An Unexpected Christmas Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Her relief was so heady she almost saw stars. It was business. Not health. “You’ve got some misplaced files?” she asked him. “You need me to do a paper trail to satisfy them?” Her Master’s in Business Administration had been a formal acknowledgment of her ability, but Tamara’s true skills, organization and thoroughness, were what had catapulted her to success in her field. If a paper trail existed, she’d find it. And then know how to better organize the process by which documents were collated so nothing got lost again.

  Her father’s chin jutted out as he shook his head. “I wish it was missing files. Turns out that someone’s been siphoning money from the company for over a year. And I’m not sure it’s stopped. If it continues, I could lose everything.”

  Okay. So, not good news. Also not imminent death. Anything that wasn’t death was fixable.

  “I need your help, Tam,” Howard said, folding his hands on the desk as he faced her. “Money is a vulnerable business. A lucrative one, but vulnerable. If our investors hear there’s money missing, they’ll get nervous. There could be a massive move out...”

  She could see that. Was more or less a novice about the ins and outs of what he did, but she knew how companies worked. And the importance of consumer trust.

  “I was hoping I’d be able to figure out what’s going on myself, no need to alarm you or bring you home, but I haven’t been able to find the leak. I need you to come in and do what you do. To give us a once-over, presumably to see if you can save us money. In reality, I’m hoping that you can give everything more of a thorough study without raising suspicions the way it would if I was taking a deeper look.”

  She nodded, recognizing how hard it was for her father to have to ask for help. Thinking ahead. Focusing on the job.

  “People are going to know I’m your daughter. They might be less comfortable speaking with me.”

  He shook his head again. “I’ve thought of that. A few will know, of course. Roger. Emily. And Bill. For the rest, it works in our favor that you kept your married name because it was the name you became known under in the business world. People will have no reason to suspect.”

  Roger Standish, Emily Porter and Bill Coniff. CFO, VP and Director of Operations, respectively. Her father’s very first employees when he’d first started out. She’d met them all but it wasn’t as if he’d been close friends with his business associates. He was closer to his clients. Many of those she knew better than her own aunts and uncle. Still, none of his top three people would rat her out to the employees. Unless...

  “What if the problem rests with one of those three?”

  “I guess we’ll find that out,” he said, raising a hand and then running it over his face. Clearly he’d been dealing with the problem for a while. Longer than he should have without saying anything. She was thirty-two, not thirteen.

  “Does Mom know?”

  “Of course. She wanted me to call you home immediately.”

  “You should have.”

  “Your happiness and emotional health mean more to me than going bankrupt.”

  Feeling her skin go cold again, she stared at him. Was it that bad?

  “Your well-being is one of the top factors that affects my emotional health,” she couldn’t help pointing out to him.

  With a nod, he conceded that.

  He was asking for her help. Nothing else mattered.

  “How soon can I start?” she asked.

  “That was going to be my question.”

  “When you finally got around to telling me you needed something...” The slight dig didn’t escape him.

  “I was going to tell you today. I was just having a bit of trouble getting to it. You’ve been through so much and I don’t like putting more on you...”

  “I make my living by having companies put more on me. It’s what I do, what I strive for.” She grinned at him. He grinned back.

  Her world felt right again.

  “So...is now too soon?”

  “Now would be great. But...there’s one other thing.”

  The knot was back in her stomach. Please, not his health. Had he waited until the stress had taken a physical toll before calling her? “What?”

  “I don’t want to prejudice or influence your findings, but there’s one employee in particular who I think could be the one we’re after. Although I wasn’t able to find anything concrete that says it’s him.”

  Pulling the tablet she always kept in her bag onto her lap, she turned it on. Opened a new file. “Who is he? And why do you suspect him?”

  “His name’s Flint Collins. I took him on eight years ago when he was let go by his firm and no one else would hire him. He’d only been in the business a year, but had good instincts. He was up-front about the issues facing him and looked me straight in the eye as we talked. He was... He kind of reminded me of myself. I liked him.”

  Enough to have been blinded by him? “Have I ever met him? Flint Collins?”

  “No.” Her father didn’t have office parties at home. And rarely ever attended the ones he financed at the office.

  “So what were his issues eight years ago?”

  Not really an efficiency matter, she knew, unless, of course, he was wasteful to the point of being a detriment to the company. But then, this wasn’t just an efficiency case.

  This was her father. And she was out for more than saving his firm a few dollars.

  “His mother was indicted on multiple drug charges. She’d been running a fairly sophisticated meth lab from her home and was dealing on a large enough scale to get her ten years in prison.”

  Had to be tough. But... “What did that have to do with him, specifically?”

  “The trailer she lived in was in his name. As were all the utilities. Paid by him every month. He had regular contact with his mother. He’d already begun to make decent money and was investing it, so he was worth far more than average for a twenty-two-year-old just out of college. Investigators assumed that part of his wealth came from his cut of his mother’s business and named him as a suspect. They froze his assets. Any investors he had at the firm where he worked got scared and moved their accounts. It was a bad deal all the way around.”

