Once Upon a Friendship

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Not wanting to interrupt whatever communication was taking place between father and son, Gabrielle sat there. Feeling helpless.

  And worried, too.

  But she was glad to be there. She didn’t want Liam fighting this battle alone.

  “So tell me your guess as to what could be going on.”

  “I’ve been set up.”

  “How?” Liam’s question shot back immediately.

  “I have no idea.”

  “What evidence do they have that you’ve done anything wrong?” Gabrielle’s voice butted in when she’d told herself she was going to stay silent unless her opinion was solicited.

  “Plenty.” The older man’s steely, intelligent gaze turned on her. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or nervous. She was a bit of both.

  But determined to remain by Liam’s side.

  “What evidence, Dad? What have they got on you? Is it legitimate?”

  “The files they found containing clients’ names and payables exist. The offshore accounts exist. The land that was being used for investment bait exists. That fact that it’s worthless swampland, instead of the Grayson development land that it was said to be, is true.”

  “You sold swampland to our investors?” She didn’t need to see the disgusted look on Liam’s face to know he was horrified.

  “Someone did. That someone was not me.”

  “Someone in Connelly Investments?”

  “Someone using Connelly’s name, reputation and client base.”

  “No one has access to that information except for the top-floor executives.”

  “I know.”

  “How many of those are there?” Gabrielle asked.

  “Seven, now that Liam’s gone.”

  Finally. Someone had acknowledged the estrangement.

  “You and George are out, so that would leave Matheson, Williams, Granger, Donaldson and Buckus.” Liam moved right on past any chance at personal conversation. Gabrielle loved his ability to do that. And hated that this was the kind of father-son relationship he’d grown up with. While she didn’t see her family much now that they’d moved out of state—and didn’t have a lot in common with her younger brothers, as they weren’t interested in education or hard work as much as maligning the establishment and hanging with friends—they kept in touch with her. Always called to thank her when she sent money. And called other times, too.

  “Dad?” Liam said as Walter just sat there.

  “I have suggested to Agent Cross, over and over again, during the several hours I’ve been a guest here today, that he should be looking at all five of them.”

  “You aren’t a guest, Dad. You’re under arrest.”

  “Perhaps for the moment. George is working on that. I’ll be out of here tonight.”

  Liam looked at Gabrielle, who nodded. If nothing else, Walter would be out on bail. Best case, they’d have to let him go until formal charges were filed. “He could be considered a flight risk,” she said, “but it’s not likely, since his entire life is here, and as of now, he still has control of the majority of the company. Only the assets in question have been frozen.”

  “They’ve also seized my personal hard drive as well as all of the pertinent Connelly ones, but we’ll have use of those again by tomorrow.”

  His glance made her feel as though she were a bug under a microscope, only not as scientifically important.

  And then Liam’s gaze met hers. And Walter’s dislike of her didn’t even matter. “Of the five you mentioned—Matheson, Williams, Granger, Donaldson and Buckus—do you have any suspicions regarding one over the other?”

  Mr. Connelly’s gaze pinned Liam. “You been talking to her about the top floor?”

  “Of course not—”

  “No, sir, he hasn’t.”

  Gabrielle interrupted only to be interrupted when Liam continued, “I’ve been telling you for years how smart Gabrielle is, Dad. She has a memory like none I’ve ever seen. You mentioned the names. Her mind’s like a digital catalog.”

  He’d never said anything to her about seeing her that way. Or having even noticed her mind at all.

  Not that she’d needed him to. Their friendship was based on the trust established the night they’d met and on the nightly visits that first year, when Liam would knock on their door and the three of them would rant about classes they didn’t like, or homework, or talk about whatever.

  And on years of telling each other every good or bad thing that had happened to them.

  And on the total acceptance of each other, despite how different they were...

  “So is there any reason you can think of to suspect one of the five over another?” Gabrielle asked again, getting her mind back on track. She wasn’t a trial attorney. But she handled some minor criminal cases. And had spent her law school years interning with one of the city’s top criminal lawyers.

  It felt good to be able to offer Liam more than just motherly advice.

  “Matheson just went through a nasty divorce,” Walter said. “She got everything plus support, and his high school kids have told the court they don’t want to see him right now.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Six months. She caught him in bed with her best friend.”

  “Which makes him not as likely a candidate, because a scheme to the magnitude being described takes a lot longer than six months to be set in motion.”

  “Doesn’t make sense that you’d sell Grayson if you were using the land in a Ponzi scheme,” Liam said, looking at his father.

  “I didn’t sell Grayson.” Walter looked down at the table.

  “Of course you did. I saw it listed on the sales and acquisitions report months ago.”

  Walter looked up. Around the room. Everywhere but at Gabrielle. And then said, “What the hell, you’re going to find out soon enough. I lost the property at the blackjack table.”

  Slumping back with enough force to scoot his chair on the floor, Liam stared. “You lost a fifty-million-dollar property playing blackjack?”

