“Oh, my God,” she breathed, her voice filled with incredulity.
Before he had a chance to stop her, she threw open the door and jumped down from his truck. Cutting off the engine, he leaped out and followed her. Reaching her where she stood outside her office and putting his hands on her shoulders, he leaned down and whispered, “Babe, it’ll be all right. I promise.”
Mitch met them at the door, his eyes moving from Lia’s stunned face up to Aiden’s angry one. “Lia, I need you to come in and look around. You’re the only one who would know if anything is missing and, if not, what they might’ve been looking for.”
She nodded silently and followed Mitch into the reception area with Aiden close behind. The first thing they were shown was that Mrs. Markham’s desk looked untouched, except for the filing drawer, which had been pried open.
“Mrs. Markham would have to be the one to tell you if anything is missing, but I can assure you that nothing confidential is kept here at all. This is really just her file drawer.”
Mitch nodded and stepped into the hall that led to the two offices and small staff room. Peering first into Scott’s office, they could see that the filing credenza behind his desk had been opened as well, with some files emptied onto the floor.
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m really uncertain what anyone would have been looking for.”
They then followed Mitch into her office and she gasped loudly at the sight.
Her office was much more trashed than the rest of the business. The filing credenza behind her desk had all the files out of it and spread around. Her desk drawers had been broken into and the contents were strewn around, as well.
She sucked in a shuddering breath and he wrapped his arms around her from behind. Leaning down, he whispered in her ear again, “Breathe, babe. It’ll be all right. Mitch’ll find out what’s happening.”
Hearing someone else enter the room, they twisted their heads at the same time to see Colt standing there. He nodded toward Mitch, and explained, “Mitch and I are still going to work together on this, because whoever’s targeting you is obviously targeting you both at home and at your business.”
She nodded numbly but he was glad that she was going to have the benefit of all of the local law enforcement.
“Lia, what can you tell us is missing?” Mitch asked.
Looking around the room, she said, “I would have to go through this mess to see if I can identify what somebody was looking for. I find it strange that my office was targeted more than Mrs. Markham’s or Scott’s. But, then, that just leads me to believe that whatever this person was looking for they knew it must’ve been with me.”
Watching her closely, he noticed as an inkling of suspicion began to settle in her mind, anger forcing its way past the shock. Her fists landed on her hips as she whirled around, staring at the each person in the room in turn. With her voice shaking with rage, she said, “It has to do with the investigation of the town finances. Since I came to Baytown, the only work I’ve done is tax accounting for several of the businesses here. Nothing weird. Nothing strange. Nothing unusual. I haven’t had a disagreement with one single client. But when the Mayor and the Town Council accepted my bid to do the forensic accounting work for them, the threats started.”
Mitch said, “I know this is hard for you to do, with this mess in here, but we need you to go through everything to see what might be missing.”
Before she had a chance to reply, a noise came from the front lobby, sounding as if Grant was in the process of detaining someone.
“This is an official crime scene. You can’t come in here.”
“I work here!”
Lia’s gaze jumped toward the door as a man pushed his way through. He was wearing jeans and tennis shoes, with a slightly wrinkled polo. She blinked. She had never seen him in anything other than a button up shirt, tie, and dress pants. Blinking again, she wondered why she was noticing something as ridiculous as his clothing when they had much more important things to be concerned about. “Scott. That’s my other accountant, Scott Redding. I called him before I got here.”
Mitch stepped out of the doorway and spoke with Scott and Grant. After a moment, he stepped back into her office, Scott following. His eyes grew wide as he looked at the mess scattered about the floor, and he breathed, “Holy shit”, before his gaze jumped to hers. “Are you okay?”
She started to nod automatically, then realized that was a ridiculous reply. “Quite frankly, no. I’m furious as hell and was trying to figure out what might be missing. Did you look at your office?”
“I took a glance in, but it’s not nearly like this.” He rubbed his chin, and said, “Although I’ve only been working for a short time here, so my file cabinet was not as full.”
Grant was standing at the doorway, looking unhappy at having been bulldozed over, and Mitch said, “Scott, please go with Officer Wilder and take a look in your office. We finished dusting for fingerprints in there, so you can go ahead and look through what might be missing.”
Scott sent her a sympathetic grimace before turning and following Grant back into his office. After they left, Colt confirmed, “I assume your partner, Scott Redding, is Thomas Redding’s grandson?”
“Yes,” she replied, suddenly feeling very tired. Giving her head a little shake, she added, “Not that it matters, but he’s not actually a partner. Technically, he’s my employee.” Colt raised an eyebrow in question and she explained, “I bought the business from Thomas Redding when he was retiring and ready to sell. He mentioned that he had a grandson that was an accountant but was just out of school. I had only been here a few months when Scott contacted me and said that he would be interested in working here. Even though he was Thomas’ grandson, I didn’t want to take on a full partner until I knew that we would work well together.” She shrugged, and added, “He’s been doing great work and prefers doing the taxes, which is not my personal favorite. We haven’t talked about him becoming a full-fledged partner, yet, but I don’t see why that might not happen as long as things keep going well.”
