Continuing to look around him like he’s waiting for someone to come in and find him, he types something into the keyboard, then spends several minutes watching footage of Starling and me having sex in various places in our house before he smiles triumphantly, removes the USB, and puts it in his pocket.
He spends a handful of moments doing something on his cell, then leaves when another one of the security guards returns.
While James watches the screen, I watch him. His expression barely changes, but I see the minute twitching of his jaw and the hardening of his eyes and lips.
“Did you know?” I ask when the video clip ends.
“No, sir, I did not,” he answers, “but I will of course tender my resignation. He’s my nephew. I’m the one who recommended him for the job. I…” His words trail off as he sniffs and presses his lips together.
“Would you like to know what he did with the footage he took?” I ask him.
“What he did with it?” James asks slowly, then nods. “What exactly did he do?”
“He contacted my wife. He sent her the images and threatened to sell them to the media and upload them to porn sites.”
“That little fucking…” James growls, his expression darkening. “How would you like to handle this?” he asks.
“I’ve contacted my lawyers and the police. Both you and all of your staff signed NDAs when they started their employment with us. Not only are his actions in breach of that, but when he attempted to upload the images and video to explicit websites, he committed a felony.”
“That’s all?” James asks, clearly shocked.
“All?” I question. “Your nephew will more than likely go to jail, and we will be pursuing a legal case against him. The NDA he signed is bulletproof and outlines very clear consequences of breaking it.”
“I remember,” James confirms.
“Then what else would you have me do?” I question, leaning forward a little, eager to hear his answer.
“Nothing, Mr. Lockwood,” he says, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that says that he doesn’t believe that the cops and a lawsuit are severe enough punishments for what Tom has done.
The concern in my stomach starts to settle. I didn’t really believe he was involved, but now I’m confident that James had no idea what his nephew was up to.
“I’ll have my things out of the house by the end of the day. I’d offer to help you find my replacement, but given it’s my nephew who’s done this, I doubt you’d be interested in my opinion,” James says resignedly.
“I’m not interested in your resignation. My wife likes you, she trusts you.”
Smiling softly, James nods. “I’d need to do a full investigation into my staff. I’d hate to think that Tom wasn’t working alone, but…” He trails off again, his shoulders slumping with his confession.
“I’m happy to help with that,” Clay says, speaking for the first time.
“I’d appreciate that, Mr. Jansen,” James says, nodding his head.
“Clay. Mr. Jansen is my father,” Clay offers.
“The police are on their way. Could you please collect Tom and confiscate his cell phone and any other computer equipment that he has with him?” I ask.
“Happily,” James says, a gleam of emotion flashing in his eyes as he turns and leaves the room.
“You don’t think he’s involved?” Hunter asks.
“No, I don’t. Do you?”
“No,” Hunter agrees. “He seemed angry.”
“He did, didn’t he,” I say, sighing.
“Did you really call the cops?” Evan asks, his voice tight. “Why the fuck are we involving the police and not handling this ourselves?” he growls.
“Because I want it publicly known that if you fuck with me and my family, your life will be over,” I say coldly. “Tom Underhill is about to see what happens when you think you’re cleverer than us.”
