Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry(41)
And then Michael Carter tracked her down. After a meeting that lasted less than an hour, $2 million was headed her way as long as she kept her mouth shut about what had happened at REL. A year ago I had $2 million, she thought.
After receiving the settlement, she traveled for three months. Cruises around Italy and Greece. Skiing in Vale. Most people her age didn’t have the time or money to go on those types of trips, so she went alone. And it was easy to meet people, particularly at the bars.
It was only a week after she had moved to North Carolina that she met Carlo. Blessed with dashing Italian good looks, he had been recruited to work for one of the many hi-tech companies in what had been dubbed Research Triangle Park near the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
It was the first time in a long time she had felt good around a man. He was so nice to her. Unlike some of the others, he had not been critical of her drinking. They were close to getting engaged. The software he had developed seemed so promising. It was time to leave his job and go out on his own to create a future for both of them. With the right backing, the company would be profitable in less than a few months.
A few months became six and then nine. She couldn’t risk losing the $700,000 she had invested, so she kept putting in more. And more. Before it was over, $1.3 million of her money was gone. So was the company. So was Carlo. How could she have been so stupid?
That was a question she had kept asking herself over recent days and weeks. But it didn’t only pertain to the investment in Carlo’s company. She opened the manila folder on the table that was labeled “Me Too” and again glanced over the online articles she had printed. The woman who got $20 million from one news organization. The studio magnate who settled three separate cases, each in the $9.5 to $10 million range. A woman from a TV network who had received $9 million. Two women from other networks were expected to get more when their cases settled.
What REL had paid her was so little compared to what these other women got. Twenty million dollars! That’s ten times what they gave me. Whatever he did to her couldn’t have been worse than what happened to me. And they tricked me into not using a lawyer, she thought bitterly.
She didn’t bother to look at the settlement agreement that was on the kitchen counter. She had reread it a dozen times over the past week. If she tried to go back for more money, REL would demand repayment of the $2 million she had already received.
She looked at the phone number of Carter & Associates on the letterhead of the document. She had only spoken to that slimeball once since she signed the agreement. That was when she had called him to confirm receipt of the $2 million wire. He told her they should never speak again, with one exception. If anybody, especially a reporter, ever contacted her about her time at REL, she was to call him at that number immediately.
She knew what she had to do, but she was afraid to take the first step. It was as if the green light of the camera were shining on her again. Another sip of vodka helped her focus. She desperately needed to talk to somebody who would understand. The only other Matthews victim she knew was Cathy Ryan. By holding out and not settling right away, she almost certainly was on her way to a much bigger payday.
There was one other person she could call. One of the truly decent and caring people who was still at REL. She started to dial but then put the phone down. A sympathetic ear would be appreciated, but she really didn’t want more advice, no matter how loving, that she should get help with her drinking problem.
She opened a second folder and glanced at the Wall Street Journal article she had cut out. It was about REL News going public. Timing is everything. Maybe my luck is changing. Maybe it is possible to get a second bite of the apple, she thought as her eyes remained fixed on the number of Carter & Associates.
44
Michael Carter inhaled the cool evening air as he walked the two blocks from the subway to his apartment. He had begun his preliminary research on the victims named by Matthews. Now that he could set his own hours, he found time to make it to the gym almost every day. The small paunch that had been starting to show around his belt was significantly diminished. His wife had given up on constantly asking him what he had been doing on the evenings he arrived home late. She had accepted his explanation that now that he worked on “special projects” for REL, his hours would be irregular. This had come in handy the previous evening when he had taken the receptionist in his rented space to dinner for the third time. He smiled as he recalled their kissing and petting all the way to Brooklyn in the back of the Uber. It would be only a matter of time before she agreed to go to a hotel after dinner.
His reverie was interrupted by a deep baritone voice that said, “Michael Carter?”
“Yes,” he answered, startled.
He turned to see a large, broad-shouldered black man who was at least a head taller than he was standing next to him. He felt the man’s enormous hand clamp down on his shoulder. “This way,” he said, pointing toward a black Lincoln Navigator that was parked to their left with its engine running. It wasn’t a request; it was a command. The man gave him a gentle push toward the car.
“Listen, if it’s money you want, I can—”
Ignoring him, the man opened the back door of the car and said, “Get in.”
From his standing position Carter could see someone else in the backseat, on the opposite side. He could see the man’s lower arms and legs but not his face. Instead of a robbery, was this a Mafia-style hit? he thought to himself. Would they find him tomorrow floating facedown in the East River?