Winner Takes All (28 page)

He didn’t take offense. “I know the office
seems
quiet, but it’s just the calm before the storm. Our coworkers sense something is about to happen; they’re like animals in a forest seconds before an earthquake hits. Trust me, my bones don’t lie.”

Just then the elevator doors opened and four men wearing dark suits and mirrored sunglasses stepped onto the floor. They stood by the wall, surveying the room for several long moments.

“See?” said David, a small amount of triumph in his voice. “They’re suspicious looking.”

Eva had to agree. Although she couldn’t put her finger on it, there was something oddly disconcerting about the men. They stood rigid and tall with their backs straight and their mouths drawn in tight frowns. There was an austerity about them that was off-putting, as if they’d never laughed at a joke in their entire lives.

She wouldn’t say she felt it in her bones, but a sudden foreboding overcame her.

“Okay, don’t panic,” David said as the men started to walk toward their aisle. “Just look natural.” He then crossed his legs and picked up a stapler to fiddle with its insides. There was absolutely nothing natural about his pose.

Eva tried to ignore the men, but it was hard. Everyone in the office was now looking their way, although it seemed to Eva as if they were making a beeline straight to her desk.
I bet everyone here thinks that.
Still, hers was the only cubicle they stopped at.

“Ms. Butler?” one of the men said. Eva didn’t know which one. Even though she was looking straight at them, she couldn’t figure out whose lips moved. She was too unsettled.

“Right, Ms. Butler, I’ll leave you to it then,” said David, determined to get out of the line of fire as quickly as possible. The four large men from an unknown secret agency were even larger up close.

Eva paid David no heed. She was too busy wondering what business these men could possibly have with her. Were they interested in the Hammond collection? She shifted in her chair and thought about standing up. Should she? After a moment’s hesitation, she did. “Yes.”

“We’d like you to come with us,” one of them
—
the broad-shouldered man with a gunmetal-gray tie—said.

“Come with you?” she asked, unsure how to proceed. She didn’t want to go anywhere with them, but at the same time she didn’t want to have this conversation, such as it was, under the watchful gaze of David Taverner and a roomful of other curious colleagues.

“Ms. Butler,” another one said; he had closely sheared blond hair and a grim expression, “if you’ll come with us, we’ll have this cleared up in no time.”

As far as Eva knew there was nothing to clear up, and she felt a fissure of alarm. Something was definitely wrong here. She pushed back her panic and tried to think clearly. “Who are you?”

The blond man spoke again. “Carlin Jeffers, from the Justice Department.” He whipped out an ID and flipped it quickly in front of her eyes. She was so shocked she could only stare at him uncomprehendingly. The Justice Department?

“Ms. Butler?” Jeffers asked.

Eva gathered her wits. “Yes?”

“A few minutes of your time?”

Eva nodded. Whatever this was about, it was far better to get it over with than to let it drag out. “All right,” she said and followed them to the elevator. They didn’t take her to a private conference room on the executive floor as she expected but led her instead to a large, dark Lincoln Continental parked illegally in front of a hydrant. Eva balked for a moment.

“We’re only going to our office on Lexington,” explained Jeffers. “You’ll be more comfortable there.”

Eva didn’t believe him—it seem inconceivable that anyone would be comfortable in the presence of these four large men from the Justice Department regardless of environment—but she climbed into the car, determined to stick to her resolution to get this over with. But she did think cynically as the car pulled away from the curb that “a few minutes of your time” had been a gross understatement. Nobody took you to the Justice Department offices on Lexington for only a few minutes of your time. Eva sat back against the leather upholstery and told herself not to worry. This could be about anything: her father, Mark, a friend from high school she hadn’t seen in ten years.

When they arrived at the building after a silent ten-minute ride in the car, Eva was led to a small room without windows and offered a cup of coffee. She almost declined but then decided that something warm might soothe her nerves.

“Yes, please,” she said to the neat young woman who hovered over her waiting for an answer.

The woman disappeared for several minutes and returned with a steaming white paper cup. “They’ll be in in a minute,” she said before leaving again.

