have my work cut out for me.

My first day in the office was a doozy. I started with a phone call to the real Jack, where I relayed everything and we discussed a plan for moving forward. He was doing what research he could on the company and taking online courses in economics and business. I suggested a few courses in leadership as well, and I felt I was proven right on that when I met everyone from the board that morning.

The head of it, Harry Weston, looked at me like I was a rat that had to be exterminated. Not that he thought I noticed. The only person clearly on my side was Rebecca, and that was because she—like every other woman I’d met as Jack Lawton—saw me as a meal ticket. I couldn’t entirely blame her. She’d been passed over for a lot of promotions because she was older than some of the other women, and she hadn’t been an attractive man so Lawton Sr. didn’t want her. But I’d have to be careful with her. I’d seen the jealous look she’d shot Leigh behind her back. I couldn’t have petty infighting on top of all this.

As I read through the files, I tried to look for anything that might tell me who would most likely move against Jack Lawton, and if that same person or persons might have had anything to do with his uncle’s death. I was glad that I had Leigh here. I would have to see if I could get her to do some spy work for me—not that she could know what that was. If she could get in good with the employees who were a bit lower down the ladder, she might get some valuable gossip for me about how things went around here.

The files were all neatly organized and full of information. Rebecca had really done her work. Honestly, she should be head of a department or something. I made a mental note to tell this to Jack for when he finally stepped into the role and I could depart. He’d want good people like Rebecca running things, not assholes like Weston and nepotism hires like his son.

Could Weston have bumped off his colleague? He definitely didn’t like me—or rather, Jack—and wanted to get rid of him and take things over, but that didn’t necessarily make someone a murderer. It was one thing to try and oust someone from a job so you could take over the company. It was another to kill.

The facts of the case made me think that it was more than just the company that led to murder, if it really was murder. Lawton’s pills for his heart condition had been put out of reach from his bedside so that when he had an attack he couldn’t take one like usual and save himself. That spoke to someone who knew his habits and his household, and I wasn’t sure that Weston was that person.

However, Weston could’ve hired someone. That was the problem with these rich people, they never actually did anything themselves. They were always paying people to do their shit for them like picking up their dry cleaning.

The murder, if it was murder, was elegant and cold in its simplicity. It could’ve easily been that Lawton hadn’t remembered to put those pills by his bed or that a maid had accidentally moved them and he hadn’t realized at the time. It was amazing how even things we usually did mindlessly out of habit we could one day suddenly forget about, or do differently.

There was no proof. No way of knowing it was murder beyond Jack’s own hunch, his gut instincts—and mine.

I’d have to do some digging into Weston and the others on the board. I could be wrong, but I suspected if any one of them had actually bothered to bump off Lawton, it wasn’t just because they felt he was keeping the company from its full potential. CEOs ran companies into the ground and made poor decisions all the time. There were a lot of options available from filing for chapter eleven to forcing him out through legal means. Resorting to murder was pretty desperate. But if there was a personal reason that one of them hated Lawton enough… now that could be enough.

I scanned all the files Rebecca gave me using an app on my phone, then sent the electronic copies to Jack so that he could read and study them. He trusted me to make sensible or at least not disastrous decisions in these few days while he got his bearings and I kept the sharks at bay. I hoped I was going to be up to the task.

Honestly, thank God for Leigh. She was actually used to this kind of thing. I had operated in the corporate world to a certain extent in my job as a security expert, but that wasn’t the same thing as actually making decisions and being in charge. I had to actually know things instead of just make nice at parties.

The rest of the day passed by at the pace of molasses going uphill in winter. I felt like I was going crazy. I was a man of action, and a man who loved to go out and charm people, to be where the fast pulse of the situation was, whatever that situation might be. Taking meetings and listening to presentations on buying ad space on YouTube was not exactly my idea of an ideal mission.

Still, I considered it a fruitful day. Jack Lawton had been estranged from his uncle and so while I didn’t want to talk badly about him, nobody expected us to be close. It meant I could openly reassure employees that we were going to take things in a new direction, move things forward, and say things like, “My uncle was a bit stuck in his ways…” and nobody would bat an eye. It got them to open up to me a little.

The head of the marketing department admitted to me after the ad presentation that he wasn’t surprised my uncle had left everything to me. “He was always making promises to people, but he never really kept them.”

“Oh?” I watched as the other employees filed out of the board room, chatting. It was the end of the work day now that the presentation was over, so people were making notes on what to work on for tomorrow and then packing up their things to go home. “I hope nobody expects me to keep any promises, because I don’t know about them.”

“Not unless you’re going to keep promises to spoiled male secretaries,” the head of marketing noted. “Not that I can really blame ‘em. They were all fresh out of college or even a bit younger than that. I think one was only nineteen. When a rich handsome guy buys you fancy watches and says you’re his only confidant and he’ll write you into his will, you believe it at that age, no matter what your gender. It’s not only women who can be gullible when a rich older man makes promises.”

Well, that sounded like a promising angle. “What made you certain that I’d be in the will, then?”

“The executives were all blind about it. I think they were under the impression he changed the damn thing every time he got a new secretary and made them be in favor. They were counting on being able to use that to declare the will unfit—they could show how every will had been altered every few months when he got a new boyfriend, and take over the business instead.”

“But you saw it differently.”

“I really don’t care about who owns what.” The guy shrugged. “I’m just doing my job in my department and making sure it all runs smoothly. I stay in my lane. I think that allowed me to see things a little more clearly.”

“And you figured he would leave it to me? I mean, he and my mom didn’t speak, y’know? I figured he wouldn’t leave me anything just because it would be awkward and we hadn’t seen each other since I was around eight because of… everything.”

“True, but I knew the guy was old-fashioned. I think gay rights was the only modern thing he really believed in, and that was only because it benefitted himself. No offense, I’m sorry, but your uncle could be a pretty selfish guy.”

“I think a lot of men are, honestly. I don’t take it personally. As I said, I didn’t know him super well.”

“Well, he put a lot of value on the family name and on old-fashioned things. He didn’t maintain a penthouse in the city, for example. He liked his house upstate. He always stayed at the Plaza because of the pedigree. Things like that. So I suspected he’d left everything to you because he was such a ‘keep it in the family guy’. He would praise others for doing similar things. ‘Always good to keep it in the family’, he’d say. I guess the others just ignored it.”

But had the others ignored it? Or had someone made the same guess as this man and decided it would be easier to bump off Lawton and then takeover from his inexperienced, reclusive nephew?

Or, on the other hand—had someone thought they were in the will and received a nasty shock?

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