Page 12 of Just a Plot Twist (Tate Brothers #7)

Benson

For the first time in all the months I’ve been working at Foundations Financial, I arrive late for work.

Having Cinnamon in the house is throwing everything off balance. It was okay with the kids here over the weekend—Dax and Indie were riveted by every little thing the dog did.

But now they’re back with Danica and Harry, so it’s just Cinnamon and me. I think she misses them. She’s moping around the house, and I swear her eyes look sad.

To be fair, all bulldogs look sad to me, with their huge snouts and turned-down features. But she looked extra lonely.

Tell me about it, Cinnamon.

Trying to get her squared away with her meds, food, water, and sufficient bathroom breaks before I left for work meant I got here exactly six minutes after eight. And I’m going to have to go back over during lunch to let her out. Not ideal.

Being late is the least of my worries, though. I found evidence of trouble from Peter Schiller in my perusal of some files this morning. Last week, I caught a blip of something out of the norm but chalked it up as some sort of error.

Now that it’s come up twice? It’s real and I need to discuss it with my father, Thomas.

Before I can even schedule a meeting with him for when he’ll be in the office tomorrow, he texts me, asking me to come to his office now.

So he’s working on a Monday, huh? His official working days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I’m not surprised he’s here. My brothers have mentioned his tendency to overwork. So, I finish signing some approvals for technology spend and make my way to his office.

Peter, my father’s long-time friend and the president of the company, is there when I arrive in Thomas’s office.

I greet him warmly, but I’m wary. Those hits from the servers have me worried.

I haven’t mentioned this to Thomas yet. Peter is, really, his only friend.

They must have just shared some sort of funny story because Thomas is…relaxed. And while he’s not laughing like Peter is, there’s an air of camaraderie in the room. It’s nice—and uncharacteristic, coming from Thomas.

Thomas spins in his office chair and smiles at me. “Peter was just telling me about how he accidentally fell in his pool last weekend.”

Peter, who is second in command at Foundations, is seated in a comfortable chair opposite the desk.

He drops his head back and looks at the ceiling, barely able to contain himself.

“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t know the pool guy had moved Mandy’s stack of pool mats.

I was distracted and I walked right in like I had no clue the pool was even there at all. ”

“I would have paid money to see that,” Thomas says. His shoulders bob up and down a little and I wonder, with a start, if this is what it’s like when Thomas laughs. Like, actually laughs.

“Me, too,” I add good naturedly.

“No one else saw it. But Mandy was confused when I came into the kitchen, sopping wet.” Peter creeps his chair closer to Thomas’s desk and rests his forearms on top of it, giving into laughter. Thomas joins in, in his own, reserved way.

This is a different side of my father. Maybe I should hold off on bringing up the issues I found with Peter’s accounts. I hate bursting this bubble.

Soon, though, Peter brings up some of the forecasting his team has done for next year and we’re solidly in business mode like normal.

A few minutes later, when Peter leaves, Thomas leans back in his office chair, chewing on his bottom lip.

I’m pretty sure I’ll always think of him as just “Thomas.” I tried calling him “Dad” for a while, but it never felt right.

Joe Kilpack was my dad. Thomas and I were both relieved when I began working here and started calling him by his first name.

The buffer of being at work made the change not as awkward as it could have been.

“Benson, how’s the job these days?” He steeples his fingers in front of his chin.

I sink into the chair across from him. “Oh, well, I enjoy it here at Foundations.” I let out a short breath. According to well…everyone…he’s a lo t more laid back than he used to be. But still, I can’t get rid of the sense that I’m going to disappoint him somehow.

He eyes me carefully. “And the family? How are things with them?”

I shift in my chair. We don’t usually have conversations like this. It’s either about the business or sports, and sometimes even family business about sports, like my niece Navie’s tae kwon do. We like to go to her meets. My sisters-in-law even make posters to cheer her on.

But this? This is new territory.

“Uh, well. Do you mean the Tate family? Or my family…my kids?”

He shrugs. “Both.”

Why is he asking me this?

“Dax and Indie are great. Doing well in school. It was hard at first to move mid-year, but they’ve both been making friends.”

