He laughed and cast a shy glance at the floor. “It can’t be both?”
“Stop smiling,” she demanded, unamused. “You’re making it worse.”
His smile widened. Then he did the thing men do where they open their mouths and ruin everything. “Amanda caught you going through Wes’s office.” His raised eyebrows invited an explanation.
Abashed, Sadie took a deep breath. “You’re clearly not looking into him as a suspect. What harm is there in me poking around?”
His face grew solemn, the smile but a remnant. This was Blake the audit director. “A good deal of harm can come from a vigilante approach. If I were interested in you as the embezzler, I’d have to consider you planted any evidence I happened to find. You have motive, and now you’ve had opportunity. I don’t believe it, but Mrs. Avery’s not interested in my gut feelings. It’s even more difficult to take you seriously since you and Wes are pointing the finger at each other.”
Her hand shot up. “Hold on, hold on. I thought this was all hush-hush.”
Blake shrugged. “I made an executive decision.” The lines of his face seemed to morph into granite as his gaze hardened. “Sadie, my personal feelings aside, I’m warning you. Do not impede my investigation. You’ll make yourself look guilty and, by my favoritism, you’ll implicate me as well. I wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Avery to believe I’d shield you if I thought you were responsible.”
The suggestion stunned her. “You wouldn’t do that.”
The granite softened, but his steady stare became more intense, like a fire burned behind his green-gold irises. “Truthfully? I don’t know what I wouldn’t do for you, Sadie.”
Chapter 14
Sadie stood, wineglass held aloft like a queen’s scepter, and addressed her subjects. “No judgment, no harassment, no rude remarks, and the first person to call me a home-wrecker gets the boot.” She glared expectantly from Kennedy to Nina. “Are we clear?”
They glanced at one another before looking back at Sadie and nodding, Kennedy’s obviously perfunctory agreement accompanied by an eye roll.
May they roll right out of your face. Sadie smirked as she took her seat. “Now, I need help.”
Kennedy nodded enthusiastically at this, stopping only to sip her wine. “Bet your ass you do.”
Irritated, Sadie snapped back at her. “Oh, shut it. I’m so tired of your crappy judgmental attitude. Blake likes me. Get the hell over it already.”
Nina sat forward, the hand not holding a wineglass held up in a placating gesture. “Come on, girls. This is our relaxation night. If you’re going to argue, I’m going home.”
Sadie inhaled and exhaled, counting as she did so. “I am only asking for my friends”—she glared at Kennedy—“to give me some advice. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest about my feelings for Blake. He was all up Amanda’s butt, and your disapproval—yeah, I’m looking at you, Ken—was like a floor trap just waiting for me to take the next step. Besides, if I’d told you, it wouldn’t have mattered, because until recently, he refused to acknowledge his feelings.”
“Feelings,” Kennedy interjected pointedly, “he only grew because you insisted on forcing yourself into his life. All those outings, all that time spent together. Don’t deny you were hoping, Sadie. You want help? Have the stones to be honest.”
“Fine!” She threw her hands up. Wine sloshed over the rim and onto her wrist. She ignored it. “Fine, fine, fine. Yes, okay? Yes, I dared to hope. I dared to hope this really nice, funny, hot guy would like me. And now it seems he does, only he doesn’t.”
Nina and Kennedy wore identical confused expressions. Gathered brows, tilted heads, the whole shebang.
She knew how they felt. Disheartened, Sadie cooled down. “His entire relationship with Amanda was based on her likeness to Quinn. Physically, they’re strikingly similar. I saw a photo in Blake’s cabin, Quinn with Jack and her little girl, Maddie. It’s eerie how much they look alike. Same hair, same eyes. Poised and sophisticated, blah, blah, blah. Blake was so determined he was getting a second shot at the marriage he ruined years ago, he looked past every single flaw Amanda has. Meanwhile, all this time, he’s liked me. Sorry, Kennedy, I know how that bruises your damn ego. Anyway, I’m the new Quinn. If I sound bitter when I say that, it’s because I am.”
