Retreat (12 page)

    
“Your cell’s gone, too?”

    
Clara nodded.

    
Josie sighed and took her daughter’s hand.
“Well, you’re home now, honey. You can depend on us for a while.”

    
“Thanks, Mom,” Clara said, somewhat
surprised at her mother’s gentle gesture.

    
“Well, don’t thank me yet,” Josie said.
“There are no free rides around here, you know that. You’ll have to come back
to work, which means you’ll be our fourth new employee this month. Things are
moving fast and you’ll need to get up to speed quickly.”

    
“So fill me in,” Clara said, glad to be
moving on to a subject that didn’t involve her love life.

    
“I’ll let your father do that. He’ll be
thrilled to know you’re coming back. I know you need to do some shopping, so
I’ll give you Monday off. But I want you in the office first thing Tuesday
morning.”

    
“Tuesday?” Clara asked. She’d hoped to take
at least a week to get settled. Maybe longer. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she
wanted to stay in Brighton at all for more
than that.

    
“Do you need a job or not?” Josie asked
firmly. “Yes, Tuesday. The day after tomorrow. The timing is perfect. We can
really use your help. And you’ll be here for the retreat.”

    
“What retreat?” Clara asked, suddenly even
more skeptical of her mother’s rush to get her on board.

    
“We’ve decided to go on a corporate
retreat,” Josie said, smiling thoughtfully as she gazed out across the yard, as
if imagining the retreat. “You know, to help the new team meld.”

    
“Where?” Clara asked.

    
“Foster’s Glen.”

    
“Isn’t that the state park?” This might be
worse than Clara imagined.

    
“Yes, it is. We’re going to camp there.
We’re leaving on Friday. You can plan on it taking about five hours to drive
there,” Josie said.

    
“Camp?” Clara asked skeptically.

    
“Yes, camp. In cabins, not tents. It won’t
be that much different than staying here in your little bungalow,” her mother
waved a thin hand toward the small house.

    
Clara raised her eyebrows.

    
“What?” Josie asked. “Karen’s facilitating
it for us. It’ll be fine.”

    
“Karen Glass? Oh, you’ve got to be kidding
me,” Clara said, swinging her legs around and standing up.

    
“You love Karen,” Josie crooned.

    
“Mom, trust me. You are the only one on the
planet who loves Karen.”

    
“Clara, that’s just plain rude.”

    
“She drives me crazy, Mom. She has the same
affect Rebecca used to have on me when we were kids.”

    
“That bad?” Josie asked.

    
“Worse. And Mom, seriously, have you ever
been on a corporate retreat?” Clara asked.

    
“No, I haven’t had that opportunity,” she
said smartly.

    
“Well, I have, and let me tell you they can
be pretty painful,” she said, pretending to make a noose and hang herself.

    
“It’ll be fine,” Josie said. “Stop
complaining. As the newest member of the team you’re required to go.”

    
“Wonderful.” Clara slumped against the
porch rail and peered out over the lake. “At least Meg will be there.”

    
“You’ll like the new guys your father
hired, too. Trust me, you’re going to love it. It’ll be just what you need to
take your mind off your troubles.”

    
Maybe her mother was right, Clara thought.
A camping trip with flip charts would certainly be a unique kind of therapy.
She’d get to know the rest of the team quickly and, if she could stomach Karen,
she might even have some fun. What the hell, she thought, it just gives me a
reason to buy a pair of hiking boots and charge them to the company.

    
“Have you heard from Rebecca?” Josie asked
tentatively.

    
Clara caught her mother’s eye and shook her
head no.

    
“No, I didn’t think you would have,” Josie said.
She swept on a smile. “Boy, if that Tulsa
crowd could only see you now in those hideous sweats, propped up on this old
porch rail, drinking beer straight from the bottle.”

    
“Feels like home to me,” Clara said,
smiling.

    
The rain had finally arrived, casting a
lacy veil between the trees and the water. She took a deep breath of
pine-kissed air.

    
“Well then welcome home, honey,” Josie
said.

CHAPTER
6

    
“I need information – detailed information –
as much as you can get me,” Jon said, pacing in front of Marcy’s desk and
looking out the office window over the Fort
Worth skyline.

    
He had to do something. He’d been trying to
get in touch with Clara all weekend and hadn’t heard a thing. If he couldn’t
find her at least he could make sure that asshole Carpenter paid.

    
He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep
from punching the wall. He’d already nearly knocked the sand out of the bag at
the gym this morning. His trainer thought he was going to break his fists
through the gloves.

    
He kept pacing. “Keep digging until you
find something.”

    
“About what?” Marcy asked him, slipping her
dark-rimmed glasses from her slender nose and studying him. “I’ve never seen
you like this before. You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet. Sit down and
tell me what’s going on.”

    
“Not what,” he said, stopping and looking
at her. “Who.”

    
“Okay, who then?” she asked.

    
“David Carpenter.”

