Page 65 of Billionaire Corruption

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t think I handled it well, to be honest. But I have been under so much stress lately and when I found out she’d been to job interviews, badmouthing Ladden… I thought she should go.”

“What did she say?”

“Someone I know, in the industry, called me. Said she’d said Ladden was a sinking ship and that the top people were all leaving. He asked me if that was true. I was furious.”

“Of course.”

“But Alana was one of the good ones,” he said, sounding dejected. “She was on my team, I always thought, someone I could rely on.”

Paul sounded so miserable, my heart ached for him.

“Thing is, I don’t know if it was an accident,” he then said.

“What do you mean?”

“Security said she told them she wanted to pick up some things. But there was nothing in her office to take, her laptop wasn’t here, she had no personal things in her office.”

“Maybe she meant papers, or a USB stick or something?”

“Maybe…” he didn’t sound convinced.

“The last thing she said to me was that she was never coming back here, that she’d never set foot at Ladden again,” he mentioned, sadly. “I don’t think she would’ve come back there for just anything.”

I thought of the Alana I had met on the street and had to agree with him.

“The thing is,” he said. “There is security at the bottom of that escalator. But for some reason, no one was there when she fell. No one heard anything. I mean, why is that?”

“That doesn’t sound right,” I agreed.

“I checked with security and the cameras were down for a few hours that night, particularly, those hours when she came in.”

“What do you think this means?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking.

“But I think she came to see someone, or someone was waiting for her. I don’t think it was an accident at all.”

“Jesus, Paul! But who would do something like that?”

Suddenly, I thought of the car coming around the corner, speeding past me, the rush of air separating me from death.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I’m going to quit.”

“What?”

“I don’t like this, at all. Who’s it going to be next, me? Maybe a hit and run on 5th Avenue, a big funeral and everyone is all, like, ‘Oh, he was such a good man?’ No, thank you! I’d rather go to Port Victoria, run a coffee shop… with you.”

I had to smile.

“Run a coffee shop?”

“I bought it, remember?”

“Have you even signed the papers yet?”

“I did, yesterday morning.”

Then he said, “I’ve been thinking about painting the inside maybe, what do you think?”

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