“Great,” muttered Eva at the woman’s departing back. “I’ll just wait here.”

The room they’d taken her to was pleasant enough, if a little dark. Its interior—blue walls, brown oak table, thick maroon chairs—wasn’t what she was expecting, and the lack of a single bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling encouraged her. Maybe this wasn’t going to be an interrogation after all.

Eva drank her coffee and waited for Jeffers and his men to materialize. Since she had nothing to do but worry, the time passed very slowly. She looked at her phone, which didn’t get reception in the room, at regular intervals and was unnerved to discover that under these circumstances five minutes was a lot longer than five minutes. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, when the waiting and the worrying and the inactivity became unbearable, she got up and started pacing the floor. The room wasn’t very large and she was feeling super jittery, but it was better than sitting.
I guess I shouldn’t have had that cup of coffee after all
.

Her phone was no help. Sure, she could play endless games of Candy Crush or read the latest issue of
The New Yorker,
but paying attention to anything but her own anxiety was impossible. The only thing to do in the small blue room was worry about why she was in the small blue room and to wonder if she would ever be allowed to leave it.
Perhaps that’s what they want me to do. Maybe this is one of their tactics: Put suspect in room by herself for hours and let her stew over her crimes until she’s ready to confess everything.

But I don’t have anything to confess!

Eva leaned against the table when she realized that pacing was only agitating her more. She didn’t know why she was here, and speculating further would only drive her mad. Determined to take her mind off it, she pulled up her list of contacts and started to weed out people she didn’t talk to anymore—like old boyfriends. Why did she still have Rob’s number when she’d turned down his Facebook request to be friends?

Although deleting exes from her contacts actually provided a distraction, it was a short-term one, as she didn’t have that many to erase. Four minutes later, she was back to pacing the room, relentlessly and uselessly, and just when she thought she’d actually go insane, the door opened. In walked Jeffers and a sidekick, one of the large men from earlier who hadn’t said a thing. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a brown tie. He looked at Eva as he entered the room, but his expression didn’t change. It remained dour and grim.

“Ms. Butler, thank you for joining us.” Jeffers had taken off his sunglasses and was staring at her with dull brown expressionless eyes. Eva almost preferred looking at a distorted image of herself.

Although she didn’t want to appear standoffish to the United States Department of Justice, Eva felt compelled to complain about the time they’d kept her waiting. “You said this would take a few minutes.”

If possible, Jeffers’ face became even more sour. Obviously, nobody there had any intention of playing good cop. “Yes, I’m sorry about the inconvenience. We had several minor issues to clear up first. If you’ll be seated, we can begin.”

Eva didn’t think that Jeffers was at all sorry about the inconvenience, but she took a seat anyway. There was nothing for her to do but cooperate. The sooner they began, the sooner they’d finish. “What is this about?” she asked.

The man in the brown tie sat across from her and crossed his legs. “Ms. Butler, do you know a Mr. Ardmore Cartwright?”

This was the last thing she’d expected to be asked. “What?” She looked to Jeffers in surprise, hoping for some explanation. However, his expression didn’t change and she looked away. “Yes, of course I do. He’s the CEO of Davidge’s, one of our main competitors.”

“So you admit to having met him on occasion.”

Eva stared at the man across from her. Why had he said
admit
in that accusatory tone? “No.”

“Ms. Butler, a moment ago you stated that you
do
know Ardmore Cartwright.”

“Yes, I know him,” she said impatiently. “How could I work in the auction business and not know the CEO of a rival firm? But that doesn’t mean I
know
him. It’s like the way you know Tom Cruise.” He stared at her blankly. “You do know Tom Cruise, don’t you?”

“Ms. Butler, to return to my question. Do you admit to having—”

“Who are you?” she asked.

The official in the brown tie tilted his head to the side and examined her but didn’t respond.

“That man there against the wall is Carlin Jeffers,” she said. “He introduced himself. You haven’t.”

He was so disconcerted that he had to look at Jeffers for a moment before answering. “Oliver Murray.”

Eva nodded and sat back in her chair. It was a small thing—manners at a time like this!—but it made her feel calmer. For a moment, she had been in control.

