“Well, get on with it then.” Sloane's fingers itched to throttle somebody and if the P.I. didn’t hurry up and bring the guilty party down, he was of a mind to handle the whole situation himself. And it would not be pretty.
“All right,” Danvers said, pushing his hulking frame up and out of the chair, “I’m going. But don’t do anything or breathe a word to anybody until I say so.”
“Got it.” Sloane got up to walk the man to the door.
There, Danvers paused, turned, and gave him a piercing look. “Quest,” he said, his voice cool, “not a word. Not even to your wife.”
Sloane knew Danvers and how he worked and he trusted him completely. If there was one man who could get to the bottom of this, it was the one standing right in front of him. Without a word, he nodded.
***
As expected, Mark Danvers was true to his word. Within a week of their meeting he was back at Sloane’s office with information and, more importantly, enough evidence to throw Trent Palmer, soon-to-be ex-COO in jail.
“Have you ever heard of a film actress called Zena Paloma?” Danvers asked.
Sloane’s heart jerked in his chest. “I have. Why?”
“She was the brain behind the scam sale of that Rapid Films company.” Danvers leaned forward, his eyes intense. “For some reason this woman seemed intent on sinking Parker Broadcasting, or at least leaving a huge dent when she was done. She made contact with Palmer. Told him she’d pay him two hundred grand if he’d convince the owner to buy the company. He folded like a leaf on a hot pavement.”
“Greedy SOB.” Sloane clenched his fists as the anger rose inside him.
“And desperate,” Danvers inserted. “Somehow she found out that he was up to his ears in debts from a real estate investment gone bad. He was about to lose his house.” The big man chuckled. “That gal did her homework, I tell you. She found the perfect pigeon, high enough in the company for his decision to be accepted with minimal questions, and desperate enough to grab what she had to offer.”
“My God, would she go to such lengths…” Sloane’s voice trailed off as his thoughts ran wild. Just how long had Zena been planning this coup?
“Hey, you know her?” Danvers regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Quest?”
“Yeah, but I’m just realizing the connection.” He paused again and did a quick rewind of his conversation with Zena. She’d said Melanie was her target, that the deed was already done, so all that was happening at Parker Broadcasting was her doing.
His eyes snapped back to the P.I. “When did she first make contact with Palmer?”
“Five months ago. May twenty-eight, to be exact.”
Sloane sucked in his breath. “Two weeks after news of the engagement appeared in the papers. She moved damn fast.” He looked at Danvers, who was regarding him with a puzzled expression. “I was in a relationship with Zena and it ended badly. But that was over ten years ago. Looks like she’s the kind who can hold a grudge for a very long time.”
The P.I. grunted. “You must have hurt her real bad.”
“That’s the crazy thing,” Sloane said, still bemused. “The whole break-up was her fault.”
Danvers lifted his eyebrows then he chuckled, obviously amused. “Isn’t that what they all say?”
“This time it’s true and that’s what makes the situation so insane.” Sloane shook his head. “I’m done trying to figure her out. The fact is, she saw announcements of my engagement, came up with a plan of revenge, and moved on it immediately. She attacked Melanie months before she even became my wife. How evil is that?”
In response, Danvers snorted. “The woman is a pro. Now let’s teach her not to mess with the big boys.”
By the time the private investigator left that afternoon they had a solid plan of action, one that would require that they now involve Melanie. So far Sloane had been shielding her from the investigation, not wanting her reaction to Palmer to tip him off in any way. Now that they had solid information she would have to be involved.
He picked up the phone and dialed her number.
***
As Sloane’s executive assistant led her down the hallway toward his private suite, Melanie looked around and the memories came rushing back. Only five and a half months earlier she had walked down this hallway, intent on one thing – to secure Sloane’s promise to give her a baby. It had been an audacious plan, a shocking one, but she was the one who had ended up with the greater shock when the notorious bad boy had presented her with an outrageous proposal of his own – marriage in three months.
She’d come away from the negotiations with a heck of a lot – his wedding ring and his name – but the key thing she craved was still not hers – a child to call her own.
Melanie blinked. She would not fret. A baby would come soon enough, hopefully earlier rather than later. Right now she needed to focus on the issue at hand. Sloane had said they needed to talk, not tonight at home, but before the work day ended. It was critical if they were to save her film division. That got her immediate attention and she cancelled her ad agency meeting and sped over to his office. The meeting with Sloane took priority over everything else.
Melanie was not surprised when she walked into her husband’s office and he waved her over to the couch and began to pace the room. She’d come to know by now that this was how he did his best thinking.
“We’ve got the evidence we need,” he said, “but we have to move cautiously. There’s no way I want this guy to disappear before the police can slap handcuffs on him. Where’s Palmer now?”
“I left him in a financial planning meeting. Those things go on for hours. He’s not going anywhere for a while.”
“Good. Here is what I have in mind…”
By the time Sloane finished speaking they had a plan in place, one in which Melanie would have to employ shock tactics to get Trent Palmer to confess. She was to call him into her private office and confront him with her knowledge of the scheme. Hopefully, he would become so flustered that he would quake under her questioning and divulge incriminating information about himself and his dealings with Zena, the mastermind. Unbeknownst to him, she would be recording the entire conversation.