  “Was he ever formally charged?” She figured she knew the answer to that. He wouldn’t be working for her father as an investment broker if he had been. But she had to ask.

  “No. He says he had no idea what his mother had been doing. Seemed to be in shock about the whole thing, to tell you the truth. A warrant for all his accounts and assets turned up no proof at all that he’d ever taken a dime from anyone for anything. All deposits were easily corroborated with legitimate earnings.”

  “How’d he do for you?”

  “Phenomenal. As well as I thought he might. He’s one of our top producers. Until recently, I never suspected him of anything but being one of the best business decisions I’d ever made.”

  “What happened recently?”

  “He hooked up with a fancy lawyer. His spending habits changed. He bought a luxury SUV, started taking exotic vacations, generally living high. I’m not saying he couldn’t afford it, just that a guy who’s always appeared to be conservative with his own spending was suddenly flashing his wealth.”

  As in...he’d come into new wealth? Or felt like he’d tapped into a bottomless well? Or was running with a faster crowd and needed more than he was making?

  “There’s more,” her father said. “Last week Bill told me he’d heard from Jane in Accounting that she’d heard from a friend of hers in the office of the Commissioner of Business Oversight that Collins was planning to leave. That he was filing paperwork to open his own firm. Bill says he heard that Collins was planning to take his book of business with him.”

  She disliked the guy. Thoroughly.

  “He can’t do that, can he? Solicit his clients away from you?”

&n
bsp; “No, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drop a word in an ear here and there.” Howard slowly tapped a finger on the edge of his desk, seeming to concentrate on the movement. “As I said, money is a vulnerable business. His clients trust him. They’ll follow him of their own accord.”

  “So he’s going to be direct competition to the man who took a chance on him?” Hate was such a strong word. She didn’t want it in her vocabulary. Anger, on the other hand...

  “I left another firm to start Owens Investments.” Her father’s words calmed her for the immediate moment. “He was doing what I did. Following in my footsteps, so to speak. I just didn’t see it coming from him. I thought he was happy here.”

  “Unless he’s leaving because he knows someone is on to the fact that money is being misplaced.”

  “That’s occurred to me, too. About a hundred times over the past week. A guy who’s opening his own business doesn’t usually start spending lavishly. And if he was the decent guy I thought he was, he would at least have let me know his plans to leave. Which is what I did when I was branching out.

  “And, like I said, he’s the only one here who’s made any obvious changes in routine or lifestyle over the past year. I did some checking into health-care claims and asked around as much as I could, and no one seems to be going through any medical crisis that would require extra funding. I’m not aware of any rancorous divorces, either.”

  “So... I start now and my first visit is to Mr. Flint Collins.”

  Howard nodded. “We need to get a look at every file he has while everything is still here.”

  Which might take some time. “Do you know how soon he’s planning to leave?”

  “Technically, I don’t actually know that he’s going. Like I said, this is all still rumor. He’s given me no indication or made any official announcement about his plans.”

  “But it could be soon?”

  Howard shrugged. “Could be any day. I just hope to God it’s not. Even if he’s not the one who’s been stealing from me, he’s going to do it indirectly unless I can get to his clients first. I’ve already started reaching out—making sure everyone’s happy, letting them know that if there’s any question or discomfort at all, to contact me. I’ll take on more accounts myself rather than lose them.”

  Even then, her dad would have to be careful. He couldn’t appear to be stabbing a fellow broker in the back just to keep more profits for himself. She did know some things about his business. She also remembered a time when she’d been in high school and another broker had left the firm. Her dad had talked to her mother about a party for the investors who’d be affected, which they’d had and then he’d acted on her advice as to how to deliver his news. She just couldn’t remember what that advice had been. What stuck in her mind was that her father had taken it.

  Which had given a teenage Tamara respect for, and faith in, both of them.

  Standing, she asked her dad for a private space with a locking door that she could use as an office. Told him she’d need passwords and security clearance to access all files. And suggested he send out a memo, or however they normally did such things within the company, to let everyone know, from janitorial on up, that she’d be around and why, giving him wording suggestions. Everything that came with her introductory speech on every new job she took. She had a lot of work to do.

  But first she was going to introduce herself to Flint Collins.

  While her heart hurt for the young man who, from the sound of things, had a much more difficult upbringing than many—certainly far more difficult than she’d had—that didn’t give him the right to screw over her family. Karma didn’t work that way.

  Chapter Three

  Flint took the back way into his office. Leaving the base of the car seat strapped into the back of his SUV, he unlatched the baby carrier, carefully laid a blanket over the top and hightailed it to his private space.

  Lunchtime at Owens Investments meant that almost everyone in Flint’s wing would be out wining and dining clients, or holed up in his or her office getting work done. His door was the second from the end by the private entrance—because he’d requested the space when it became available. He wasn’t big on socializing at work and hadn’t liked being close to the door on the opposite end of the hall, which led to reception.

