Chapter 5
The drive home was a maelstrom of distraction. Madison's thoughts pin-balled through rage, recrimination and unrequited desperation. Her neatly orchestrated intercession by Horace Burke had failed utterly and her situation was now far worse than before she had enlisted his help. Not only had she been duped into more infidelity, but the struggle with Jane Reynolds took on the cloak of an unmitigated disaster.
The CEO's duplicity rivaled Jane's treachery in a way that left Madison wallowing in a tsunami of directionless self-pity subject to whatever malicious whim the head of HR could imagine for her. She felt certain that even without his help Burke would expect sexual favors and she would be obliged to provide them. Her balled fist pounded the steering wheel and fresh tears of frustration washed over her cheeks. She felt isolated from all of her support systems. Even Peter, her unsuspecting husband, loving and loyal to a fault, would be devastated if he knew that she had sullied their marriage not once, but twice with first Jeremy and then Horace Burke. She swallowed hard trying to rid her mouth of the disgusting taste and the horrible memory of what she had done.
As she rolled into her neighborhood she tried to compose herself. It occurred to her that the worst that could happen had already done so. Providing she could keep this past week's disasters from Peter, she could contain the damage until the evil bastards tired of tormenting her and moved on to some other amusement. She stopped at the Shell station a few blocks from home and repaired her makeup and brushed her hair. She wished she had a toothbrush and some mouthwash but she settled for scooping water into her palm to rinse her mouth. Her eyelids were puffy and red-rimmed but she thought Peter would accept it if she pleaded fatigue.
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Jane Reynolds relaxed in the fragrant bubbles of a hot bath soaking away the repugnance of sex with Horace Burke. Happy with the results of her difficult day, she still wished she could have been there when Burke told Madison to "clean him up". She could imagine the other woman's dismay and the thought amused her. The irony of her bitter rival licking her juices from the cock of the man she thought was going to save her was too precious for words. Now, after three years of putting up with Madison's "Miss Perfect" bullshit, Jane was looking forward to making her pay. It wasn't lost on her the way Madison had pleaded that "Peter can't know about this." She was so annoyingly superior when she talked about her husband and her marriage that Jane was fed up with hearing it.
Her first thoughts had favored an anonymous package delivered to the school where Peter taught. A nice selection of photos of Madison having sex with Jeremy would "set the cat among the pigeons" she gloated. But, the more she thought about it, the more an alternative plan began to form. Madison was so sure of Peter's undying devotion to her, it might be fun to see how Peter might react to a bit of strange pussy in his life. It might be fun to see Madison's face if she were the one opening the anonymous package. That would be sweet!
Jane's fingers caressed the smooth skin on her belly as she thought about the possibilities. She remembered Madison's dismissive disinterest when Jane's marriage had ended in a bitter divorce. Her "couldn't happen to me smugness" had been galling at the time and a little payback might be fun. Her fingers toyed with the soul patch of pubic hair that sat just below her bikini line. Peter wasn't a bad looking guy she recalled with a smirk.
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Horace Burke had retired to his study after a late solitary dinner. Mrs. Burke was out canvassing for The Kidney Foundation so he had a little time to himself. The downloaded DVD from the HR Director's computer would have been his entertainment for the night but Burke was still recovering from having had sex with Jane barely two hours ago. He skipped over the files with all the dirty pictures and went to her email accounts. People tended to regard email as private and, as a result, often left themselves unguarded. The fact that Jane Reynolds had three different email accounts intrigued him. Usually, there was one for business, one for personal, but three?
He pulled out the scrap of paper where Arnold had jotted down the passwords he'd found and like magic he was in. The business account seemed all in order. Nothing jumped out at him so he went to the one marked personal. The usual boring "hi...how are you?" stuff had him quickly scrolling through looking for anomalies. Apart from a rather terse admonishment to the ubiquitous Jeremy, nothing grabbed his attention.
The third account was a complete surprise. It took him a minute to realize what he was looking at. There was no sent file, only a very active inbox that contained very few emails addressed to Jane Reynolds. Burke was astounded to see his own correspondence along with that of every Director in company. The account was a repository for all of the company's high level communications diverted from the desks of the firm's most senior personnel. Along with business secrets there were clandestine emails to business rivals, doctors, bookies, drug dealers and homosexual lovers.
Burke was stunned by both the volume and nature of what he was looking at. Jane Reynolds was the J. Edgar Hoover of Paramount Enterprises. She had files on everyone who was anyone in the company; damning files that showed everything from theft of proprietary secrets to character assassination and philandering. His self-interest drew him to every entry that bore his name either as sender or receiver. The sensitivity of some of the documents left him with a feeling a dread as he scanned through the pages of his private correspondence. A whole series of emails with tax lawyers held possibly indictable evidence that was enough to put him in a cold sweat as he realized its implications.
Burke's shock slowly morphed into anger as he paced about the room clutching a bottle of scotch. Deceit, disloyalty and an abundance of blame ran rampant through his assessments. There were so many revelations that he could scarcely focus as each seemed more scurrilous and reprehensible than the last. People who he had trusted implicitly stood out for their treachery and Burke readily embraced the mantle of undeserving victim as if he was blameless.
Three times he had picked up the phone and begun to dial before thinking better of it. His first call would have been to Jane Reynolds to unleash a tirade of accusation and threat that would stop this bullshit in its tracks. He had scarcely punched in the area code when he hung up. Best not to alert her that he knew what she was up to before he was ready to strike her down.
Next was Albert; Albert fucking Cooney, his IT expert! How the fuck did this happen without him knowing? He stopped dialing when the question became rhetorical. What if he did know? And if he didn't, why didn't he? What if he was a part of this? An old fart like him might do a lot for a piece of ass like Jane. He knew Jane would spread her legs if there was something to gain. But Albert had downloaded the entire hard drive. Would he have done that if he knew it would expose what they were up to? No, that was stupid. But fucking Albert must have been stupid to have missed this.
The third call would have been to Madison Clarke. If she really did have something on Jane there could be a tradeoff. Then he remembered the look of disgust on Madison's face as she sucked his cock after he'd used it to fuck Jane. Not the best time to call, he decided, taking a long pull of single-malt straight from the bottle.
Burke was on the highway headed back to the office when he called Albert Cooney from the car. As much as he tried to keep the stress out of his voice, Albert knew that a call from the boss at 7:30 on a Friday night was not good news. The conversation was brief and Albert wasted no time in leaving. Forty minutes later Burke and Cooney were looking at the empty hard drive on Jane's desktop. Albert was unequivocal in telling Burke that the memory had been erased but the files would still be there and retrievable with a bit of effort. Retrieving them was not what Burke had in mind and Albert simple removed the entire drive.
