The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER TWO

But even Jeremy looked doubtful too.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said after she told him the whole story.

“And the money involved,” she said. “Why is he so nonchalant?”

“But where’s the money is the question?”

Jeremy Gathers was one of those polished, gorgeously dark-skinned brothers in his fancy suit, his legs crossed, his face so handsome and intelligent that it often amazed Brina that she had won the prize. Or whatever he was supposed to be to her. “That’s the two-and-a-half-million-dollar question,” she replied to him. “Where’s the shipments? Where’s the money? I can’t find any answer anywhere in our system.”

“Did you talk with the field supervisor who’s responsible for assuring that your approvals are acted upon?”

“Just before I came over I called him into my office, yes.”

“And?”

“And he denies any knowledge of any of it. Don’t know shit about shit. He doesn’t even remember me approving any of those requests. He even had the gall to say he was still waiting for my approvals. When he said that, I was convinced something was so wrong it started freaking me out.”

“Did you contact any of the field coordinators that had issued the requests?”

“No because they aren’t in the chain of approval. They generally don’t know what happens to their requests once they’re submitted. Their job is to move on to the next problem. To the next need.”

Jeremy seemed to be weighing the issue. But then he looked at his wristwatch, which stunned Brina.

“You know what?” Brina said to him. “That offends the shit out of me.”

Jeremy looked at her. “Looking at my watch offends you? You know I’m on a tight schedule, Breen.”

“But I’m telling you these white folks may be setting up my black ass and you’re worrying about your schedule? That’s offensive, Jeremy.”

“I don’t mean to offend you. But I got a life too, okay?”

Brina began gathering up her purse and phone. “Then live your life,” she said as she stood up.

Jeremy quickly stood up too, took her by her small shoulders, and asked her to sit back down. “Okay, okay, I apologize.” He looked around, to ensure nobody had seen their kerfuffle. Because everything was a matter of appearance for Jeremy, and Brina knew it. She wasn’t even all that certain if he truly loved her. Jamal, one of his closest friends, even told her he wasn’t as into her as she was into him. “You look good on his arm,” his friend told her. “And that’s about as far as it goes with him.” And yet she stayed with his trifling butt.

If she wasn’t so concerned about what her discovery at work could mean for her, she would have left out of that restaurant the way she left last night. But this wasn’t about their relationship. This was about her freedom. She sat back down.

Jeremy did too. And let out a hard exhale. “I’m going to be frank with you. It doesn’t look good, no, it doesn’t. But if you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ll be okay.”

Brina couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “ If ? What do you mean if, Jere? You know I wouldn’t take anybody’s money like that!”

“I know, I know. I’m just telling you like it is. It doesn’t look good, Brina.”

“So what do I do? Should I go to the FBI?”

“The FBI ?” Jeremy was incredulous. “Are you nuts? No, you don’t go to no FBI! Based on what you have now, they could accuse you of taking that money. No. You continue to search those files, talk to your field coordinators, and find every scrap of evidence you can find that says you received the requests and approved the orders and turned your approvals over to Alan Collier. Once you get all of that together, then we see what your next steps are. But you’ve got to get your facts straight first before you go to anybody.”

Brina nodded. It sounded like good advice.

But it turned out to be horrible advice because later that same afternoon, as she and Jeremy were finishing up their lattes and their unfruitful drawn out talk about their ever-stagnant long-term relationship, the same FBI she had wanted to call, had already been called. By Steven McNamara, her executive director, she would later discover. And not only did they handcuff her right there inside of that Starbucks, embarrassing the hell out of her, but they accused her of falsifying business records, of defrauding the citizens of the United States of America, and of embezzling well north of two million dollars from a 501-c-3 charity: All major felonies.

As she was confused and terrified and almost disoriented when they named those crimes against her, she could see that Jeremy was no longer at their table. He had distanced himself from her already. But when she turned and looked squarely at him as she was being led out of the restaurant by those agents, he turned his back on her and walked away. As if she was already a tarnished trophy nobody would want. Least of all a prized catch like him.

That was the story of her life too.