(Edythe POV)
After several long, intense, good morning/goodbye kisses to start my day off, I ran home to meet up with the rest of my family. When I got there, I was surprised to learn that Rosalie and Emmett would be joining the trip to New York. Rosalie was in a hurry to get the sun sparkly lotion idea that Thomas came up with moving forward.
Jasper was finalizing his latest book, and Alice wanted to tell the major boards to start pulling out of the housing market because there would be a major stall in home sales. She wanted all our assets out of the housing market before the end of 2006. Time to shift to renewable and natural energies for the foreseeable future. She also wanted to play around with a streaming-based network for movies and on-demand shows.
My business couldn't start until Monday afternoon in Denver, so I was just along for the ride the first half of the trip. I was going over notes that some investigators had been sending me. With Wednesday being the memorial for the Denver Mall shooting of 2001, the local papers had been running articles on it. However, this year, for some reason, the articles started to ask some uncomfortable questions about the handling of some video footage near the food court and several of the actions taken by the police at the time. Even the local hero Johnny Track was coming under fire with pointed questions being asked about why the Elderly lady he 'Rescued' had been on his back instead of in his arms, especially if he was running away from gunmen.
With Jasper and Rosalie flying the plane, it fell to me and Alice to keep Emmett entertained. Watching The Return of the King had Emmett spending the remainder of the flight wishing for a world where he could fight to his heart's content.
"I don't know, Emmett, fighting is fun and all, but having a peaceful world where I can be with Thomas and the rest of my family sounds better to me." I objectively told him.
"But it's so boring. There is hardly anything challenging in this world."
Alice broke in, "And if that challenge put Rosalie in mortal danger, would you be ok with that?"
"I wouldn't let her be in any danger. I am strong enough to protect us both." Emmett smiled.
Alice wished for just that moment to be able to share some of the visions she had guided the family away from where they lost part of their family. Sure, the visions didn't come true, but she still had to watch them get hurt and die in some of them. She didn't think even Edward and Edythe truly understood what that felt like, after all, they could 'look away' when they wanted to. Alice had to follow the vision all the way through to see how to stop it.
Watching their family get torn apart and set on fire for stopping in the wrong town wasn't something she could just shrug off. She felt all the emotions from those visions and couldn't let them affect her outwardly. All she could do was react to her visions after seeing the whole thing and try to route them away from the danger.
She knew that Emmett would just shrug off anything she told him along those lines, so she just kept quiet. That was just Emmett. {Maybe that's why Jasper is my mate, he can help me deal with the emotions with his power.}
Once they landed their private jet, everyone split up to go their separate ways. I went to the main corporate office to set up meetings with everyone I could think of in Denver. Once that was done, Alice took me clothes shopping for Thomas, and we talked over tuxedo and dress options for Prom. I was trying to come up with a way to give Thomas the clothing we chose for him when Alice just overrode my plans with a simple statement.
"Just break into his room and put the clothes away. Don't say anything about them, let him grumble a bit, and he will eventually get used to new clothes appearing occasionally. Now, these slip-on shoes, do you think they would come off in a shift?"
I laughed at the simplicity of her idea and decided to go with it. From what I have learned about the Will reading that will take place at the end of the week, Thomas will not be touchy about money for a good long while. His mother, having lost her husband while pregnant, took out hefty insurance policies on herself in case something happened to her, and she had been an investment genius. If things had been different, she would have been a top earner under the Cullen umbrella. All of that, plus the policy in place for Thomas was a Custodial account held by our firm, Thomas's mother worked for.
The care money sent to Thomas's guardian was the dividends earned. Most of the increase in funds went back into the market to continue the growth of his inheritance. Best of all, Nancy Raizel had set it all up under a trust so there would be little to no taxes to worry about.
