Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Cindi Myers

  “Audra told me she caught your wife going through her desk.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” He pulled out his wallet.

  “Do you think your wife would do something like that?”

  He counted out bills and laid them on the table. “Look, Jana is a great person. She loves kids, and she loves teaching. She was pretty torn up about having to leave her day care center behind when we moved here.”

  “Why did you move here?”

  “This job is a tremendous opportunity for me. TDC is huge, and this was a big promotion for me, not to mention a big pay increase. Jana’s business was profitable, but only barely. It didn’t make sense to stay in Kentucky and pass up a chance like this.”

  “So she took the job with Canyon Critters.”

  “Yeah. She has all this experience, and she loves kids. But it’s been hard on her. Audra is pretty young, and she’s not interested in hearing advice from someone like Jana. But Jana can’t help wanting to give advice. I thought things would settle down after a while, but I guess they didn’t.”

  “I heard your wife was awarded the contract for the new day care center,” Hud said. “The one that was initially given to Audra.”

  “I’m not even going to comment on that.” He slid out of the booth. “I really do have to go now.”

  Hud finished his Coke, thinking about their conversation. Larry Keplar had moved across the country to take a better-paying job with TDC. He had a wife who resented the move, and probably a bigger mortgage on top of that. He depended on his paycheck, and he depended on TDC for that paycheck. That hadn’t stopped him from going against Mitch Ruffino’s orders not to talk to law enforcement, but it had made him nervous and not inclined to dig very deep into the mystery of that security footage.

  As for Jana’s clash with Audra, maybe it had nothing to do with TDC. Coincidences happened all the time in real life, one of the things that made solving real crimes tougher than they usually were on TV.

  * * *

  AUDRA SAT AT her desk and read the article someone had anonymously forwarded to her, a story from the local newspaper’s website. Successful Daycare Operator from Kentucky Awarded New Contract for School Facility, declared the headline. The article announced that Jana Keplar, former owner of Sunshine Kids Daycare in Paducah, Kentucky, had been awarded the contract to operate a day care and preschool on Montrose School District’s Canyon Creek Elementary campus. “I’m excited for this opportunity to bring a truly top-tier facility to local families,” Mrs. Keplar said.

  More paragraphs followed detailing Jana’s experience, with no mention of her former association with Canyon Critters Daycare, and no mention of Audra Trask. Audra supposed she ought to be thankful for that.

  She closed the file, then squeezed her eyes shut against a fresh flood of tears. Despite the brave front she had put on for Hud, she was struggling not to sink into depression. This morning, after Hud left for work, she had lain in bed, thinking about the days when she could just take a pill and zone out. For a few seconds, the idea had been very tempting.

  But she was never going to do that again. She was going to be strong and fight her way through this.

  How would her dad handle this? He had been her role model for most of her life, more so than her mother, even. What would he do now?

  She hesitated only a moment before she booted up her computer. When it was ready, she looked up a phone number, then punched it into her phone. “TDC Enterprises,” a man answered.

  “I need to speak to Mitch Ruffino,” she said. “This is Audra Trask.” She was going to arrange a meeting with Ruffino and have it out with him, face-to-face. She could almost hear her father speaking in her head. “When you need to address a problem, skip the middleman and go straight to the top.”

  * * *

  MITCH RUFFINO HAD always impressed Audra as the sort of man who was so concerned with the impression he was making and so focused on always asserting his power that he could never unbend or so much as crack a smile with anyone he felt was beneath him. At the few TDC functions she had attended with her dad, Ruffino had kept himself apart from the others, a ruler overseeing his subjects, watchful for any missteps or slights he might pounce on. Now that she faced him in his office, she saw nothing to change the opinion of him.

  She made a point of looking him in the eye and returning scorn for scorn. She had spent her young life disabusing people of the notion that she was weak merely because she was diminutive.

  “So you’re Dane Trask’s daughter.” Ruffino looked her up and down. “You don’t look anything like him.”

  She had her father’s eyes and chin, if not his stature. And she had his obstinacy. She also had a taste for risk that, while it had gotten her into trouble more than once, in this situation might come in handy. She ignored the chair Ruffino gestured to and stood in front of his desk, her hands resting lightly on this barrier between them. “You and your company have harassed me enough,” she said. “You need to stop right now or I’ll be forced to take action.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, and his nostrils flared. She watched, the way she might watch a snake, ready to leap out of the way before it struck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruffino said.

  “I’m talking about the private detective you hired to dig into my private life,” she said. “Mr. Salazar.”

  He had schooled his emotions enough not to react to this, but he shoved back from the desk and stood also. “You can’t come in here threatening me.”

  “I just wanted to deliver that message. I’ll leave now.” She turned and headed for the door.

  “Stop!”

