In my work I'd seen the emails and correspondence about Stone Pharma that he was talking about. But I'd only see what had come later when they had already made millions and it looked like one manager shut another one down saying "it was only a few million" and not worth pursuing. I guess I hadn't found where they had nearly lost everything thanks to a fire.
He must have seen the look on my face. I didn't burn Stone Pharma to the ground but I still felt some guilt about it all. A man had died. They, whoever they were, had used my photo to get my family to stop protesting and it had all fallen apart after that. Even when I was sixteen I felt unsure about holding the Molotov but I'd been peer-pressured into it and then I'd screamed like a fool and they'd taken my photo. It had been a set-up and it had worked.
"It wasn't your fault," Mr. Stone said. "That business had been my father's and he had made himself very wealthy from stomping over that line between legal and illegal. If I had known what they were doing in Bedford I would have burned the place to the ground myself."
"Maybe I would have run into a young rebellious protester. Sparks fly, passions run high, Montague and Capulet and all that," he added.
I laughed and then looked across at all the papers and boxes on the table. Mr. Stone picked up a thick pile of contracts and pushed them across to me.
"It's somewhere in here. Or it's not. We just need to find the right thread to pull and it will come undone. Black is a genius at all this but he's also sloppy."
"I'll help you."
Mr. Stone smiled at me. "I know. And you can save your bachelor auction day for another time. I can't wait to. Wash. Your. Dishes." He said it with a look on his face that nearly made me leap across the table to fuck his brains out. I managed to restrain myself. We had work to do.
I left him there with the contracts and bolted off to the kitchen were Nadine was preparing another multicolored omelet. I apologized to her for rushing through such a delicious breakfast and wolfed it down in about two minutes flat before going upstairs. In the guest bedroom I found the closet filled to the brim with clothes all in my size ranging from casual around the house stuff to an amazing little black dress so dark it looked like it was sewn from the fabric of the night itself.
I did also find a tweed suit, an orange PVC skintight dress and something that I think was pretty much a big woolen tube that I had no idea what you did with it. I smiled as I folded it up and put it back on the shelf. Mi-oh had "helped" pick out the clothes.
I dressed in a pair of black stretch jeans and a white t-shirt with Astro Boy on the front of it before slipping on a pair of black shoes with a thick sole like a hiking boot. Giving myself a final once over in the mirror, I then headed downstairs to help Mr. Stone.
*
When I got back, Mr. Stone was two rooms away talking in low tones on his phone. He was pacing like a tiger in a cage. I closed the door between us so I wouldn't accidentally hear his conversation. If he wanted to tell me, he would.
I picked up one of the contracts and looked at the legalese gibberish before putting it down again. It would take a team of forensic accountants a month to figure this out and we were meant to do it by ourselves? Mr. Stone must have his reasons though. I guess Mr. Black had access to the computer system and who knows who he'd been working with from the finance department.
Thinking about Mr. Black reminded me of him drunk at the bachelor auction bidding on Mr. Stone. What had he yelled out? One-hundred and ninety-one million? It seemed such a specific figure.
Mr. Stone came back and placed his phone on the table. "Chief financial officer's assistant has confirmed some unusual transactions."
"Anything in the one-hundred and ninety-one million area?" I reminded him what Mr. Black had yelled out at the bachelor auction.
He shook his head. "And the truth is that we do business in so many ways that these could just be normal transactions."
We sat down and began to go through the files, page by page. Sometime we compared what we saw but most of the day we worked in silence. I had a pad next to me writing down business names and dates and Mr. Stone kept going out into the other room to make phone calls before returning to work.
Lunch came and went. Nadine delivered a platter of sandwiches that were nothing short of incredible.
As the day wore on, it became clear that Mr. Stone wasn't finding what he needed to. I could feel the stress radiating off him like heat. He'd smile at me if I smiled at him but this problem was big and all-consuming.
In the middle of the afternoon I went outside into the rear garden to stretch my legs. The day was sunny and warm with a picture perfect blue sky and we were locked inside with boxes of contracts. I walked down the garden and stopped in front of the red mud-brick house. The last time I'd seen it up close, it had blue flowers dripping off the vine wrapped around it. Now, half the flowers were on the ground, slowing decomposing. I imagined Mr. Stone, twenty years old with a shaved head, standing in the garden building this. Had he been furious? Or just sad?
I continued on down the path until I reached the hedge maze. I walked in, the temperature immediately dropping a few degrees, and took a few turns until I arrived at the first satyr and nymph statue. The forest nymph was still on her back, her face a mask of pleasure, and the satyr was still fucking her. I touched the cool white marble and remembered the last time I'd been here. Mr. Stone had me wearing a crazy vibrating sex toy that was somehow tied to where I went in the maze. I'd nearly collapsed at this statue when the vibrations had ceased to give me a rest. I let go of the statue and touched the leather collar around my neck. I'd been wearing it so long that I often forgot I had it on. Until I saw myself in a mirror or Mr. Stone held me by it. It was a reminder that I was his.
I turned around and left the maze, walking quickly back to the mansion. I was his and he was mine. I would do everything I could to help him.
*
Mr. Stone was finishing up a conversation when I returned. He came back in and tried to smile but it didn't go any further than his mouth. I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his body.
"It will be okay," I said, although I didn't have the slightest proof that it would be.
"I know," he replied and then frowned, looking into a file box behind me. He reached into it and pulled out a piece of paper.
"What's this?"
He had the diagram I'd drawn yesterday trying to figure out which company owned what other company and who was licensing to who. It must have gotten mixed up with the box of contracts.
"It's nothing. Trying to see who owned who. It's all wrong."