“Okay,” she said. “But I’ll owe you one.”
“Great,” he said. “I’ve got this sister…”
She burst out laughing. “There’s always a catch! What, does she want a free seaweed wrap or something?”
Jonah shook his head. “No, a job. Right now she works for me, but I’d love to find something else for her.”
“You want me to hire your sister because you don’t want her working for you anymore?” she asked, amused. “I think I’d rather pay you your rate.”
“It’s not that she’s not a good worker,” he told her. “She’s very efficient.”
Lily waited for him to continue, her lips twitching when he just looked harassed. “But…?”
He shook his head. “No but. She’s efficient, she keeps my office running smoothly, handles all the billing and books and appointments.”
He sighed out a breath as though the weight of the world were on his shoulders. “And she drives me bat-shit crazy.”
Lily had to bite back another laugh, he looked so miserable. “Well, if she wants to come see me, I’d be happy to meet with her. I can always use more efficient around here.”
“I’ll tell her,” he said. “And if you get her out of my hair, I’ll do free security work for the hotel for a year.”
“That’s quite an offer.”
“Bat-shit crazy,” he reminded her emphatically, and this time she couldn’t restrain the laugh.
“Well, I love efficiency,” she told him, “so we’ll see what we can do.”
“Great.” He glanced at his watch. “And I’m sorry, but I have that appointment, and if I don’t leave now I’ll be late.”
“Of course,” she told him, standing as he rose from his seat. “I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this for me.”
“Not a problem,” he assured her. “I should know something within a couple of days.”
“You know where to find me,” she said.
“That I do. Thanks for the coffee,” he said with a wink, and walked out the door.
Lily signaled for the check and sat back down to finish her coffee. That idea had been inspired, she decided, and gave herself a mental pat on the back. Hopefully Jonah would be able to find something, figure out what was going. Then things could go back to normal. She thought about calling Nate to tell him about her conversation with Jonah, but rejected it almost immediately. She’d tell him when there was something to tell. No sense making him any more paranoid without cause.
* * * * *
Nate checked his watch and quickened his step. He was only a little late meeting Jonah Keller for a status update, but he wanted to make sure to be home by the time Lily got off work that afternoon.
He smothered the vague sense of unease that had become his constant companion and opened the coffee shop door. He knew Lily wouldn’t be pleased if she knew the steps he was taking behind her back to ensure her safety, but the bottom line was he cared about her and would do whatever he thought was necessary to keep her safe. And if that made her mad…
He snorted to himself as he scanned the shop for Jonah. It wasn’t a question of if it would make her mad, he knew, but just how pissed off she would be when she found out. He had a feeling it would be an eruption to rival Krakatoa.
He caught sight of Jonah standing at the counter and elbowed his way through the afternoon crowd of college kids to stand next to him.
Jonah glanced over. “How the hell are you supposed to decide what kind of coffee to get?” He gestured at the menu board. “Lattes, cappuccinos, high foam, no foam, dark roast, light roast.”
Nate grinned. “It takes some getting used to.” He smiled at the barista behind the counter. “I’ll have an espresso.”
“Bottle of water for me,” Jonah put in, and reached for his wallet.
Nate laid a hand on his arm. “I’ve got this one.” He took the water from the barista and handed it to Jonah to dig a ten-dollar bill out of his own pocket.
“Thanks.” Jonah twisted off the cap and took a long swallow. “Let’s do this outside, it’s too crowded in here.”
“Sure.” Nate took his espresso and stuffed the change from his ten into the tip jar.
They stepped out onto the back patio and found seats at an umbrella table to ward of the bright summer sun.
“So.” Nate took a cautious sip of his coffee. “You said on the phone you wanted to tell me something about Carelli?”
Jonah nodded. “I got the financial report back.” He leaned forward and pulled a sheaf of papers out of his hip pocket to toss them on the table. “He’s on solid financial ground with the family businesses, and there are a couple of other personal ventures he’s started in the last year that appear to be bringing in a lot of money.”
“Appear to be?”
Jonah shrugged. “That’s what the paperwork says, but something’s off. I’ve taken a look at the banking activity for the last eighteen months, and I can’t prove anything, but my personal hunch? He’s laundering money.”
Nate cursed under his breath. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Jonah shook his head. “Usually isn’t. He does a lot of business traveling, looking for new ventures and things like that. Wouldn’t be hard to set up this kind of thing if you had the right contacts.”
“You think he’s doing it to cover up his own dirty deeds or someone else’s?”
Jonah took a drink of water. “Hard to say, really. I didn’t find any discrepancies in the family businesses. Never seen books so meticulous, actually.”
“That follows,” Nate muttered, and sucked the rest of his coffee down in one scalding gulp. “Lily says old man Carelli is as straight as they come.”
“It shows,” Jonah said. “Anyway, it’s the new businesses, the flower shop, the cafe that young Max has started up within the last year that look suspicious to me. And if this thing leads where I think it’s going to go, the authorities are going to have to get involved.”