  He’d never expected to be thankful that he could sneak something inside without being seen. That Monday he was.

  Everyone was going to know. He just needed time to see Bill. His boss, Bill Coniff, was Director of Operations and, he was pretty sure, the person who’d ratted him out before he was ready to go to Howard Owens with his plan to open his own firm. Jane in Accounting had told him about the rumor going around, and said she’d interrupted Bill telling Howard. According to Jane, Bill had twisted the news to make it sound like Flint had been soliciting his current clients to jump ship with him.

  Flint would get out of the business altogether before he’d do that.

  Business was business. Howard had taught him that. Flint was good at what he did and could earn a lot more money over the course of his career by having his own firm. Could make choices he wasn’t currently permitted to make regarding certain investments because Howard wasn’t willing to take the same risks.

  He felt that to live up to his full potential, he had to go, but he’d been planning to do it ethically. With Howard fully involved in the process—once there was a solid process in which to involve him.

  But in less than a week his life had irrevocably changed. Forever. His focus now had to be on making enough money to support a child, not taking risks. To provide a safe, loving home. And to have time to be in that home with the child as much as possible.

  How the hell he was supposed to go about that, he had no real idea. First step had been watching all the videos. Buying out the baby store.

  And the next was to humble himself, visit Bill Coniff and ensure his current job security. To beg if it came to that.

  He spent a few minutes setting up the monitor system he’d purchased for his office, putting the remote receiver in his pocket and taking one last glance at the baby carrier he’d placed on the work table opposite his desk. The floor was too drafty, the couch too narrow. What if she cried and moved her arms and legs a lot and the carrier fell off?

  Ms. Bailey had said that the infant had been fed before she’d brought her to the gravesite. Apparently she ate every two hours and slept most of the rest of the time. By his math, that gave him half an hour to get his situation resolved before she’d need him.

  Testing the monitor by talking into it and making sure he heard his own voice coming out of his pocket, he left the room, closing the door behind him. Should he lock it? Somehow, locking a baby in a place alone seemed dangerous. Neglectful. But he couldn’t leave the door unlocked. Anyone could walk down that hallway and steal her away.

  Was he wrong to vacate the room at all?

  People left babies in nurseries at home and even went downstairs. Bill’s office was two doors away from his. He’d see anyone who walked by. Unless whoever it was came in through the private door. Only employees had access to that hall.

  There were security cameras at either end.

  If there was a fire and he was hurt, a locked door would prevent firefighters from getting to Diamond Rose.

  Decision made, he left the door unlocked.

  * * *

  “Please, Bill, I’m asking you to support me here. I’m prepared to plead my case to Howard. Just back me up on it. I don’t know who started spreading the rumors or how far they’ve reached, but I’m fairly certain they made it to Howard’s office...”

  On her way to knock on the door of one Flint Collins, Tamara stopped in her tracks. Standing in a deserted private hallway in two-and-a-half-inch heels and her short black skirt with its matching short jacket, plus the lacy camisole her mother had bought to go with the ens
emble, she felt conspicuous. But something told her not to move. She’d dressed for a “professional” lunch with her father, not for real business. But business was at hand.

  “You’re telling me you didn’t file paperwork to open your own investment firm?”

  She recognized Bill’s voice coming from the office with his name on the door. Based on what her father had told her, she figured Bill had to be speaking with Flint Collins. Did her father know Bill was intending to handle the matter?

  “No. I’m not saying that. I’m telling you I no longer have plans to do that and would like to do whatever I need to, to ensure my job security here.”

  “Your plans to hurt this company by soliciting our customers didn’t work out, so now I should trust that you’re here to stay?”

  Bill was in the process of firing the guy? He couldn’t! Not yet! She needed time to investigate him while his files were all still in his office at the company. While he didn’t know he was being watched.

  “I did not, nor did I intend, to solicit anyone. I intended to have a meeting with Howard and do things the right way.”

  “And now you don’t plan to leave anymore.”

  “Now, in light of the rumors that went around last week, I’d like to guarantee that I have job security here and I was hoping for your cooperation. You know the money I make for this firm, Bill.”

  “You know how important trust is to this firm.”

  Tamara took a step forward. She couldn’t let Bill fire the man, but wasn’t sure how to prevent that from happening without exposing more than she could if she was going to be effective in her task.

  “I’m willing to sign a noncompete clause to prove my trustworthiness.”

  “Wow, I like the sound of that!” Tamara burst into the room with a smile that she hoped Bill would accept at face value. She and her father had decided that even his top people shouldn’t be told her true reason for being there. At the moment, they could only trust each other.

  But he’d called all three of them before she’d left his office, telling them she was going to be doing an efficiency study and that he’d like their cooperation in keeping her relationship to him quiet. Howard wanted to make sure that as she moved about the company, she’d have their full support. She was working under her married name of Frost. Howard had explained that he’d thought people would be less nervous around her if they didn’t know she was his daughter.