Chuck interrupted my thoughts. “I overheard Reinhart saying on the phone that he wasn’t about to lose his six-figure job over some punk who couldn’t keep his hands off the company’s dough. He told the other person not to worry—that he’d make sure Esposito stayed quiet.”
What was that supposed to mean? I struggled to clear my head. “No. This can’t be true.”
Chuck’s expression was pained. “Please don’t tell anyone I told you. I don’t want to lose my job over this.”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you, Chuck, but—” It was difficult to find the right words. “Do you know why Dylan… I mean, how did he do this?”
He shrugged. “From what I overheard, he was taking deposits and putting them into a separate account that he’d created. I guess it was discovered during a surprise audit.”
His voice sounded far away, as if I was underwater—drowning little by little with each word.
Chuck went on. “We Care is all about their reputation, so they probably didn’t think this would look good in the news. You know, one of their own accountants stealing from them. Instead of arresting Dylan, they fired him and refused to give him a reference for another job.”
I wanted to clap my hands over my ears and run screaming into the street.
Chuck leaned forward, eyes wide with excitement. “He yelled and swore at Reinhart that day. I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but I never saw Dylan act like that before. He always seemed so calm and put together.” He patted the lid of the banker’s box. “Guess it happened so quickly that he forgot to take his stuff.”
His words, like the wind, whipped around my long hair and sent an aching chill through my bones. I opened my mouth and inhaled huge gulps of the cold, exhaust-polluted air while Chuck watched me with an anxious expression.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Esposito?”
“Fine,” I managed to choke out. “Thanks for all your help.” I moved around to the driver’s side of the car. My legs were shaking so badly that I was afraid I might topple over.
Chuck reached around me to open the door. “Maybe you shouldn’t be driving if you’re this upset. Can I call you a cab?”
There was no time for a cab. I glanced down at my watch and saw that I was already late for work. That’s where I’m going, right? For a minute, I couldn’t think straight. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. “No thanks. I’m all right.”
I got into my car. I sat there and revved the engine for a minute, my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly for support. Chuck walked back across the street and stood there watching me, hands in pockets, a frown creasing his brow. He was still there when I pulled away from the meter.
After driving for a few minutes, I realized I was headed in the wrong direction. Quickly, I made an abrupt illegal U-turn in the street while several car horns and drivers’ middle fingers saluted me. I was afraid I might be sick. There had to be more to the story. My husband did not steal. He wouldn’t even cheat on his morning sudoku game. One time, a cashier had forgotten to charge him for a dozen eggs, and he went back to the store the next day to pay for them. That’s how honest Dylan had been.
The truth had reared its ugly head. Chuck’s comment about Ned—“he’d make sure Esposito stayed quiet”—continued to haunt me. I’d been focusing on Slice, but what if it had been someone Dylan worked with at We Care that had wanted to silence him—specifically, Ned?
I should have called Anthony to let him know I’d be late. The lunch hour traffic was in full swing as my car slowed to a crawl. When I reached Harvest Park, I thought briefly about calling in sick, but the distraction at Slice might do me more good than being by myself would. I’d knead some dough for a while and figure out what to do next. Maybe Dylan had a good reason for—No. There was no good reason to steal. Anger, hurt, and confusion blew through me like a cold wind. I’d wanted to know the truth behind Dylan’s death but never expected this. Why would he do such a thing? Dear, good, upstanding, and honest Dylan. God, what a fool I’d been.
Tears blurred my vision. The pain in my chest was so suffocating that I couldn’t draw a deep breath. Too late, I realized that the vehicle in front of me had stopped for a red light. I slammed on the brakes, but my car plowed into the rear end of the small hatchback. The tires screeched and a loud thud followed. My head jerked back against the seat, and everything went black.
* * *
Someone was talking as I slowly opened my eyes. “Ma’am?”
Perplexed, I turned my head. A fit policeman with a blond buzz cut had opened my car door and was kneeling next to me. “Stay calm. Everything is all right.”
I didn’t know what I needed to be calm about. My head hurt, and my brain was a mass of jumbled confusion. For a few seconds I couldn’t remember what had happened. Squinting into the bright sunlight, I saw another policeman standing a few paces from my car, directing traffic around it. A middle-aged woman with short, platinum-blond hair was conversing with a third officer. She stood at the curb, next to a vehicle whose back end had been smashed in. My car was positioned awkwardly in the road. “What happened?”
“Looks like you hit the car in front of you and passed out for a minute.” His eyes studied my face intently. “Have you been drinking, ma’am?”
“No, sir.” I remembered the restaurant and glanced down at my watch. It was 12:30. “I’m late for work!” I straightened up and reached for the key in the ignition, but the officer laid a firm hand on my arm.
“Ma’am, you have to go to the hospital and get checked out. But before you do, I’ll need to see your license.”
“Oh. Of course.” Confused, I glanced around for my purse and found it on the seat next to me. I drew out my wallet and handed him the card.
The officer looked at my license and then at me. “Okay. Now I need you to step out of the car and walk a straight line for me.”
