“I’m not. I’ve been waiting for you to be the woman I knew you could be. To stand up and demand to be treated only as a chief of staff. I was curious how long you’d take, and until recently, I didn’t particularly care as I had no urgent need for you to evolve. But that has changed. Your timing was useful, given my new plans.”
Felicity stared. “Well” was all she could think to say. That wasn’t embarrassing in the least.
Elena chuckled, a low, throaty timbre that Felicity had taught herself several years ago to never find sexy because that would just be weird.
“Felicity,” Elena said in a not unkind voice, “I cannot have someone running my company in my absence who has no spine. I need someone I trust, yes, but they have to be strong, too. I’ve seen you stand up to intimidating and powerful people for years. You do it for me. I need to see you do it for you, even if you’re worried I won’t approve. And that’s not all I want to see more of. I have a little assignment for you.”
Felicity sat up straight, mentally readying herself for anything.
“But before I give it to you, I’ve just been on the phone with some very angry lawyers from The Mornington Herald. They seem to be of the opinion that you just canceled our mutually beneficial buyout deal.”
“I did.”
“Isn’t that the paper that employs Brad Tolliver? That acerbic columnist with a reader following in the hundreds of thousands? The same columnist you suggested could make us a bundle in syndication rights if we acquired the paper he’s contracted with?”
“Yes.” Felicity paused. “I outlined what happened in my management report. I’ve emailed you.”
“I’m still only a third of the way through my inbox. Explain.”
“I terminated the deal after I couldn’t get the editor to confirm that Tolliver was still under contract with them at the time of negotiations.”
Elena frowned. “He has to be. Our deal specifically named his contract as an asset we wish to acquire.”
“I know. So I made some discreet inquiries. Turns out two months ago, when his contract expired, Tolliver found out he was pivotal to the buyout bid with us. He’s been stalling signing a new contract to get more money from his publisher.”
“Surely now that the buyout deal’s at risk his paper will offer him anything to get him signed on. So why wouldn’t you wait for that instead of axing the deal prematurely?”
“I did the sums and looked more closely at the other assets we’d get from acquiring The Mornington Herald. It’s not worth it. The independent engineering report showed the aging printing presses have some worsening structural issues and need an overhaul. I know we were hoping to utilize the presses for additional external printing jobs, but that’s out of the question. I concluded it’s more cost-effective for us to kill the deal and sign Tolliver exclusively to a Bartell Corp contract. Tolliver’s syndication potential was the only unique selling point in acquiring his paper at all.”
Elena leaned in. “I see. What happened next?”
“Tolliver said he’d sign exclusively with us for twice his current salary.”
“Which would be far cheaper than more or less buying his masthead just for his contract. It’s a bargain.”
“It is. But I said no.”
Elena’s eyebrows lifted. She waited.
“Instead of a hundred percent salary bump, I offered him five percent more and threw in travel expenses. Capped, of course.”
“He agreed?” Elena asked in surprise.
“Immediately.” Felicity hid her smirk. “He wants to travel America, and he can write on our dime from wherever he roams. That’s his official reason. I also observed he’s an arrogant young man who wants to get laid—often. So once I explained we’d make him famous with a new national syndication column deal, he jumped at it.”
Elena snorted. “That’s excellent reading of your target.”
“Yes. Well.” Felicity fidgeted at the compliment. “I had a hunch. It paid off.”
“Okay, how much did we save killing off The Mornington Herald deal, subtracting expenses we’ve invested in it so far?”
“Four point two million dollars.”
Elena’s smile turned wolfish. “Well now, that’ll teach a publisher not to pay their bird in the hand. All right, I’ll tell their lawyers we’re not changing our minds and to get over it. Which Bartell Corp publication will you base Tolliver at?”
“He’s a bit of a pain in the neck and believes his own hype. I’ve chosen Boston National News Publications. Syndications manager Michelle Masterton should keep him filing on deadline, and she’s also agreed to oversee his travel budget.”
Elena gave a small laugh. “Poor man. Michelle could scare the spots off a leopard. Good.” Her eyes became half-lidded “Very good. You keep surprising me, Felicity. That’s what I like to see. Which brings me to your special assignment.”
Felicity straightened, pleasure burning at Elena’s approval.
“Last August I heard about a charity called Living Ruff New York, which helps the pets of homeless people. This charity goes out to the streets to the homeless, supplies pet food, offers free access to animal healthcare, neutering, and so on. The story I read about them was compelling, so I decided to make an anonymous donation.” Elena’s blue eyes grew stormy. “A sizable one.”
With a nod, Felicity waited. It was hardly the first time she’d noticed anonymous donations in Elena’s private expenses. She always did take on such odd little charities, though. Like this one, it seemed.
“The charity should have been flourishing for several years on the money I gave them, but less than twelve months later, I see this.” She spun her computer monitor around to face Felicity.
Charity for animals of the homeless facing closure
The story explained the impending closure of the charity due to lack of funds, and the attached photo showed a smiling woman with a natural tan and sandy blond hair pulled into a ponytail who was holding a huge dog. The caption read: “Dr. Sandy Cooper, a vet at Living Ruff NY, with Gladiator, the American Bulldog she is checking up for homeless veteran Martin Ruiz.”
“There is no possible way Living Ruff New York could have gone through the funds I gave them in such a short time,” Elena said firmly. “So I contacted the charity director, Harvey Clifford. Since my donation was anonymous, he had no idea why I’m interested. I hinted I might be considering giving to his charity, but first I wanted to ask whether the story was true. I explained that if the charity is about to call in liquidators, there’s little point in me throwing good money after bad.”
“What did he say?”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “He claimed the story was just a play for more donations, they’re business as usual, and the charity is not about to close. He welcomed all new donations and called the news story a media beat-up. Christ, the man is a terrible liar.” A look of disdain crossed her face. “He’s trying to tell someone who owns half the world’s newspapers what a media beat-up looks like? They never look like that. Sympathetic and with quotes and photos from the staff? This was a management-endorsed story.”
Felicity nodded. “So the director was lying.”
“Yes. I’m just not sure why. Maybe this is just a way to drive more donations, maybe not. But I want to know for sure. I want to know where my money went because if it’s been embezzled, I’ll be damned if I’ll be taking that lying down.”
“Understood,” Felicity said, on firm ground now that she understood the problem: assess a charity’s full financial status and work out where Elena’s donation had gone. “We can get Thomas in accounts to—”
“Thomas has lost my faith.”
“What?” Felicity blurted. The man had been with Bartell Corp for sixteen years. He was their most senior accountant.
“When I originally made my donation, I had him check that the charity’s books were sound and all was aboveboard. I asked him to personally look into it. I found out today he’d handed that task off to an underling. When I ask someone to handle something themselves, I don’t mean find someone less qualified whom I do not know or trust to…take a stab at it.”
The man was a complete fool. Elena always meant what she said. “Right. Yes, I see.”
“Good,” Elena said, eyes tight. “Now I need someone I trust to investigate what Living Ruff does and how, and determine whether there are any irregularities. Wave around the possibility I might make a donation, should they be less than forthcoming.”
“Charities by law have to disclose to the public their financial status,” Felicity said with a frown. Surely Elena knew that already? “Most post their financial statements on their websites.”
