Transparency by Charles Royce (children's books read aloud txt) 📕

freelance interviewers and writers flying all over the world to capture these people in their workplaces, their homes, their protests, their orphanages. We’ve maxed out our budget, but I know we have something pretty special.”

“Another part of our PR strategy; I think it’ll be huge,” Pamela adds.

“Thank you both, that sounds ama—”

A young man Josh has never seen before knocks on the door, opens it and walks directly to Josh. He’s wearing a baseball cap, jeans and a tee, an outfit very off-putting to the current crowd of business-clad executives.

“Can I help you?” Josh asks.

The young man hands him an envelope, then leaves, shutting the door softly behind him. Josh opens the blank envelope, pulls out a note.

Meet West below. Now. Use the key.

Reagan.

Josh feels a lump developing in his throat. He clears it, addresses the crowd. “Wow. I don’t know what to say. You each have done an amazing job. Hire the best, then let them—”

“Do their thing!” everyone says in unison.

“To the West Way,” Josh says.

“To the West Way!” they reply.

“Anyone we didn’t get to, please email me your updates,” Josh says a bit loudly to compensate for everyone standing up and collecting their things. “And my team? Please stick around. We’ve got a lot to cover, and we need to do the tour-and-talk. I should be back in about an hour tops, say three o’clock?”

Josh’s team of managers and coordinators start talking amongst themselves.

“Tracy?” Josh stands in the doorway. “May I see you a second?”

JOSH TAKES TRACY to one of the nearby offices—tiger oak desk, black Eames office chair, magnificent view of the Hudson River over the top of the South Tower atrium. He hands her the note.

“What the actual hell?” Tracy flips it over, flips it back. “Who the fuck is Reagan?”

“The latest assistant to come through West’s revolving door?” Josh says.

Tracy looks at the note again. “So that thing, that oval thing with all the lights, must be a key, right?”

He takes it out of his pocket, flips it a couple of times. “I have no idea. It looks like the key Hillary showed me, but this one’s different.”

“You think West knows you have it?”

“He knows.” His eyes widen. He paces a bit. “He knows I met with Hillary Gordon. God!”

“Calm down. It’s gonna be fine.”

“What am I supposed to do?” He paces some more.

“You go down there with confidence.”

“This is how Jenna must’ve felt when he summoned her to his office.”

“What? Jenna’s in jail, you idiot.”

“I’m talking about a couple of months ago, before she was arrested. She’d just found the SSD on her doorstep, opened it for the first time, saw the video files. West called her in the very next day. We thought he knew we had the SSD.”

“Did he?”

“Turns out West wanted to talk with her about the account, the money laundering. Threatened her with her nondisclosure agreement, tried to keep her from testifying during Micah’s trial.”

“And did he kill her?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

“No. But he hired Ghost to kill Lennox, hired Billy to kill Walter Gordon.”

“Exactly.” Tracy hands the note back to him. “He’s not going to hurt you. West is a wuss. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Ha!” he says. “Tell that to Jenna.”

C h a p t e r   2 9

JENNA WATCHES THE bars on her cell open and greets the large female waiting to escort her to a meeting room. She always hates this part, leaving the manufactured comfort of her cell, walking into the great unknown. She bites her fingernails, wondering what sort of obscenities will be hurled her way, what sort of lockup lurkers will be staring a hole through her chest.

One obscenity and two lurkers later, she is face to face with her lawyer, Shawn Connelly.

“Thank you, Shawn.” She takes a seat as the large security guard closes the door. She familiarizes herself with the room—table, two chairs, white walls, two-way mirror, camera in the corner. “I know this isn’t easy for you to be here.”

“You can thank my wife.” Shawn drums a pen on the table. “Seems she and Micah have been hanging out a lot. Micah’s been filling her head with all sorts of things about Élan. I’m getting on board with the ‘company framed you’ thing.”

“You’ve seen Micah?”

“Yes. Has he not come to see you yet?”

“No.” Jenna’s eyes blink in a short, rapid succession. “And I haven’t seen Josh for almost a week.”

“I think Josh is a busy man with the grand opening coming up. But Micah?” Shawn grabs his notebook from his briefcase. “I’ll make a note to talk with him.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want to, to—be a bother. He probably thinks I killed Lennox. He holds grudges.”

“Nonsense. He loves you, Jenna. If he’s talking with Haylee about Élan’s involvement in Lennox’s murder, he blames James West, not you. Remember the trial? He’s the one who reamed the shit outta me for going after you so hard that day.”

“That was before all the evidence emerged from my closet.”

“True.”

“Thank you for representing me.”

“Not a problem.” Shawn writes the time and date in his notebook. He doesn’t look up. “But Jenna, if I find out anything else that links you to the murder of my best friend, I will refer you to someone else.”

“Understood,” Jenna says. “If you killed Josh, I would never want to have anything to do with you.”

Shawn laughs, continues writing. “Well, if he tells another one of his mind-numbing stories, you and I might not ever see each other again.”

C h a p t e r   3 0

JOSH GETS OFF the elevator at Sublevel Two. Alone.

He’s meandered these hallways many times, shuttling excess event inventory to his personal event warehouse around the next corner. But he’s never paid attention to a stupid wall, this wall now in front of him, the same wall he’d seen on the blueprints from Walter and Hillary Gordon’s library, housing a mysterious and intriguing secret floor.

He approaches the thermostat.

“This is real.” He turns the