Zach

Did I hear that right? I wondered, staring down at Jeff Voreful. Jeff had been the head of security for the past five years, put in charge by my parents. His credentials hadn’t been spectacular. He had a high school diploma and taken a few security courses of the years. Most of them were to keep his credentials from lapsing. A month ago, I wasn’t worried about it. I thought that maybe experience made up for the gap in education, and if it didn’t, I would have time to find someone else to head security. But because of the breaking and murder, Jeff’s incompetence was in full display. In this case, judging from what he was telling me, he knew the barest minimum when it came to security.

“Can you say that again?”

“It was an order from your parents.” Jeff jutted his chin out, his face twisted in a stubborn glare. “TCSP handled most of the security anyway. They just needed me to help schedule the guards and sign some paperwork.”

“But we are talking about the security camera’s out front. Those are required by our insurance.”

“You parents sent a guy from TCSP. The workorder was legit enough, there was no reason for me to interfere.” To be fair, I wasn’t really surprised that my parents were the ones behind the theft, but I was surprised that Jeff would say it so nonchalantly. He had, after all, signed the documentation for the audit certifying the results.  

“Do you have this work order?” Joe asked from the corner.

“Why would I have that?” Jeff looked up at Joe in confusion.

“Because without it,” Joe stepped up to the table, putting his hands down on the edge and leaning over into Jeff’s personal space. “you are liable for any discrepancies in the security report filed by TCSP.” Jeff’s eyebrows shot up and he stood rapidly, the scrape of the chair making me wince.

“The hell you say,” Jeff looked back and forth between the two of us. “I’m done, I want a lawyer, you can’t treat me like this!” I could hear the panic in his voice. From what I heard from the other guards, Jeff liked to throw his authority around and bully the younger guards. He didn’t like it when he was under the microscope.

“Sit down.” I really had to hand it to Joe, even though he spoke with a soft gentle voice, I could tell that Jeff was shaking in his boots. He pulled the chair back and sat.

“Do you remember these documents?” Joe placed a stack of papers in front of Jeff.

“I want my…” Something in Jeff’s glare made him stop talking. Clearing his throat, he looked down at the papers in front of him. After going through them, he looked up. “These are the last few years of security assessments.”

“Correct,” I murmured.

“Yeah, I signed these, so what?”

“Who does the assessments?” I asked.

“TCSP always sends a few guys over to do the assessment, all I have to do is sign at the end of the review.”

“Do you realized that you just admitted to fraud?” Joe asked. Jeff paled. We were in a small room next to the security offices in Tempo. Joe thought that bringing Jeff in to talk about the security inconsistencies would help us learn who was behind the problems. We knew my parents had ordered some of the equipment removals, but the last thing that needed cleared up was just how involved TCSP was in their fraud. Looking down at Jeff, I felt bad for him. It was obvious that he had been used because of his ignorance.

“That’s…” Jeff started looking around franticly, as if trying to find someone else to blame.

“Here’s what we are going to do, Jeff” Joe sat on the table and stared up at the ceiling. “We are going to have you write a statement and then we are going to fire you.” He looked down at Jeff who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish trying to breath air. “If we had caught this sooner, we may have had other options, but someone died, Jeff. Your incompetence at managing security was a direct contributor to what happened to Jack.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” Jeff asked, slumping down in his seat.

“If you are lucky, it’ll just be us firing you. But the police are still investigating the break in. If they find that the perpetrator came in through one of the entry points that had been modified…” I shook my head. Honestly, I had no clue what the police would do to Jeff, but I didn’t want him to have any false hope. “You should get a lawyer.”

Joe and I left the room. As the door shut, Jeff looked small sitting at the table. His regret was thick in the air, but it was too late for it. He had probably been very happy to receive the promotion and higher pay not realizing that it was actually a bribe to keep him silent.

“You sure that this is what you want to do?” Joe asked me. I turned to him and nodded.

“It’s going to come out anyway. My parents greed put people in danger.”

“What about you?”

“You think I’ll get pulled into their scandal because I’m their son.” I sighed. “I can’t rule that out, and maybe that is what the vandal was after. But everyone knows that my parents and I were estranged. Even after inheriting their wealth, I donated most of it to various charities.” I smiled. “I made sure to donate their money to charities that they were sure to hate, too.”

“Either way, we need to cancel the TCSP contract. If what Jeff said is true, the removals were done with their full awareness.” I grimaced. Joe was right. I wasn’t looking forward to the hassle, but there was no way that I could keep them.

“Joe, you looked over their contract?” He nodded. “Does this event qualify as grounds for contract termination?”

“I believe it does, though we’ll need a lawyer to confirm.”

Remembering, I grabbed my wallet and pulled a card out. Benny Steele, the man from yesterday. His sister was the one who had been attacked. He was a lawyer.

“I think I knew just the person to call.” I looked over to Joe. “Are you ready for lunch?”

“Naw, I want to tie up a few more loose ends. You really need to stop pulling me into your problems.” Joe complained.

“I know you don’t mean that, you’re always telling me you miss the excitement of being an officer.”

“Yeah, but you are just a walking trouble magnet!”

“At least it isn’t delusional teenagers,” I said, remembering a few years back when I had been attacked by several teen fans intend on kidnapping me, locking me up, and…well fans were scary.

“I’ll take a delusional teen to a murder any day of the week.” Joe sighed and looked over to me. “I take it back, keep me in your business, I’d hate to loose a friend because I was annoyed.”

“Gee, thanks.” Joe headed into the security office while I headed out to lunch. On the way, I punched in Benny’s number on my phone.

“Benny Steele, how may I help you?”

“Hi, this is Zachary Soest from last night.”

“Oh? What do I owe this pleasure too?”

“It turns out I have a legal issue and wanted to know if you knew of a good lawyer that can assist?”

“What is the basic issue?”

“We are looking to have a contract reviewed in order to break it.”

“What industry is the contract in?”

“Security.”

“For me, that would be a conflict of interest, but I know a guy who specializes in that kind of thing. I can send you his contact.”

“I’d appreciate that. Another thing, I saw that your last name is Steele. Any relation to Steele Security?”

“That’s the conflict of interest. I avoid doing work in the security sector so that there is no reason to question my ethics.”

“Understood. I’ll look for that contact then.”

“No problem, and thank you for being there for Sam last night.” I thought back to the hospital and her lips on mine and blushed. Shaking the image away, I forced myself to think of something else.

“How is she?”

“Safe and sound. She had to stay 24 hours for observation because of the drug. Dad stayed with her last night.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Thank you for asking. I’ll send the contact in a few moments. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, bye.” Benny hung up the phone and I waited for the contact to come through. Another quick call later and an appointment for a consultation was set up. I took the opportunity to grab a quick sandwich for me and Joe from the deli. He was a grump when he missed meals, but always got to deep into his work and would forget. Once I got back to the gallery, I dropped Joe’s sandwich off and headed into my own office.

“Dana, call Steele Security and see up a consultation with them.”

“Yes sir.”