meeting. What misjudgement, she thought. What a mess.
Five minutes passed, and then five more. Ava tried to stay calm. She had been escorted from buildings before; there were worse kinds of exits. It was closing in on fifteen minutes when the door finally opened.
“I’ve just tried to call Jeremy. I can’t reach him,” Simmons said from the doorway.
“He won’t speak with you,” Ava said, trying not to show relief.
“What have you done to him… with him?” Simmons asked, taking two steps into the room.
Something’s changed, Ava thought. Simmons seemed more confident, or maybe just less fearful, than when she had left. There was an edge to her voice, and her body thrust aggressively forward as if she was ready to charge at Ava. Before she had been reluctant to make eye contact; now her green eyes bore into Ava’s, the colour heightened and glinting.
“Not a thing. We have an understanding, nothing more than that,” Ava said. “Both he and Douglas have agreed to return the money they put into the holding company’s account in Cyprus. In exchange, we won’t pursue legal action against them and we will permit The River to keep functioning as a business. I asked Jeremy, as a courtesy, not to communicate with you until matters were resolved at this end. Now, you can try to call again if you wish, but I don’t think you’ll reach him.”
“I’m not sure I want to talk to him anyway,” Simmons said, picking up the confession, her eyes darting between the paper in her hands and Ava. When she had finished reading it again, she held it against her hip and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were full of rage. Simmons raised the paper in front of her chest and, with her eyes locked on Ava’s, ripped it into shreds.
She’s on something, Ava thought. “That won’t make it go away,” she said.
“I don’t believe anything you’re telling me.”
Ava reached into her bag and pulled out the paperwork that Jack Maynard and Felix Hunter had prepared for her. “Jeremy and David Douglas, as the confession states, manipulated the site’s software so they could see all the cards at the table — so they could cheat. These are statistical analyses that detail the process and prove that it was indeed done,” she said as softly as she could while still being sure she was heard. “The Cooper Island Gaming Commission, which regulates and administers your site, has this same data and agrees that it’s proof positive. You can call them if you wish. They’ll confirm it.”
“Then why is the site still running? Why haven’t they shut it down?”
“The Gaming Commission, like the Ordonez Group — and, I’m sure, like you — don’t want the firestorm of negative publicity this information would generate if it was broadly known. The Commission has agreed to let us pursue our own course of action first. Mind you, if we’re not successful, then both they and the Ordonez Group will be forced to seek other avenues.”
“Such as?”
“Well, the Gaming Commission would certainly shut down your site, and the Ordonez Group would take legal action.”
“The site hasn’t been profitable until — ”
“Until your fiance and his partner started stealing,” Ava said.
“If it isn’t profitable, why should we care if they shut it down?” Simmons said.
She’s not listening, Ava thought. “Shut down or not, if the money isn’t returned there would still be legal action.”
Simmons took another step forward. The only thing separating her from Ava was the small table. “That’s rather a stupid threat to make. You know as well as I do how long and complicated a process that would be. God, with all the jurisdictions involved, who would know where to begin? It could take years to sort things out.”
Whatever she’s taken, it hasn’t dulled her mind, Ava thought, and then tried to switch gears again. “True enough, at least from the civil side. But the Americans move more quickly when criminality is involved, and believe me, we would be seeking to have criminal charges brought against Douglas and Ashton. And you must know, Ms. Simmons, how harsh the American courts have been lately on white-collar crime. If Jeremy went to jail for less than five years I’d be surprised.”
Simmons closed her eyes, and Ava sensed she was finally beginning to get through to her. “I thought it was too good to be true,” Simmons muttered.
“What was too good?”
“The profits.”
“They weren’t profits.”
“We’d been losing money for years until… until this started,” Simmons said, slapping her hand on the transfer request still lying on the table.
“I have another copy of the confession if you need it. In fact, I have copies of everything,” Ava said. “The only thing I want back is the transfer request with your signature on it.”
Simmons shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You do have signing authority?”
“You obviously know that I do.”
“So sign. Pick up a pen and write your name.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“Ms. Simmons, you don’t seem to be grasping the consequences.”
Simmons glared at Ava. “You don’t have any idea about consequences,” she said, saliva flying from her mouth.
Ava saw her hand tremble. “You’re prepared to send your fiance to jail?”
“Well, he is a thief, isn’t he.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And he’s betrayed the faith I put in him.”
I’m losing her again, Ava thought. “You’re angry with him, and no one can blame you for that,” she said. “But let’s be rational. Sign that piece of paper and then you and he can sort out your differences without all the legal baggage.”
Simmons spun away from the table. In two steps she was at the window looking out at the Isle of Dogs. “I talked my father into financing this business,” she said. “He was reluctant. I used every bit of persuasion I could. In the end he did it because I virtually begged him to.”
“Yes, Jeremy told me that your father’s money was behind it.”
“Did he also tell you that my father detests him?”
“No.”
“He’s so self-absorbed he may not even realize it.”
Ava felt another layer of leverage being stripped away. “I see” was all she could say.
“All he cares about is himself and his needs. He thinks that because I’ve never had much luck with men he can do with me as he wants. But there are limits to what I will do for him,” she said, and turned to look at Ava. “He has no idea what he and that partner of his have put me through.”
“I know this must be difficult — ”
Simmons waved Ava to silence. “The River has been losing money from the day it started, and every fiscal quarter I’ve had to go to my father and give him the numbers, and whatever explanations I can come up with for them. More than once he’d had enough and told me to get out. I’d go to Jeremy and he’d tell me they were just around the corner from turning a profit. Always just around the corner. And I believed him… At least, I wanted to believe him, because if I didn’t and I told my father, the business would have been shut down in a heartbeat and Jeremy would have left me.
“Then, six months ago, Jeremy comes to me with a profit, a real profit. And every week, every month after that, the profits keep rolling in. I waited until the first full quarter was over before I gave my father the numbers. He was relieved, and when he got the second-quarter numbers, he was ecstatic. Quite suddenly Jeremy wasn’t such an idiot and I wasn’t such a fool for standing by him. In fact, I’d carried the day — he even said that. My father, I mean. He would have cut and run ages ago, he said. It was my judgement that got us out of the red…”
It was dark outside, and the interior light had turned the window into a murky mirror in which Ava watched Simmons speak. She was partially in shadow but Ava could see the intensity in her face and hear a growing determination in her voice. She knew where Simmons was heading, and there was nothing she could say to stop her from going there.