A familiar voice drifted toward me. “Not necessary. I’ll take over from here, Sawyer.”
Gino gestured for Officer Sawyer to move away from the car. “Lou, this is my cousin, Tessa. I’ll vouch for her. She wasn’t drinking.”
Officer Lou Sawyer rose to his feet and handed me back my license, which I clumsily shoved into my coat pocket. He glanced at Gino. “Are you sure about that?”
Gino nodded and cut his eyes toward me. “It’s fine, Lou. She lost her husband in an accident a few weeks ago and has been under a lot of stress.” He squatted down next to me, taking the other policeman’s place. “Are you okay? What the hell happened?”
I was embarrassed for the other officer to hear my sad life story, so I avoided going into specific details. “I looked away from the road for a second and…uh…didn’t see the car in front of me stop. Is the other driver okay?”
“She’s fine.” Gino cupped my cheek with his palm. “Thank God you are too.”
His hand and voice were comforting, and I nearly broke down in tears as everything I had discovered in Dylan’s office came rushing back. How could I explain to Gino that the one man I’d loved and trusted for years had managed to betray me?
Gino turned to the blond policeman. “Can you give us a few minutes?”
“Take all the time you need,” Lou assured him, his green eyes clouded with concern. “Her car needs to be moved to the curb though. It’s starting to cause a backup.”
“You want to wait for me on the sidewalk?” Gino asked me.
I shook my head. “I can slide over.” I was surprised at the soreness in my body when I moved, even though it was mere inches.
He grimaced as he sat and put the vehicle back into Drive, and the car moved forward. “Your car seems to be okay except for a dent in the front, but it lurched forward when I stepped on the gas.”
“That’s nothing new,” I assured him. “I’ve been meaning to have that checked.”
Gino shut the ignition off and t
urned to face me, worry etched into his well-defined features. “You’re lucky that the airbag didn’t deploy. It should have.”
My voice trembled. “I’m glad the other woman wasn’t hurt.”
“Look, Tessa. This is scary. Maybe you shouldn’t be alone for a while, until you get things under control. I don’t like the idea of you being by yourself every night. Why don’t you come stay with Lucy and me? Or maybe think about selling the house. The memories have got to be painful for you.”
That was when I officially lost it. “I don’t even have memories to comfort me anymore.” Like a faucet, tears streamed out of my eyes, and I started to sob uncontrollably.
Gino put his arms around my shoulders and held me tight against him. “You’re not making any sense. What’s got you so upset? And why didn’t you call me back this morning?”
I hesitated. Gino might be my concerned cousin, but he was still a cop. “Dylan was fired from his job and never told me.”
“When did this happen?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Probably a couple of weeks before his death.”
“And you never knew?” A deep wrinkle formed between his brows.
Why did everyone feel the need to keep reminding me of this fact? I jutted my chin out in defiance. “He deposited money in the bank every week. There was no reason for me to suspect anything unusual was going on.”
Skepticism shone through my cousin’s dark eyes. “Where was he getting the money from then? Was it unemployment checks?”
Didn’t I wish. “No.”
“Tess.” Gino spoke gently. “What exactly is going on?”
“Someone told me today that he was fired for embezzling from his company. I—I can’t seem to wrap my head around it.”
Gino’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. “How much money are we talking about?”
I shrugged. “No idea.”
Gino had morphed from devoted cousin into full-blown cop mode. “You have no idea where the money is? Did he hide it in your house somewhere?”
I shrank away from him. “Please don’t make this any more difficult for me.” My eyes began to tear again, and I grabbed a tissue out of my purse. “And I don’t want anyone else in the family to know about this yet. Not my mother, Lucy, or Mona.” Gabby was exempt, since I would tell her myself. “You’re a cop, and you might feel that you have some duty to—”
He cut me off. “You should know that family always comes first with me. Dylan’s dead, Tess. You’re not responsible for his actions, and I know that you were not involved in whatever scheme he might have concocted. But if you think you’ve found something out that’s important, I need you to tell me.”
Wearily, I leaned back against the seat. “I went to Dylan’s office this morning to pick up his personal items. Someone mentioned they were sorry he’d been fired. Everyone thought I already knew.” I stopped to blow my nose. “When I started asking more questions, I discovered that he’d been embezzling funds from his employer. He set up his own bank account and everything. When they found out, he was fired. They agreed not to press charges because they didn’t want the media to find out.”
Gino’s face was stern, and a four-letter swear word popped out of his mouth. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. He deceived me. Dylan stole, Gino. Do you know how that makes me feel? Our marriage was based on a bunch of lies.” Sure, infidelity would have been worse to deal with, but this almost felt like Dylan had cheated on me, and in a sense, he had. He was no longer the man I’d once thought he was.
“Why didn’t they arrest him?”
I twisted the tissue between my hands. “Apparently they didn’t want a scandal. One of the employees also told me that Dylan’s boss didn’t like him and was happy he’d been fired.”
This got Gino’s attention. “What’s the guy’s name?”
