by Abby Gaines
His burst of triumphant laughter arrested her. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re scared,” he taunted. “You don’t want me in there in case you give in to temptation and jump me.”
“How dare you.” She hoped the fire in her cheeks looked like anger. “Nothing could be further—”
He held up an admonishing finger. “Uh-uh, don’t say something we both know isn’t true. I expect nothing but total honesty from you, honey.”
And before she could recover her presence of mind sufficiently to tell him what he could do with his expectations—and to tell him she would never be his honey—he’d turned and headed into his own apartment.
Holly closed her door at last, and leaned against it. That man had an ego the size of a…a—
A loud knock behind her sent her stumbling forward. So, he’d come back for more, had he? More innuendo, more insults.
“I am not scared of you, you low-down rat, and I am not going to jump you,” she snarled as she hauled the door open.
“I guess that’s bad news and good news, then,” Special Agent Crook said.
Holly closed her eyes in the fervent hope that when she opened them again the FBI man would be gone. He wasn’t. Thanks to Jared, she’d just hurled verbal abuse at a federal agent. She’d expected a visit from Crook since he’d called earlier to ask where she was. She just hadn’t expected him right now. “I thought you were someone else,” she mumbled.
“I’ve heard worse,” he said with surprising good humor. “Can I come in?”
Holly stepped aside. “Have you found Dave? And how did you get up here unannounced?”
“The concierge unlocked the elevator for me—an FBI badge works wonders.” He sat on the couch she indicated. “We haven’t found Fletcher. We’ve asked the Mexican authorities to let us know if he checks into a hotel. But unless he’s at a Sheraton or one of the other big chains, I’m not holding out much hope. By your reckoning Fletcher’s away another two and a half weeks. Don’t be surprised if we don’t hear anything from him until he gets back.”
If he gets back. “So why are you here?”
Crook handed her a sealed envelope. “In there’s a letter saying you’re to be arrested for fraud. You need to turn yourself in to the U.S. Marshal’s office tomorrow. They’ll book you and get you in front of a judge for an initial appearance.”
Holly sagged into an armchair. “You—you’re charging me?” Her voice came out a near whisper.
“We have the evidence,” Crook said. Did she imagine the faintest tinge of regret from him? “You told us yourself no one else has your PIN. We looked into your systems, but there was no sign of a hacker. Your assistant tells us you’re the brains of the business and that Fletcher doesn’t take a lot of initiative. There’s no evidence he’s involved, so that leaves you.”
“If I were the thief, why would I be so stupid as to use my own PIN?” she demanded.
Agent Crook sighed impatiently. “One way or another, most criminals are stupid, Ms. Stephens. Makes my job a heck of a lot easier.”
“If you’re so sure I’m guilty, why don’t you arrest me now?”
“I will if you want.” Crook looked tempted to do just that. “But with fraud suspects we generally do it this way. Unless,” he said, “you happen to be associated with gangsters or involved in violent crime?”
Holly shook her head.
“Then turn yourself in tomorrow, and plan on seeing a judge Thursday.”
Holly faced the sickening truth. There was every chance she might be found guilty of a crime she hadn’t committed, one that would send her to prison. She would be no better than her mother.
After Crook left, her first instinct was to go next door to tell Jared, to draw comfort from his scathing denunciation of the forces of law and order, and from the arms he would almost certainly wrap around her.
No.
He flirted with her mainly because it drove her nuts, and when she got upset or emotional, he made it plain he didn’t want to know.
Jared was the last person she should turn to.
JARED WAS HALFWAY across the Harding Tower lobby at eight o’clock the next morning when he felt a prickle at the back of his neck. He turned around in time to see Holly step into the revolving door that would take her out onto Columbia Street.
What was the woman doing? She’d brushed him off two nights running, and now she was going somewhere in her frumpy suit when she should be upstairs working. He ignored the fact that the material she’d handed him last night proved she’d been working hard. Holly was up to something.
Could she have figured out Jared’s deception already? Was that why she’d barely spoken to him for two days? He had visions of her gleaning evidence from his files and building a case against him for the Securities and Exchange Commission. They’d never win, of course, but they could tie him in legal knots for weeks while they tried to pin something on him.
“Like hell you will,” he muttered, and he headed out into the street after her.
She was maybe twenty yards ahead of him, weaving purposefully in her sensible shoes through the commuters crowding the sidewalk. As Jared sped up, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the white-haired, gray-suited man next to him did the same. In fact, the guy’s gaze was fixed on Holly. Why the hell would someone be tailing her?
Jared caught up to her first. He clamped a hand on her shoulder, startling her. She spun around in the street, then scowled when she saw him. “Could you leave me alone for five minutes?”
“Excuse me, are you Holly Rainbow Stephens?” asked the white-haired man.
In that polite but distant way of hers, she said, “That’s right.”
The older man held out a sheaf of folded pages, which Holly took. “You’re served.”
“Thank you,” she said, but the man had melted into the crowd.
Thank you! Jared groaned. “You just thanked that jerk for handing you a lawsuit.”
“I did?” Holly looked at the papers in her hand. Horror dawned on her countenance, and she dropped them as if they were contaminated.
