Rita Miller, an experienced banker in the quaint town of Shallotte, North Carolina, is now employed by a "megabank" that acquired the community bank where she had spent her decade-long career. Resentful of corporate assimilation and suspicious of her new co-workers, Rita is thrust into the thankless position of budgeting for the bank office where she unwittingly uncovers an insidious pattern of crime that predates the merger and potentially involves old and new co-workers. As Rita and her best friends slowly piece the crime together, the fear of discovery turns deadly as the criminals desperately try to cover up and destroy evidence of their fraud. At the same time, a chance encounter with Ross Moore, the new bank's president, propels Rita into an intra-bank personal relationship she desires but has convinced herself is forbidden. As her perceptions of right and wrong, good and bad, and transparency and deception are challenged, Rita is forced to decide whether matters of the heart allow for forgiveness when the lines between them are blurred and trust is broken to protect the greater good. The story explores secrecy and confidentiality, honesty and forthrightness, and the resulting shades of gray that shape everyday decisions and interactions with friends, families and fellow employees.

Banker's Trust

By Sabrina Stephens

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Sabrina Stephens
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-2496-3

Chapter One

The whole sorry saga began with an innocent act, intended to be a personal rebellion, but like so many seemingly mundane decisions, the consequences took the decider, i.e. me, down a road not only less travelled but also more hazardous, reeling out of control. Have you ever played that game called Jenga? We loved to play it in college, cans of beer and a bowlful of plain M&Ms to help sustain us. You take turns pulling the wooden pegs out of the wooden peg tower. Each player employs a strategy to keep the tower intact. The problem with that strategy is that nobody knows anybody else's strategy and so the game becomes a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" escapade into chance. When the tower finally falls, it never falls slowly. The tumbling is sudden and violent, and ultimately, the loser is the puller of that one fatal peg.

I had come to Greensboro as the victim of a bank merger which wasn't really a merger but more like a corporate takeover. Hell, a cultural overthrow is not even an overstatement. My professional world had been born and shaped at Mid-Atlantic Bank. In retrospection, the eleven years were Utopia. The 400 employees across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia almost all knew each other. We called our top executives, later known as the Magnificent Seven thanks to their golden parachutes, by their first names and they knew all of us the same way.

I had joined the bank right after graduating from a state university where I got a wonderful, well-rounded liberal arts education. Not exactly high finance, but what all the banks in the mid-90's wanted were communicators, big-picture idealists who could be taught how to use a HP financial calculator and complete a loan application. Our bank was hopelessly old-fashioned, which was sweet at times like when we were told not to go to the ABC Store in Shallotte to buy liquor, but to drive over the border to Little River, SC. In other instances, the countrified way of doing business was downright infuriating and to some of us "minorities," sexist and racist. The most memorable instance was when I was passed up for a commercial loan officer position because I did not, at least not then, play golf. I'm not exaggerating, that was the reason my boss gave me. He should have been as blunt as he usual and said, "You don't have a penis," but I think even he was afraid to go that far with me.

The guys treated me like, well, one of the guys for the most part. The entire management team—the men—all recognized early on that I was not exactly your shrinking violet or coffee-fetching, sleep-with-you-to-get-to-the-top office female, mind you. I was the daughter of a cattle farmer from the Piedmont. I was raised a devout Methodist along with my brother and sister but probably had broken, albeit contritely most of the time, every commandment short of robbery and murder. Life was always interesting but quite often without money. We played outside all year long and all of us were quite athletic. After a lucky break, literally, my senior year in high school, my sports course changed to sports reporter and photographer from small forward on the basketball team. The teammate who cut my feet out from under me and landed me on two puny and suddenly broken wrists at a practice during Christmas break took my starting position and was offered a scholarship at the micro-college just down the street. I couldn't have been happier. The local sports editor offered me the chance to travel with our high school teams, write a weekly column complete with my mug shot, and submit black-and-white rolls of film that I shot for publication. I was hooked, and from that day forward, I could only be described as a complete sports junkie.

I learned to drive a tractor—and I don't mean a glorified mower—at 10; a four-speed Ford dump truck at 12 and weed a mean row of green beans and tomatoes faster than my mother or my sister by 14. The chores were hard, but I learned early that if I could get my part done quickly, but well, I could go school my older brother in H-O-R-S-E or Football 500 for several hours each afternoon.

Ok, ok, back to the story. So each year, American One Bank, the "Mega" bank that took over Mid-Atlantic, holds what we cynical merged employees fondly call The Pep Rally. This year, the rally was in Greensboro, NC which was deemed central to Mega's network of branches or its footprint. This corporate indulgence is really two-day assimilation into Mega's corporate culture. So year after year all of the bank officers gather to hear the same mission statement, the same corporate beliefs, and the same corporate spin on bank life in general. The sessions stretch for two and, sometimes, three hours with "social" breaks in between to mingle with 2000 of your fellow bank officers. Throw a lot of beer, wine and food into the lobby and we're just having a really fabulous time. Please. The social breaks just allow the cynical majority time for enough lubrication to almost numb the senses in preparation for the next session of corporate group-think philosophy. Even the young, I'm-going-to-be-CEO-someday types cannot keep a straight face and tell you this is a fun time.

Let me say for the record, though, this corporate retreat is not optional. ALL ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND. That's exactly how the e-mail read, I swear. For me, though, I always ventured, how would they know? Nobody is there to take roll or anything. Every suit looks like every other black/gray/ navy suit with just slight variations of exuberance as we reintroduce ourselves for the 3rd, 5th, 10th time, mind you, to CEO and his upper management entourage. I even did an experiment at this, my second and, thankfully, last rally. I introduced myself as "Rita Hayward" even though my corporate nametag correctly said "Rita Miller." No big deal. Except for a chuckle from the dashing bank president Ross Moore, the corporate team didn't even notice.

As we were herded back into the assembly, I knew this was going to be a particularly brutal, three-hour monotony on "our mission." My mission was to arrive early, find the seat closest to the door and find an opportunity somewhere near the middle of the session to excuse myself discreetly for a bathroom break. As it turned out, though, I really did have to go to the ladies' room only 15 minutes or so into the corporate chat and I just felt certain that my boss, Patrick Lowers, would see me leave and expect me back in an appropriate amount of time ... whatever that was. So, I left the room as discreetly as possible, hit the head and really took my time washing my hands. I even sang "Happy Birthday to You." Dragging ass, I was almost physically sick at the thought of going back into the session.

Suddenly, like a gatekeeper at hell's door, the CEO's assistant informed me that I was not allowed to go back into the room until a break. I could have kissed the old witch. Faking irritation, I simply turned on my black stilettos and marched off to the parking lot. I had escaped and really not even tried. I didn't know what to do with myself so I went to my car, got in, put my Eagles CD on to play, reclined the seat and closed my eyes.

I was in heaven. That is, until somewhere around "Take it Easy," a rap on my window brought me crashing back to reality. I opened my eyes only to see Ross Moore peering in at me.

Crap.

Chapter Two

Ross Moore hailed from Shallotte, North Carolina. He played baseball on scholarship at Carolina in Chapel Hill but was...