Nina shook her head sadly. “That’s so wrong I don’t know where to start.”
“Therapy?” Kennedy suggested.
“He’s finally decided to acknowledge this thing between us,” Sadie continued, “but I’m afraid he’s only in love with the traits I share with Quinn. What about the rest of me? What about my fears and my passions? My desires and how I like it in bed? That’s not stuff I’m going to have in common with Quinn, and if I get into something with Blake, and he…” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t deserve to go through what Amanda went through, where Blake suddenly realizes I’m my own person and ditches me for the next Quinn twin to cross his path.”
Nina frowned sympathetically and reached across to pat Sadie’s knee. “Hon, that’s ridiculous. Blake’s been hanging around you for months now. Surely, he knows you’re as different from his ex-wife as you are similar?”
“Yeah,” Kennedy added, “and wasn’t it your differences that kept him away to begin with?”
“I’m all for giving us a shot, but he whipped right past me, straight into the deep end.” She licked her lips and blinked back moisture. What the hell was this? Frustration, maybe. “It’ll never be easy for me. Every guy, every time. Maybe Blake doesn’t have some secret destructive habit or freakish fetish, but he’s definitely damaged goods.”
Kennedy inhaled in the way that told Sadie one of her big speeches was coming.
Sadie shot a hand up to stop her and closed her eyes. “No, Ken, I don’t need you to rail into me, okay? Obviously, in your eyes, I don’t deserve Blake for whatever reason, but I don’t need the abuse.”
Kennedy cleared her throat and leaned forward to set her wineglass on the coffee table. “Actually, Sadie, I was going to reprimand you for something else. I’ll do my best to be nice about it, but hear me out. All these guys—the dude in his van, the man with ankle monitor, the one with the drug problems—they all had reasons to be ashamed. I can’t imagine it would’ve been easy to come clean to you, a gorgeous, sleek, put-together accountant with her life all in order. With each one of them, as soon as you found out their dirty secrets, you bolted. Not one of them had enough of your heart to make you stick around. How do you know they weren’t trying? The guy on the ankle monitor was sober, right?”
“Not by choice,” Sadie responded drily, tossing back a large swallow of wine.
Kennedy kept it coming. “The dude living in his van might’ve been saving up for an apartment. The guy with a drug problem could’ve seen you as a positive influence to help him change his life around. But you take one look at these mighty flaws, and you’re done.”
Sadie shot up and marched toward the sink. She tossed the remainder of her wine down the drain and rinsed her glass. If she drank any more, it’d be too easy to launch herself at Kennedy and strangle her. “Awesome. It’s my fault they were all losers. Somehow, I’m not surprised you see it that way.” She turned around, arms braced on either side against the counter. “But you know what? They hid things from me and lied about it. They came to me broken, and it’s not asking too much to want someone whole for once. I didn’t owe any of them a second chance.”
Kennedy rolled her eyes again, this time flavored with a longsuffering groan. “Gah, you’re so freaking sensitive! I’m not saying it was your fault. I’m saying you obviously didn’t love them, genius. If you had, you wouldn’t have walked away. You’d have stayed and helped them work through their demons. Blake has a demon, too. Its name is Quinn. And you can either walk away from Blake because he’s damaged or help him excise the crap out of it.”
Sadie glared at Kennedy and chewed her bottom lip until it hurt. That was one way to look at
the situation. At least, she liked the idea of comparing the flawless, superlative Quinn to a demon.
“You think I love him?” she asked Kennedy quietly.
Nina regarded them with wide eyes, glancing from one to the other, like watching a tennis match.
Kennedy shrugged and relaxed into the sofa. “Probably, Sadie. You’ve mooned after him for months. You’ve heard his worst, and you’re still here, right? Still caring what he thinks, concerned he loves you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. If you don’t love him, you at least care about him, and that’s close enough to consider if the relationship is worth pursuing, right?” She sipped her wine almost nonchalantly.
