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Chapter Sixteen: Threats and Enemies

Springfield became focused on the question of who shot Phillip, debating it endlessly over their morning coffee or their evening Buzz Burgers at Company. Phillip was released from Cedars Hospital inside three weeks, but he claimed he had no memory of what had happened the night he was shot. This complicated things for James and his circle, as it was the one piece of evidence that didn't point straight towards the worst case senario situation. James found a new theory forming on the edges of his mind, that maybe a Spaulding really had tried to kill Phillip and had wretched aim, that the attempt had been genuine. Family tensions and jealousy could reach that point, he knew. The only thing that unsettled him about the situation was that the evidence all seemed to point to Alex. He truly liked Alexandra Spaulding, but he knew himself well enough to know that he'd blackmail her as ruthlessly as he would anyone else.

He made his own effort to draw the suspicion away from himself by throwing himself into work. By an unspoken agreement, Anne worked as his mouthpiece on the Family Council, saying what he wanted her to say and running Wright Enterprises as he told her to. He kept up every appearance of being engrossed in the affairs of the Muggle smokescreen company that the third ever executive, Norlan Wright, had set up to gather in even more money. By a stroke of luck, all the department heads were violently antisocial wizards who Anne had 'forgotten' to tell that he was dead. He found himself able to make a pretty piece of money out of it, enough that if he'd cared to leave Company and buy a house he'd be able to. In the end, he decided that living at Company was much more convienient and that he was rather attatched to the place. Strange as it sounded, the restraunt-boardinghouse was home.

Everything seemed to be as much under control as he could expect under the circumstances. It wouldn't be long before he found out just how mistaken he had been.

It was only chance that he was where he happened to be when it all happened. It had been early in the morning, too early for many customers, when he got up and started downstairs. He froze when he heard voices on the landing. One was Dinah's, the other Jeffrey's. Dinah sounded angry.

"Let go of me," she said, trying to jerk her arm out of the man's grip. "Damn you."

" You're playing with fire and gasoline, Dinah Darling," Jeffrey said murderously. " Watch your step with me. Eddie boy might be trying to play it nice for Cassie, but I've got no reason not to make your life a living hell."

" You've done a good job of that ever since we met," Dinah snapped. " Let me go. You've got no right to hold me here and make me listen to this crap."

" You'd be surprised what I have the right to do," Jeffrey shot back. " I can arrest you right now for the attempted murder of Phillip Spaulding."

Even with his limited view James was able to see her blanch visibly. " I had nothing to do with that. I never went near the Spaulding place. Why would I?"

" You're a deranged psychopath, Dinah. Why do you do anything? Prove you weren't there."

" I've already given my excuse," Dinah said, sounding breathless. " I have someone to vouch for me."

" What? Your Brit boyfriend? If I swear I saw you slinking around the Spaulding place, who d'you think a judge would believe?"

" Where were you?" Dinah demanded. " How do I know you didn't shoot him yourself?"

" I have no reason-"

" Oh, yes you do! Phillip and Alan Spaulding control this town. That's must rub, being the highest ranking official after Daddy and not having any real power huh? Besides, I know what happened last month. Phillip threatened you. He said that he'd see to it that you lost everything that's important to you if you didn't back him up when he needed it. He's been blackmailing you for months because of your affair with that slut Cassie. Don't play the saint with me, Jeffrey. You've got every reason to want him dead."

" I've said it once and I'll say it again," Jeffrey said, twisting her arm. " Don't toy with me."

" I'm not toying with anyone. I'm just trying to survive, Jeffrey. You'd understand if it wasn't you I was blackmailing."

" Keep your mouth shut or you'll go down whether or not you did it," Jeffrey threatened, then left, leaving Dinah massaging her arm and scowling after him. James hurried to her. She jumped when she noticed him.

" What was that all about?" he asked. Dinah looked frightened still, and that was hardly normal for her.

" Jeffrey," she said shortly. " He thinks that he has something on me...that he has some kind of sick power over me. He doesn't, though. No man will ever have that kind of power over me, not ever. I'm Dinah Marler, not an extention of Jeffrey O'Neill or anyone else."

He scrutinized her face, taking in how much of that little speech was Dinah trying to decieve herself. He had an awful feeling that most of it was. Dinah was not a woman to take humiliation easily, and from what he knew of her relationship with Jeffrey, she had endured years of it before she finally told him where to go. It could have broken her, or at least made her so brittle that the tiniest bit of pressure would finish the job. " You're afraid to death of him, aren't you?"

" Yes," she said simply. " I'd be a fool not to be. He's held all the cards from the day that he pulled me out of that dungeon and made me impersonate Cassie. All I have on him is that he impersonated her dearly departed Richard and some other trivial things, like the Phillip affair. If Jeffrey took a whim, I could see the inside of a prison cell again." She shuddered violently. " I'll die first."

