Free The View from Suite 2100 by Tess Allen

want Elsa to risk her job for my sake.
    “Thanks Elsa for being brave enough to be willing to tell me, but I don’t want you to get in trouble. I’ll get to the bottom of this,” I shook my head. “This is totally ridiculous.”
    “I’ve gotta tell you. You’ve always been nice to me.” She glanced over and winked at Pedro. “Maybe if I don’t have no job, he’ll really marry me!”
    He nodded.
    “They said it has to do with a “morals” clause issue? I don’t know just what that means, but that’s what I heard Mr. Cade telling Annette. Mr. Cade don’t like it! He is very, very upset, but it came from someplace higher than him.”
    “Morals?” The word fell out of my mouth. “They are going to call my loan because of a ‘morals issue’?”
    She nodded fiercely. Her sudden accent surprised me. It was unnoticeable when she was at work, but now it was thick. “I don’t know no more I could tell you, but it don’t seem right. Nobody at the bank is supposed to talk to you.” She reached out and touched my arm. “I ain’t gonna work here no more.”
     
     
    Chapter Fourteen
     
    I thought about the line item, Sandra, the accountant, and the senseless hours I’d spent in front of the computer gambling away the frustrations I had allowed to mount in my life as I maneuvered carefully through traffic the short distance from the bank back to 2-of-A Kind. Could that be it? The ‘morals’ issue Elsa had alluded to? Had Sandra somehow contacted the bank and put a question in someone’s mind about my financial stability, implying I had a vice that might be compromising my judgment and their security?
    That’s when it dawned on me that she probably did know what I was doing with the money. The firm prepared my personal taxes annually as well, and had done this year’s just a few weeks before! I’d provided them with copies of my personal bank statements and the transaction sums going back and forth to Nassau were definitely on those. Even though my personal taxes were handled in a different department at Sandra’s firm, it wouldn’t have taken much to put it all together if someone was looking! How stupid of me, I thought!
    I needed to reach my lawyer immediately to find out what steps I should take to start protecting myself. Clearly whatever this was what it was not was a simple mistake. Whether it was Sandra or not, somebody somewhere was after my jugular and they were demanding it on Friday, before the close of business.
    I reached for my cell phone to call Alexia but thought better of it. As nervous as I was when I’d pulled out of the bank’s parking lot, I needed to stay focused on the road even for such a short distance. I had a numbing thought, what would my girls think about me after Friday if I didn’t make that payment on time, and if the bank decided to try to smear my name all over town. My friends knew nothing of my gambling vice. No one did! What would that do to our friendship? What would they think of me? The thoughts terrified me.
    Someone was in my reserved spot in the parking garage, but I found another stall quickly. I went into the stairwell, and took the steps up to nine two at a time. I’d call my lawyer from my office at 2-of-A Kind so I could at least get the ball rolling, and then I’d run back over to Suite 2100 to determine how to start pulling down the cash I needed if this didn’t go the way I wanted it to.
    “Oh, Rowena! You just had a call!” Lila, the receptionist greeted me as I came through the door. She held out a pink message slip to me. “It was the guy from the DNA laboratory. I told him you didn’t come here everyday, but he left a message anyway.”
    How are you going to be telling anyone about my movements ? I thought as I took the message. Just putting all my business in the street. I glanced at Martin Charleston’s name and number and wondered briefly why he was calling back so soon, but I stuffed the message in my pocket.
     
    “Lila,” she