Chapter 1

September 29, 2008

“I don’t understand,” Ellen Farley said, gripping the arms of her chair. “I didn’t pad my résumé. My references are genuine, and I have the experience required for the position. So why am I here?”

“Because if you had nothing to hide, you wouldn’t care,” Jessa Bellamy murmured as she watched the disgruntled young woman through an observation panel.

“North and Company retains Phoenix, Inc., to perform standard background checks on all their new employees, Ms. Farley.” Caleb Douglas, the intake interviewer who sat with his back to Jessa, kept a perfect blend of sympathy and authority in his tone. “You’re here because they’d like to hire you.”

“Oh.” She smiled, relaxing her shoulders. Her frosted pink fingernails, however, remained curled into the armrests. “Then I’ve got the job?”

“Almost. I’ll let you get started on these”—he handed Ellen a clipboard with a number of blank forms on it—“while I grab some coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“No, thank you.” She took a slim gold pen from her oversize blue leather bag and began filling out the top form. Absently she crossed her ankles, showing off her metallic silver pumps.

As soon as Caleb left the room, however, Ellen Farley put the clipboard on his desk, stood, and came over to the panel. Jessa knew that on Ellen’s side of the wall, the panel appeared to be nothing more than a mirror with an ornate frame hanging behind Caleb’s desk.

“Nicely handled,” Jessa said as Caleb joined her at the panel and watched as Ellen fluffed and shook out her layered red hair. “What do you think?”

“Seems legit to me.” The interviewer considered the preening woman. “She’s not happy to be here, but North and Company gave her ten minutes’ notice, so that’s to be expected.” He rubbed the end of his nose. “She smells like she was baptized with Chanel No. 5.”

Jessa had already caught a whiff of the woman’s French perfume, which seemed almost a cliché: Expensive is as expensive does. “Credentials?”

“Angela says they’re sterling. Ellen Farley is the perfect candidate for comptroller.” Caleb studied her expression. “Or not. What’s setting off your bells, boss?”

“Her shoes. They’re knockoffs.”

Cal glanced down. “So?”

Jessa gestured at Ellen’s tasteful floral sheath. “So you don’t invest in a Michael Kors dress and a Balenciaga bag unless you can also afford five hundred bucks for the real Anya Hindmarch pumps.”

The interviewer chuckled. “You should be a gay man.”

“Maybe in my next life. Bring her to me after she finishes the busywork. And, Cal.” Jessa nodded toward his empty hands. “Don’t forget the coffee before you go back in.”

Walking up the back stairs to her office gave Jessa time to think. She often used small, seemingly insignificant details like Ellen Farley’s designer-clone shoes as rationale for further assessment of the applicants sent to them by their clients. By doing so she’d acquired a reputation for having a keen eye, and even Caleb, one of her most trusted employees, believed in it. Jessa had been very careful to cultivate that misconception.

Her ability to discover exactly what people hid from their employers had made Phoenix, Inc., one of the top personnel agencies in the South, but no one could ever know the truth of how she did it.

Angela Witt, her technical supervisor, intercepted her outside her office. Tall, rawboned, and a little awkward, Angela was barely out of her teens, and had originally come to the agency as a temp. Jessa had quickly discovered the very young secretary had a natural gift for computers, multitasking, and resource management, as well as a desperate need for permanence and a sense of purpose.

“Ms. Bellamy, Caleb said you flagged Ms. Farley.” Angela sounded as stiff as she looked. “I checked every one of her refs, but they all came back a hundred percent. What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Jessa said. “Her shoes are wrong.”

“A fashion mistake? Oh, good.” Her shoulders drooped as her chin lifted. “I mean, it’s not good, not at all, but at least I didn’t …” She stopped herself and released a sigh. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right, Angela.” Accustomed to her office manager’s mild but perpetual paranoia, Jessa suppressed a smile. “I could be wrong about this one.”

“No way, Ms. B.” Her office manager shook her head, almost dislodging the stubby pencil holding her topknot of hair in place. “You’re never wrong. It’s like you have liar radar. I’ll run her name again and see what I can find.” She turned and hurried down the hall to the data center.