Mitch rubbed his chin, his expression thoughtful for a moment, before walking over to close her office door. “Is there any benefit to him for you to not succeed?”
Rearing back in surprise, she tilted her head, and asked, “Not succeed? I don’t know what you mean.”
Aiden stepped closer again, standing right behind her, with his hands on her shoulders. “I think Mitch is asking if there is any reason why Scott would want you to leave Baytown or back away from the investigation.”
She twisted her head around to look up at him before glancing back to Mitch. Shaking her head, she said, “No. That wouldn’t make any sense. I’m being paid for the investigation, or rather, my accounting business is being paid for the investigation. For my firm to be financially stable, I need to have customers that pay. Scott’s on my payroll, just like Mrs. Markham. For him to want me to leave would be about as silly as Mrs. Markham wanting me to leave.”
Mitch nodded, and said, “Don’t worry about my questions, Lia. I just have to consider all possible avenues of inquiry.”
A knock sounded on the door and Colt turned around to open it. Grant was standing on the other side with Scott behind him. Grant said, “Mr. Redding has been through his office and reports that he doesn’t see anything that’s missing.”
Her shoulders slumped underneath Aiden’s fingers and he pulled her back tighter to his front. Looking at Mitch, he asked, “Do you want her to go through her files now?”
“The sooner, the better, but I know you probably want to get home to Emily.”
She sighed heavily, her mind racing with what she needed to do. “I’m sure Emily will sleep for another couple of hours. I could go through things now, and then go home to be there when she gets up. Then I can take her to school and come straight back. I just want to be here before Mrs. Markham gets in, because I’m sure this is going to upset her.”
Scott’s eyes landed on her, and he offer
ed, “If you want to get home to Emily, I can come back early and be here when Mrs. Markham first gets here. We’ll also need to get someone in to repair the door. I don’t mind handling that as well.”
She nodded in appreciation and said, “That’d be great Scott. I’ll look at things quickly right now, but will leave to get home to Emily soon.”
Mitch looked at Scott, and added, “I will ask that you not move any of Lia’s files. I need her to make sure she knows what is here and what might’ve been taken.”
She looked up, and said, “I can let you know right now that, if they were looking for anything to do with my investigation into the town’s finances, they wouldn’t have found it here.” That statement had Mitch, Colt, Grant, and Scott pinning their gazes on her. She explained, “I planned on working on that at home, so those files were in my locked briefcase along with my laptop. So, if someone was in here looking for that, it was a waste of their time.”
Later that day, after Emily was safe at school, Lia went back to her office. She had been able to warn Mrs. Markham of the events that transpired before she got in so when she arrived she, once she got over her shock, immediately jumped in to begin straightening up. Scott had procured someone to come replace the door and she was grateful that he was able to do so quickly, not wanting to draw untoward attention to what had happened on the inside.
She went through all of her files, finding everything that should have been there was, and Mrs. Markham came in to help her reorganize them before placing them back into the file credenza. It was lunchtime before she knew it, and her office was descended upon by Jillian, Katelyn, Belle, and Tori. Not surprised her friends had heard, she gratefully accepted the food they brought by.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Jillian said, opening the containers of sandwiches, “when Grant told me this morning what had happened. What the hell was someone looking for?”
She did not answer at first, too busy chewing her bite of sandwich and then gulping from her cup of sweet tea. Blushing, she replied, “Sorry. I didn’t realize how hungry I was!” The others chuckled and gave her a moment. Finally, she said, “The only thing I can figure is that someone really wants to hamper the town investigation. But who would have broken in here? I have no idea.”
Tori’s eyes narrowed, and she said, “But that wouldn’t stop the investigation. It would just mean that you’d have to start over, which would be a pain in the ass, but it wouldn’t stop it.”
Nodding, she agreed. “I’ve had two interesting visits recently. One from Mr. Scarsdale—”
Katelyn gasped. “The man running for mayor against Corwin?” She nodded again and Katelyn continued. “What the hell is he after?”
“My guess is that he’s trying to find some information that he could leak to the public before my investigation is finished. Something that would implicate the Mayor in some kind of wrongdoing. But I told him that I am unable to release any information about my investigation until it is complete and goes to the Town Council. At that point, it will be public information, but not before.”
Shaking her head, Belle said, “I had no idea small-town politics could be so vicious. I guess that’s just very naïve of me.”
She looked at her and offered a small smile. “It’s not just you, Belle. This has been a real shock to me, too.”
“Who was your other visitor?” Tori asked.
Wiping her hands on a napkin, she replied, “Our favorite town manager, Silas Mills.” At that, all four women groaned and she chuckled. “Yep. He, on the other hand, doesn’t want me to find anything that might harm Corwin’s chances for reelection.”
“So, what are you gonna do?” Jillian asked, folding up the remnants of the lunches and putting them back in the plastic bag.
“I’m going to keep doing my job,” she said. “I’ve got the police here in town and the Sheriff’s Department where I live keeping an eye on things. I’ve got Aiden staying overnight, so we’re safe.” She was quiet for a moment and the others let her gather her thoughts. Finally, she looked up and said, “It’s not the way I expected my relationship with Aiden to progress, and I guess it seems a little fast.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Katelyn quipped. “You and Emily are perfect for my brother and he appears to be right for you as well. If ever there was a good man who just needed a good woman, it’s him.”
