"I'm not bringing that up to embarrass either one of us. Though it seems to have done just that." He cleared his throat as he rose, and with nervous hands poured two mugs of coffee. As he handed her one, he remembered. "Sorry, you said you didn't want any."
"I'll take it." What was a little afterburn in comparison with staggered shock? "Thanks."
"I only mentioned that because people who know me well have sort of noticed that I—Not that you've done anything to encourage, or that I would have done
anything even if you had."
"I get the picture, Marty." She allowed a breath to ease quietly through her lips, studied his wide, harmless, homely face. "I'm flattered."
"It muddies the waters, so to speak. I'm sorry for that. But I feel your record with this firm stands for itself. I'll continue to do everything I can to prevent formal charges being filed and to get to the bottom of this situation."
"I don't think I appreciated you enough when I worked here." She set her mug aside and rose. "Marty, I want to talk to the partners. All of them. I think it's time I took a stand."
He nodded as though he'd merely been waiting for her to say so. "I'll see if I can arrange it."
It didn't take him long. He might have been considered the puppy dog of Bittle, but he knew what buttons to push. Within thirty minutes, Kate was again seated at the long, polished table in the conference room.
In keeping with the strategy she'd outlined on the drive over, she made eye contact with each partner, then settled her gaze firmly on Bittle Senior. "I've come here today, without my lawyer, in an effort to keep this meeting informal. Even personal. I realize your time is valuable, and I appreciate each of you taking that time to listen to what I have to say."
She paused, once again glanced at the faces around the table, once again addressed herself to the senior partner and founder. "I worked for this firm for nearly six years. I dedicated my professional, and a good deal of my personal, life to it. My goals were not selfless. I worked very hard to bring in accounts, to keep accounts assigned to me satisfied and viable in order to increase Bittle's revenue and reputation, with the ultimate aim of sitting at this table as a partner. Not once during my employment here did I ever take one penny from an account. I was raised, as you know, Mr. Bittle, by people who value integrity."
"It is your accounts that remain in question, Ms. Powell," Amanda put in briskly. "Your signature. If you've come here today with an explanation, we are prepared to hear it."
"I haven't come here for explanations. I haven't come to answer questions or to ask them. I've come here to make a statement. I have never done anything illegal or unethical. If there is a discrepancy in the accounts, I am not responsible for it. I'm prepared to make this same statement, if necessary, to each client involved. Just as I am prepared to go to court and defend myself against these charges."
Her hands were beginning to shake, so she gripped them tightly together under the table. "If charges are not brought, and this matter is not satisfactorily resolved within thirty days, I will advise my attorney to file suit against Bittle and Associates for unjustified termination and slander."
"You would dare to threaten this firm." Though his voice was quiet and clipped, Lawrence fisted a hand on the table.
"It's not a threat," she said coolly, even as her stomach jittered and churned. "My career has been sabotaged, my reputation impugned. If you believe I would sit idly by and do nothing about that, then I'm not surprised that you believe I would embezzle from my accounts. Because you don't know me at all."
Bittle leaned back in his chair. He steepled his hands, considered. "It's taken you some time to come around to this position, Kate."
"Yes, it has. This job meant everything to me. I'm starting to believe that everything is just too much. I couldn't have stolen from you, Mr. Bittle. You of all people know me well enough to be sure of that."
She waited a moment, wanting him to remember her, personally. "If you want a question to ponder," she continued, "ask yourselves this: Why would I have pilfered a measly seventy-five thousand when if I had needed or wanted money, I would only have had to go to my family? Why would I have worked my butt off for this firm all these years when I could have taken a top position in the Templeton organization at any time?"
"We have asked ourselves those questions, Kate," Bittle told her. "And those questions are the very reason this matter hasn't been resolved."
She rose, slowly. "Then I'll give you the answer. I'm not sure it's an attractive one, but I know the answer is pride. I'm too goddamn proud to have taken a dollar from this firm that wasn't mine. And I'm too proud to do nothing when I'm accused of embezzlement. Ms. Devin, gentlemen, thank you for your time." She shifted her gaze, smiled. "Thanks, Marty."
Not a single murmur followed her out the door.
She stopped shaking when she hit Highway 1 and realized where her instincts were taking her. Even before she pulled her car to the shoulder, got out to walk toward the cliffs, she was calm again.
There were fences to mend, work to do, responsibilities to handle. But for a moment, there was just Kate and the soothing roar of the sea. Today it was sapphire, that perfect blue that called to lovers and poets and pirates. The foam, far below the lapped shale and rock was like the froth of lace on the hem of a woman's velvet skirt.
She climbed down a ways, enjoying the swirl of wind, the taste of salt and sea that flavored it. Wild grasses and flowers defied the elements and grew, fighting their way out of thin soil and cracks in stone. Gulls wheeled overhead, their breasts as white as moonlight, the golden sun flashing off their spread wings.
Diamonds glittered on the water, and further out, whitecaps rode the sea like fine horses. The music never stopped, she thought. The ebb and flow, the crash and thunder, the eerily female screams of the gulls. How often had she come here to sit, to watch, to think? She couldn't count the number of hours.
Sometimes she was pulled here simply to be, other times to sit in solitude and work out some thorny problem. In her early years at Templeton House she had come here, to these cliffs, above this sea, under this sky, to quietly grieve for what she had lost. And to struggle with guilt over being happy in her new life.
She didn't dream here, had always told herself to wait for that until next year, or the next. The present had always taken priority. What to do now.
She stood on the comfortably wide ledge and asked herself what to do now.
Should she call Josh and tell him to go ahead with preparation for a suit against Bittle? She thought she had to. As difficult and potentially dangerous as such an action was, she could no longer ignore—or pretend to ignore—what had been done to her life. She hadn't been born a coward, nor had she been raised as one. It was time she dealt with that part of herself that was constantly in fear of failure.