July, Part I
Katie signed off on another press release. Morale is up. Profits are on the up-tick. We're back in business. Today's staff meeting had gone well on the whole. Her presidents and VPs were cautiously optimistic about the coming quarter. Saffron, head of Accounting, finally seemed like she might be able to lay off the antacids.
She spun her sturdy office chair, gleeful that she could tell her nosy ex-husband where to stick it the next time he asked how his company was running. Beautifully. Spencer is running beautifully. That's how you rule, iron fist in a velvet glove. I didn't have to commit corporate espionage either. Katie had learned from the worst and it hadn't been easy.
When her assistant came for their morning breakout session, Katie handed off a sheaf of legal documents to be rushed to Legal. Katie knew the Spencer competitors too well, and was perpetually filing paperwork to cover their interests.
"After you fast-track those to the legal department, would you have Bertie Aldon and Joey Reeves resend their PIT financial statements? I'm seeing some discrepancies between this set and the last quarter earnings reports. They might be typos, but I can't evaluate typos. Have them upload them online, I'll review them on the intranet. Nobody even has to leave their offices."
"Got it, boss."
"Thanks."
She was all set to move on to the next task on her packed to-do list when Justin Barber, legal eagle, her ex-brother-in-law and all-around stooge to her former husband, barged into her office well ahead of their scheduled meeting. Adele presented him sarcastically, eyebrows raised. She deserves a raise. Katie made a note of it.
"Justin, what brings you to my office early?"
She gestured for him to sit and he did, as casually as Bill would have in her presence.
"I have some concerns."
"Such as?"
"You and I don't have the best relationship anymore. It's not conducive a sterling performance from me."
"Perhaps not."
"I am, however, still official counsel for this office."
"You are, for now."
He narrowed his eyes in response.
"I can't do my job if I don't have access. I've been shut out of your inner circle and that hampers my ability to represent this office well. I want to do the best job that I can for you."
"Thanks. But, I don't have a problem with your work."
"But I can do so much more."
She would resign first.
"For me or for Bill? Because we all know that your loyalty is to him, so please don't try to deny it."
"We used to be friends, Katie. We used to be family. Can't we get past all this animosity?"
Katie scoffed to keep from bristling. The audacity of the people in my life is astounding. How did I get so lucky?
"After what you and Bill did last year? No way. You have exactly as much responsibility as I believe I can trust you with and you won't get an inch more."
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"I'm very certain." Katie crossed her legs under her desk, making herself that much more at home in a seat she didn't intend to leave. "But you are right, we were family. You were married to my sister, you're the father of her child. And no one will deny your value to this company. Nevertheless, by all rights, you should be fired, you should be long gone." Katie sat back to properly inspect the man before her. "But what can I say, it's a character flaw: I'm loyal to people who aren't loyal to me. Because we all know you're Bill's right hand man and nothing more. Trusting you would be tantamount to career suicide. I'm not prepared to risk you."
"My loyalty is to this company."
"Don't make me laugh—really, don't." She dropped the smile. "You're his minion, his little puppet, and you're just not ready to cut the strings, so I'm going to give you the smallest possible stage to make a mess. This is the end of the road, Justin. If you're looking for career growth, I suggest you look elsewhere."
Justin's nostrils flared. Temper, temper. Katie's suppressed a triumphant grin.
"You can't forgive me? I was just trying to help a friend."
Katie's lashes fluttered in response to the utter bullshit he was attempting to blind her with, yet again. She leaned forward.
"You tried to con me."
"Getting Bill get what he deserved."
"By getting him my job? My son? You helped him play me. Is that the act of a loyal friend? Who needs friends like that? I don't. No, signing those papers was the worst mistake I've ever made. You helped make that happen. On its own that's reason enough to be wary of you. If Brooke hadn't destroyed those papers, I would have lost everything. Never let it be said that sisterhood doesn't stand for something." Brooke isn't a monster. She has that much family devotion.
"Are you unwilling to negotiate on this point?"
"We just negotiated, and you proved once again why you cannot be allowed any greater influence over this office. Thank you for coming. Let Adele know if and when you'd like to meet again."
Justin stood, fastening the single button of his blazer. "I'm sorry things have to be this way."
"So am I."
He left more calmly than he'd entered. I'm going to need another primary attorney.
Katie sighed before resolving to put that meeting behind her.
Adele knocked her telltale knock on Katie's office door.
"Come in."
Katie flipped to the last page of Eye on Fashion's point-in-time financial summary. That's enough 'Hope for the Future' features, Liam. She wrote as much in red pen in the margins.
Adele emerged from the outer office to shut the door firmly behind her. "I just got word that Karen Spencer is coming for a visit."
"I know. She's borrowing my office to interview for the Rome division—which you already know."
Adele shook her head, the gesture full of meaning. "That's not the only reason. The NYC division has been hearing rumblings about the L.A. office. Karen has been hearing them. She's worried."
Katie absently swapped the financial summary for the status report on Spencer's upcoming literary magazine, the Creatives' Quarterly.
"According to whom?"
Her assistant seemed to weigh the odds.