Jared picked them up, grasped Holly by the elbow and steered her through the crowd to stand against the Bank of America Tower. Without asking her permission, he yanked the paperclip off and unfolded the pages, ignoring her hiss of annoyance.
He never would have guessed the name of the plaintiff. For a moment he wondered if this was some kind of sting, if Holly wasn’t all she seemed. If somehow he’d become the patsy in his own game.
“Is Keith Transom a client of yours?”
Jared’s controlled fury did not escape Holly. No doubt he was about to launch into an “I told you so,” since the minute she’d left his precious apartment, she’d been slapped with a lawsuit. Of course, she now wished she’d never stepped out that revolving door herself….
“I’m asking you,” he said again, “if you work for Transom. You found his ethics acceptable, but not mine?”
That old argument. If Holly hadn’t known how insensitive Jared was, she would swear she’d hurt him by her initial refusal to work for him. “Keith was Dave’s client before we went into partnership,” she said. “I didn’t want him on our books, but Dave wanted to keep him. So, yes, Fletcher & Stephens did some work for Transom. But he uses one of the big firms for most of his accounting.”
She could understand Jared’s anger, at least in part. Transom’s fortune was reputedly ill-gotten, though no one had managed to pin any of his rumored indiscretions on him. By dint of his wealth and his legendary cunning, he was accorded a grudging respect by the business world, if not by Holly. But no matter what her personal opinion was, she couldn’t have demanded that Dave dump him. Instead, she’d let Dave handle Transom’s work, pleading client overload and gradually Transom’s business had gone elsewhere.
But not all his funds. Scanning the legal document Jared held out to her, Holly saw that Transom was suing for the immediate return of funds held in the Fletcher & Stephens tru
st account, and for damages relating to obstruction of his business.
“How did Transom know about the stolen money? And how did he find me?”
“No doubt the FBI contacted him, and he had one of his henchmen lean on a contact in the Bureau to get your address.”
She skimmed the document again. “Obstruction? Is that legal grounds for suing?”
He snorted. “Doesn’t matter. Transom will have you so tied up in legal bills that you’ll settle without it coming to court. Either way, it’ll cost you a fortune.”
Court. That reminded her. “I need a day off tomorrow,” she said abruptly. “The FBI are about to arrest me for fraud and I have a plea hearing.”
He gaped. “What does your lawyer say?”
“I-I’m just on my way to see her. I never thought it would come to this. I figured they’d find Dave—or whoever did it or the money—by now.”
Jared could have throttled her for that naiveté. “When will you understand that you, not Dave, are their number one suspect? These guys won’t work any harder than necessary to get a result. Until Dave fails to return from his vacation, you are it.”
Holly’s face whitened, and she put a hand against the wall to steady herself. “I know.”
“You’re pleading not guilty,” he said.
“Of course,” she said without conviction. It looked as if Holly was finally aware of just how much trouble she was in.
Jared’s instincts told him she wasn’t working with Transom. Any link between the two was irony rather than conspiracy. He didn’t know who he was madder at: Holly for letting things get this far, and for having Keith Transom on her client list, or Transom for filing suit against her. But he did know he wasn’t about to let Transom win another battle against an innocent person.
A warning bell sounded in his head. Getting embroiled in her dealings with Transom would be a step too far, would spell the end of any detachment he still had. He ignored the warning. This wasn’t about him and Holly. It was about Transom, about Jared’s family, about justice.
He didn’t have a choice.
“I’m coming with you to your lawyer,” he said.
That she didn’t argue, that she merely swallowed and nodded, told him just how scared Holly was.
SIMON CROOK didn’t want to drive to Marionville to tell Maggie Stephens he’d arrested her daughter. Why couldn’t he just call the trailer park and have her brought to the phone?
“Because,” Dan Pierce, Crook’s boss, had told him earlier while a smirking Slater looked on, “it’s got to be more than coincidence that the mother deals drugs and the daughter has stolen a truckload of money.”
“Maggie Stephens’s last conviction was six years ago,” Crook protested. “And she was convicted of growing dope for personal use, not dealing.”
Pierce gave him a look that said just because someone hadn’t been caught in a few years, it didn’t mean they’d gone straight.
“The money’s been routed through a series of offshore accounts,” Crook persisted. “Maggie Stephens couldn’t do that.”
“You don’t know that,” Slater chipped in helpfully. “This story has all the hallmarks of the Perretti case.”
The Perretti family of crooked lawyers, doctors and public servants had led the FBI on several wild-goose chases in search of laundered cash. In the end it was pure luck that had led them to the real mastermind: the seventy-eight-year-old Perretti grandmother, resident in a nursing home.
Crook’s boss was obviously determined not to expose his team to that kind of embarrassment again.
Crook didn’t want to see Maggie Stephens. She persisted in breaking into his thoughts, like a stone that worked its way into your shoe. Crook heard himself whine as he said, “Can’t Slater go?”
“Sorry,” Slater said smugly. “I’m tracking down the business partner. Fletcher.”
“Just go see the woman, Crook,” Pierce said. “Take as long as you need to figure out her involvement.”
