“You can’t treat women the way you do. And you can’t come back to the office until this is over, and you’re acquitted or you make some kind of deal with the court or the district attorney’s office. I cannot and will not have you here. It will destroy our reputation and any credibility we have left. Give me a break on this, Dan, and be reasonable. It’s hard enough as it is.” Dan thought about it for a minute and nodded.
“All right, but what am I going to do if I don’t come to work?” he said, sounding pathetic.
“I don’t know. Play golf, sleep, go to the movies. Don’t go out and get drunk. But you can’t come here.”
“I get it. Give me a few minutes to wrap up some loose ends.”
“All right,” Bob said, looking stressed, “but don’t go anywhere near Jane, or she’ll call the cops on you and you’ll be back in jail.”
“I won’t. I promise. And give me a call sometime, will you?”
“Of course. Now do whatever you need to do, and then go. You really shouldn’t be here.”
“Fine,” Dan said, then stood up and walked out of Bob’s office. It had been a hellish morning. Dan walked back to his office and took a few things out of his desk and put them in a briefcase he had in his office closet, and then walked down the hall, in the opposite direction from Jane’s, until he reached Francine’s office. She jumped at her desk when she saw him, and he took two steps in and closed the door behind him. With the door closed, no one could see that he was there.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, physically frightened of him for the first time.
“I came to see you,” he said with a tone of irony and an arrogant smirk on his face. “Don’t forget, tonight at seven o’clock.” It hadn’t even occurred to her that it was one of the two nights she usually saw him. She had thought he was gone forever, or out of her life anyway. “And don’t think our deal is over. I can still get you fired. Nothing has changed.” It was wishful thinking on his part. Everything had changed. His face suddenly looked vicious as he stared at her. “And if you say anything to anyone about our meetings, I swear, Francine, I’ll kill you. Don’t even think of doing what that little bitch did. We have history together. You should have some loyalty to me for that. You’ve kept your job here, and you’re the head of the department, thanks to me. And you just got a raise. All thanks to me.”
“I’m not coming back,” she said coldly. She couldn’t do it anymore. “Fire me if you want to. I don’t care. And whatever you say about me, no one will believe you now.”
“Remember, if you talk, you die,” he said evilly. “See you at seven.” He needed some release from the stress he was under, and she was the easiest way to get it. She didn’t have a rich daddy or a husband to protect her. She had two kids and no husband. She needed him, he told himself as he walked out of her office and went back to Bob’s.
“I’m leaving now,” he said in a docile tone to Bob. He smiled, and looked like the man Bob knew, worked with, and trusted for so many years. Dan was carrying his briefcase, and Bob felt sorry for him again as he walked Dan to the door of the agency. He had gotten himself in one hell of a mess, and dragged the agency into the mud with him. Bob was worried that Dan’s actions would take the agency down. He went back to his office with his head down, thinking about it after Dan left. He hoped Dan would be okay, but he had hard times ahead, and Bob couldn’t see a way out for him. What he had done was unquestionably terrible, but Bob didn’t want to lose his own life’s work because of it. Dan had had no idea how out of line he was. Bob had warned him before. He felt sorry for Jane too. He owed her father an apology, but he wasn’t sure he knew yet, or if she was going to tell him. Bob was going to talk to her about it but hadn’t had time. There was so much going on.
After Dan left her office, Francine tried to sit quietly and calm down. He had looked so menacing and so convincing when he said he’d kill her. What if he tried? What would happen to her kids? And if he succeeded? She couldn’t let him get away with it. He had no right to terrorize her. She had let him ruin ten years of her life. She couldn’t afford to give him another day, another month, another year. She got up from her desk and walked down the hall to Jane’s office. Julia was in with Hailey, and Jane was alone. She was still recovering from Dan’s brief visit herself.
She looked up when she heard Francine come in.
“Did you see that that bastard was here?” Jane said, looking stressed.
“Sign me up” was all Francine said, with an odd expression. Her eyes were dark pools of pain as she looked at Jane.
“For what?” Jane didn’t understand.
“Sign me up. Me too. He got me too,” Francine said, and Jane stared at her, shocked.
“You too?” He had gone after the head of the literary division? She wasn’t just some little flunky he could push around the way he thought he could Jane. “Do you want to talk to my attorney?” Jane asked her, and Francine nodded. She looked like she was in a daze.
“Yes, I do.” Jane called Steve while Francine waited, and she turned to her after she hung up.
“He said he can see you now.” Jane wrote down the address on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, I’ll be okay,” she said, and smiled at Jane. “I’m sorry it happened to you, but at least you stopped him. He just told me he’d kill me if I talk. He looked as though he meant it. We’ll be okay, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will,” Jane said, and got up to hug her. “They’ll probably put him back in jail after you talk to Steve. They’ll keep him there until the trial. And then he’ll go to prison. Martha said there probably won’t be a trial. He’ll have to plead guilty. There’s too much evidence against him. And now with you, he’s done.” Francine nodded, and walked out of Jane’s office. She got her jacket and coat and went to the lawyer.
She told Steve everything. All the years, all the times, twice a week for ten years, using her like a sex slave, threatening to have her fired and to destroy her reputation if she stopped meeting him, all the way to his threats to kill her that morning if she talked. Her story was far more disturbing than Jane’s, which included only a few incidents, and he hadn’t succeeded in raping Jane, just in terrifying her. Steve took due note of the fact that Francine thought that he had drugged her with something in her drink the first time, which was probably true. He asked her if anyone knew that she went there every week. She said that Allie had alluded to her “dating the boss” a few times, so maybe he had said something to her, putting a spin on it. But she said that the doorman at the building where they met could testify that she had gone there twice every week, and that he knew her by now. Martha wrote down the address of the apartment. She was sure that Bob would know where Dan was staying now, since he couldn’t go home. Maybe he was staying there.
Martha took Francine to the police station, as she had Jane, and then Martha called the assistant district attorney and reported it to him, along with Dan’s threats to kill Francine and his attempt to bribe Jane that morning, which violated the conditions of his bail. The assistant district attorney assured her that by that night he’d be back in jail and stay there until disposition of the case, whether a guilty plea or trial. But either way, he wouldn’t be out again, maybe ever.