Take the Heat

The photographs trembled like leaves in the breeze as she clutched each one in shaking fingers. The note inside was scrawled in the stark block print of the CEO, Will Ellsworth. As she read it, dread sank in her belly like a cold lead weight.

“These are copies, Ms. Hart. There are more, but this is more than enough for the authorities. Be in my office at 8:30 this morning. You won’t be late.”

Her quaking hands stuffed everything back into the envelope, her heart pounding. She’d been so careful—only shaving off a little here, a little there. Not much more than rounding errors in the company’s books. Who would miss it? She knew she’d taken less cash than the company blew on a single off-site business meeting. Much less.

But somehow he knew. And now her life was over.

“Ms. Hart. I need to speak with you in the conference room.” Connie’s frown and her quiet, exasperated sigh told Alyson everything she needed to know.

“I—I can’t, Connie.” Alyson looked at the clock on her computer: 8:25. “Will, I mean, Mr. Ellsworth. He wants to see me.”

“Now?” Connie lifted a sculpted brow. “Does he even know who you are?”

“I don’t know.” Connie’s eyes slid over to the manila en

velope, and Alyson snatched it up, stuffing it in her purse. “I have to go, though. He was very…specific.”

The walk to Will Ellsworth’s office felt like a walk to the gallows, the long sunlit corridor seeming to stretch before her forever, every step one closer to her doom.

“Uh, I’m here to see Mr. Ellsworth.” Alyson stopped at the admin’s desk, clasping her purse in both hands in a death grip, hoping to hide the tremor of her hands.

“You have an appointment?” Karen, his admin, lowered her glasses, the dark frames somehow charming on her delicate features.

“I’m not really sure. I was told to be here at eight thirty. Is he expecting me?”

Karen’s phone buzzed, her delicate fingers picking it up. The voice on the other end was barely audible, but the rumble was definitely male.

“Yes, sir,” Karen said. “She’s here now.”

Karen hung up, glancing up at Alyson. “He’s ready for you.”

The door, the blackness of the wood seeming to absorb the sunlight, swung open, and Alyson slipped in. With a sepulchral thud, the door closed behind her.

His corner office seemed all windows, and up here on the thirtieth floor the sunshine filled the space with dazzling light and warmth. Not what she’d expected of Will Ellsworth—the man whom many of the other accountants referred to as simply The Unholy.

Of course now, the only sunshine she could look forward to was that which filtered through the high narrow window of a jail cell.

Will was on the phone, his rangy, tall form sprawled in a chair behind the dark expansive plane of his desk. His long fingers flipped and twirled an ornate pen. Deep blue eyes snapped up to her, and his mouth tightened.

“Look, Rick, I need those reports. Without that data we’ve got no chance at figuring out if we can get the account.” Will’s finger pointed at her, then jabbed down at the small gray chair before his desk.

Swallowing a frightened whimper, she took the seat, the fabric rough against her thin skirt. Her hands shook more than ever, and she clasped them in her lap, afraid to look at him as his conversation continued.

“I have to go, Rick. I don’t care how you do it, but I want them by tomorrow. I pay you well for this, and I want something for my money. That’s all.”

Dropping the handset into its cradle, Will’s intent gaze locked upon her. With his jet-black hair and the square jaw darkened by five o’clock shadow, he’d have seemed handsome in any other situation.

Here he seemed nothing so much as judge, jury and executioner.

“Do I not pay you well for the work you do, Ms. Hart?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Are you hard of hearing along with being a criminal?” He pulled open a drawer and placed a white business card on the varnished cherry wood, the gold filigree of his fountain pen glinting in the light. “I said, do I not pay you well?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then why embezzle from the company? From me?”