RELUCTANT PRESS

I sat in the chair she had indicated and noticed that we were not alone in the office.

Mr. Devon, the company comptroller, was sitting in another chair by Jacky's desk and regarding me with an intense stare. Mr. Devon was also tall, about six foot four inches in height. He was a bodybuilder who worked out with weights every day and he liked to wear tailored suits that showed off his muscular body. He wore his blonde hair in a severe crew-cut.

Jacky took a seat behind her desk and an ominous quiet filled the room.

"Well?" Jacky demanded.

"Well, what?"

"Why don't you tell us all about the money?" Mr. Devon suggested. "And don't say, 'what money?' Mr. Petti, because we have found your signature on cash transfer forms. amounting to forty-eight thousand three hundred and twenty-two dollars!"

"You are in deep doo-doo, Mr. Petti," Jacky noted. "If you want to avoid going to prison for illegal embezzling of the company's funds, you had better start telling us the truth, right now!"

My cold sweat broke out again as I realized that I might very well be spending the next several years in prison. I have always been rather on the small side for a man, standing only five foot three inches tall and never seeming to weigh more than one hundred and fifteen pounds. That with my slim waist, plump bottom and girlish features with a sweet, high voice, had been the bane of my life!

The very thought of the brutes they had in prison and what might happen to me there was going through my mind.

I was suddenly terrified at the position I had gotten myself into.

"We have all the evidence," Mr. Devon said. "Speak! Or we'll call the police right now!"

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