    
“The guy Clara’s marrying?” she asked. He
recognized her expression immediately. It was the one she usually shot at him
when she was making her ‘is this guy for real?’ face behind Freedman’s back.

    
“They’re not getting married. Not anymore,”
Jon said.

    
“Oh man Jon, what did you do?” Marcy asked,
leaning back in her black leather chair. As she did her feet lifted off the
ground. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, with wild brown curls that reached
down to her shoulders. She’d given up trying to tame them in high school.

    
“Don’t worry about it. Just get busy.”

    
“Of course I’m going to worry about it,”
Marcy said, her stubborn streak rearing. “Clara’s been my friend since college.
Hell, she’s the one who got me this job. She’s like a sister to me. What did
you do to her now? Break up her marriage?”

    
“If you care about her that much you’ll do
what I ask,” Jon said evenly.

    
“What am I looking for?”

    
He leaned down, placing both fists on her
desk. “Anything you can find that can help me destroy this guy.”

    
“Destroy?” Marcy repeated. “Isn’t that a
tad melodramatic?”

    
“Destroy,” he said, lowering his eyes at
her. “I’d research it myself but I need to get as much information as I can as
fast as I can about Spritzer & Spritzer.”

    
“What the hell are you up to?” Marcy asked.
“I don’t like the sound of this. First you want to destroy David and now you
want to take over Bill Spritzer’s company?”

    
“I don’t want to take it over,” he said. “I
want to invest in it.”

    
“Seems a little small for Freedman’s
tastes, doesn’t it?”

    
“Will you stop arguing with me? Freedman
doesn’t have anything to do with this. Just get me something I can use on that
asshole. And Marcy?”

    
“Yes?”

    
“I need it fast.”

    
She searched his eyes. “Okay, okay,” she
said. “I’ll see what I can do. Just stop bossing me around and keep in mind
that this is a big favor. Freedman has me neck-deep in the Frasier-Runkel food
processing deal. If he finds out I’m working on something else I’ll be out on
my ass like Clara.”

    
Jon started to walk out then stopped.

    
“Call Pete Warwick down at the police
station,” he directed. “He owes me a favor. Have him do a background check on
Carpenter.”

    
“You’re going to use a favor with the chief
of police on this?”

    
“Marcy …”

    
She threw up her hands in protest. “I’m
just asking, just asking. I’ll get to work.”

    
“Thank you,” he said, turning and walking
back toward his own office.

    
As he left he heard Marcy pick up her
phone. She must have gotten Clara’s voicemail just as he had all weekend.

    
“Clara, it’s me, Marcy. Give me a call as
soon as you get this message. I want to know what the hell is going on that’s
got Jon ready to blow a gasket.” She rattled off her work number then said
goodbye.

    
Jon ran his fingers through his short dark
curls and walked back to his office. He sat down at his desk and surfed to the
Spritzer & Spritzer website. As a family owned company there wasn’t that
much public information available but he’d do his best to find what he could.
He wanted to call Bill and see about getting on board as an investor. Clara had
said they were pursuing venture capital. He could provide it.

    
He was fairly certain she was on her way
back to Brighton. He tried to call her cell
phone a few times after he left Carpenter’s but it went straight to voicemail.
Her assistant – or whatever she was –hadn’t seen her since Thursday. She said
she’d been let go.

    
Fired again, he thought. No wonder she
disappeared.

    
He needed to get in touch with Bill, not
only about the investment, but to find out if Clara was there. He didn’t think
Carpenter was lying when he said she left.

    
He better not have been lying.

    
Shit, Jon thought. Why hadn’t he searched
harder after he discovered the wife and kids? He knew that information alone
would send Clara through the roof and out the door. But he never expected the
asshole to be playing some kind of sick game. He didn’t anticipate him
attacking her. God if he’d known he never would have let her go back into that
house alone.

    
He cursed, angry at himself. How had he
missed that deal? He should have done his homework.

    
After another moment of clicking through product
pages Jon found the phone number on the website and called.

    
“Spritzer & Spritzer, this is Meg,” a
woman answered on the first ring.

    
“Bill Spritzer please.”

    
“May I ask who’s calling?”

    
Jon hesitated for a moment, wondering if Bill would remember him. They only met once, and
that was nearly two years ago.

    
“Jon Griffin.”

    
“I’m sorry, Mr. Griffin, but Bill isn’t
here right now. Can I take a message?” There was no sign of recognition in the
woman’s voice.

    
“Yes, please tell him I called.”

    
“Can I tell him what it’s regarding?”

    
“Yes. Let him know I’m interested in
investing in the company.”

    
“Certainly. What’s your number?”

    
He rattled it off.

    
“Okay Mr. Griffin, I’ll be sure he gets the
message.” She started to say goodbye.

    
“Wait … Meg, right?”

    
“Yes.”

    
“Do you know Clara Spritzer?” he asked.

    
“Only since second grade. Why? Do you?”

    
“Yes. We’re old friends. I was wondering if
she was there.”