Sadie recognized a vague apology, the merest suggestion of acceptance, in Kennedy’s spiel. “Kennedy, you’re a real pain in the ass to be friends with, you know it?”
Her best friend grinned. “I’m worth it, though.”
Nina held her glass up for a toast. “Since you brought the wine, I won’t argue. Now, since that’s finally over, anyone else interested in discussing the investigation?”
Sadie filled a plastic cup with water from the faucet and rejoined her friends.
It hadn’t taken long for word to spread once Blake had spilled the beans to Wes about the investigation. Friday afternoon, the office had been a veritable beehive of activity, everyone moving from group to group in a fevered gossip-fueled frenzy.
Nina leaned forward and lowered her voice as though they were still at work and might be overheard. “The shouting coming from Duncan’s office was like nothing I’ve ever heard in all my time at Avery & Thorp. I’ll tell you what. I’ve never seen Mr. Perry so red in the face. Blake, though, to his credit, hardly blinked. He explained himself so quietly, I couldn’t catch a word of it through the door. Your name came up plenty, though, Sadie. As did Wes’s.”
The embezzled funds didn’t concern Sadie, but Blake getting in trouble for showing favoritism toward her during an investigation made her ten shades of uneasy. “Mrs. Avery had intended to keep it quiet,” she explained. “But for some reason, Blake let it fly to Wes.”
Kennedy narrowed her eyes and pondered the floor. “I have a hard time believing it’s not a simple bookkeeping mistake. There’s no one I can imagine stealing from the firm. We’re all dedicated to our jobs. As for Amanda, the likely suspect, according to the gossip zooming about the office, tell me her motive, because I couldn’t find it with a magnifying glass and a map.”
Nina shook her head. “I certainly don’t envy Blake the task of finding out.”
Sadie cleared her throat. “Enough about that, then. Who else is wringing their hands over Wednesday’s announcement?”
Duncan told them all Friday morning to expect Mrs. Avery, as well as the elusive and not oft-seen Mr. Thorp, Wednesday afternoon to announce the next chief accountant.
The question drew sympathetic looks from her friends.
Sadie waved them off and wished she hadn’t dumped her wine. “I’m past it, guys. Really, it’s fine. I’ve had time to adjust. I’m not going to walk away from my career to avoid Wes. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, which is working hard and sticking to my five-year plan. Besides, it’s not like the Jackson branch is all Avery & Thorp have to offer. I’d accept a transfer if the opportunity came up. It’s cheaper to live in Alpine, anyway.”
Not that she’d be happy about the move. The action was in Jackson, but for her career, there was little she wouldn’t consider.
Oh, no, there I go sounding like Kira again. Me and my awful ambition.
Kennedy sighed. “At this point, I don’t care. I’m on okay terms with Wes. He’ll be so busy trying to fill Duncan’s shoes, I doubt he’ll have much time for being a tyrant.”
“Well, to show my professional aptitude in the face of adversity and disappointment, I’ve purchased a lovely bottle of cabernet sauvignon for the lucky victor,” Sadie disclosed haughtily. “Whoever he may be.”
Kennedy swirled the wine in her glass and grinned. “Wes hates red wine.”
Sadie smiled back. “I know.”
* * * *
Blake couldn’t be happier to see the backside of Pearl Harris, and not because of the view. Since Amanda had stormed his office to accuse him of lying about his three wives and numerous affairs, and he’d stupidly corrected her—just the one affair, thank you very much—he’d become the sworn enemy of Amanda and her horde of bookkeeping cronies.
Neither Opal nor Pearl interested him as suspects. Their authorization came directly from Amanda, and they were both devoted to her. If they managed access, they wouldn’t allow the trail to lead back to her. They’d have set someone else up for the fall. However, in the interest of fairness and keeping anyone from guessing which way his thoughts were leaning, he insisted on each employee visiting his office at least once for a benchmark interview.
Someone smart was behind this. And Blake had two people left to interview, both plenty intelligent if in different understandings of the word.
As Kennedy smartly entered his office and took a seat with a defiant lift to her chin and a steady gleam in her eyes, he didn’t doubt for a second her street smarts were above par.
