Brian Alderson looked through his doorway as we headed to the corner office. A nameplate hung on the wall: RANDALL FORTNER CEO. The door was ajar. Rachel pushed through.
Fortner was in his 40s, a little younger than me, but his hair was already steel gray. He stood up behind his curved desk and stared at us. Mostly Rachel, in her skinny jeans and black boots, a messenger bag over her shoulder. “Hello?”
I flung my card on his desk. “I work for your company, Mr. Fortner. I signed your NDA. And now the Furies are driving me crazy—your ‘Gracious Ones.’” I managed a breath while the Fury screeched in my ear. “Your people are killing themselves. Mandie Shannon, Steve Birks, the other two—and now Lisa McHugh. She’s in the hospital—”
The assistant at the front door ran in. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fort! Do you want me to call the police?”
Fortner held up a hand. “Hold on a moment, Ahmed. Leave us alone. I’ll call you if I need help.”
Ahmed glared at us, but he stepped out, leaving the door open.
Fortner dropped into his chair. “I don’t like arguments or disturbances in my workplace. Now why don’t you tell me what this is all about? Coffee?” He waved to a high-tech Krups machine near his desk.
“I don’t want any more goddamn coffee!” I planted a fist on his desk. “I want this thing gone!” I pointed at Fury Two, hovering in the corner, taunting me. I knew I looked and sounded crazy.
“Tom.” Rachel put a hand on my arm. “Inside voice usually works better.”
Yeah, I wasn’t helping my case by ranting at the top of my lungs. “Sorry.” I slumped in a chair. “Mr. Fortner . . .” I bit my lip. “Firing people is one thing. Driving them to suicide by sending the Furies, the Gracious Ones? Your NDA is killing people. Steve Birks, Mandie Shannon—and now they’re trying to kill Lisa McHugh. And me.” I glared up at the ceiling, where Fury Two waved her wings and stuck out a black, curly tongue as she laughed.
Fortner shook his head. “We offer a very robust benefits plan, which includes mental health coverage. As a contractor, I could see about extending it to you—”
“No!” I tried to keep my voice steady—and my eyes away from Fury Two as she kept mocking me. “Just tell me, where did the Gracious Ones come from? How on earth do you put a trio of Furies from Greek mythology on your payroll?”
He blinked. “I don’t—”
“Who drew up the NDA?” Rachel yanked open her messenger bag. “Take a look.” She’d printed Lisa McHugh’s copy, complete with the last page, and dropped the document on his desk. “This is your letterhead on top, right? So what’s this?” She turned to footnote six. “Right there.”
He skimmed the paragraph. “Alan drew it up. Alan Anagnos, our corporate counsel.”
“Then let’s talk to him.”
The Fury flapped her wings, laughing maniacally.
Fortner picked up his phone. “Alan? Could I see you in my office, please?” He sat back and folded his arms. “Coffee?—Wait, no, sorry. He’ll be just a minute.”
Two minutes later the door opened. Alan Anagnos had dark hair, a thin face, and a red necktie tight enough to choke someone. “Yes, Randy? What’s up?”
“This is Tom Jurgen and his associate, uh, Rachel?” Rachel nodded. “They’ve got some questions about the NDA.”
I restrained my impulse to shout at least as loud as Fury Two. “How the hell are you able to unleash Furies on people who violate your NDA?”
“We take compliance very seriously at Fort Financial, Mr. Jurgen.” He checked Rachel’s slim figure out as he spoke. “We deal with millions of dollars every day. Accountability is critical.”
“Your employees are killing themselves. Lisa McHugh is in the hospital. Steve Birks hung himself in his garage. And that thing up there—” I pointed at the Fury, hovering in the upper corner—“is shrieking in my ears right now. Are you accountable for that?”
Anagnos looked toward the ceiling. I expected him to deny it. Instead he nodded.
And Fury Two went silent.
It was still there, its wings gyrating, mouth moving, but for the first time in hours I could hear myself think. I slumped in the chair.
Rachel put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Y-yeah.” I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks.” To her, not Anagnos.
“I’m going to recommend not hiring Mr. Jurgen for any future work.” The lawyer turned. “Are we done here?”
“Wait.” I held up a hand. “What about Lisa McHugh?”
“I’ll recall the Gracious Ones.” He shrugged. “Then I’ll have to review the case with Brian. Probably she’ll be terminated, depending on who she met with and what information she passed.”
“I haven’t reported that she met with anyone.”
He smiled. “The Gracious Ones don’t just talk. They listen.”
“Then what do you need me for?” I was growing angry again.
“To provide the right foundation.” Anagnos left.
I turned back to Fortner. “Are you letting him get away with that? Driving your employees to suicide?”
He leaned back in his chair, arms at his sides. “I don’t know what to think.”
“You ought to think about your employees.” Rachel stepped forward and held out a hand. “Thanks for your time.”
They shook hands. Rachel helped me stand up.
I looked up at the ceiling. Fury Two had vanished.
“He’s lying.” Rachel sat back in the cab.
“About what?”
“Everything.” She shrugged. “He did know about the Gracious Ones. He’s pretending to be innocent.”
“And letting Anagnos take the hit?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what lawyers do.”
So I wasn’t necessarily safe. The prospect of the Furies coming back made my shoulders shake.
Back home, I grabbed a Coke and called Lisa McHugh’s girlfriend, Sandra. “How’s she doing?”