Nate winced. “Lily’s not going to like that.”
“Probably not. And since you bring it up, we had an interesting conversation today you ought to know about.”
Nate shoved his empty cup aside to lean forward. “About what?”
“This.”
Nate frowned. “What do you mean, this? You didn’t tell her you’re working for me, did you?”
Jonah’s eyes rolled. “MacIntyre, I take client privilege very seriously. She has no idea I’m working for you.”
“Well, if she didn’t want to talk about that, then what?”
“She wanted to talk about my working for her.” Jonah capped his water then set it aside. “She wanted to hire me to look into Max Carelli, to find out why he broke into her apartment.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t let her hire you, did you? Wouldn’t that be slightly unethical?”
“Not technically, but it doesn’t sit too well with me to get paid twice for the same job.” Jonah shook his head. “Boy, would my father go nutty if he heard me say that. Anyway, I didn’t let her pay me, but I told her I’d look into it for her.”
“You didn’t give her what you’ve uncovered so far?”
Jonah shook his head. “She might wonder how I just happened to have all that at my fingertips. But I told her to give me a few days, and I’d get back to her when I had something.”
Nate sat back in his chair. “That’ll give me some time, at least.”
“Not much,” Jonah cautioned. “That’s a smart lady. If I were you, I’d come clean pretty quick, before she figures it out for herself.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Jonah stood. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think this Max guy is dangerous. At least not under normal circumstances. But if he’s laundering money, he’s not doing it for nuns and orphans. And the folks who require money laundering usually are dangerous.”
Nate nodded. “Thanks.”
“You thought right. And actually,” Nate said as he slowly straightened in his chair, “since she wants you to look into this for her, that’s as good an excuse as any to stay in touch with her.”
“Good point,” Jonah admitted, but didn’t look as though he liked it. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. I’ll call Graham, keep the cops updated.”
“Appreciate it.” Nate stood and held out a hand. “I appreciate all the help, Jonah. Really.”
“Happy to do it,” Jonah said as they shook hands. “I’ll be in touch.”
Nate sat back down and watched Jonah weave his way through the crowd thoughtfully. That Lily had asked Jonah to look into Max’s possible involvement in the break-in was heartening to him. He was relieved she was finally taking her safety seriously. But he wondered if she’d tell him about it.
Chapter Seventeen
For the next few days, Lily wrestled with the question of whether to tell Nate of her suspicions about Max, and her decision to have Jonah look into them for her.
She brooded about it at work. It was Thursday, her usual day off, but one of the other managers had a conflict with her daughter’s ballet recital and wanted to switch, so Lily had agreed to come in, thinking it would give her something to think about besides the tangled web her personal life had become. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything to do at work, so all she could do was think.
Part of her really wanted to tell him, if only so she could relax again. She felt as though every moment spent with him was full of tension and subterfuge, making it impossible to fully relax in his arms at night, or to enjoy the silly, happy moments that she was coming to cherish as a part of their relationship.
On the other hand, she saw no signs of his protectiveness toward her letting up, and she worried that if she told him what she suspected, he’d become overbearing and completely impossible to live with. Already he insisted on picking her up from the office whenever his schedule allowed, meeting her car on the rare days that she drove herself home from work so he could walk her to her apartment. The security system had been installed, a ridiculously elaborate combination of motion sensors and alarms that made her feel as though she were sleeping in Alcatraz. She’d gotten up in the middle of the night once to pee and set everything off, bringing the cops on the fly and waking everyone in the neighborhood.
After that, she’d put her foot down about the alarm. She agreed to set the alarm for the doors and windows at night or when she was in the apartment alone, but the motion sensors stayed off unless she was out of the apartment.
He’d agreed to that with much less fuss than she’d expected, probably because he’d been with her when the sensors went off and the cops had burst in on him naked and cursing as he tried to reset the alarm. She grinned when she remembered the look on his face when the uniforms had burst in.
She sighed and toyed with the pencil holder on her desk absently. She was happier in this relationship than she’d ever been, but the shadow of her deception was casting a pall over it. She needed to find a resolution to this problem so she could move past it, and come clean with Nate.
She rose from her desk and walked out to poke her head out into the reception area. “Jason?”
The day clerk looked up from his inorganic chemistry book, a guilty flush staining his cheeks as he slammed it closed and shoved it under the counter. “I’m sorry, Ms. Michaels,” he stammered, but she waved him off.
“It’s okay, Jason. It’s slow today, and I know you’ve got a test coming up.”
He sighed with relief. “Thanks.”
She smiled briefly. “No problem. Listen, will you do me a favor? If you see Mr. Keller come in, would you let me know? I need to speak with him about something.”
“Oh, he just came in a few minutes ago,” Jason said.
Lily had been turning to go back into the office but spun back around at that. “He did?”
Jason nodded. “I saw him go into the restaurant,” he said.