“Kennedy.” He smiled warmly. “Just protocol. No need for the ’tude.”
She relaxed a smidge. “If you say so.”
Blake checked his notes. “First, what’s your highest clearance for accounts?”
She looked like she might argue but went along, answering gamely. “A level below yours, Mr. Cobb. I can move files from the main company holding to your personal inbox and print balance sheets but have no access to account details, and transaction sheets in my window are locked.”
Meaning she couldn’t change figures like the senior accountants were able to.
“There was a small window of time a few months back, early to mid-November, when Duncan’s office was left unattended.” He handed her a timetable he’d printed out, with the movements of a few other key employees for reference. “It was shortly after Duncan announced his resignation. Anything stand out to you during that time? You probably notice quite a bit from your view in the bookkeeping parlor.”
Kennedy took her time studying Blake’s carefully considered timetable.
No one seemed to be able to pin down the exact day this had all occurred. Duncan had no lunch meetings scheduled, and Nina hadn’t made a note of the broken coffeepot in her daily planner. Amanda always stayed in the office for lunch. The only shining detail was that Wes had stayed for the lunch hour, a rare occurrence.
Finally, Kennedy glanced at him with a small nod. “I do recall the day Wes stayed for lunch. I thought it was odd, because not only did he stay, but he didn’t eat. He skipped lunch altogether and hasn’t done it before or since. And yes, I was here that day, because we were still working through Henry’s old mess.” Her back straightened. “I worked quite a few lunches those first six weeks.”
Blake had to smile. “I know you did, Kennedy. Remind me to buy you a beer sometime.”
That seemed to pacify her. Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s all I can tell you, really. If Wes went upstairs, I didn’t catch him at it. Nina came and went, with a stack of manila file folders, getting copies made next door, since the copier kept acting up. Now”—she held up a lone finger—“Amanda did go up, but that’s standard procedure, since the hardcopy employee files are kept upstairs, and Mrs. Avery requires a physical copy of all payroll activities for auditing purposes. Government auditing,” she amended. “You know, IRS and tax stuff.”
“Sure.” Blake nodded. He made a note.
Catalina was his next visitor. It struck him he’d managed to completely ignore and avoid, without trying, the most attractive woman in the office. She looked like she’d been dipped in a vat of caramel. Her skin was honey-colored and flawless, with the apples of her cheeks resting high on sharply defined bones, and lips plumped perfectly and painted a dusky shade of mauve, brilliant and eloquent aga
inst her glowing skin. Her eyes were bright and golden, marked hazel by only the faintest specks of dark hunter green.
The very standard of beauty.
And yet, Blake preferred Sadie. He’d been a leg man most of his life, but there was something to be said for standing next to a short woman, who had to tilt her head back adorably to look up and meet his gaze. With the passage of winter, he’d discovered her eyes were the exact same shade as the dark snow that got plowed to the sides of the roads, darkened by dirt and road gravel. Not the most poetic description, but the shadowy gray matched her eyes near exactly.
Her hair, despite its similarity to Kira’s, seemed playful instead of severe, because of the strands she perpetually tucked behind her ears. She had a fullness to her face and a mean, lean body from her interesting and varied activities outside work. How would he ever keep up with her? Last week, she’d mentioned ice skating and rock climbing. His first thought had been to finagle himself an invitation to join her. He wanted to do it all. He didn’t want to miss a thing.
Catalina adjusted her blazer, and Blake focused on the matter at hand.
“This’ll only take a moment,” he assured her.
She smiled politely. “Shoot.”
Ten minutes later, Blake settled back into his chair and chewed on the end of his pen. Finally, a picture had begun to form. He hadn’t been looking in the right direction. All he could do now was hope he was wrong as he redirected his efforts toward a most unlikely suspect.
* * * *
The bookkeeping parlor pulsed with the frantic energy of every employee in the office crammed into the space. Most stood, while others, like Opal and Pearl, sat comfortably at their own desks.
Running the Numbers Page 19