One Sizzling Touch

by Tina Folsom

  The wooden floor creaked behind her and she whirled around in panic. At first, she didn’t recognize the person coming out of the living room, because everything was too blurry in front of her eyes.

  “Oh Rochelle, what’s happened?”

  Her brother rushed to her and pulled her into his arms. “Sis, are you hurt?” He stroked his hand over her head, and she felt like a helpless child and not his older sister.

  “Oh Steve,” she wailed, but she couldn’t muster the energy for any more words. She buried her face in his chest and cried, until his shirt was soaked with her tears.

  “There, there, Rochelle,” he cooed, his voice soft and comforting, while he rocked her in his arms without asking what had happened.

  Steve was there for her when she needed him most. Minutes passed while nobody spoke, until finally, her tears subsided.

  She lifted her head. “Thank you.” She eased out of his embrace. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  He smiled gently and hesitantly. “I borrowed the spare key from Mom, because I wanted to bring you something and you said you weren’t gonna be home this weekend.” He pointed to the bag on the floor. “Guess it didn’t work out, huh?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s all over.”

  “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  Again she shook her head. “Better not.” She forced a smile onto her lips, but failed at it. “So what did you want to bring me that couldn’t wait?”

  “Come.” He took her by the hand and led her into the living room.

  There on the coffee table stood a bunch of flowers in a vase. And against it leaned an envelope. She looked back at Steve, surprised. “But it’s not my birthday.”

  “I know. Go on, open the envelope.”

  She took it and pulled out the card inside. When she unfolded it, a piece of paper fell out. She caught it. A check. For fifty thousand dollars.

  In disbelief, she stared at her brother. “What is this?”

  “The money you lent me.”

  Her heart beat faster. “But you need that. For the loan shark. What if he—”

  “He waived my debt.”

  “What?” Had she heard correctly? “That’s impossible.”

  He grinned. “It’s not. He gave me my IOU back and told me the debt is repaid.”

  She shook her head. “But that’s not possible. Something like that doesn’t just happen out of the blue.”

  “Apparently it does. Maybe he realized that it was unfair to demand the money back from me since it wasn’t my fault that I lost it all. Or maybe Tom put in a good word for me.” He pointed to the check in her hand. “So I won’t need your money anymore. I don’t know how to thank you. You’re always there for me when I need you.”

  She put her arm around him and squeezed him. “That’s what siblings are for.”

  “And so you know that I’m not as much of a loser as you always think, I’ve taken your words to heart and gotten a real job.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “A job?”

  He nodded eagerly and she could tell that he was proud of himself. “Yes. A real position. With a great salary and everything that goes with it. Now you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  “Oh, Steve, that’s wonderful.” It was a relief that at last her brother had met with some good luck. “How did you get the job?”

  He grinned. “Pure coincidence. So this guy calls me, says he’s the human resources director of this company and that he’s seen my resume on one of those internet job boards and thinks I’d be the perfect candidate for a job that just opened up.”

  “When did you post your resume on an internet job board? You never told me about that.” And she’d urged him to do just that for such a long time.

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter now. Anyway he immediately invited me to an interview. And, you know, with everything going down the drain, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went.” He grinned. “I’m so glad I did. They want me to run this small department. Just three people under me, but I’m supposed to find lucrative business ventures for the company. Isn’t that great? That’s exactly what I’m into. And they’re paying me a pretty penny for it, too.”

  Steve was more than just excited. He seemed ecstatic. And she couldn’t believe it herself. It sounded too good to be true. Her investigator brain kicked in immediately. “Are you sure that it’s not some scam?”

  Steve huffed. “Come on. Can’t you be happy for me?”

  “Of course I want to be happy for you. But…” She sighed. Had her own situation made her so suspicious that she saw deception behind every good thing? For her brother’s sake, she forced herself to smile. “Of course, I’m happy for you.” She threw her arms around him and squeezed him to her. “If it weren’t so late already, I’d invite you out to dinner to celebrate…”

  He waved her off. “No worries. We’ll celebrate later. I’d better go home now. I want to go shopping tomorrow to buy myself a nice suit for work. I think they dress really conservatively at Zinfluence. And I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Zinfluence?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the company is called.”

  “Hmm.” Somehow the name sounded familiar. That was probably a good thing. At least that meant the company actually existed. And if she’d heard its name before, it probably meant that it was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. “Do you have enough money to buy yourself something decent?”

  He grinned. “No problem. They’ve given me an advance on my first month’s salary.”

  Her chin dropped. “How come?”

  “I think they don’t want me to change my mind. Rochelle, I can’t tell you how I feel. Finally somebody recognizes that I’m good at something.”

  She ruffled his hair. “I always knew that.”

  “Thanks, Rochelle.” He turned to leave, but hesitated. “And if you want to talk after all… you know, about the guy who’s the reason that you cried, I’m here for you day and night.”

  “How did you—”

  He shook his head, a knowing glint in his eyes. “I might be a few years younger than you, but I can see nevertheless when a woman cries because of a guy.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “And if you want me to beat him up, say the word.”

