“And if I don’t?” A line of sweat trickled down the center of my back.
“Hmm . . . that wouldn’t be in your best interest. We talked about this before. My friends down in Savannah have given me a fulsome report. I don’t think it would bode well for you if details from that report were to land in the hands of the police or the media.” I watched an ugly grin slick across Jonathan’s face.
My eyes darted between the two men. I could feel a small, slow throb nibble at my left temple, my chest rising and falling with the mounting anxiety that Jonathan’s statement elicited. I wanted to bolt from this office, from this building, to run as fast and as far as I could from anything having to do with Houghton Transportation.
“So what exactly happened out there in . . . Chillicothe, is it?” Jonathan asked.
I blinked a few times, willing myself not to cry in this office. I turned to Nate.
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Jonathan thinks this is best for the company.”
“So why didn’t you go to jail back then?” Jonathan prodded with a crooked smile. “That hobgoblin band of thugs and misfits you call a family manage to save you? Or maybe that lady—Violet Richards . . . I mean Vera Henderson. Did she help you cover things up? Tough childhood, huh?”
I wanted to lunge over and throttle Jonathan with my bare hands. “Keep her name out of your mouth.”
“I think she’s had some legal troubles of her own. How’s she doin’ these days?” Jonathan winked. “Now do you really think the Atlanta police will be as gullible as some small-town redneck sheriff after they find out about the things that happened in Chillicothe?”
My knees buckled.
“I’ll bet the Disciplinary Committee of the State Bar of Georgia will want to launch an investigation too. Between the police, the state bar, and the media, you’ll be up to your ass in investigations. You’ll never practice law again—in Georgia or anywhere else,” Jonathan declared.
My intricate scaffold of deception and false persona was now falling into so many pieces around me. Everything was falling apart. I glared at Nate. “Like I said, Jonathan thinks this is best for the company,” Nate said weakly. “You don’t have to go to jail. No one does if we just work this thing out the way Jonathan says.” Nate gave me a fragile little smile. “You’re a part of the Houghton family now. We take care of each other. We just need ya help.”
Jonathan’s little plan was on the spectrum of genius: pluck the loner attorney from the Legal Department to replace the murdered general counsel, dig up all her dirty little secrets, and use them to keep her in line while the company engaged in a panoply of corporate fraud and criminal activity. Absolute genius.
Jonathan slid my resignation letter back across Nate’s desk to me. “You’re pretty smart. Michael’s hiring you was probably the best thing he’s ever done for this company. You don’t know this, but we have some friends in very high places. You stick with us and I’ll bet we can pull the police off your coattail.” He grinned as he adjusted the wristband of his Rolex.
Nate stared out the window, either too much of a coward or too cognitively incapacitated to understand the full picture of what Jonathan was doing. I couldn’t tell which and it didn’t matter anyway.
I lifted the paper. The tightly written paragraph lauding the opportunity to work and grow with such a dynamic company. My neatly curled signature. Just an hour ago, this piece of paper represented my escape from this whole hellish nightmare. I placed it back into the folder. And for the first time since I’d left Chillicothe, I felt like a shackled animal without the ability to run.
“Thanks, Ellice,” Jonathan beamed.
I headed to the door, resignation in hand. Thankfully, I managed to make it out of the office just before the first hot tear rolled down my cheek.
Chapter 35
I hustled back to my office and told Anita I had an outside appointment. I grabbed my coat and bag and I pulled out of Houghton’s garage, driving aimlessly through the streets of Atlanta trying to figure out how to put my life back together. All I’d ever wanted to be was a lawyer, ever since those Christmas and summer breaks I spent at Uncle B’s house, listening to his stories of helping to bring order and civility to the world through the law. And now the thought of never working as a lawyer was looming large. But I could never work for those racists at Houghton, people who’d killed my brother. And I’d probably never work anywhere else if Jonathan carried through with his threats.