  “I won a sixty-million-dollar property the next week.”

  “Delacourte?” Liam asked, while Gabrielle, too shocked to react, looked between the two of them, wondering if they’d both lost their minds.

  Who gambled away fifty million dollars in one game?

  “You’re gambling regularly?” Accusation laced Liam’s tone.

  “I’ve taken up the sport again, yes.”

  “Since when?”

  Walter frowned, throwing his hand in the air. “I don’t know how long, and I don’t answer to you.”

  Liam’s expression became guarded. Withdrawn. And though his face quickly cleared, there was something missing in the depths of his eyes. Not that many others would probably notice. She’d just learned a long time ago how to read him, so she could get back to sleep sooner on the nights he’d visited late.

  “So Matheson is the only one you’d suspect?” Gabrielle blurted. She wanted to know anything pertinent that might affect Liam.

  “Donaldson took a personal beating when the real estate market crashed back in ’08,” Walter said, his fingers tapping on the table. They were nicely manicured. “He’d just bought a place for a million and half and in six months it was worth half a million. He bought it on balloon loan, expecting to sell it for profit, and instead went into foreclosure.”

  “Couldn’t you help him out enough to prevent that, at least?” Liam asked. “Buy out the loan for a higher interest thirty-year note?”

  “I didn’t know about it until it was too late.”

  “And the others?” Gabrielle asked. Walter’s lawyers would get all of this information, track down the paper trail and get the affidavits that would support Walter’s claims, if it came to that. But
those were Walter’s lawyers. Liam needed his own protection. Whether he realized it yet or not.

  And she, who’d only been in college because of a scholarship, who’d been driving a rusted clunker car and wearing secondhand clothes when they’d first met, was actually qualified and able to provide that protection.

  “Buckus is an ex-con, of sorts. He had a juvie record that’s been sealed. Petty theft type stuff. I’ve known him all my life. We...grew up...in the same...area. He did his time, cleaned up his act, went to college, went into banking and was a general manager of a major chain branch when I hired him thirty years ago.”

  “Have you ever had any reason to doubt him?” she asked, including Liam in her question, her glance, as he looked over at her. The appreciation in his eyes lit her up inside.

  “Ray Buckus is as good a guy as there is,” Liam said. “Keeps meticulous records and makes note of everything twofold. I know this not only from working with him, but I also used to clean his office.”

  So there’d either be ample evidence to back up the faith both Connelly men had in him or a lack of evidence that might very well point to his guilt.

  “Williams is on the top floor but doesn’t have full security clearance in terms of accounts,” Walter said then, causing Liam to glance his way.

  “I thought everyone up there had clearance.”

  “Williams is there because I needed his muscle,” Walter said. “I’d received threats—that goes with the territory—but one in particular mentioned a bomb...”

  Liam’s chair flew back as he jumped up. “A bomb! Why wasn’t I told about this?” He started pacing.

  “Sit down, Liam. Calm down.”

  Picking up his chair, Liam held on to the back of it with both hands, facing his father.

  “You were in college.” Walter seemed to relent to Liam’s choice not to follow his order to have a seat. “I called the police. A bomb squad came in, gave us the all clear. The note was investigated, but nothing came of it. Larry Charles, chief of police at the time, suggested I get a bodyguard. Williams has a degree in finance and pulls his weight in that area, but he’s on the top floor because he’s a former Navy SEAL with bomb squad training.”

  The man neglected to tell his own son about a bomb scare and an employee highly trained to protect them?

  “Granger’s been with us the shortest period of time,” Walter continued, raising an eyebrow to his still standing son. Apparently capitulating, Liam sat. “I don’t have any reason to suspect him of anything. I bought him away from Merrill Lynch because I liked him. He’s married to his second wife, an internist with a thriving practice, and they have a couple of married kids. As far as I can tell, he lives within his means.”

  Okay. Well, there was a lot to think about. And...

  “Look, I know you have counsel, but I suggest that you get yourself another attorney,” she told Walter Connelly. “You’re going to need someone who has no connection to you or your company, someone who couldn’t possibly come under any suspicion. Someone powerful.”

  “I’ll take care of finding someone,” Liam told his father.

  “Thank you.” Walter nodded.

  Gabrielle had to physically restrain herself from letting her mouth drop open. According to Liam, the man never apologized to him or thanked him for anything.

  “But I want George involved every step of the way,” Walter added.

  “I know, Dad. I do, too.” Liam was nodding. Looking as if he wanted to say more.

  But he didn’t. And neither did Walter, as Liam and Gabrielle got up and left.

  Head held high, Liam didn’t look back as they calmly made their way down the hallway that would take them back to the elevators. But Gabrielle did. And was disturbed to catch the pained expression on Walter Connelly’s face as he watched them walk away. It was gone in an instant.

  But Gabrielle had no doubt it had been there.