  She halted, but didn’t turn. His feet shuffled on the thick carpet until he was standing in front of her. “Don’t go,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

  All graciousness now, he led her to a seating area to the left of the desk, a low sofa and two chairs with a glass-and-steel coffee table. He took the sofa and she sat on the edge of one of the chairs, her purse in her lap. She had a can of pepper spray in there, one her father had given her a couple of years ago, when she’d moved into her own place. She didn’t even know if it was any good anymore. Did things like that expire? Mainly, she hoped she wouldn’t need to use it.

  “Tell me what you want,” Ruffino said.

  “I told you. I want you to leave me alone,” she said. “And leave my father alone. Stop lying about him stealing that money. And stop this ridiculous lawsuit. A judge is just going to throw it out anyway.” She was taking risks again, but she was here, so why not go for broke? Her father had also taught her to always ask for what she wanted. If people said no, you really weren’t any worse off than you had been before.

  Ruffino’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know your father didn’t steal that money?”

  “Because he wouldn’t. He didn’t need money.”

  “Everyone needs money. You really are naive if you think they don’t.”

  “My father didn’t need more of your money. He made a good salary in his job, and he didn’t have any debts.”

  “That you’re aware of.”

  She shook her head. She really knew very little about her father’s financial situation, but she knew his character. “Right now he’s living in the wilderness, eating campers’ leftovers,” she said. “Does that sound to you like a man who cares a great deal about money?”

  “No. That sounds like a desperate man. Possibly a deranged one.”

  She didn’t argue; rather, she stood again. “I’ve told you what I want, so I’ll leave now. I know you’re a busy man.”

  “You won’t leave until I’m ready. Sit down.”

  She started to ask if he was going to sit on her to keep her from going, but decided against that. Instead, while she didn’t sit, she waited. Something else her father had taught her—don’t rush to fill a silence. Other people will
often tell you things if you wait.

  Ruffino didn’t disappoint. “That little school of yours,” he began. “I’m sure you could use money to expand and grow.”

  She looked at him, still silent.

  “I see you know the value of not speaking,” he said. “That’s good. I’m willing to pay for you to continue to keep quiet.”

  Keep quiet about what? she wanted to ask. But that was the risk she had taken—the gamble that appeared to be paying off. Ruffino thought her father had revealed to her some secret he didn’t want anyone else to know. He was offering to pay her to keep quiet.

  “Talking to the wrong people could get a person in a lot of trouble,” she said vaguely.

  Ruffino’s scowl deepened. “And I’m telling you that not talking could make you a very rich young woman.”

  “Did you try making this offer to my father?” she asked.

  His expression didn’t change. “You strike me as much more intelligent than your father.”

  She took that to mean yes, he had tried to bribe her father, and Dane had turned down the money, or whatever else Ruffino had offered.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll take you up on your offer.” This was a risk, too. What was she going to do if he handed over a big stack of cash? Would that be enough proof for the police to move in?

  “You have to do something for me first,” Ruffino said.

  Her stomach rolled. “What’s that?”

  “You have to hand over the proof. Your father said he had proof hidden in a safe place. Obviously, he left it with you.”

  She swallowed hard. “How do I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain if I give you the proof?” she asked.

  He smiled, revealing surprisingly white teeth. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Given everything Larry Keplar told me, I think it’s possible that Mitch Ruffino staged that break-in at TDC headquarters in order to add to the urgency of finding Dane Trask, and so that he could quiz us about what we know about Trask and his relationship with TDC.” Hud concluded his summary of his interview with Keplar to his fellow Rangers half an hour after he parted company with Keplar.

  “Ruffino isn’t the man in that video footage,” Beck said. “That guy is taller and thinner than Ruffino.”

  “I think he hired someone to break in, but I think Ruffino set it all up,” Hud said. “He would have known—or could have found out—how to make the visitor’s key, and he could have given the guy a device to interfere with the security cameras at the entrances, elevators and hallways. He could have smeared something on the camera lens in the file room and wiped it off later. And he was the one who made the decision not to call in the Montrose sheriff and to wait all day, until any trace evidence would have been obliterated, before calling us.”

  “The biggest thing that stands out to me is that, while the intruder made a show of looking through the files, he wasn’t actually looking for anything,” Redhorse said. “He didn’t turn on a light, and he only made a cursory search.”

  “Why even bother with paper files?” Dance asked. “I would think anything important at a business like TDC would be on the computer.”

  “They have paper copies of a lot of signed contracts, surveys and land plats,” Hud said. “But even then, I don’t think they would keep anything incriminating or valuable in a file room that is accessed every day by dozens of people. Which is another reason this whole thing was a ploy to try to find out what we know.”

  “Ruffino is worried about something,” the commander said. “How do we find out what?”

  “Dane Trask knows something,” Dance said. “I don’t know why he doesn’t come right out and tell us.”

  A knock on the door of the conference room interrupted them. “Come in,” Commander Sanderlin said.

  Stacy, one of the civilian employees, came in. “Audra Trask is here to see you, Officer Hudson,” she said. “I told her you were in a meeting and she said the commander should probably hear what she has to say also.”