“Thanks, Jason.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to see if I can track him down. I have my mobile with me if you need to reach me.”
She skirted the reception desk and walked into the restaurant, scanning the room for a glimpse of Jonah’s golden head. She frowned when she didn’t see him, and snagged a passing waitress.
“Caroline, have you seen Mr. Keller?”
“He went out onto the patio with that other guy,” Caroline said, indicating the French doors with a jerk of her head.
“Oh. Thanks,” she said absently, and chewed on her bottom lip as Caroline walked off. If he was meeting with another client, she didn’t want to interrupt him. She’d wait for a few minutes, she decided, and went to get a cup of tea from the kitchen to keep her company while she did.
* * * * *
Out on the patio, Jonah sipped a plain cup of black coffee while Nate looked over the report he’d prepared on Max’s financials. “You sure you want to do this here? She could step out here at any time.”
Nate shook his head without looking up. “I’ll just say you’re investigation some real estate I’m thinking of investing in. You do that kind of thing, right?”
Jonah snorted. “Yeah, but she’s not going to buy it. You don’t have much of a poker face.”
“Says you. Okay,” Nate said as he picked up his head. “I give up. Tell me what I’m reading.”
Jonah leaned forward and tapped the page. “See this, where the monthly income from his flower shop is listed?”
Nate looked at the number. “Yeah. That’s pretty good income for a flower shop.”
“That’s ridiculous income for a flower shop,” Jonah corrected. “Even if you’re marking up the posies by about a thousand percent, you wouldn’t see that kind of profit margin on this kind of business. And if you look here,” he flipped to the next page of the report, “you’ll see the supplies he’s ordered for the shop are way below what they should be for that volume of business.”
It was all Greek to Nate, but he nodded anyway. “So you’re saying…”
“It doesn’t match. It’s not definitive evidence of anything, and you couldn’t prove it by this alone, but my gut tells me he’s into something shady. Either laundering money, or he’s not selling flowers out of that shop.”
“I’m not sure which option is worse,” Nate muttered.
Jonah shrugged. “Hard to say. If he’s selling drugs out of the shop, then I’d say that’s a bigger direct threat than if he’s laundering money. Drug dealers and their clients aren’t usually known for their logical thinking.”
Nate nodded. “And if he’s laundering money?”
“Could be for anybody, really, but chances are if something’s gone wrong they’ll look to Max, not to Lily or Bridget. They’ll expect him to handle the problem, whatever it is, and he’ll be the one to accept the consequences if it falls apart. Unfortunately, that’ll just make him desperate to get his hands on whatever it is he thinks Lily has, and desperation often breeds ruthlessness.”
“Fuck.” Nate scrubbed his hands across his face then dropped them to look Jonah in the eye. “Okay, tell me what we do now.”
* * * * *
Lily sipped her tea and chatted amiably with the kitchen staff and tried not to look at her watch every five seconds. She really didn’t want to bother Jonah if he was with a client, after all, he had to make a living, and she knew all the work he was having to do on his house couldn’t be cheap.
But patience had never been her strong suit, and after ten minutes of sipping tepid tea and nibbling on a banana nut muffin, she wandered back into the dining room. Not wanting to intrude but wanting to gauge whether she should keep waiting or go ba
ck to work, she sidled up to the French doors and peeked out.
She spotted Jonah’s blond head almost immediately, and noted with frustration that he was still with someone. She couldn’t quite see who, as his back was turned to her, only that it was another man.
A client, she thought, or maybe a friend. Either way, she was going to have to wait for them to finish before approaching. She sighed and nibbled her muffin. “Patience is a virtue,” she reminded herself, and was turning to go back to her office when a sudden movement out on the patio caught her attention.
Thinking Jonah might be starting to bid his guest goodbye, she turned back to the window to check. Jonah hadn’t moved, but his companion had gotten out of his chair and circled the table to stand next to Jonah, head bent as he looked at something on the table.
She frowned, something nagging at the corners of her mind. He looked familiar, she realized. Something in the body language as he bent over the table, the set of his shoulders and the fall of tawny hair across his forehead. Then he lifted a hand to plow through his hair in a gesture of helpless frustration that was very familiar to her, and everything clicked into place.
“Nate,” she realized, and set her teacup down on a nearby table with a clatter. No longer concerned with interrupting, she pushed open the patio door and strode across the flagstones.
Both men looked up at her approach, one with an expression of amused resignation, the other with a look of startled panic that was quickly covered by a bright smile.
She focused on Nate. “Hi there.”
The smile brightened suspiciously. “Hi, baby.”
She steeled herself against the flash of dimples. “Did we have lunch plans today or something?”
He shook his head. “No, I needed to meet Jonah to go over some things.”
“Really? What kind of things?”
“Some business papers. I asked him to look into an investment property I’m considering.”
“Oh yeah? I know something about investment properties.” Lily nodded at the papers on the table. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
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