"Excuse me? You want me to what?"
Carole Banning was stunned, and she wasn't sure she'd heard quite right.
"Did you just tell me to strip?" she asked, incredulously.
Her mind was awhirl at what she'd been bombarded with in the past five minutes, since she'd been asked to accompany her boss, Leon, up the elevator to the big office, where the Brothers, the twins who were joint presidents of the brokerage firm Carole worked for, ran their lucrative business.
Bourne and Bourne was the most successful company of its type in the mid-sized Southern city where Carole had lived her entire adult life. With the economy the way it was, Carole had felt fortunate to land her accountant's job with the firm several months earlier, and had thought she was doing a solid, capable job. Obviously, something was amiss. Leon had had something of a smirk on his face, as if he knew what was up, as he accompanied Carole up to see the Brothers, Peter Bourne and Paul Bourne.
It had just been your typical Monday until 9 that morning, when Leon called her on the phone and told her to be ready in five minutes for an "urgent meeting" with the presidents that involved business that concerned her. She was told to bring her purse and any other personal effects she may have brought with her to work that morning.
Until that moment, Carole's life had been pretty mundane. She was 43 years old, married with three kids: a son, Mike, in college, plus a daughter, Christy, and another son, James, in high school. Her husband Mark was a copy editor for the large daily newspaper in their city, and they'd been married for 21 years. They lived quietly in a modest four-bedroom home in a middle-class suburb of their city. The Bannings were just your average American family, nothing more, nothing less.
Carole was average-sized, about 5-6, with face that had classic features – open and pretty, without being overwhelming – with sparkling, perfectly-spaced brown eyes, a small, narrow nose and lips that were rich without being full, all topped by a mane of dark brown hair that fell straight about her shoulders and was cut in loose bangs in front. Her frame was slender, but three children and the passing of years had put just the right amount of padding on her hips and breasts. Indeed, time had been generous to Carole, maturing her face and body in just the right way to make her appealing. She had a friendly nature, but she wasn't a particularly forward person, although she did enjoying partying on a moderate basis. She had followed a fairly predictable path her entire life, with some slight detours. She'd gone to college, where she'd met Mark during her junior year, and they had married less than a year after graduating.
As they rode the elevator in silence, Carole could not fathom why she was being called to the big office. One didn't get summoned to the big office just to chitchat with the Brothers. She'd been punctual, delivered her work on time, tried to socialize with her co-workers and had been a good citizen. Her early performance reviews had been good and she was finally starting to get comfortable with the company and its procedures after a hectic first few months on the job. She was truly grateful to have landed the position, and at the salary she was receiving. It was a considerable increase over any of her previous jobs, and it came just in the nick of time, with the sharp increase in expenditures her family had experienced due to college and other debts.
Peter and Paul Bourne had always been inseparable, even before birth. The identical twins had prospered on Wall Street with inherited money, and they had used that money to open their own firm together in the city not far from their hometown some 18 years previously. Despite their location, the company's scope was national, even global, and senior partners could expect to amass a considerable portfolio with their accumulated years of service to the company. And the company's top employees were a remarkably loyal bunch, most of whom had been with the firm from the beginning.
The Brothers themselves were in their early-50s, and were impressive looking men. Carole had thought them very elegant, even mysterious, when she'd met them during the interview process, her only previous encounter with the twins. They were tall, about 6-3, and well built, ruggedly handsome with full heads of salt-and-pepper hair.
Leon had ushered Carole to the outer office, and she'd been puzzled as to why the receptionist wasn't on duty. Indeed, the outer office looked as if the Brothers were out of town on business. Leon tapped on the door to the inner office and was told by a voice from within to come in.
"Here she is," said Leon, as he ushered Carole to the center of the room.
"Thanks, that will be all," said the twin sitting to Carole's left at the large two-man desk from which they conducted business. Carole didn't see the long, leering look Leon swept her with before he turned and walked out of the office.
Carole surveyed the office in a moment's notice. It was large and richly proportioned, with a large sofa sitting against one wall and a large bookcase along the opposite wall that included a wide-screen television. As soon as she entered the room, one of the brothers picked up a remote and muted the sound from one of the financial cable networks the TV was showing. The twins were each at the work station at their half of the desk, and there was another man in the room as well, a huge black man wearing a Western-style suit with cowboy boots and a pistol holstered at his hip. He was standing at the right of the large double desk, and all three of them had her fixed with even, soulless looks that unnerved her.
"Carole, is your compensation package not acceptable?" one of the twins spoke up, the one on the right. "Have we not brought you into our family and made you one of us?"
"W-W-What do you mean?" she answered nervously. They had not offered her a seat, and it was making her very uncomfortable.
"Was it necessary to skim money off the Henderson account?" the other twin said.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Carole said.
"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars is missing from his account, an account which you handled personally," said the first twin who had spoken; whom she believed was Paul Bourne. "The money was there when it reached our hands – your hands – and now it's gone. I can tell you right now, my dear, that Henderson wants you arrested and charged with grand larceny. He thinks you embezzled that money, and based on this packet of information I received over the weekend from security, I'm inclined to agree."
