"I can't say right now. Besides, what I have so far wouldn't be enough." To get what she needed, Angela had to go to Birmingham. She also had to hear back from a friend in Sumter's funds-transfer area who was trying to confirm the money wires Liv had referred to. The wires the bank had supposedly sent to Strategy Partners.

"When can you get it?" Liv pressed.

"I've got a lot going on right now. And what I need in terms of your information involves getting on a plane. I just don't know when I'll be able to get away."

"I know you hate flying, Angela, but you'vegot to do this for me. Please. I can't let theHerald break this story first. I just can't."

"All right, all right. I'll call you back later from a land line." Angela cut the connection without waiting for Liv's response. She'd call her back from a private office at ESP.

"Where do you have to go?" Tucker asked.

Angela looked up from the cell phone. She'd been dialing her office number to pick up her voice mails. "What do you mean?"

"I couldn't help overhearing you tell whoever it was you were talking to that you'd have to take a flight somewhere to get what they needed. Where do you need to go?"

Angela hesitated. "New York," she lied, a thought racing through her mind. The only reason Jake Lawrence would have had John Tucker anonymously contact Liv and have him provide damaging information on Bob Dudley was to put Dudley on the defensive-just as Lawrence announced to the world his intention to buy Sumter Bank. When the shareholders heard the damaging information regarding Dudley, they would run like lemmings to Lawrence's tender offer. A tender offer he had sworn several times to Angela he would not make. Suddenly, she didn't feel like she could believe anyone.

She turned in her seat toward Tucker. "You sure you've never heard of Liv Jefferson?"

"Only from you."

"She's a good friend."

"That's nice-"

"I'd like you to meet her."

He hesitated. "Okay."

"Maybe tonight for dinner."

Tucker smiled back thinly. "Maybe."

"Take a seat, Carter." Bob Dudley was in his large chair by the window overlooking the James River. He had moved the other wing chair to the opposite side of the window so they could face one another for this discussion. He motioned for Hill to sit in it. "Please."

Hill obeyed, not taking his eyes from Dudley. Dudley had called the meeting fifteen minutes ago, but hadn't explained what it was about.

"Carter, I have no shortage of enemies."

"Any man who's been as successful as you makes enemies. It's unavoidable."

"Cut the bulls.h.i.t," blurted Dudley.

Hill looked down and cleared his throat, trying to control his resentment.

"I have friends too," Dudley said. "People who are intensely loyal to me. Thanks to one of them, I've become aware of some disturbing news."

Hill shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Ah, what news?"

"Reporters are investigating rumors that I've been illegally funneling money out of Sumter Bank for myself." Dudley paused. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Of course not."

"You sure you want to stick to that story?"

Hill hesitated. "Yes."

Dudley glanced out the window at the building Albemarle Capital used as its headquarters. At the two windows that looked into Chuck Reese's office. "I know how you feel about me, Carter. And I know what you want."

"Bob, I'm not-"

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!" Dudley thundered. "I've known for a long time that you want to run this organization. That you feel I'm past my prime. That I'm more of a liability now than an a.s.set. I'm also aware that one of the bank's board members conveyed to you my belief that you are not chairman material."

Hill gritted his teeth. He could feel himself about to explode, but he needed to maintain control. Dudley was still in charge. "I don't listen to idle talk, and as far as you being past your prime, just the other day I pointed out to someone that you have created a vast amount of wealth for the shareholders of this inst.i.tution. That you arestill creating wealth. That this bank is more secure under your leadership than Jake Lawrence's."

Dudley chuckled. "I should fire you right now, Carter, and be done with you."

Hill held his breath.

"But then you'd probably leak to the press the fact that for the last six months I've been having an affair with a hot little number half my age. I'm sure you know all about that."

Hill looked down into his lap.

"Of course," Dudley continued, "then I'd tell my contacts at theTrib and theHerald about that blonde you have stashed in an apartment complex over on the South Side."

Hill's eyes flashed to Dudley's. "That's a lie! You have no proof of any-"

"My people have plenty of proof." Dudley pursed his lips. "But what good would it do me to tell the papers that? Besides, if I fire you now in the face of the lies they're going to print about me, it wouldn't look good."

"So why did you call me here?" Hill asked.

"First, to ask you a question, then to give you some advice."

"What's the question?" Hill snapped.

"Are you working with Jake Lawrence?"

"I just told you that I think Sumter is more secure under you than Lawrence. What the h.e.l.l would make you think that?"

"The comment Ms. Day made the last time we met with her. The one about Jake Lawrence asking her if you would make a good chairman."

"That's absurd. If Lawrence took over, he'd probably fire the both of us."

Dudley nodded, pointing a gnarled finger. "You antic.i.p.ated my advice. He will fire you if he takes over this place. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. Even if he's telling you all the right things now."

Hill rose from his chair and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Dudley demanded. "I didn't dismiss you."

Angela leaned back in the chair and stretched, thinking about how she might need another cup of coffee to stay awake. Thinking about how she was supposed to be on a plane to Birmingham at 8:00 tomorrow morning. And here it was 10:00 at night and she was still immersed in piles of ESP due diligence in a conference room thirty miles west of Washington, D.C., and a hundred miles from Richmond. At this rate Tucker wouldn't have her back to her apartment in the Fan until three or four in the morning.

