Deadly Lies

by Mary Stone

  His head was starting to hurt. “You’re right, I don’t need protection. I’m fine. What’s important now is that we protect you.”

  She rolled her eyes. It only annoyed him. She’d done the same when he warned her about the serial killer.

  “Kylie. Don’t. Someone murdered that guy, and you could be next. Don’t take this lightly.”

  She stiffened. “I’m not a total idiot,” she mumbled, picking up the printout in front of her again. She didn’t look at him. “And, for the record, did Jacob also tell you that Nate Jennings was into some shady stuff, so his murder might not have anything to do with me? The timing could be purely coincidental.”

  Bullshit. He could tell from the way she avoided his eyes that she didn’t believe that for a second.

  “Yeah, but you can’t be too careful. I think…” He stopped. He hadn’t planned on bringing this up, but what the hell. It made the most sense. “I think you should move in with me.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  She sank into her chair, but the mulish expression returned. “I’m not moving in with you so you can put a leash on me like one of your dogs.”

  He didn’t think she could have said anything that would have pissed him off more. “I would never do that. If you want to protect me and I want to protect you, living together makes sense.”

  She popped back up and walked around the desk, stopping only a foot in front of him. “How does it make sense? You don’t want me sleeping with you, but now you want me to move in? You don’t call me for days, but now you want me to move in? You push me away with your words, but you want me to move in? You—”

  He held up both hands. “I get it, and yes, I still want you to move in. It’s for your protection.”

  Her eyes shone with defiance. “You don’t get to protect me if I’m not allowed to protect you. Those are the rules.”

  Turning on her heel, she marched away, not stopping until the bathroom door clicked closed behind her.

  Dammit. He should’ve known she’d make this hard. Hell, he should have known that he’d screw up the invitation.

  He sat down in her chair, elbows on the desk, head in his hands, over that stack of papers. He couldn’t not look at it. It was a stack of financials. Photocopies of checks to various public arts entities. Charitable donations, it appeared. These must have been the financial records for the client she was working for. He knew it was confidential information, so he attempted to look away, but not before he saw a familiar logo on the top of each check copy. He’d seen that elegant, frilly script a million times.

  It was the Coulter and Associates logo.

  Linc sat up. Rubbed his eyes. Pushed away from the desk and walked to the window. Vader perked up, came over, and licked his hand. Instead of a SAR dog, the big Newfoundland should be trained as a comfort animal. He had the instincts.

  He petted his big head, trying to breathe, not turning when the bathroom door opened again. In the reflection of the window, he could see Kylie pulling on her long sweater coat, grab a stack of the papers and force them into the giant purse she was carrying.

  After she disconnected her phone from the charging cord, he finally turned to face her. “You mind telling me why my father’s company is on those papers?”

  She froze. Lifting her gaze to meet his, she pressed her lips together. “I’m going through a number of possibilities, Linc.”

  “Wait.” He dragged a hand down his face and tried to connect the dots. She wasn’t saying it, but it was written on her face. “Are you investigating my father’s company for something?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Right now, I’m just gathering facts and—”

  He snorted. “So, do you think my father killed your client’s grandson?” He said it with sarcasm, but he watched her closely for a reaction. Surely she didn’t think his father, asshole that he was, would do something like that.

  “No! Of course not!” Her face had transformed into a splotchy red. “I’m attempting to follow the money trail, Linc, and the only way I can do that is by looking through financial records…which your father’s company possesses.” She waved a hand at the pile.

  “What have you learned so far?”

  She sighed. “Not much. As you can see, there are stacks upon stacks for me to go through.”

  Linc strode to the desk, picked up a pile.

  Kylie narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to help you sort through all this.”

  Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again, but nothing came out. He’d have to mark the calendar. He’d stunned her into silence.

  Or was it something else…?

  He leaned his hip against the desk. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She opened her mouth again. Silence. Long moments of silence.

  “Are you trying to protect me again?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded, then quickly shook her head, regaining the power of speech. “No, of course not. I—”

  He turned toward the door. “Good, then it’s settled, I’ll help you.”

  “Linc!”

  He was smiling as he strode outside, Vader on his heels.

  The smile fell away when she grabbed his arm, pulling so hard he almost lost his grip on the paperwork. With the cool breeze that had kicked up, it would have sucked trying to chase them down.

  “Linc, stop.”

  He turned to her. “Kylie, listen to me. Your embezzlement case just turned into a murder case, and somehow, big or small, my father is involved. I’ll go out of my mind if I don’t help you. Do you get that?”

  She let out a breath. “But—”

  “If you want to protect me, move in with me and let me help you. It’s only fair. He’s my father.”

  She nodded, but it was with clear reluctance. “Fine. I guess that makes sense. I just didn’t want you finding out something that might hurt you.”

  He gritted his teeth. Did she really think he was made of glass?

  “Jesus, Lee. I’m not twelve. I won’t be hurt. I’ll be pissed. And if he is doing something, which I highly doubt, I want to be the first to know about it.”