  “That won’t be necessary. He’s in enough trouble already.”

  “Well, then good night, sis.”

  “Good night, Steve.”

  23

  Several members of the Eternal Bachelors Club were assembled at Xavier’s brownstone in Gramercy Park in the evening.

  “And you had no idea that the antique desk had a false bottom?” Wade asked after Zach had told his friends what had happened at his house in the Hamptons.

  “I’ve never looked at it that closely.”

  Zach shook his head and gazed at his friends. Besides Xavier and Wade, Hunter and Michael had come. Neither Paul nor Daniel had been able to tear themselves away from what they were doing on such short notice, but both listened in via the speakerphone Xavier had placed on the coffee table. They’d even managed to patch in Jay via a satellite phone on his yacht.

  “But the person who placed the bank statements there obviously knew,” Wade said.

  “Yes,” Hunter added, “and that person gave the SEC an anonymous tip. Really odd that this person told them exactly where they could find that so-called evidence. Who knew about the desk anyway?”

  Zach was about to shrug, when he froze in mid-movement. There was one person who not only knew that he’d purchased the desk at an auction, but also that the desk was in his house in the Hamptons and not his penthouse in Manhattan.

  “Emily.”

  “Emily Grover?” Jay’s voice came through the speaker phone.

  “She wanted to bid on the desk, too, but I beat her to it,” Zach confirmed.

  “Wasn’t she at your party in Bridgehampton, after you built the new dock? She could have seen the desk then,” Jay sugge
sted.

  “Yes, together with about a hundred other guests,” Hunter confirmed dryly.

  Xavier cleared his throat. “But the other hundred guests have no motive to pin something like this on Zach.”

  “How about Leech?” Wade asked. “Was he at the party? Or Davenport? They’re on the list of suspects, too. And as I reported, Zach, Leech has money trouble.”

  “Neither of the two was at the party.” Zach remembered it well enough. “And I only invited Emily because she found out from somebody who was invited and then claimed that she was gonna be in the Hamptons that weekend anyway. I couldn’t come up with an excuse not to invite her when she cornered me.”

  “Then it has to be Emily. She had opportunity,” Jay said.

  “Are you trying to tell me she planted those bank statements three months ago?” Zach couldn’t believe that. Emily didn’t have the patience to wait that long for her work to come to fruition. “Even though… only this week she told me she heard rumors that the SEC is investigating me. How would she know that if she wasn’t the one who’s behind it?”

  “Exactly,” Jay answered. “Though I don’t think that she planted the fake evidence during that party. She did that later. It’s not like it’s that difficult to break into your house.”

  “But the alarm…”

  “You’ve got personnel from the village. They know the code and are in your house regularly when you’re not there to clean and do repairs. Emily could have just waited for an opportunity and snuck into the house while the housekeeper was upstairs. All she needed was thirty seconds to put the account statements in the desk. Nobody would have noticed her.”

  “Shit!” Zach cursed. “But how are we gonna prove that? I’m sure she didn’t leave fingerprints.”

  “We won’t need them,” Xavier said, full of confidence.

  Zach lifted an eyebrow. “You have an idea?”

  Xavier nodded. “We have to find the person who opened the account at the Inter Commerce and Trade Bank.” He pulled out his cell phone.

  “But we already know that. It was some guy named John Miller. Do you know how many John Millers there are in New York alone? And for sure the bank isn’t gonna give us any information about him. Besides, most likely he opened the account using a false ID.”

  Xavier grinned. “Well, let’s see then.” He dialed a number on his cell and pressed it to his ear. “Did you know that I helped Chip Fenton out of a predicament once?”

  “Who is Chip Fenton?” Zach asked, curious.

  Xavier winked at him. “His father owns the Inter Commerce and Trade Bank and made Chip its chief operating officer recently…” He lifted his index finger and pointed to his cell phone. “Hey, Chip! It’s Xavier Eamon. How are you?”

  ~ ~ ~

  An hour later Zach and Xavier stood waiting at the side entrance of the bank, while somebody unlocked the door from the inside. Apparently, the predicament Xavier had helped Chip out of had been a big one, because he’d finally agreed—grudgingly—to give them the information they sought.

  When Chip, a wiry man in his early forties ushered them into the building, he warned, “If my father gets wind of this, he’s going to disinherit me. And I don’t even want to talk about what the police are going to do. To disclose confidential banking information is a crime.”

  “No worries, Chip,” Xavier tried to ease his concerns, “this’ll remain between us. We only want to know who this guy is. Nobody will ever find out how we got this information.”

  Chip nodded, still nervous. “I hope so. This way. I’ve already gotten the file out. There isn’t much.” He led them to an office on the second floor, where he grabbed a manila folder from a desk. “Here.”

  Impatiently, Zach took it and leafed through it. On the application to open a bank account there was the applicant’s address and telephone number. Zach noted it down and continued perusing the file. He noticed a copy of a driver’s license. He looked closer, staring at the photo.

  “I need more light,” he demanded and rushed to the desk.