She smiled, staring at Katelyn, and the others jumped in. “I’ve known Aiden my whole life,” Jillian said. “Katelyn said it perfectly. You two are meant for each other.”
“He’s so good with Emily,” she admitted. “It was hard to trust again after Carl, but Aiden has turned out to be the man for us.”
As her friends hugged her goodbye and left, she went back to work, finally with a smile on her face.
26
Aiden stood in Lia’s kitchen, heating the casserole that his mother sent over. He had picked Emily up from school and the two of them practiced batting in the backyard before coming inside so that he could get dinner ready.
Perched on one of the stools at the counter and asking lots of questions, she barely gave him a chance to answer before asking another one. “What was it like to grow up near the beach?”
“It was a lot of fun. Me and my friends would spend the summer on the beach or, when we wanted to get away from the girls, we had a boys-only hideout.”
“Why would you want to get away from the girls?”
Chuckling, he said, “Because sometimes the girls would get on our nerves. And we wanted to do guy things.”
“What kind of guy things?”
His chuckles turned into laughter as he tried to think of an answer. “Well, to be honest, I can’t really think of any right now. But when I was ten years old that seemed important.” Shrugging, he added, “But my sister, Katelyn, would climb trees and almost always find us.”
“What was it like having a brother and a sister?” she asked, her eyes wide as she stared at him.
“Most of the time it was really great, because I always had someone to play with. But, sometimes it was a pain to have an older brother always telling me what to do and a younger sister always wanting the attention.”
She grew quiet after that, her face contemplative. Scrunching her nose, she looked up at him again, and said, “Sometimes I get bored and wish that I had a little brother or sister, but my daddy died and Mama said that it takes a mama and daddy together to have a baby.” She was quiet for another moment, before startling him when she asked, “Do you think you and Mama will give me a little brother or sister?”
Stammering, he said, “Uh…well, um…I…you’ll have to ask your mom.”
“But you’ve kissed her. I’ve seen you kiss her. Don’t you want to make a baby with Mama?”
The room felt small as he tried to think of what Lia would want him to say. The idea of being settled, much less being married and becoming a father, had been a far-flung idea until he met Lia and Emily. Now, no longer afraid of those new roles, he actually looked forward to that possibility. But considering that he and Lia had not spoken of that yet, he was terrified of saying the wrong thing to Emily.
Much to his relief, he heard the front door open and close. Looking toward Emily, he said, “Your mom is home.”
In typical little girl fashion, she jumped off the stool and ran toward the front door, her arms waving in the air to greet her mother. Leaning against the counter, Aiden blew out his breath, grateful for the reprieve. A moment later, Lia walked into the kitchen with Emily and moved straight to him. She reached up to give him a kiss but, taking in his expression, stopped short, cocking her head to the side in question.
Leaning down, he kissed her lightly, aware that Emily was staring at them with a wide smile on her face. Whispering so only Lia would hear, he said, “Little ones have big questions. We’ll talk later.”
Her eyes widened and she glanced down at her daughter before looking back up at him. Grinning, she nodded before turning her attention to the casserole
sitting on the counter. “That smells amazing,” she said, diverting Emily’s attention. “Since Aiden fixed our dinner, why don’t we set the table?”
Later that night, as Lia tucked Emily into bed, Emily asked, “Are you and Aiden going to get married?”
“Uh…,” she stammered. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I want a new baby brother or sister. One of my friends at school, her mom just got married and is gonna have a baby. So, since you and Aiden kiss, I thought you would get married, too.”
“Emily, sweetheart, I do like Aiden a lot and I’m glad that you like him also. But we just started seeing each other not too long ago. For people to consider marriage, they should get to know each other really well.”
Emily’s nose wrinkled as she pondered that. “Are you going to keep getting to know him really well?”
She could not keep the grin from her face. “Yes, I think so. And, hopefully, he wants to keep getting to know us as well.”
Emily seemed satisfied with that answer and slid down in bed. She tucked her in tightly, bending over to kiss her forehead. “Sweet dreams, baby.”
Just as she walked to the door and flipped off the light, Emily said, “Mama? I’m glad you like Aiden. If you want to marry him, it’s okay with me. I’d like him to be my daddy.”
The air rushed from her lungs and tears stung the back of her eyes. Other than talking about her dad having gone to heaven, Emily had not said much about not having a father. Carl was a memory to Emily, a face she most likely only remembered because of the photographs placed in frames on her dresser. Blowing her a kiss, she walked out, shutting the door behind her.
She only made it about halfway down the stairs before her legs gave out from under her. Plopping down, she dropped her head to her knees.
Aiden heard Lia begin her descent, but after a few minutes she still had not made it to the living room. Walking to the bottom of the stairs, he observed her sitting halfway up. “Babe? Are you okay?” He hurried up and sat next to her, wrapping his arm around her. “What’s wrong?”
Hear My Heart: Baytown Boys Page 20