  And no doubt that that look was going to stick with her. Because everything about Liam Connelly seemed to do so.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE COULDN’T JUST get on with life. Even if he’d been enough like his old man to turn his back on family, Liam still would have had to find out what was going on. He’d worked at Connelly until recently, had been the heir to the entire corporation and for the past several years had been a top-floor executive. The FBI had been looking at him. He had to protect himself. Clear his name.

  Liam pondered long into that night. He didn’t go out. Didn’t look for a game of chance, a woman or a drink. He didn’t run to his confessors. He spent the night investigating, researching, taking care of his own business to the best of his ability.

  With the personal list he’d kept of every account he’d worked with during his years at Connelly, and his privately kept contact list—composed of pretty much anyone he’d ever met long enough to exchange contact information—he made more lists. People he could contact. Those he trusted more than others. People he knew trusted his father. People with more money than they knew what to do with. Those who watched their investments more closely. Anyone he knew who was associated with the Grayson development on any level, from tile-laying contractors to investors.

  And in the morning, dressed in his best dark suit and a red silk tie and holding a briefcase carrying only a blank note pad and pen, he showed up at Connelly Investments. Fully prepared to be turned away at the door, he was surprised to find himself able to get to the top floor without delay—helped by the fact that the security guard accompanied him.

  All the way to George’s office.

  And back down again, too, twenty minutes later, with an earful from the man he’d once trusted with his life. He’d been told he wasn’t welcome. Warned not to return.

  He hadn’t been given a chance to ask questions. Or express opinions.

  He’d never even opened his briefcase.

  * * *

  WITH PURPOSE FIRMLY in mind, Liam drove the BMW he now cherished more than any other possession he’d ever owned—because it was paid in full—away from the upscale part of town that had always been his neighborhood and back to the historic downtown area. He didn’t go home, though. After his unproductive meeting with George, he was now working under the dictates of plan B.

  A plan that had solidified during the long night.

  He didn’t call ahead. Didn’t want Gabrielle to get any ideas that he was coming to her as a friend needing a shoulder to cry on.

  Liam’s days of crying on anyone’s shoulder were over.

  Cataloging every word of the cryptic conversation he’d had with George, telling a story in his mind in an attempt to find clarity, Liam occupied every one of the twenty-two minutes he had to wait for Gabi to finish with her client—a shabby-looking man who looked as if he’d pulled his too-big, ragged jacket out of a trash bin.

  “Thank you, Miss Gabi,” her client said as she walked with him through the crowded waiting room of the legal aid office.

  She’d yet to see Liam sitting there on one of the hard plastic chairs. He watched her, liking the fact that he could observe this Gabi he’d never seen before.

  “You’re welcome, Jim. You’re going to be just fine now, and I want you to come to me anytime, call me anytime, if you need help again.”

  “I will.” The man smiled.

  Liam expected the grin to be toothless. And was surprised by the row of even white teeth he saw there.

  Those weren’t the teeth of somebody who’d lost everything due to drug or alcohol abuse. They made Liam think that at one point in the not too distant past, the man had lived a better life.

  Like he himself had?

  Was that where he was headed? This time next year, would he be wearing thrift-store clothes?

  Gabi and the gentleman were out in the hallway now, out of Liam’s earshot. />
  He stood, ready to approach her when she came back in. He already knew that she was on her last scheduled appointment of the morning—he’d asked at the front desk. She could have an internal meeting, though. With one of her fellow lawyers. Or a prosecutor or judge or...

  Hands in his pockets, he left his briefcase on the floor next to his chair and moseyed toward the door, peeking out to see that she was still there.

  In her black pants and red blazer, she was garnering attention from a couple of suited gentlemen who’d entered the building. She didn’t seem to notice.

  But as her client exited, she turned...and noticed him. He started toward her. With composure and confidence. He hoped.

  “Liam? What are you doing here?” Pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket, she glanced at the screen. “I don’t have any missed calls from you,” she said as she reached him.

  “I want to speak with you.”

  Her frown was instantaneous. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he was quick to assure her. But at her look of...was that pity?...he continued, “Nothing other than what you already know,” he told her. “Do you have a minute for me?”

  “You could have called...” She glanced at her phone again. And Liam noticed how thick and full her short black hair was. How it made a guy want to run his fingers through it.

  Wondering if the two men who’d just entered the building had noticed.

  His first indication that he wasn’t as...okay...as he’d thought.

  “I was out anyway. The receptionist said you were on your last appointment.” He wanted her to see him as a client.

  “I’ve only got about fifteen minutes,” she said. “You want to have dinner with Marie and me tonight? We can all three talk then—all night if you need to.”

  He wasn’t a college boy anymore, needing absolution. “I’ll take the fifteen minutes, if you can give them to me,” he said, his tone calm. But serious. “I’d like to speak with you professionally, Gabi. You take on personal clients occasionally, when your workload allows...”

  “Yeah...”

  “So...do you have room for me?”