" He doesn't have anything solid tying you to Phillip," James told her. " I know enough about law to know that he can't hold you without evidence or reasonable suspicion."

" Not that," she said, waving it aside. " Cassie. She made it very clear that she has him wrapped around her little finger, at least where I'm concerned. She was kind enough to remind me that she gave me my freedom and she could take it away in a heartbeat. Jeffrey would help her, and I'd be on Death Row for shooting Hart and running from the law for so long. " Dinah took on a stubborn expression. " I don't owe her anything. She voided the debt when she tried to kill me at Laurel Falls the same day she set me free."

" You're not going to end up in prison, even if I have to push Cassie off a cliff and frame Jeffrey," he promised her, only half-joking about the pushing Cassie off a cliff part. She smiled very faintly.

" Thanks."

" Don't mention it. I owed you one for keeping quiet about why I left England."


He was going over company expenses the next day when Dinah came in, her skills as Jeffrey's Public Representative having been required for once. The usual way it worked was that Dinah never did anything and Jeffrey gave her a paycheck every week regardless, as she was guaranteed a set amount a week. James noticed at once that she looked angry. " I hate the Lewises," she muttered, sitting down.

" I seem to recall you saying that before," he commented, inviting her to go on.

" Put it this way: I hate Lewis women, and Marah especially."

" What happened?"

" She cornered me at work and told me all about how her and Jeffrey were lovers again and how she'd-" Dinah broke off, pressing her lips together hard.

" How she'd what?"

" How she'd kill me if I got in her way. She means to marry him and woe betide anyone who tries to stop her." She said all that in a rush, as if saying unpleasant things was like ripping off a bandage. " Stupid girl. Jeffrey might care for her, but he's obsessed with Cassie and he's not the marrying type anyway. The only reason Jeffrey O'Neill would ever marry Marah Lewis would be if I got married, just so he could steal the show from me."

" How are things with Jeffrey and Marah? Not what they say, but what they do."

Dinah smiled grimly, obviously pleased. " A long way south of Heaven. He calls her sweetheart and love and darling to her face, but whenever she's not around he goes on fantasizing about her aunt. It's sick, but so is Jeffrey. He thinks about that one night in D.C. where he cheated on Marah and Cassie cheated on Edmund all the time. He tells me about it. I was his fake Cassie for so long that I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

" How exactly did you end up as his 'fake Cassie', anyway?"

" He needed someone to be the Princess Cassandra to his Prince Richard," she explained. "Someone who knew her, someone who could copy her tiniest habit. He had two options: he could either use me, offering me the chance to set myself up in Europe while American authorities quietly overlooked me, or he could find a woman of good enough rank that he could insert her into the Princess's household, putting his plan back by years, maybe. I don't know even now what the plan was, but he had already been Richard's double for years." She laughed softly. " It's twisted. Sometimes Richard would become the tough FBI agent and Jeffrey would become the Prince, accent and all. I know for a fact that Cassie never realized that the man she was sleeping with wasn't always her husband, and it serves her right if she ever does find out." She looked faintly puzzled for a moment, then apologetic. " I'm not a very good conversationalist, am I?"

" No worse than any other woman I've ever talked at length with," he said easily. " Besides, what you know is useful."

Dinah's eyebrows went up. " Useful?"

" Useful," he repeated. " I've got a feeling that all the dirt in that pretty head of yours is going to come in handy a lot sooner than either of us would like."

" Most bad things do happen a lot sooner than anyone would like them to, " Dinah said with a shrug. Her face hardened with determination. " One last thing on the Lewises, though. If that Marah thinks she's going to pull a fast one on me, then I'll take her down before she knows what's happening to her." There was a pause after that, the pause that always follows a declaration of total war, and then the conversation turned to a less provocative topic than Lewises.

Author's Note: Sorry for the lack of Anne's news-it didn't fit here, so I moved it to a later chapter.My profile's been altered again, adding some new summaries and modifying others. Includes a summary to the sequel to Company, a story I think will be...interesting. I've decided to make Company its own series, culminating when Harry meets Springfield, post-Hogwarts. Things get a little out-of-hand when he meets his stepmother and Ron starts hitting on his half-sister.

A reply to my reviewer: James has actually been in contact with other magical persons, though he doesn't know it. Reva and Olivia and Lizzie Spauldingare witches and Jonathan Randall, Reva's son who turned up at Danny and Marina's wedding but was never seen directly, is a wizard. They just keep a very, very low profile. I chose them because of past storylines and probability. As for Anne, the whole authoral reason for her and James's link is to keep a clear connection between James and England. Anne herself is my mutation of Anne Boleyn, though she won't be beheaded any time soon. Asfor your opinion of Three Decembers, I keep forgetting to findyour profile and e-mail you, so feel free to just drop me a line to abuse itor praise it frankly.

Augusta