  “Send her in,” Sanderlin said.

  A few moments later, Audra entered the room. Before she spoke, Hud could tell she was agitated. Her eyes were bright, her color heightened. “I just came from a meeting with Mitch Ruffino,” she said. “He tried to bribe me. He thinks my father gave me some kind of evidence relating to TDC Enterprises—something Ruffino doesn’t want made public.”

  Hud stared at Audra, trying to absorb what she had just said. “You went to see Ruffino?” he asked, aware of the anger behind his words but unable to stop himself. “By yourself?”

  She raised her chin, defiant though pale, and in that moment his love for her hit him like a punch to the gut. Everything she had endured these past few weeks would have sent a lot of people hiding under the covers, but she was still fighting, refusing to give in. “Somebody leaked the information about my battle with addiction,” she said. “Somebody hired that private investigator to look into my background. TDC has been doing everything they can to discredit my father, so it’s not unrealistic to believe they’re going after me now—maybe as a way to get to my dad. One of the things my father taught me, way back when I was struggling with bullying, was to turn and confront my tormentor. It throws them off guard and forces them to face their actions. And it lets them know you’re not going to let them get away with what they’re doing.”

  “So you decided to confront Ruffino.” Sanderlin spoke, and Audra turned toward him.

  “He’s in charge of TDC’s operations here, and he was my father’s boss,” she said.

  “Why don’t you sit down.” Beck stood and pulled out a chair for her. Hud wished he had thought of it first.

  Audra sat, purse in her lap. She was still pale, but composed.

  “I think we should get your statement on record,” Sanderlin said. He nodded to Dance, who went to a corner cabinet and started the recording equipment. Sanderlin recited the date and time and introduced Audra as the speaker. Then he turned to her. “All right. Tell us everything that happened.”

  She looked around the table at each person, ending her survey with Hud, her gaze steady and, he thought, pleading with him to listen and not be angry. He forced himself to relax and nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “We want to hear what you have to say.”

  “If you’ve seen the papers, you probably know that someone leaked a story about my having struggled with drug addiction in the past,” she began. “It was an addiction to prescription painkillers, and I went into rehab and haven’t had any problems since. So, old news, obviously put out there to hurt me and, I believe, to hurt my father. I already knew someone had hired a private detective to look into my background, and I suspected it was TDC Enterprises, since they’ve kept up a stream of bad publicity about my father since he disappeared. Then, probably as a result of that publicity, I lost the contract with the school district for the new day care center and preschool that’s supposed to share a campus with the new elementary school. TDC is building that school, and I suspect they have some influence with the district. Rumor has it they gave the district a big price break on construction costs. Then, Officer Hudson showed me a child’s drawing that was found at a site on public land where someone illegally dumped construction debris. I remembered seeing one of my students with that drawing at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new school. That linked TDC to the illegal dump site—which was also the place where Roy Holliday died.” She paused and took a deep breath. “And then someone shot at me and Officer Hudson when we visited the dump site. At first I was terrified, then I was angry. Everything kept coming back to TDC. So I called the vice president of the company, Mitch Ruffino, and asked to meet with him. He agreed right away, which I guess was my first clue that something was up.”

  She took a sip of water from the cup Hud had slid over to her. No one else said anything, all eyes on her. Hud could t
hink of a lot of things he wanted to say—he wanted to tell her what a risk she had taken, going to TDC. If everything she believed about them was true, confronting them could have put her life in danger. It might still have. But he forced himself to keep quiet. The damage was done, and he recognized the bravery that went along with her foolishness. Maybe this would help them break open this tough case.

  “Have you found out anything else about the person who shot at us at the dump site?” she asked.

  “They didn’t leave anything behind that’s helped us identify them,” Dance said. “And TDC still denies they had anything to do with the construction debris dumped there. The drawing is a pretty tenuous link, since the argument could be made that it was dropped by the child somewhere else.”

  “We’ve had people at the site around the clock since then and haven’t had any incidents,” Redhorse said.

  “What happened at the meeting?” Sanderlin prompted.

  “We met in Ruffino’s office at TDC. I told him I wanted him to stop harassing me,” she said. “At first, he tried to deny that he’d done so. But when I told him if he didn’t stop the harassment, I’d take action, his attitude changed.”

  “What kind of action?” Dance asked.

  “I meant legal action, but I think Ruffino thought I meant something else,” she said. “When I tried to leave his office, he told me not to go. Then he offered to pay me to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Shut about what?” Sanderlin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Audra said. “But I didn’t tell him that. I played along. I told him I knew talking to the wrong people could make trouble for him. He said if I kept quiet, I could be a very rich woman.”

  “Did he offer a specific amount?” Redhorse asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I asked him if he made my father the same offer, but he didn’t answer. I took that to mean yes, he had tried to bribe my dad. Maybe he’d threatened him, too, and that’s why my dad felt he had to disappear.”