I smiled at her, did my best to look appreciative. “I will. Thanks, Susan.”
“Okay, good chat,” Greg said, now at the door. “See you at the one o’clock?”
I nodded. “Looking forward to it.”
And then I was alone. My hands shook as I held the printout, angry and unsure what I wanted to do next.
Brooke walked by, stopped in front of my door and did her best to look concerned. I set the email on my desk, upside down so she couldn’t read it. “Did I see Greg and Susan leave your office?” she said, her voice an exaggerated whisper. “What’s going on? Is this about yesterday?”
“No. Something else,” I replied, keeping my tone even. “Everything’s fine.”
She looked momentarily surprised but recovered quickly. “Oh, good.” She leaned against the door frame and tucked her hands into her pockets. “Can I help you with anything for the one o’clock?” Normally I would have been grateful for her offer, would probably have delegated some of the work on my desk.
“I’ve got it handled,” I said. “I came in early today.”
“Okay, well, let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do,” I replied, only dropping my smile after she left my office.
Then I got up and closed my door before settling myself in front of my computer and going through all my folders. In only thirty minutes I found three duplicate press releases, including the one I’d sent to Greg—all dated this week and all with old client names in the place of new business mentions. For a moment I considered it was my mistake, a simple copy and paste error. But I’d cut and pasted only small bits of text and had written mostly new copy for all three releases.
After dragging the duplicate, incorrect releases to the trash-can icon—emptying it to be sure they were gone—I clicked through my email archives during the time I was in the hospital and recovering at home, when Brooke had had access to my inbox. I found a number of outgoing messages she’d obviously handled but nothing that gave me any idea about why she seemed to be trying to sabotage me. Then I logged in to my personal email account and did the same search, putting “Brooke Ingram” into the query box. One email caught my eye, in my drafts folder. It was addressed to HR, but I obviously hadn’t sent it yet.
Brooke—to discuss
Why was this in my personal account? It was dated the week before my accident. I quickly opened it and scanned the contents, which turned out to be a list of grievances. Like her lateness (there was a note beside it she had agreed to be on time after I brought it to her attention) and an important conference deadline she had missed because she didn’t get the application in on time. Some of the items I’d highlighted to discuss went back a full six months.
I sat back and looked at the list, realized my memorydidhave something to do with this, after all.
Brooke Ingram was not who I thought she was. But somehow all of these issues had been lost in the shuffle of my mind resetting itself. I had believed my work memory had stayed intact, yet here was proof that wasn’t true. Now I had to admit maybe Brooke wasn’t the only hole at Jameson Porter. What else had I missed? Cold fingers of fear wormed through me.
It was clear by the email I was organizing to have Brooke fired. Had been getting my ducks in a row, including a notation at the bottom of the email where I had written down a couple of other people on our team who might be good candidates to move into Brooke’s position. I had probably kept it in my personal email because I didn’t want Brooke to be able to access it. I hadn’t trusted her then, and I couldn’t trust her now.
And then it hit me. Brookehadapparently been displeased when I was hired—Susan had confessed that when we discussed the team I would be taking over, feeling it relevant to my leadership strategies. Brooke believed my job should have been hers, and if everything was as it had looked on paper—Brooke was loyal and hardworking and knew the communications department inside and out—she was right. It should have gone to her.
But there had been concerns about her ability to handle the leadership aspects of the job. Susan had further confided Brooke was a valuable employee, but she was a bit of a “lone wolf.” She wasn’t as skilled as she needed to be at delegation, had a hard time trusting others with the work. And that was a critical aspect of the director position—if you couldn’t delegate, you couldn’t lead a team.
So Brooke had seen her opportunity with my accident. Was trying to erode my position within the company, clearly positioning herself to take over the role and using my memory challenges as ammunition. I felt weak as I thought about everything I’d shared with her recently—especially the personal stuff, like the part about forgetting Matt and remembering someone else as my husband. That certainly didn’t sound like someone who should be trusted with my workload and responsibilities.
I suspected Brooke had divulged this conversation to Greg and Susan. That, coupled with the release flubs that I now understood were Brooke’s doing and quite purposeful, meant a worrisome picture of my fitness for this job was being painted. And it had been only one week. What if I hadn’t figured this out now? How much damage could she have done?
No. This wasn’t going to happen. I was not going to let Brooke Ingram destroy my career. With the rest of my life in shambles, Jameson Porter mattered more than ever.
36
When I called Daniel to tell him I needed help, I ignored my promise to put some distance between us after the whole “I miss you” conversation. I asked if we could meet the next morning for breakfast because I needed to pick his lawyer brain.
“My lawyer brain is on permanent hiatus,” Daniel had said with a laugh. “But it’s all yours if you’re willing to put up with the cobwebs.”
We met late morning at Aroma, a restaurant chain with an all-day breakfast option that served a square of chocolate with every coffee order. Daniel tucked into his croissant and egg sandwich while mine sat untouched on my plate. “Not hungry?” he asked, his mouth half-full, glancing at my food.
I shook my head, picked up my latte instead.
“So what’s up?” He was focused on his sandwich, dragging the croissant through a splash of hot sauce on his plate. “How can this ex-lawyer help?”
I filled him in on the Brooke situation.
“So you never sent the email?” he asked.
