Keaton
“Helen?” I gaped, looking past Olly’s formidable shoulders to the silver-haired woman now facing us. She was immaculately dressed as she had been the last time I had seen her, in sharply tailored clothing that maintained a sense of the professional secretary.
And from the way she was talking to Olly, I realized, that was exactly what she thought she was.
“Why would you call me a car?” Olly asked. There was a strange note in his voice, a kind of strain, that made me think he suspected just what I did.
“Well, sir, I couldn’t leave you alone in your hour of need,” Helen said.
Every vowel was enunciated just so, and her deferential nod of the head did nothing to diminish the fiery spirit in her eyes.
“Now that you need a new secretary, I’m right here for you.
I’ll forgive you for firing me so unjustly before; we need never speak of it again.
Let’s just move forward and deal with this crisis. ”
“Crisis?” Olly repeated. He squared his shoulders even more. “You mean the press scandal that you just created.”
Helen tilted her head to the side slightly. “You can’t be seen to continue working with him, sir,” she said, which was not exactly a confession but not a denial either. “You need a new secretary.”
“What the hell?” Brody said. Helen’s gaze snapped to him like a whip. “What is this? You didn’t tell me about any crisis. What’s going on?”
“Oh, shut up, Driver,” Helen said calmly. “This no longer has anything to do with you. You’re no longer employed in this industry. You should leave before I call security to have you removed.”
From the way Brody stared at her with his mouth open, it was clear that something much deeper was going on here.
Brody had been the one to drop off the fake contract. But Helen…
Helen had been the one to actually drug Ridley.
Like Brody didn’t want to get his hands dirty, but she had no problem with it.
And Helen had worked for Mr. Harvey. Right there in his office.
She was his secretary, so just like me, he probably left her alone at her desk when he was out at meetings.
Granted, her desk had been in the hall, but…
“It was you,” I said, speaking my hunch out loud. “You put a secret camera in the office.”
She turned her nose up towards me. Her stare sliced through the distance between us like an actual knife.
She was not the kind of woman to be easily messed with – I could see that now.
And she felt that Olly had shunned her. But it seemed more than that: like she really believed her place was at his side.
Not as a lover, surely. Maybe more like a motherly figure.
“I had to keep an eye on Mr. Harvey,” she said. “I have noticed that his judgment is somewhat impaired when I am not around. No matter. I’m here now. All of this will be sorted out in no time at all.”
I felt sick to my stomach thinking about how long that camera had been there. Since my very first day. She had seen everything.
The two of us getting to know one another. All of the war cabinets Olly and Ace had held, trying to get to the bottom of things. She must have known, even, that we’d caught her and Brody out.
And the kiss. The first kiss and the second. All our private moments in that office. Not just the sex: every single moment of our relationship that had begun to blossom in that room.
She had watched it all.
That wasn’t supposed to be for an audience to see. It was supposed to be for just me and him.
The muscles in Olly’s neck clenched in my peripheral vision. “Sorted out?” he repeated. “You just outed me to the world.”
She waved a hand. “Such a thing is easily explained. That kind of deviant behavior isn’t you, Mr. Harvey.
You’re all about the work. I’m sure once we have everything straightened out, you’ll be back to your old self, and we can pass this off as some kind of deepfake.
Yes, don’t be fooled – even this old lady knows all about that sort of thing.
It will be the work of a moment to restore your reputation. ”
Olly made an incoherent choking noise in the back of his throat. I stepped forward and laid a hand gently on the side of his shoulder to remind him that I was there, that he wasn’t alone. “You outed me so you could get your job back? Is that really what we’re saying here?” he demanded.
“And that’s not all,” Brody spoke up. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a foul look on his face.
Clearly, he was ready to turn on his co-conspirator.
“She was the one who set all of this up. She told me about the sponsorship deals you had lined up right before you fired her, so it was easy for me to fake the paperwork for another brand you could consider.”
“And what were you getting out of this?” Olly scoffed. “I can’t have two secretaries.”
