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Seth nodded slowly.
“If Clary’s ex-assistant was involved, then Gavin might have a way to get close to her. He could—”
“You should’ve started with that.” Seth got up. “You should’ve just told me that over the phone.”
“I don’t know for sure.”
A barista called out Seth’s name, and he grabbed the bag before heading out. He was about to call Clary when he paused.
She had a lot of things to do today, and she really didn’t need to worry about this.
He ran his tongue under his teeth, then decided to text Andrea instead. Gavin Ressler might be INSIDE the building already. Have security check. I’m on my way back.
Andrea’s reply came back almost immediately. How reliable is this information?
Reliable. Seth got into the car.
The passenger side door opened, and Ron Woznick got into the car.
“What are you doing?” Seth asked.
“What do you think?”
He sighed and started the car. “Clary isn’t interested in you.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”
* * *
Compliance, the department that was supposed to make sure that everything the bank did was legal and ethical.
As with the security and HR departments, everyone was gathered around. This time, though, someone saw them coming and alerted the rest.
“Is something wrong?” Clary asked when Andrea, who had slowed and spoken to Ken, caught up with her.
“I’ll handle it. You focus on this. That’s why you hired an assistant.”
Something was clearly up. Ken was whispering harshly into the mouthpiece of his walkie-talkie, and the rest of the security team suddenly seemed to be on high alert.
But she trusted Andrea, so she merely nodded.
When she stepped in front of the gathered employees, they were all standing straight with eyes wide, waiting for whatever she had to say. “Good morning.”
They echoed it back to her.
“I’m sure you’ve heard that the independent investigation has been completed and the report is out. Besides the front-line staff, the independent review team points the finger at the failure of this department that resulted in what happened.”
Heads snapped toward each other. They knew they were in trouble.
“Gladys Newman, you’re dismissed.”
Andrea waved a white envelope in her hand and put it down on the closest desk.
“The rest of you have up to lunchtime to decide if you want to stay or leave. If you do stay, you’ll all be reassigned to a temporary department we’ll be setting up to make things right for account holders who were affected. And because I want to get as much done as we can before Christmas, there will be a lot of over time. You’ll remain in the new department until we fix the mistakes for every single affected customer.”
“What exactly will we do in the new department?” someone asked.
“I’ll give you the details later. For now, think about whether you want to stay and make things right or leave. For reasons of accountability, I will be publishing a report on every employee who was dismissed and every one who quit today or because of this process. This isn’t a threat. I’m merely trying to be open about the situation. The public deserves to know, since we’re serving them.”