“Ned Reinhart. He might be worth checking out.” I couldn’t help but wonder if our entire marriage had been a sham. Were there any other red flags I hadn’t thought of until now? If Dylan told one lie, chances were excellent that there were more. I might be opening a fresh can of worms, but I’d rather know the whole truth than be kept in the dark any longer.
Gino nodded. “I’ll run a check on this Reinhart fellow. But if Dylan paid the cash back, as I assume they made him do, and he was still bringing home a salary, where was that money coming from?”
He was asking me questions that I had no answers to. “Again, I don’t know. I can’t deal with this right now, Gino. Besides, it’s almost one o’clock, and I’m late for work.”
“To hell with that place. You need to go to the hospital and get checked out. Plus, we don’t know for sure that Slice connects to Dylan’s death.” He hesitated for a moment, then blew out a long breath. “Look, Tess. I’ve got a confession to make. When I suggested you work at Slice, it wasn’t so you could help the police.”
My eyebrows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
His face reddened slightly. “We were all so worried about you that when I saw the sign at Slice, I thought it might motivate you to go back to work. You know, help you get back to your old self. This way, you’d also feel like you were doing something useful to help with the investigation. If I’d ever dreamed it would lead to this, I never—”
“Thanks so much for your confidence in me,” I said bitterly. “So this was all to humor me? Get little Tessa out of the house and back to making pizzas in someone else’s kitchen?”
“It was meant in the best possible way,” Gino assured me. “I told Gabby that too.”
I sucked in some air. “Gabby was in on it too? I’d expect you to do something like that, but certainly not her.” He had no idea how this had hurt me.
“Don’t be so hard on her,” Gino said. “It was my idea. I told her what I had in mind, and she agreed it was worth trying. Gabs said she’d be supportive and would go along with anything you asked of her. We meant well, Tess.”
This was too much for me to absorb. “I’ll have to think about this later,” I said in all honesty. “But I’d appreciate it if you told Gabby she doesn’t have to keep the ruse up for my sake anymore. No, on second thought, I’ll tell her myself.”
Gino had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Now that the jig is up, so to speak, call Anthony and tell him you’re not coming back.”
“No.” I squared my shoulders, preparing for an argument. “I can’t do that, and I won’t. There’s something strange going on at that place. Everyone there had a reason for disliking Dylan, maybe even enough to want him dead. I need to get a little closer to it all. There’s a very good chance his killer is employed there. Yesterday afternoon I found a baggie with white powder under one of the shelves in the cooler. I’m guessing someone dropped it, and I think there might have been cocaine inside.”
Gino’s eyes widened with interest. “Where is it? Do you have it? Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have a chance. Izzy, Anthony’s daughter, caught me before I could pick it up. When I went back later, the baggie was gone. Can you guys raid the place?”
He looked disappointed. “It’s not enough. We need probable cause. You can’t be positive it was coke. What if it was sugar instead? Now, if you’d brought the substance to me and we tested it, that would be different. Then we’d have enough reason to get a warrant.” He pursed his lips. “I’m sorry I came up with this stupid idea in the first place. You don’t belong there.”
I ignored his comment. “I wonder if Dylan knew someone at Slice was involved with drugs, and maybe he threatened to turn them in. I also found out that Anthony’s daughter, Izzy, disliked Dylan, but I don’t know why. When she found out who I was, she didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for me.”
“Sounds like a great work atmosphere,” Gino remarked.
Another thought occurred to m
e. “Anthony was good friends with Dylan. What if Dylan told him he’d been fired? Could he have become more involved in Slice’s business? Slice was not doing well financially. Maybe Dylan was helping Anthony find ways to save money at Slice?”
“Don’t say anything to Anthony,” Gino advised. “He might get suspicious if you ask about Dylan’s work there. Now let me go talk to Lou, and then I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
Without another word, he got out of the car and spoke to his coworkers. Lou was standing at the curb with another officer and the woman whose car I’d hit. I grimaced as I got out of the car, stiffness already setting into my joints, and went to address her. Like me, she’d been alone in the vehicle. Her car had taken the brunt of the damage, and I winced, thinking about how much my insurance might go up as a result. She watched me approach, a neutral expression on her face.
My cheeks were burning as I put out a hand for her to shake. “I’m so sorry about your car. Are you okay?”
She smiled and extended her hand. “Yeah, I’m fine. Glad you’re all right too.”
“Thanks. My insurance company will take care of everything.” Before I could say anything further, Gino took me by the arm and guided me into his unmarked vehicle.
“You need to be careful what you say, Tess. That woman might try to take advantage of you.”
“But it was my fault,” I protested. “If she’d been hurt, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.” Besides, I had more important things to worry about than if she tried to extort a few extra hundred dollars from me. I leaned against Gino, who put his arm around my waist to support me, the weight of Dylan’s betrayal heavy on my heart. Tonight, after work, I’d look through his personal items and see what else he might have conveniently forgotten to tell me about.
After we were settled in the vehicle, Gino adjusted his seat belt. “You should call Anthony and tell him you’re not coming in. He’d understand.”
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