  “Okay. Well,” she held up the pile, “maybe I should go to my apartment and get a couple changes of clothes?”

  He took a step closer to her. “That’s a good start. But I’m starving. Maybe we could stop in at the Chinese place on the corner and start working through some of this paperwork first?”

  She smiled and raised her hand to his cheek. “Chinese sounds good.”

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  She pulled his head down until their lips almost touched. “And I’ll protect you right back.”

  31

  Kylie felt better, working with Linc.

  After the love note she’d gotten on the window of her car, she’d thought about giving up. Once again, she had some criminal stalking her, threatening her, possibly wanting her dead. The first time, she’d ended up shot. So Linc was right. She needed to be careful.

  And she felt a thousand times safer with him by her side.

  Not to mention, she’d get through all this work faster with his help.

  She was calling it a win-win.

  Except the whole “move in with me” situation. Was he serious? Was he thinking temporarily or on a more permanent basis? Either way, it was a huge step, one she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to make. As scared as she sometimes was since the Spotlight Killer broke into her home, she still valued her little solitary corner of the world, a place that was hers and hers alone.

  The China Palace was nearly empty when they walked in. It’d just started drizzling, so they shook the raindrops out of their hair as the hostess seated them at a table in the corner. They didn’t even look at the menu. They both ordered chicken teriyaki and egg rolls.

  Kylie sipped her iced tea and rubbed her hands together, preparing to dig into
the load of work in front of them. As she divvied up the stack of papers, she realized Linc was watching her curiously. He tented his hands under his chin and said, “So?”

  She smiled. “Are you thinking I’m a mind reader now? So…what?”

  “Nothing. I just know you and Jacob have been talking. And clearly, you’ve been talking to my family too.” His lips curved in amusement that seemed genuine. “It’s like you’re more involved with my friends and family than I am. I figure you can fill me in on what I’m missing, so I won’t have to actually interact with anyone ever again.”

  She laughed. “You’d love that, huh? It’s not my fault you’re a grouchy old miser!”

  He smirked at her. “Would you please stop calling me old.”

  Her grin grew wider. “Your people aren’t half bad. Jacob’s great, your mother is a sweetheart, and…”

  His eyebrows shot up to his hairline when she paused. “And my dad?”

  Kylie cleared her throat. “Well…”

  “Still a bloodsucker?” He leaned forward. “Did you talk to him at his office?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No. He was too important for me.” She made a face like the Bitch on High had made at her.

  He let out a snort of disgust. “That’s where I would’ve come in handy. If I told him you were coming, he would’ve made time for you.”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “Really? He hates you. Well, at least he doesn’t seem to respect much about your life choices, so it surprises me that he would go out of his way.”

  He leaned back in his seat, looking a bit surprised. “I’m his son.”

  “Well, he hates me, then. After that dinner.” Kylie sighed, thinking of the way he’d looked at her across the dining room table. She’d always believed that no one could make her feel inferior without her consent, but he had a way of making her feel as worthy as an inchworm. “I don’t know what it is about him, but when I think of him, I feel…speechless.”

  “Holy shit. You…speechless? Really? I don’t believe it.” He winked at her. “Come on, Lee. He’s just a guy. He would’ve been happy to meet with you.”

  Happy was probably a strong word where Jonathan Coulter was concerned. She didn’t even see him getting mildly amused. “Well. It doesn’t matter. I did talk to his assistant’s assistant, Dustin Weiss. That’s where all the printouts came from.”

  “Dustin Weiss?” Linc scratched at his jaw. “Must be new.”

  “He was very helpful. And the best part about it was that I didn’t have to deal with your dad.”

  “Wow. You really have a problem with him, don’t you? I never thought I’d see the fearless Kylie Hatfield intimidated by a man.”

  She felt her cheeks heating. “He’s not just a man. I don’t know what it is. Maybe that he’s your dad, and a successful fixture in this town. Or that we really didn’t hit it off during our first meeting. But I’ll admit it. He turns me into a pile of nerves.”

  “Probably doesn’t help much that you’re investigating him for…” he gestured to the papers, “something.”

  “Right. That too.”

  He shook his head. “Well. Next time, as long as he’s not getting cuffs slapped on him, we’ll get together and I’ll prove to you he isn’t a demon. Just a flesh and blood man with a wickedly sharp tongue. How about that?”

  Kylie smiled. She was glad Linc had a bit of his sense of humor back. It’d been a while since she’d seen it. “That sounds good. Thanks.”

  “Great.” He checked his phone and pointed to the top paper. “We’d better start looking this stuff over. I have a SAR training session at my house at eight.”

  She glanced at the clock. That gave them just over an hour.

  They each started to go through their piles while also digging into their food. They were mostly silent until Linc straightened and tapped on a paper. “That’s interesting.”

  She perked up. Her eyes were about crossed by then. “What is?”