“Now, as I was saying, do you know Ardmore Cartwright?”

“No, not personally. I’m aware of him, but we’ve never met.”

“If you haven’t met him, how can you explain this email you sent to him on January 4th of last year?” Murray slid a piece of paper across the table. Eva didn’t even glance at it. She didn’t have to. There was absolutely nothing to explain. She’d never sent Ardmore Cartwright an email. She had never sent anyone at Davidge’s anything. What the hell was going on?

“What’s this about?” she asked Jeffers.

Murray answered. “Ms. Butler, if you’ll just explain the email.”

She ignored him completely. “What’s this about?” she asked again.

“Ms. Butler,” said Murray, “it’s in your best interest to answer my question.”

Eva turned to him, suddenly very scared and very angry. “No, Mr. Murray, it’s in
your
best interest to tell me what the hell is going on here.”

Jeffers took a step forward, and Eva shrank back, wondering if her words could be construed as a threat. “No, Mr. Murray, it’s in
your
best interest” did sound sort of threatening to her now. But not really. After all, what kind of harm could she do?

“Ms. Butler, please answer the question,” Jeffers said calmly.

Eva stared at both men with growing hatred. Why wouldn’t they
tell
her anything? “The email’s not mine.”

Murray pushed it closer to her. “You haven’t looked at it.”

“I don’t have to look at it. I know it’s not mine because I never sent Ardmore Cartwright an email. What business could a lowly associate like me possibly have with the CEO of Davidge’s?” she asked, her tone sounding extremely reasonable to her own ears.

The representative from the Justice Department wasn’t convinced. “Please look at the letter, Ms. Butler.”

Eva complied with a frustrated sigh. Obviously, there was no reasoning with these heavy-handed government types. Her instinct was to argue further, but her recalcitrance had gotten her nothing so far except Mr. Oliver Murray’s name and that was, admittedly, an insignificant victory. She pulled the sheet of paper toward her and read. She was only placating them, and her eyes flew across the page quickly. But then the substance of the letter struck her and she slowed down. She picked up the sheet, held it up to her nose and read it carefully. She could scarcely believe her eyes: She was holding a communication from her to the CEO of Davidge’s proposing that their two firms, as well as Brooks’s, agree to charge sellers a fixed, nonnegotiable commission on all sales.

Baffled, Eva read it again and then again. Somehow, the words stayed the same each time. Somehow, she remained the architect of a devious and very illegal price-fixing scheme among the three largest auction houses in the country.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

“This isn’t mine,” she said softly, as she struggled with this remarkable and terrifying development. “I don’t know where you got it or who gave it to you, but this isn’t mine.” As she spoke her voice grew stronger. She was more than just outraged, she was terrified and confused and burning with a sense of injustice. How could this have happened? How had she wound up in a windowless office on Lexington Avenue being shown a letter detailing an illegal price-fixing scheme from her own email account? The letter shouldn’t exist. The letter
didn’t
exist. It was a fiction.

Murray nodded. “What can you tell us about this letter, Ms. Butler?”

He handed Eva another sheet of paper, and this time she didn’t resist. She took it with shaking fingers and started to read. This second email was in the same vein as the first, only it was addressed to the president of Brooks’s and assured him of Davidge’s cooperation. It was dated one week after the first.

Eva felt all the color leave her face. Clearly, this wasn’t a mistake. Clearly, this was some huge and horrible nightmare that she had to wake up from.

Wake up. Wake up!

Next, Murray showed her an email listing the clients who would be exempt from the new fixed-rate commission policy because terms of those sales had been struck before the implementation of the new rate structure. Eva was horrified. How could they believe she was privy to this sort of information? She didn’t know the details of the Earl of Beckham’s snuff box sale or David Bowie’s wardrobe sale. These men were insane.

“I don’t know where you got these documents from, but they’re false,” she said quietly. She didn’t want to raise her voice or speak too passionately. She was trying desperately to hold on to her composure and was terrified that she’d lose it at any moment. But she wouldn’t give Jeffers or Murray the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid of them.