“Have fun with Ms. Wacko.” Slater snickered as Crook grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
So here he was, slogging all over the countryside on a lead that would most likely go nowhere, while the young guys got to stay behind and do the real detective work.
It was late afternoon by the time he pulled up outside Maggie’s trailer. He got out of the car and fished his badge out of his pocket. This time, his meeting with Maggie would follow procedure to the letter. He wouldn’t let her mess around. He eyed the bunch of kids kicking a ball around the parking lot. They eyed him back. A gangly boy, all muscle and sinew in a T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, spoke up. “You a cop?”
Crook locked his car. “Something like that.”
“My dad doesn’t like cops.”
Crook would bet money the feeling was mutual. He thought about giving the kid the lecture that a few years ago would have been automatic. The one about the FBI being there to protect people, helping to make America a safe place for kids like him. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was bad enough that he had to talk to Maggie Stephens. He shrugged and headed up Maggie’s path.
She opened the door before he reached it, and stood watching his approach. She was every bit as magnificent as last time, her rich russet hair cascading around her face, and her voluptuousness heightened rather than concealed by her faded jeans and man’s striped shirt.
“Why, it’s Special Agent Melvin Crook.” She sounded almost happy to see him.
Already, following procedure to the letter seemed unlikely. He shook his head, refusing to be insulted. “I need to talk to you some more.”
Inside, he took the chair she didn’t offer him and waited while she settled herself on that lumpy couch.
“How’s your investigation going?” she asked. “Have you found who stole Holly’s money?”
So she hadn’t heard about her daughter’s arrest. Unless she was pretending not to know. But Crook didn’t buy into the idea of Maggie as criminal mastermind, à la Perretti.
“It’s not Holly’s money,” he pointed out. “It belonged to her clients.”
Maggie waved a hand, slim with long, artist’s fingers. “But have you found it?”
“No,” he admitted.
“And you strike me as so conscientious, Sylvester,” she said with a sorrowful shake of the head.
Ninety percent horrified, ten percent flattered that she was flirting, he looked down at the faded linoleum, then around the crowded walls. Anywhere but at the woman in front of him. He took a long moment to remind himself that female suspects sometimes played the flirtation card. When the staccato beating of his heart had returned to its usual measured pace, he chanced a glance back at Maggie. She was looking right at him, still with that curious warmth. His heart started drumming again.
He stood, paced across the room, then clutched at conversation. “Been doing any painting while I’ve been fighting crime?”
“You tell me.”
He spent a minute looking. Then he pointed to a canvas with a mess of bright green swirls. “That’s new.”
Maggie stared at him. “You’re right.”
“Being observant is my job,” he told her. But he’d surprised himself.
“Of course, you don’t like my painting,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “Like I told you, I don’t get it. But something about this stuff—” and now that he looked again he realized the jumble of shapes and colors had made an impression on him “—well, maybe it’s got something.”
“Which one do you come closest to liking?”
Crook knew his boss would see this as a chance to relax Maggie’s guard. So he took his time, had a good look at each painting. There were a lot of them. Finally he walked over to a small, square canvas hung next to an age-speckled mirror. White paint, thickly applied, covered the canvas. Black lines crossed it at irregular intervals. And from the top-left corner, what looked like elongated drops of red paint fanned out, becoming sparse by the middle of the pain
ting. “This one,” he said, and turned to look at her.
There was no trace now of that flirty look. She knuckled one eye, took a deep breath. “Me, too. It’s a portrait of Holly.”
Well, he wouldn’t have pegged that.
She smiled at his obvious puzzlement. “Holly is so determinedly pure—that’s the white. But she puts these constraints on herself, so to me she never seems truly free.”
“The black lines,” Crook guessed, “are like bars.” Like the bars Holly would find herself behind before long.
“That’s right.”
“What about the red…uh…spots?” he asked.
Maggie was silent a long moment. “Those are a mother’s tears.”
He wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready for the tug inside his chest, the regret that made him reluctant to say what had to be said. He pushed the words out. “Maggie, I’ve come to tell you that Holly will appear in court at three o’clock tomorrow on fraud charges.”
Maggie’s face whitened and she sank onto the couch. “She didn’t do it,” she said angrily. “Why are you hounding her like this?”
“All the evidence points to her.” He paused in case Maggie wanted to admit her own part in the crime, to save Holly. “An arrest gives us forward momentum. If she’s not guilty, it’s about now she’ll give us anything she can to help us find the real culprit.”
“You’re telling me it’s your job.”
He’d known from the start she would feel like that about him, so why should her contempt trigger this scalding feeling behind his ribs? He scowled. “Yes, it’s my job, and I’m good at it. But it’s more than that. It’s what I think is the right thing to do, and I’m damned if I’m going to duck out of that just because I have the hots for you.”
Tell me I didn’t just say that. Maggie was staring at him, a secretive smile playing on her lips. He’d said it all right. He’d said it, without even knowing he felt it.
But he couldn’t feel that way, not about Maggie Stephens. It’s been so long, that’s why I let her get under my skin. It’s a physical thing. Like an itch. Now Maggie’s going to lay a complaint against me. Or else milk this for all it’s worth.