“And you’ve liked having them nearby? It’s good to have them over on the weekends?”

“Yes, very much so.” What is going on?

“Will they be in Highlands Ranch for the long term?”

“The kids’ stepdad, Harry, has opened up a new pediatrician practice, so I’m assuming this is it for them.”

“Good. Good. Uh, and what about your brothers? Is everyone getting along okay?”

Thomas Tate has been on the outs with nearly all his sons at one point or another.

Although, by the time I came into their lives, things had mostly leveled out.

His wife, Celine, had some health problems that mellowed him, taking him from the quintessential type-A high achiever to a toned down, softer, gentler version.

Being a grandfather helped, I heard, as did when all six of the sons he’d had with Celine chose to work for Sebastian or strike out on their own.

None of them, not even Gabriel, the one he’d always gotten along with best, ultimately wanted to work for him.

When he asked me to work here as chief technology officer, I jumped at the chance. It was a big step up in my career and I’d been looking for a change for a while. Losing your parents and going through a divorce will do that to you.

The only downside was being so far away from the kids, except now, they’re here. There aren’t any downsides, are there?

“It’s great with the brothers. I mean, I admit it used to be a little awkward, since they were all so close. But things are pretty effortless with them now.”

“That’s great.” But he’s scowling. Something is definitely on his mind. “And the job? Do you like it here at Foundations?”

“Of course.” I hedge, a prickle in my throat. “Is everything okay? We don’t normally…”

“No, we don’t. And yes, everything’s—” He sighs and shoves the heels of his hands in his eyes. “I want to make sure you’re happy here. Here at Foundations and in Denver. I don’t want to leave anything…unresolved.”

Underneath it all, I think he’s a good person. He loves his family in his own way, I have no doubt about that.

He was so pleased when I accepted the job as CTO that he helped me find a townhome in Platt Park, a nice neighborhood near his home in Belcaro—the area where he and Celine have lived for over thirty years.

Both neighborhoods are close to the office.

“There aren’t any issues with the job or with living here.

I really like it. I’ll be sure to say something if that changes. ”

Thomas eyes me carefully. “Good. Thanks. ”

I hesitate. I hate doing this, but the longer we go on without talking about it, the worse this problem with Peter could get.

“I did find something, though, that I needed to tell you about. At first, I thought it was an error, but it looks like there’s been some unusual activity on Peter’s account.

Running through the firewalls, I found some things that…

well…I don’t think Peter realized that when he was using his phone, he was actually on the company’s server, so… ”

“What do you mean?” Thomas’s eyes narrow.

I squirm in my seat. I don’t want to say anything out of line. Beyond their friendship, Peter has been working here for a long time.

Peter Schiller is the heir apparent to the Foundations throne and has been acting president since Gabriel’s incident in Amsterdam.

Gabriel’s out-of-character gambling stint started a chain of events that removed him from the business for a while.

And when Gabriel officially cut ties to start his own philanthropy consulting business, Peter was all Thomas had.

“I hesitate to say anything.” I clear my throat and my voice lowers. “Has Peter said anything to you about possible plans for a…possible…”

“A possible what?” His face is laced with impatience, his upper lip hardening.

“I have reason to believe he’s purchased some property in Longdale under a business name. That business name matches a newly created website for a finance company. The website has hardly anything on it, but still. It doesn’t feel right.” I hesitate. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“And you know all this, how?”

“The firewall is sophisticated. We get hits on things all day, every day, and most of it is nothing. Innocuous errors.” I pinch between my eyebrows.

“The nature of the filters is they’re going to get things wrong most of the time.

It’s an overabundance of caution kind of thing.

But when I kept getting hits on things involving Peter, I looked into it further.

The company server picked up emails from his private email account to and from a land developer in Longdale.

And a business license has been filed with Marshall County.

Not in his name, but he’s related to a Lora Schiller, right? ”

Thomas scowls. “Lora is his daughter. She’s been working for Prudential for a few years.”

“Has Peter ever mentioned his daughter wanting to start her own business? Or that he wanted to branch out and do his own thing?”