Chapter 6
6
As she opened her car door, Lainey was pummeled by the moist heat of a Maryland July. Who would have guessed it would be this humid in Maryland? She thought she had left that behind in South Carolina. But at least her dress was lined, so it would keep it from sticking to her, so there was that to be thankful for. Lainey grinned. Her mother would hate the fact that she wasn’t wearing the obligatory size-two, sweater twin-set, even on a day that was over ninety degrees. Cucumber sandwiches during charity teas were never her thing. Leaving that life behind was the best thing she ever did.
She liked having a donut from time to time. And a cheeseburger. A bacon-cheeseburger. Food made Lainey happy. She bet if her mom and her sister actually ate a cookie once in a while, they wouldn’t look like they were perpetually sucking lemons.
Lainey pictured her mother and Bennett in their little Chanel suits as they sat at their garden table where they hosted their lunches at the country club, waiting for the women of the Historical Society to come to their table and pay their homage.
Ick.
That had never been her scene. She liked the idea of working and using her brain. Maybe not this exactly, but eventually she’d have the background she needed to do what she really wanted to do.
“One step at a time, Lainey. One step at a time.”
She checked her make-up in the rearview mirror. Of course, she had bitten almost all of her lipstick off. She needed to stop biting her lip. She’d had that habit all of her life, but the more her mother and sister harped at her, the more she did it. She pulled out the pale pink lipstick that was office appropriate and reapplied it.
She opened the door and gracefully stepped out. That was easily done in three-inch heels. It was when she wore five-inch heels she had to take a bit more care. Luckily, up here in Maryland, there weren’t any parties, balls, and cotillions that her mother could drag her to, and what’s more, she hadn’t found anyone she wanted to impress. Yep, three-inch heels were just fine by her.
She shut her car door and marched toward the bank. Maurice was on security duty this morning, and she gave him a bright smile. Whenever she baked scones, she brought a Tupperware container just for him.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” He smiled back.
“You sure know how to bolster a girl’s confidence. How are your grandbabies? Isn’t Todd about to turn three soon?”
“My yes.” The guard grinned. He pulled out his phone and pulled up a picture with five children gathered around him.
“Those are some good-looking kids, Maurice. It looks like they adore you.”
“Seem to. I go to all of their ball games and recitals. Wouldn’t miss them for the world.”
“You’re a good grandfather, Maurice.”
“Thank you. You have a good day, Miss Lainey.”
“You too, Maurice.”
He opened the door for her, and she walked into the main branch of Lionel Security and Trust Bank. It had opened in Annapolis in 1852 to service the Naval Academy graduates. It survived the great depression and the mortgage crisis that began in 2007. It was the reason that Lainey had applied to this bank. She liked that it only had eleven branches, and that they had a higher percentage of liquidity than most banks. If she was going to work at a bank, she was going to work for a good one.
She smiled at the tellers who weren’t assisting customers as she made her way through the spacious lobby. The building was built the year the bank opened, and it was gorgeous. She walked up the winding staircase to the second floor to the small office of the Compliance and Regulatory Adherence Department. It was her fourth week in this department. So far, in her management training program, this department was the most complicated. Her one co-worker was Janice, who didn’t have the time of day for her, and her boss. Arnie Pine had started a two-week vacation last Friday. Lainey hated to admit it, but she was in over her head.
When she voiced her concerns to Mr. Pine before he left, he told her that Janice or his boss would help. “But you won’t need them. You’re a smart girl, Lainey. It’ll be fine.” Unfortunately, he had said that loud enough for Janice to hear.
When Lainey had gone to Mr. Pine’s superior, she found out she was prepping for a bank wide audit and had no time for Lainey, which meant she needed Janice’s help. The problem was, Janice had applied for the one spot available in the management trainee program, and instead, it was given to Lainey. An outsider. In the beginning she’d been just spiteful, but after hearing Mr. Pine praise Lainey, she’d turned downright malicious. So, anything Janice didn’t want to do, she threw on Lainey’s desk.
“Here’s another crypto transfer,” Janice said as soon as Lainey sat down. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, but you being such a smart girl, I’m sure you can figure it out,” Janice said as she flounced back to her desk.
Dag nab it!
The last transfer had taken three days to work through, and she still was working on pulling down and reading through the latest set of anti-money-laundering regulations posted on the FBI website, and updating the bank’s regulations. After working the cryptocurrency transaction right after Mr. Pine left for vacation, Lainey was going to suggest to Mr. Pine that they add another person to his department, one who was well-versed in cybersecurity. That person could have a dual purpose of updating the company’s internal website so that every employee could access the latest regulations, and then set up ways of flagging suspicious activities that were out of compliance.
She looked down at the cryptocurrency transfer in front of her and started pulling up all of the government websites that cited the regulations and compliance issues, just in case she forgot anything from two weeks ago. Then she got to work.
Before leaving in the morning, Mateo did a quick search on the bank’s website. MacLaine’s name was mentioned on the company’s website, but there wasn’t a title or a picture. It was almost like he was a teller or something, but that didn’t make sense if he was handling crypto deposits. Maybe he had just been promoted recently.