  He was looking at the stack of checks from The Asheville Foundation, an artist’s colony for underprivileged young people. “Well, your client has been contributing to this charity since 1999, and every year, the amount she donated grew substantially. Then without warning, about seven months ago, the checks stopped.”

  “Stopped?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Cold.”

  She flipped through her stack, looking to see if any of the foundation’s paperwork had been misfiled. “That is interesting because Emma said she never authorized cutting off contributions to any of the charities she supported.”

  Linc ran his finger down a column. “The money’s been disappearing from her accounts, but it hasn’t been going to where it’s supposed to be going.”

  He lifted his cell phone from his pocket and started to punch in a number.

  “Who are you calling?” she asked.

  “This Asheville Foundation,” he mouthed.

  She was about to tell him that the place would surely be closed when he held up a finger. “Hello? Yes. This is Mr. Coulter with Coulter and Associates, and I’m working on records for Emma Jennings’s charitable donations.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling, listening. “Yes…Yes…I did what? Okay.”

  She watched the confusion dawning on his face and tapped the table. “What?”

  He covered the mouthpiece and said, “Supposedly, the checks stopped coming, and when it was questioned, some paperwork from my dad’s company was forwarded to them, officially ending the relationship.”

  “Paperwork? Can they email it to me?”

  “They will probably only email an official Coulter and Associates email address.”

  Kylie tapped her fingers on the table. “Would they fax it to Emma?”

  He shrugged. “Yes, thank you.” He was speaking into the phone again and motioning for her to write the number down. She flipped through her notepad, found the number and turned the book toward Linc. “Yes. If you could fax it to Mrs. Jennings, that would be helpful.” He stared at the notepad. “Yes, that’s the correct number.”

  Once he’d disconnected the call, he looked both excited and dismayed. “Let’s go through and find out how many other organizations had their relationship end with Mrs. Jennings about the same time.”

  They spent the next fifteen minutes putting together a stack of organizations, five in all, whose checks stopped coming in the first quarter of the year. They were some of her smaller charitable donations, but the amount was significant, at least $750,000 in total. To someone like Emma, that was probably a drop in the bucket, but to anyone else…it was big money.

  “I wonder if whoever took the money thought she wouldn’t notice it was gone?” Kylie asked, finishing up her iced tea.

  “That’s exactly what this person is thinking,” he said with a confidence she agreed with. “Now, we need to get our hands on that fax.”

  Kylie smiled. “That part is easy. Emma has a fax to email system, and guess who has the password to her email?”

  Linc grinned, although he still looked troubled. Pushing to his feet, he pulled his wallet from his pocket and paid for their meal. “Let’s go.”

  As they walked back to her office, Vader started to bark from the storefront window of Starr Investigations, looking highly offended to have been left behind. She hoped he hadn’t torn up everything.

  She opened up the door again, and he licked and jumped, as if he hadn’t just seen them an hour before.

  “Whoa, boy,” Linc said as he assaulted them, not letting them through the door. “Calm yourself.”

  Kylie was the one who needed calming. She raced to her laptop, nearly tripping over the trash can in her rush.

  Booting it up took forever, and she was ready to scream by the time she logged into Emma’s email account.

  There it was. She clicked on the attachment and printed it off.

  As Linc continued to quiet Vader, he said, “The next thing would be to find out who touched your client’s financials. Starting with whoever
sent them that notice ending all the contributions. You said she was a little absentminded. Are you sure she didn’t just forget?”

  “If she did, then where did the money go to?” Kylie reasoned. “Can you get that light? Behind the coffee maker?”

  He flipped it on, and Kylie had to blink to get her eyes adjusted to the light. It was a two-page document on Coulter and Associates letterhead. She read over all of the legal mumbo-jumbo, then flipped to the second page to see who’d signed the order.

  She gnawed on her lip.

  “What?” Linc grumbled, coming over to her side.

  She held up the page to him. “I guess the person we have to start with is your dad. He signed these papers.” She pointed to the second page. “This is his signature, right?”

  He stared at it. “Looks like it. Shit.” He let out a tired sigh. “Shit. What the—”

  “Linc…” she started gently.

  He waved her off. “I can’t deal with this now. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to miss my SAR class. Let me take you back to your place to grab a few things.”

  “No need. My car is just down the block. I can meet you at your place later.”

  He looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

  “For the last time, yes. I have Vader. I’ll be okay. You go ahead.”

  He nodded, his face drawn, looking ready to argue.

  Kylie folded the fax and tucked it in with the rest of the papers. “Look. It doesn’t have to mean that he’s involved. A number of things could’ve happened that your father knew nothing about. We just have to figure it out.”

  He leaned on the edge of the desk and stroked his chin. “Very few things go on under the Coulter and Associates umbrella that my father doesn’t know about. I guarantee you he even knows that you were there today, even if you didn’t see him personally.”

  She blinked. “Really?”

  Linc walked her to the Mazda and gave her a kiss on her hairline. “I don’t want to lord over you, Lee,” he said gently. “I just want you to be safe.”