Perhaps she ought to just get a hotel room at Dulles Airport and change her plane ticket. But she hadn't brought another set of clothes. And she still had a lot more work to do here. Perhaps she should cancel Birmingham. She put her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. Liv would be disappointed.

"You okay, champ?" Tucker sat at the end of the conference room, his boots up on the table as he read a copy ofSports Ill.u.s.trated . "It's getting late."

"Too late to introduce you to Liv Jefferson tonight, I suppose."

"Yeah, I'd say."

"We'll do it another night."

"Fine." He smiled politely. "Want me to get you another cup of coffee?"

"No, thanks. I've had three cups since dinner. I couldn't handle any more caffeine. I'll be bouncing off the walls."

Tucker had spent the afternoon at a nearby mall, then brought Chinese food back for dinner around six. He'd stayed with her in the conference room after they'd finished eating, quietly reading the stack of magazines he'd purchased this afternoon. Most of the ESP employees had left the offices for the night, and she felt safer with him around.

"What exactly are you doing over there in between those paper mountains?" he asked, tossing the magazine onto the table.

Stacks of files and large, legal-sized envelopes surrounded Angela, piled high on the table and the floor around her chair. They'd been brought to her on request by a small group of ESP employees who Walter Fogel had ordered to help. "Due diligence."

"What does that mean,due diligence? "

"It means I'm studying everything I can about this company to figure out what it's worth. And to make certain there isn't something buried here that could cause big problems later on."

"Like what?"

"Like a lawsuit that the inside attorneys aren't telling anybody but senior management about. s.e.xual hara.s.sment or product liability. Or maybe inconsistencies in the numbers. Or the fact that a big customer is about to pull their account. The kind of stuff you might find in a stray memo or report."

"Smoking guns."

"And skeletons."

"That's a lot to try to go through."

"Especially when certain people at the company wouldn't want you to find what you're looking for if it were there. The chief financial officer certainly doesn't want me to uncover the fact that he's cooking the books, so sometimes I have to look very hard. You know, turn over all the rocks. No matter how small."

"How do you know where to find everything? How do you know where to look?"

"Experience."

Tucker glanced around, then pointed to a thick folder at one end of the table. "What's that?"

Angela squinted, trying to focus her tired eyes. "Customer reports, I think."

"Why do you have to go through those?"

"By checking out what ESP is billing individual customers, it helps me independently confirm what the accountants are reporting as ESP's consolidated revenue." She eyed the folder gloomily. Just another item on a long list. "I'm only interested in the bigger customers. I'll end up calling their accountants to confirm that they are actually paying ESP what ESP claims to be billing them."

"It's like herding cattle," Tucker observed. "You come at the figures from all different angles and head them where you want them to go so they can't slip anything by you. By actually calling the clients to confirm what they're paying ESP, you find out if ESP is telling you the truth about how much business they claim to be doing."

"Exactly." Angela glanced down at the detailed financial statement she had been reviewing.

"Let me help," Tucker volunteered.

Angela smiled despite the ache that was starting to throb in the corners of her eyes. "I don't know how you could."

Tucker thought for a moment. "How about if I go through those customer reports and flag the big ones? The file looks pretty thick. At least I could weed out the ones that you don't care about. The ones that are too small."

She hesitated. "Okay. Start by pulling the ones that ESP claims to be billing for more than fifty thousand dollars a year."

Tucker stood up and moved to the far end of the conference room table, happy to have something to do.

Angela watched him for a moment, then refocused on the numbers.

A few minutes later Tucker let out a low whistle.

Angela rubbed her eyes. "What is it?" she asked, checking out a small stack of papers he had pulled from the file. She a.s.sumed those papers represented customers doing over fifty thousand a year.

Tucker looked up from the sheet of paper he had been studying. "I think you might want to check this out," he said, sliding it down the length of the table.

"What did you find?" she demanded, scanning the small type.

"Look near the bottom."

Angela's eyes flashed down and her heart skipped a beat. "Sumter," she whispered. In a faint, handwritten scrawl in the left margin was a note to remember to include the Sumter "cloak account" in the "gross numbers." Beneath the words was a string of numbers. A code or perhaps the cloak account number buried somewhere in ESP's operating system.

"Cloak account?"Tucker asked. "What do you think that means?"

"Probably nothing," Angela replied quickly, gazing at the string of numbers, conscious of a strong sense of dej vu. "Just an internal record-keeping code. Keep going through the file," she urged. "You'll probably find the Sumter account page."

Tucker shook his head. "I'm done. I've been through the entire file. There's no mention of Sumter other than what you see there," he explained, nodding at the paper in her hand.

Angela checked the paper again. "Did you find an account page in the file for a company called Cubbies?" she asked, still bothered by the eerie echo reverberating through her mind.

"Nope."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

That made no sense. Why would Jake Lawrence lie to her about Cubbies' licensing software from ESP Technologies? And if he was lying, how would he know how effective the ESP product was?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.