Take Down (The Men of the Sisterhood) by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online Page B

before closing, then we hit the homes of the three Andovers the following day. Dennis just heard back from Jamie Farrell, who told him where in the office the corporate checkbook is located. He even had the checking account number that Abner matched up to one of the accounts. It’s a high-dollar brokerage account, and there is enough money in it to cover Nikki’s class-action suit. He also said there is another checkbook with a green binding that Martha uses for everything else. He said she is not a fan of online banking. He also said that in a lot of ways, she is very old-fashioned, whatever that is supposed to mean.
    “We can use that account to pay Jamie Farrell and anyone else the Andovers screwed over who we want to help. Abner looked up that account and said there are beaucoup bucks in it. By the way, the checkbook you need for Nikki is bright blue. Seems blue and green are Martha’s favorite colors, according to Jamie. He said as soon as he can, he’s going to make a scale drawing of the seventh floor, where Martha’s office is. Then he will fax it to us. An hour or so from now.”
    “He’s doing all this and not asking questions?” Jack said in amazement. “Are we sure about this guy?”
    “He’s the real deal, Jack, trust me on that,” Dennis said. “A guy with only one kidney who got screwed over by Martha Andover Gellis wants nothing more than for something very, very bad to happen to her. He knows he can’t do anything himself, but if someone else can, he’s eager to help as much as possible. And all that was before I told him we’d take care of him financially. Like I said, we can trust him.”
    Jack eyed the young reporter and nodded. “Okay, we’ll go forward on your say-so. While I was outside with Cyrus, I called Bert and Sparrow.” He summed up his conversation, ending with, “Sparrow is leaving tomorrow to return here and said to stay low and he’ll take care of any blowback there might be when he takes office on the first of January. I do think we’re good to go.”
    “Do we know where Philip Andover is?” Maggie asked.
    “Home,” Espinosa said. “Otto is home, too, as is Martha.”
    “When are we going to hit their offices for sure?” Dennis asked.
    “Tomorrow at four forty-five. We hit them at home the following day. Any questions?” Jack asked. There were no questions.
    “I guess Harry isn’t coming back,” Maggie said. “You should call him, Jack, and bring him up to date.”
    “You’re right. I’ll do that right now. Anything else I should know?”
    “We’re all good here,” Ted said. “I want to read through this stuff line by line one more time. The devil is always in the details. We don’t need a glitch because we ignored something that fouled things up.” The others followed suit without being told to do so.
    Jack moved off to call Harry just as his phone rang. It was Nikki. His heart kicked up a beat.
    “Oh, Jack, you are not going to believe this, but the plane we were supposed to be on right now has mechanical problems. We’re going to be stuck here another day.” Jack could hear the tears and the weariness in his wife’s voice. He tried to joke, to say as long as she made it home in time for New Year’s Eve, it was okay. Nikki didn’t buy into it. Instead, she burst into tears. Right then, Jack wanted to kill someone for making his wife cry. He did his best to console her by telling her about the storm that was raging outside. He talked about Cyrus and the guys until he heard a smile in her voice. By the time he clicked off, he was mentally exhausted.
    Instead of calling Harry, Jack walked down the hall to the foyer and opened the plantation shutters to stare out at the raging storm outside. The snow, which was more like sleet than snow, was coming down fast and furious. He couldn’t even see across the street to the Bagel Emporium. That wasn’t good. He wondered how and if the FedEx driver would make it in the morning with his overnight