“Better.” But her voice still quivered. “No more hallucinations. She’s sleeping now. They say they’ll let her go home later.”
“I need to talk to her.”
She hesitated. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”
“Yeah, but—” No, she was right. Anagnos could set the Furies back on her again at any time. “I understand. Hope she’s better.”
We hung up. I rubbed my forehead, trying to think. I needed more information.
I started tapping at my computer.
“What are you doing?” Rachel looked ready to slug me again.
“She met with a reporter. Not a competitor. That might mean she found something about Fort that wasn’t just proprietary information. Maybe . . .”
I’d only checked out the Fort Financial website. Maybe it was time to dig deeper.
Randall Fort. B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in English; M.A. from the University of Chicago in finance. Son of a schoolteacher (father) and a lawyer (mother). He’d worked at Goldman Sachs and JP MorganChase before starting his own investment company, RFort Investments, right before the recession that started in 2007. The firm went belly-up in 2009, but he started a new company, Fort Financial, as the recession eased.
The company reported handling some $90 million or so in investments, but details were confidential to clients.
Alan Anagnos. B.A. from Michigan State University, law degree from John Marshall Law School here in Chicago. Son of an English professor (mother) and an antiquities dealer (father). Specialized in employment and securities law at various small firms, opened up his own practice, then joined Fort Financial as senior counsel two years ago
None of that answered any questions, but it gave me more data to work with. I called Amy Birks. “I’m sorry to bother you again, Ms. Birks, but I have one question.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“Is it possible that your husband didn’t actually embezzle that money from Fort? That he was framed for it?”
She took a long time answering. “I always thought it was stupid. We weren’t doing that bad, you know? And he never actually admitted it to me. Just said that’s what the company found. But the way he acted—I guess I just thought it had to be true.”
I thanked her and hung up.
I wanted a nap. But I was still afraid to go to sleep. And my mind was churning.
“What are you thinking?” Rachel leaned behind me.
“How much I love you.” I clicked my computer.
“Jerk.” But she kissed me instead of hitting me. That was an improvement. “Now what?”
“I maybe should have done this earlier.” I went to the Chicago Tribune website and found a phone number.
“Joe Rosetti, Chicago Trib.” His voice was hoarse, like the stereotype of a gruff, tough reporter.
“Hi, Joe. My name’s Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective, but I used to be a crime reporter at the Trib—”
“Jurgen?” He chuckled. “Yeah. I’ve heard of you. What do you want?”
Nice to know people still remembered me there. “You met with a woman named Lisa McHugh from Fort Financial yesterday. She passed you some information.”
“Ye-eah. Maybe. What’s your question?”
I knew he wouldn’t tell me what she’d given him. So I asked the only question I could think of: “Is there a story there?”
He laughed again. “Maybe.”
“Coming soon?”
No laugh this time. “Maybe. I have to check a few things out.”
Of course. “Okay. Thanks for your time.”
“Hold on, Jurgen.” He lowered his voice. “I said I remember you. Is this another one of your crazy vampire stories?”
“The ones that got me fired?” I chuckled back at him. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Joe. If you want to talk to McHugh, she was in the hospital today—but you didn’t hear that from me. She might have something more to tell you. But you probably won’t believe it. Nobody ever does.”
He snorted. “You’d be surprised by what I’m willing to believe these days.”
“Thanks. Keep up the good work.”
“You too.”
“Anything?” Rachel turned in her chair across the room.
“There’s a story coming about Fort Financial. Let me try one more thing . . .”
Lee Pacetta of CX Holdings agreed to talk, but not on the phone. We met at a Lincoln Park bar at 3:30.
I recognized him from the pictures I’d taken—young, blond hair, in a blue blazer and jeans. I sat down at his table and gave him my card.
He looked me over. “Okay. Mandie Shannon.”
“Yeah.” I ordered a beer from the waitress.
Pacetta shrugged. “I feel—I don’t know. We only met that once. She seemed like a nice kid. Don’t get me wrong—I’m married, two kids. But when I read what happened to her—”
“You emailed her for confidential information.”
“No.” He shook his head. “She emailed me. I sent one email to her work address, by accident. After that we did everything privately.”
“So what did she give you? Thanks.” I nodded to the waiter and sipped my beer.
Pacetta hesitated. “I can’t give you details. But she had some evidence that Fort was embezzling money from their customers. I’m not sure what she expected me to do with it—call them and tell them to come over to us? But she was upset, and she didn’t want to go along with it, but she was scared, because she’d signed some kind of nondisclosure.”
I nodded. The beer was already making me sleepier than before. “What happened after that?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “I looked over the files. Yeah, Fort’s screwing their customers. We could go to the feds, but we’d have to explain how we got the info. That opens us up to a lawsuit or three. Right now we’re just sitting on them.”
And for him. But I didn’t say that. “Can you send the files to me?”
He blinked. “What for?”
I honestly didn’t know. I doubted I’d be able to understand what was in them anyway. “I’m curious. I won’t use them again Fortner, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Pacetta gulped his beer. “I guess. As long as you don’t tell anyone you got them from me.”
“So now what?” Rachel stood behind me, her arms crossed.
I shook my head. It was clear that the Furies weren’t about enforcing the NDA—they were protecting Fortner by driving anyone who found out about his business practices crazy.
That meant Anagnos could send them after me again—or Lisa McHugh—at any time.
I dreaded going to bed.
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