  Chip switched on the desk light, and Zach held the copy of the driver’s license underneath it.

  “Son of a gun!”

  Xavier looked over his shoulder. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

  Zach turned around. “The guy looks like my twin brother. And I can assure you, I’d know if I had a brother.”

  “Let me see.” Chip snatched the file and looked at it. “That’s crazy! And you’re sure you didn’t open the bank account yourself?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Hmm.” Chip rubbed his chin. “I think I know how we can find out for certain.”

  “How?” Xavier asked.

  “The cameras in the bank.” He searched for something in the file. “Oh, here. The account was opened on the 17th of last month. Here’s the stamp with the time of day. Let me have a look at the surveillance video from that day and time. Miss Wollencraft was the one dealing with the new account. Her cubicle is on the first floor.” He motioned them to follow him. “The recordings are kept on the 3rd floor.”

  Zach’s heart beat out of control. Who was this man who clearly looked similar to him? He could hardly wait as Chip led them to the control room and found the recordings for the 17th of the previous month. He wound them to the time of day when the account had been opened and pointed to a monitor, where the event unfolded.

  “Here, that’s Miss Wollencraft sitting at her desk.” Chip pointed to an elderly lady with glasses. He advanced the recording until a man appeared.

  “Stop,” Zach ordered. “Can you zoom in on him?”

  “Sure.” Chip adjusted the picture so that the man was easier to see.

  Zach whistled through his teeth. “That’s him. My doppelganger.” They watched in doubletime as the man who called himself John Miller opened the bank account and then rose from the desk.

  Chip was about to switch off the recording, when Zach stopped him. “No. What’s he doing there?” He pointed to the monitor, where the man walked to a board on the wall and stopped in front of it.

  “That’s our community board. We allow the people from the neighborhood to post notes there, you know, for events, to sell stuff, or find a babysitter.”

  Zach watched as John Miller pulled a postcard from his jacket pocket and pinned it to the board.

  “Do you see that? Is that still hanging there today?” He looked at Chip, who instantly pointed to another monitor.

  “That’s the live feed from our entrance hall.” He typed something into the keyboard and zoomed in on the board. “Here it is.”

  Zach stared at the postcard. Then he exchanged a look with Xavier and grinned. “Looks like Mr. Miller is an actor and currently appearing in a play in Greenwich Village. Are you in the mood to go see a play tomorrow night, Xavier?”

  His friend grinned. “Don’t you know I love supporting local artists?”

  24

  Monday had never been her favorite day of the week, and today Rochelle liked it even less. After spending the weekend at home, alone, she’d dragged herself into the office in order to present the evidence against Zach to her boss. However, it turned out that Yochum wasn’t due in the office until the afternoon. It meant she had a short grace period left before she had to throw Zach under the bus. Not that those few hours would help her in any way to alleviate her bad feelings about the entire situation. It only meant that she had time to kill. She used it to complete the Ivers International file.

  As soon as the courts had opened that morning, she’d sent Antonio there to get a subpoena to require the Inter Commerce and Trade Bank to comply with the SEC’s request for information on who had opened the bank account in question. Once they had those documents, they would be able to prove that Zach was behind it, even though he hadn’t used his own name to open the account. It would be the final nail in the coffin of his innocence.

  “Nicole, do you have the list of all of Ivers International’s subsidiaries? I can’t find it,” she
called over the divider between her cubicle and that of her colleague.

  Nicole popped her head up. “Antonio spilled coffee on it. I’ll print you a new one in a sec.”

  A moment later, the printer behind Rochelle hummed and spit out one sheet. She snatched it. “Thanks.”

  She scanned it briefly and was about to put it in the file folder, when her eyes caught on a name.

  Zinfluence.

  Her heart stopped beating. That was why the name had sounded so familiar. Zinfluence was one of Zach’s companies. It was the company Steve was starting at today.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Something wrong?” Nicole asked immediately.

  “No, no, everything’s fine.” But nothing was fine.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that her brother had suddenly received a job offer from one of Zach’s companies. She didn’t believe in coincidences like that. Zach had to be behind this. She had told him about her brother, and he knew that Steve had money trouble and was unemployed. Had Zach given her brother a chance for her sake? Had he done it in order to influence her in any way?

  Rochelle shook her head. That was impossible. If Zach had intended that, why would he have offered Steve the job behind her back? If he’d intended on gaining favor with her, he would have asked her to connect him with Steve and told her that he wanted to offer him a job.

  But he’d done all this in secret, as if he hadn’t even wanted her to know.

  And the loan shark? Rochelle hadn’t believed for a second that the loan shark had forgiven Steve’s debt, but she hadn’t dug deeper. What if it had been Zach who’d paid off Steve’s debts without her brother knowing?

  Oh Zach, did you really do that?

  These acts didn’t really fit with the picture of a man against whom she had evidence of insider trading. But they fit with the man who continued to profess his innocence.

  The ringing of the telephone on her desk pulled her from her thoughts.

  “Rochelle Wright,” she answered.

  “It’s me, Zach. Please don’t hang up. What I have to say is important.”