Mateo made the ultimate sacrifice and dressed in a pair of chinos and a button-down shirt instead of his normal summer uniform of cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Even leaving at oh-four-hundred, he knew it was going to get hot quick.
He prayed his car’s temperamental air conditioning would work today. Truly, it was time for him to start working on his car, but the condo association frowned on anybody working on their car on the premises and his buddy Rocco had work coming out of his ears at his auto repair shop right now. Until things slowed down for Rocco, Mateo didn’t have a place to work on either of his vehicles.
He poured his travel mug to the brim with black coffee and hustled down to his Challenger. It might be a hot day, but there was no way he was going to ruin good coffee with ice. He stretched his shoulders as he opened up his trunk and threw in some things he thought he might need for today’s reconnaissance. Even after a week, he was still pretty sore where one of the fiery bricks had hit him on his shoulder blade. He’d been doing exercises to improve his mobility, but they did nothing to negate the pain.
He chuckled. Yeah, like he was going to need to worry about a physical confrontation with Banker Boy.
Mateo got behind the wheel of his car and he threaded through all the small streets that led out of his community and pulled onto Virginia Beach Blvd. There wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to take the 64 to the 95 and go through DC to get to Annapolis. Hell, rush hour traffic in the nation’s capital? He’d prefer to do another day at BUD/S. Therefore, he headed toward the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel that would take him up the peninsula. Instead of appalling traffic, he’d get to see the sun rise over some farm or another. That should help him figure out a way to approach MacLaine.
This deposit and transfer request was worse than the last, and who even knew that was possible?
“Janice, you wouldn’t happen to know if?—”
“You sure do have a lot of questions for such a smart girl,” Janice said as she got up from her desk. “I’m going to lunch.”
“Look, you’re the one who peppered these documents with sticky notes. I can’t read half of them. I need your help deciphering them before I can do my job.”
“NMP.” Janice said as she pulled her compact out of her purse to check her lipstick.
“What?”
“Not. My. Problem.”
“Are you for real?” Lainey could swear her eyes were about to bug out of her head. This woman could give her mother and sister pointers in being a witch.
“What are you talking about? You applied for the management training program, and you got it. It’s not my problem that you can’t cut it.” Janice draped the strap of her knock-off Prada bag over her shoulder and tossed her fake red hair over her other shoulder. “Don’t fuck things up too badly, or you could get fired,” she smiled sweetly.
Lainey stood up and blocked her way out of the office. “Look here, you feckless woman. I don’t care for your language, your churlish manner or the perverse way you’ve been ‘assisting me’ since Mr. Pine has been on vacation.” Lainey put air quotes around the words ‘assisting me.’
Janice took a step toward Lainey and shoved out her chin. “Who are you calling a pervert?”
“Listen to me carefully, you ignorant ingrate. I said you were perverse. That means you’re being deliberately unreasonable.”
“Just because you went to college, don’t try to rub it in my face. I’ve worked here seven years?—”
“And I know that. That’s why I’m coming to you for help. I value your input.”
“You should have thought of that before you took my job.” Janice hip checked her as she flounced out the door.
“Good God!”
Lainey sat back down at her desk. That woman was a menace. Lainey didn’t even know who Janice was when she applied for this program. Lainey had applied when she couldn’t stand another cucumber sandwich and had to leave South Carolina and her family or commit murder. Thank God she’d had the good sense to fight for a college education like her older brothers, instead of following in her big sister’s footsteps. Her dad was hard pressed not to support her after she got accepted into Clemson University. Heck, none of her brothers had managed to get accepted there.
Her sister, Bennett, had married a real go-getter in their dad’s law firm, a man named Frederick Laughton III, otherwise known as Trey. Of course, his name was Trey. As soon as Bennet and Trey came back from their honeymoon, Trey had a corner office in her father’s law firm. They currently had a house in the swankiest area outside of Charleston, that her father gave them the down payment for. Her sister currently had two daughters that she dressed like her and was now pregnant with the obligatory son.
Lainey had tried to fit into her family’s ideal of a Simpson woman, but when she had choked down her last dry scone at the monthly Historical Society tea, she couldn’t take it anymore. She decided to take the bull by the horns and get the heck out of town. Her dad and mom were against her leaving South Carolina. After all, her duty was to get married to a lawyer and propagate the next generation of lawyers and hostesses.
But she’d had enough, so she started sending out resumes. Her dad and mom thought she couldn’t leave since she didn’t have a job and was living with them. They had no idea what Gran had really left her, when Lainey was left with the contents of Gran’s safe deposit box. Gran had always said she liked Lainey’s moxie, and when Lainey had opened up the box, she’d been stunned. Stunned and elated. Gold. Who kept gold in this day and age? Her grandmother. This was her key to getting out. But it really was a way for her grandmother to screw over her father. He received nothing in the will. Gran never thought her father had moxie.
When she was accepted for the management training program with Lionel, she jumped at it. And for the first time ever, she used some contents of the box to buy herself a small house in Eastport.
“Enough down memory lane. Get to work, MacLaine,” Laine ordered herself. She opened up the file on her desk, then clicked into the massive set of documents on the secure server.
Yep, this was going to take much more than a minute.