Jessa stepped into her office and closed the door. She’d personally designed her workspace to be quiet and uncluttered. Two clear Lucite columns supported the massive slab of polished black granite that served as her desk. Against one white wall, Asian black lacquer cabinets inlaid with delicate mother-of-pearl lotus flowers concealed her office equipment, and faced a four-by-five-foot print of Ansel Adams’s Birds on a Beach over a modular black leather seating unit that surrounded a coffee table that was merely a smaller version of her desk. In the center of the table stood a crystal vase filled with fresh flowers. She’d had the back wall replaced with a single panel of glass, which provided a wide view of Peachtree Street and the Armstrong building.

For the floor, she’d commissioned and imported labradorite stone tiles from Sweden, which glowed with an ever-changing blue-green-amber light under the recessed incandescent fixtures in the white ceiling. At the corners of each tile were small, silver disks that to the naked eye appeared to be decorative touches. Each disk was hardwired to perform three different functions when activated by the remote: sealing the room, tripping the security alarms, and administering enough of an electrical charge to knock out whoever stood on them.

Her workspace appeared more like a room in a minimalist art gallery than an office, but it suited her tastes and kept anyone else who entered from getting too comfortable.

Jessa opened the doors to the cabinet nearest her desk to check her surveillance equipment. Six monitors showed six different-angled views of her office via the minicameras hidden all around the room. She picked up a small transceiver, switched it to take over her office line, and tucked it over her ear. She removed a slim remote sitting inside the cabinet and placed it in her jacket pocket.

A knock sounded, and Jessa went to stand behind her desk before she called for the person to come in.

Caleb entered with an unhappy Ellen Farley following him, but after performing introductions and handing Jessa a file, he excused himself and left.

“Please sit down, Ms. Farley.” Jessa waited until she had before she did the same and opened the file. “I have a few more questions for you.”

“More?” Ellen crossed her arms. “I filled out all of your forms. What else do you want to know?”

Unhappy and defensive, Jessa thought.

“You were born in 1974, an only child, is that correct?” She glanced up in time to catch Ellen’s tight nod before returning to the file notes. “Very good education, majored in economics at Brown, graduated with honors. You were recruited to work for CitiCom, where you were promoted to assistant comptroller, paid very well, and then resigned a year later.” She met Ellen’s resentful gaze again. “Why leave a good job like that?”

“There was no possibility for advancement,” Ellen said. “Citi doesn’t place women in the top executive positions. It’s one big old-boys’ network.”

“You relocated from New York to Atlanta before you found a new position.” Jessa pretended to skim through the rest of the forms, letting the other woman stew for a moment before she asked, “What brought you down here to look for work?”

“I’ve always liked the South.” She moved her shoulders. “The weather is great and the country is beautiful, and the people are nice.”

Jessa closed the file. “Established corporations like North and Company are somewhat more conservative than their New York counterparts. I believe our old-boys’ network is in its fifth generation.”

Ellen’s lips thinned. “What are you implying?”

She was as suspicious as she was defensive, which might mean she was everything she claimed to be, or not. “Merely that your ambition may come up against yet another glass ceiling.”

“I don’t think any of this is your business, Ms. Bellamy,” the other woman snapped.

“I am certifying for my client that you are who you say you are and therefore are also suitable for employment with them.” Jessa offered her a cool smile. “At present, everything about you is my business.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” The faint lines around Ellen’s mouth eased. “It was really a shock to find out I’m being investigated, or whatever you call it. Then they told me I had to come over here right away, or I wouldn’t be eligible for hire. It scared the heck out of me.”

“No need to be afraid. It’s all over now.”

Ellen smiled. “Really? That’s all I have to do?”

“That’s it.” Jessa stood. “I appreciate your taking the time to come in and fill out the paperwork.” She held out her hand.

“Thank you.” Ellen Farley’s hand joined hers.

Shadowlight.

Jessa stood in the center of what appeared to be a cheap hotel room. The odors of cigarette smoke, sweat, and sex nearly choked her as she gazed down at the two bodies writhing together on the worn paisley carpeting. Neither had undressed completely, but the man’s buttocks gleamed white beneath a low tan line, and shook as he thrust himself into Ellen Farley with eager, frantic movements.

She could feel their lust crawling inside her head, dragging with it everything they thought. While Ellen’s mind focused on the need tightening in her pelvis, her lover Max’s thoughts were at odds with his enthusiasm.