Valentine's Dinner?

54. Connecting with the Office

Suitably relieved and refreshed from their shower, Valerie and Lorne dressed and resumed their seats on the couch as the plane began its taxi toward the runway. Once they had settled into a gentle climb, Valerie took out her phone and opened it. "Find out what's happening."

Lorne nodded as he opened his. "Yeah. I need to delegate more, so I can concentrate on the important things."

"True. The desire to hang onto control." She typed her password then connected to the wifi. "Almost as if we don't have faith in our staff."

Lorne looked up from his screen. "I've been thinking of stepping all the way back. Leaving everything for Clyde to handle."

"Yeah, I began putting things in place after Broughton became a threat. Amazing how few tweaks were needed to have the company running smoothly without me."

"So, your structure? Mine's a holding company overseeing separate companies. Yours the same?"

"Exactly." Valerie nodded as she tapped on her email icon. "And with each subsidiary operating without my interference, I wondered why I was so intent on dealing with the minutia of Redburn Holdings."

Lorne laughed. "Mine is my first company; the incorporated shell my uncle gave me for Christmas."

"Yeah, my first also. The structure I set up to manage the settlements."

"So, have you fully stepped back from it now?"

"Pretty well. I'm in the office only Tuesday and Friday afternoons." She laughed. "Seems I'm still not fully weaned."

"Weaned is a good term, though amputation is more apt for me. My initial thrill was the growth; then the company became a way to keep my sanity after the Underground bombings. A way to bury my grief, to distract, to keep me occupied. The company became part of my being."

"Yeah, mine was to help me forget." She blew out a deep breath and pointed to her phone. "Now we need to find a way to send him back into oblivion."

A short while later, Valerie said, "Security still cannot find you."

"Great."

"Yeah, makes me feel more at ease." She spent a few minutes reading a long email from Lydia, then she closed the phone and opened her computer to more easily read the contents of the three attachments, humming quietly from time to time as she digested the information.

"Love your hums; they all sound positive."

"Hmmm." She looked up into Lorne's eyes and chuckled. "Yeah, Lydia, my head of Legal, has exchanged several emails with Roxana and Sylvia, the two who say Broughton raped them. She's dug into the Court archive index, and she's found the December 2004 record of Sylvia's petition to bring rape charges against him, and she's applied for access."

"That was before you were..." Lorne paused and grimaced.

"Yeah, mine was a month later." She shook her head. "And because Sylvia's petition was denied, it had been sealed."

"And the other woman, Roxana?"

"She was too afraid to tell anyone until recently."

"Afraid?"

"Her culture. For women, unwed sex is prohibited, and she didn't want to be seen as unworthy of marriage." Valerie shook her head, then pointed to her computer. "She had a hymenorrhaphy, but she still can't —"

"Hymenorrhaphy?"

"The surgical reconstruction of the hymen as proof of virginity."

"To regain eligibility for marriage?"

"Yeah, stupid, isn't it? She's given Lydia permission to access her 2005 medical records."

"So, 2005. Same time as yours?"

"In March, after he was acquitted in the first trial."

"Celebrating his invulnerability?"

"Likely"

"I wonder how many others there are."

"Yeah, as do I. Lydia ponders this as well. She's been brainstorming with PR on how best to spread the word without rousing Broughton's attention nor dipping into potential libel issues."

"Yeah, delicate."

"She has also requested financial information on Broughton using the new offshore reporting regulations."

"Those will show only his 2014 and 2015 records. There's no requirement to release earlier information."

"There's no need. All we want is to see if he has offshore accounts and to know their balances."

"True."

"The court order granting me all his assets is still valid. Lydia says it is his problem that he misrepresented them."

Lorne nodded. "I like the irony of this. He had likely seen the settlement coming, and he scrambled to move as much as possible offshore. Jersey or Guernsey would be the easiest and quickest."

"That's what Lydia had thought. She had also applied for his address and movements records from the sex offender registry, and —"

"Appears she has this well in hand."

"She does." Valerie pointed to her screen. "There are several emails here from IT, and from a quick scan of their subjects, it appears they've found links to Broughton." She stretched up and kissed his cheek. "I need to read through these."

Valerie had just gone back to her computer when Patrick approached and asked, "What may I bring you to drink?"

"Hmmm." She looked up and shrugged. "A soda water with a twist of lime would be nice."

"Two, please, Patrick."

"Very well, sir. Would dinner around nine be suitable?"

Lorne turned to Valerie, raising his eyebrows. "What do you think?"

She nodded. "Yes, that would be fine."

After Patrick had headed forward, Valerie put an arm around Lorne's shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "That was very sweet of you to ask."

"I need to practice not making all the decisions."

"Yeah, we both do. We're each accustomed to being the one." She blew him a kiss and went back to her computer. Less than a minute later, she fist-pumped and said, "Yes! They've found two more magazines with Broughton spreads that match the Photoshopped images.

"Those could have been done by anyone by scanning the images from the magazines."

"No, these are from originals —without the graininess from page scans."

"Okay, playing devil's advocate here, the defence attorney. Couldn't it be anyone in the publishing company who has access to the archived images?"

Valerie shook her head and tapped the computer screen. "Florence says these are all slightly different poses from the published ones."

Lorne nodded. "The shots the magazine didn't buy."

"Exactly. Photographers shoot many dozens, sometimes hundreds of exposures as the model moves through a range of poses."

"And the best ten or so are sold for the layout. What is Lydia's opinion on presenting this to the police?"

"I don't know if she's aware of this yet. She had likely left the office by the time it emerged — the team was working after hours when the matches were made. The email is less than an hour old." Valerie scrolled to the message header. "She's been copied on it."

She clicked Reply All, typed Thank you and pressed Send. Then she closed her computer and leaned to graze her lips across Lorne's. "Time for us."