“No, you cannot,” Helen said primly. “That’s why I had to make sure you had an incompetent one, so that you could easily replace him. Would you like me to prepare Mr. Dunbar’s exit papers when we return to the office?”
Everyone ignored her last question. “I got a good offer,” Brody said.
He was glowering sideways at Helen. “Quijada said he’d give me the top job at his new firm.
If she really just outed you, I want you to know I had nothing to do with that.
I would never do that to someone. That’s fucking low.
I mean, I’m an asshole, but lady – you’re a fucking asshole. ”
“Quijada?” I said faintly. I hadn’t wanted to hear his name. I had wanted to believe he had nothing to do with all of this. He had to be telling the truth about just going to the bar for a drink. He was dating my sister. He couldn’t be involved in this.
He couldn’t.
“Yeah,” Brody said carelessly, tipping up his chin.
“He’s the one that started this whole thing.
It was his idea to ruin Ridley’s reputation.
I wasn’t fully on board with the doping thing, but Quijada said he would be watching the whole time to make sure Ridley didn’t get into any actual danger. He had to get the footage, after all.”
I felt Olly’s muscles cord under my hand and looked down; his hand had made a fist. I slid my own hand down to it and squeezed it, trying to get him to cool off. I knew how angry he was – I was angry, too – but fists weren’t going to make this situation any better.
“Let me get this all straight in my head,” Olly said. “Quijada made sure Keaton applied for the role because he thought he would be bad at the job.”
“And because he makes those little films or whatever,” Brody supplied helpfully. “We thought he might take you down from the inside before we even had to.”
I took a deep and unsteady breath. Fernando had deliberately used me.
As soon as we were out of here, I had to warn Clara. He wasn’t the man she thought he was.
“You should make sure that Chinese fellow vets people properly,” Helen tutted sanctimoniously. “You could have ended up with anyone working for you.”
No one bothered to remind her that Ace was Korean, not Chinese. It was like we’d all written her off. She was a nasty, racist, homophobic old lady. There was nothing she could say that would be relevant.
“Then you delivered fake contracts to the office and to our sponsors setting up a fake deal,” Olly continued, thinking it all through out loud.
He was talking so much, it was almost odd to hear.
This was what he was like, I realized, when he was too stunned to vet every word that came out of his mouth.
“You waited for Ridley to go to his usual bar so you could let Helen in to drug him. Quijada filmed him stumbling around and leaked the story to the press to ruin his reputation. What exactly were you going to do once the client you wanted had no sponsors?”
“Redeem his image,” Brody shrugged. “We knew he’d been drugged.
If he switched quick enough, we could get his blood tested.
If not, we could get a fake confession or just a witness statement.
Then he could go volunteer at a homeless shelter for orphans with a few cameras around and we’d be back in business. ”
“And then?”
“Then once we had Ridley, all your other clients would realize we were the hot new ticket and you were an old dinosaur, and we’d poach the whole lot of them.”
“Dinosaur?” Olly repeated with incredulity.
“That’s a little out of turn, Mr. Driver,” Helen muttered. “But I knew they were wrong, Mr. Harvey. I was always going to be there to support you no matter which way this all went. You see, I’m loyal. A quality the younger generation clearly lacks.”
Brody took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up.
“Whatever,” he said. “Obviously, if Quijada was in on this last bit, I’m not joining him now.
Besides, you pretty much knocked every challenge we threw at you out of the park.
I gotta say, you proved yourself to be the better agent. ”
“Don’t expect my gratitude,” Olly warned him. I was glad. As much as I always wanted to be even and fair to everyone where I could, I didn’t think Brody could be trusted enough for a second chance.
Brody smiled wryly around the cigarette. “I won’t,” he said. “Guess I’m out of a job.”
It was hard to feel sympathy for him – but there was one more thing that was playing on my mind.
“Where’s Fernando?” I asked. “Was he supposed to meet you here?”
Brody shook his head. “I went by his apartment before I came,” he said. He took a drag and blew out a funnel of smoke to his left. “Couldn’t get hold of him. I don’t know what he’s planning, but he’s not answering my calls anymore.”