"Adele, if I'm about to be ambushed, I'd like to know who wants my head on a pike." Katie waved her toward the seat Justin had vacated. "Sit. Talk to me."
Adele folded her hands together.
"The division assistants communicate to coordinate travel arrangements and conference appointments. We all talk, from every division, from every department, on every continent; all of them. We usually know when this company is in for a change before the executives do."
"You file the paperwork; that makes sense." Katie twiddled her pen, not because she wasn't worried, but because she was. Adele was level-headed, she would only worry if there was a need. We have a mole.
"Somebody's been sending false reports to the New York division. Word is they make you look bad, and the L.A. division seem like it's in trouble. Rumor has it someone is manipulating earnings reports and distributing them to potential investors." Adele passed her a folded magazine. It was one of their rival publications. "I saw this on the newsstand at the corner store this morning." Adele headed off Katie's objections half-formed, "I know you don't like to read their stuff. It's this source. The source sounds like somebody who knows what they're saying."
'Forrester Love the Spencer Corporate Kryptonite? Story on page 8.'
Katie stared daggers at the poisonous headline and turned to page 8.
"Everybody knows that everybody lies, but nobody lies like the Spencer brood.
The multibillion-dollar empire is in turmoil after its CEO stepped out with heir to spiritual rival Forrester Creations at a company event last month.
'Company loyalists are jumping ship like rats on a sinking ship. I'll tell ya, this company won't survive Katie Logan. Take it from me, I've seen heads come and go and people have never been this scared for their jobs,' spoke an inside source on the condition of anonymity.
Could our source be right? Documents provided by our source confirm that morale is down and profits are lower despite positive reception in the industry for new company policies tendered by Logan in her brief tenure.
See page 13 for editorial commentary from publishing industry insiders: What's the problem? Logan or an entrenched corporate culture?"
Katie forewent the additional commentary.
This isn't true. I've seen the numbers. She had crunched them personally.
"Have there been other articles like this?"
"More and more by the day. I didn't pay any attention to them. There's usually a balance of positive and negative coverage on the company, but the balance has started to tip out of our favor, which hasn't happened before."
"How long have you known about this?"
"This part, awhile. But the false earnings reports, I've known about that for two days. I found a note on my desk blotter. I don't know who left it," Adele rushed to clarify. "I don't know how long these false reports have been circulating or who would go so far to bring you down."
Katie slumped in her leather chair.
"I can think of one or two candidates. Thank you for letting me know." Katie stiffened her spine, readying herself to face the struggle ahead. "Here's where your job gets harder. I need quarterly earnings reports for every department in the L.A. division going back six months. Then, I need overall earnings for L.A. stratified by quarter for the same time period. And then, I need media reports of our earnings and earnings projections from all the usual suspects, including rival publications. Something tells me our saboteur has been practicing."
Adele was heatedly scribbling Katie's directives. "This will take a couple of days."
"Draft any help you need from the other offices. If anybody so much as sighs, direct them to me."
Katie rested her hands on her desk and tried to get her head around all this. Bill didn't put up enough of a fuss. This has been the calm before the storm. "One last thing. Would you please call Liam and have him come to my office? I need a word with my vice president."
"Consider it done."
"Thank you, Adele. You might have just saved my job."
Adele inclined her head and made her exit, solemn. Katie wasn't in a much better mood.
Liam was in front her desk ten minutes later.
"Have you been monitoring the rival press situation?"
Liam hovered a second before being seated. "I…no? Is there a rival press situation?"
"Liam, we're being pounded by our rivals and in the national press. Tell me you're in the loop on this."
"I would love to tell you I'm all over this, but I haven't got so much as a memo. I get regular status reports from PR and there's nothing that I can see that would indicate a problem."
"Could they be gas lighting both of us?" Katie hadn't seen any indication that Liam was out of favor with his father. Bill might have had unique ideas about parenting, but he wasn't cruel; he wouldn't humiliate his son.
"Who's they?"
"Someone within the company is passing falsified internal memos to the press to drive our numbers down. Does that sound like anyone we know?"
"Please tell me my dad isn't behind this."
Katie's silence was telling.
"This is nuts. What does he gain by wrecking Spencer's image? That's money out of his pocket. This is his legacy he's flushing down the toilet."
"If he can make me look bad enough, Karen will have no choice but to have the Board vote me out and reinstate him. I'm pretty sure that's his rationale."
"That isn't a rationale, that's a fever dream. You're kidding me right now. Tell me you're kidding."
There was nothing to say.
"I will get to the bottom of this. Talk to my Aunt Karen. Give her all the assurances you need to that everything is fine. Leave this to me."
"I'm counting on you."
"You've trusted me this far. Give me another inch. I've got this—I will get this."
"Done. Get to work."
"Yes, ma'am."
Liam donned his trusty messenger bag and hightailed it out of her office.
Katie checked her watch. She had her bi-annual checkup this afternoon that Adele had taken the liberty of scheduling during Karen's temporary handover. That's not for another hour. Katie was in dire need of a pick-me-up and it just so happened she knew exactly the man for the job.
Katie gave him a call.
"What are you doing in ten minutes?"
"Anything you want."