Once the group left New York and headed for Denver, I found myself reading over the work record of the detective that shut down the request by Thomas to look at the recordings to see if Johnny had committed any chargeable acts during his escape from the mall. This could have been blown off as just an act of a survivor in the heat of the moment and the public eye back then. But now, with time between the shooting and the fact that Johnny readily claimed all the rewards for his heroism, things would look bad indeed if there were recordings of him hindering others from escaping.
Closing the lead detective's file, I opened the file from the responding officer who saved Thomas's life. He had been decorated and put on the fast track in the department, even making detective in a near record time of almost 2 years. But his recent progress was stemmed by his new boss, who just happened to be the lead detective whose file I had just put down. {Maybe some bad blood there?} I added our police liaison officer to my meeting list and made a note to have the Lead detective investigated thoroughly.
The next file I picked up was a full investigation into Johnny Track. His early life was typical, divorced mom and dad, bounced back and for between the two. Some petty theft as a teen, a couple of trespasses, and minor assault charges. Then he went into the military, U.S. Army Calvary Scout to be exact. Looks like he did one tour in Operation Iraqi Freedom and then was recommended not to reenlist. The investigator found out that he would have been dishonorably discharged if his enlistment hadn't been up. Basically, they didn't want to do the paperwork to kick him out, just told him not to come back.
{So, he fucked up bad enough they didn't want him back, but they let him off with an honorable discharge. Typical military laziness.}
He started working in corporate security once back in the States, for the same company as Thomas's mom. {That's how they met, I'm betting. From his picture, Johnny is a very handsome man outwardly at least.} The next bit she read made her smile widely, he still worked for the same company. Demanded a raise back when he had the hero tag placed on him after the shooting, and is currently the deputy chief of security in the building she was headed to this very day.
I motioned for Alice to join me, and we began to discuss ways to make his life miserable.
That afternoon Alice and I entered the lobby of the firm. Walking to the front desk I simply said, "Miss Edythe and Alice Cullen here for a meeting with the director."
"Yes mam, the director is expecting you. Just a moment and your guide will take you to the conference room set aside for you this evening."
I was wearing a grey women's suit pants and jacket with a sky-blue shirt and Alice went with the more traditional light-grey skirt with a white long sleeve shirt along with a light-grey suit jacket. Our presence was drawing the usual attention but we both blocked it out, and kept our faces neutral as we waited for the guide. When the guide did finally show up, I ignored his attempt at small talk and Alice also followed my lead.
Once we made it to the glass conference room, our guide stepped in and announced us.
"Mr. Peterson, your 1:00 is here." He then held the door as Alice, and I entered.
I walked directly to the head of the table and shook Mr. Petersons hand, then sat at the head of the table showing I was the one taking lead in today's meeting.
When Mr. Peterson greeted Alice he asked, "When this firm started, I met a woman who looked remarkably like you, would that have been you mother or elder sister? She was Edythe Cullen at that time."
Alice gave him a smile, "That would have been my older sister. When I told her of the roll I was taking today as Alice Cullen, she asked me to check on you and see if you followed her advice?"
The man smiled. "You can assure her that I did indeed act on her advice, and it has made me a very happy man."
Edythe did a quick read of Mr. Peterson's mind to see that in her last visit, Alice informed him that his then fiancée was cheating on him and was also trying to get insider information to give to her paramour to ruin the company. Finally, she told him to keep an eye out for a blond high school acquaintance who had fallen on hard times. This led to his later marriage and happy family life.
As the members of the board that had assembled sat down and gave their attention to the head of the table, Edythe began to speak.
"My first and most important bit of business we shall discuss includes an employee of this Firm. Mr. Track, your security deputy is about to come under immense scrutiny for his actions during the 2001 Mall shooting. It has come to the attention of the Cullen Clan that he was responsible for the death, of many innocent people in an effort to ensure his own survival. This meeting marks the beginning of his downfall, by the end of my efforts, I expect him to be living on the streets of Sun Valley (The poorest neighborhood in Denver.) with nothing but a noodle strainer to keep the weather off his head.