So About the Money

by Cathy Perkins

  “You did the right thing, breaking up with him.”

  Holly fiddled with her beer, slowly turning the glass. “I tried. I told him in no uncertain terms that I would go wherever I wanted. That no one told me what to do.” She dropped her gaze to the pizza box, hating to even remember those days in Seattle. “It was the first time he really scared me. I honestly thought he might hit me. I backed away and he got it under control, but instead of leaving me alone, it got worse. Every time I turned around, he was right there. I changed grocery stores, coffee shops.”

  She shook her head. “I’d round a corner and there he’d be. Or he’d walk up behind me…He’d follow me if I went on a date, sit at the next table, and glare. He got his cop buddies to drive by my house and check for my car. I’d stand at my window and watch patrol cars slow down or stop in front of my building. They’d pull me over if I was driving and tell me to ‘get my act together.’ ”

  “Sweetie.” Laurie reached over and hugged her.

  “I’ve never felt so trapped. Who was I going to go to? The police?” She made a bitter noise. “I got the restraining order when I showed the judge the call log. Hundreds of call and texts every friggin’ day. And that was after I told Frank to leave me alone. Some of those messages… God, he had me so freaked out.”

  “I remember you said the other police weren’t helpful.” Laurie shook her head. “I can’t imagine…That sucks.”

  “I kept telling myself most of the officers were good guys. But when Mom asked for help, I was actually grateful for the excuse to leave town for a while. So what happens?” She threw up her hands. “This insane week.”

  “It has been nuts. But what happened tonight, just now?” Laurie gestured toward the front door.

  Holly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes, hoping she’d see things differently. “A Richland cop stopped outside my house because there was a pizza guy on my doorstep and a second car in the driveway. Without talking to me, JC apparently called them and asked them to do that.”

  “Holly…yesterday was pretty scary.”

  “You’re missing the point. It’s JC wanting to control me. Just like Frank did. Were you not listening?”

  Laurie shook her head. “No, you’re missing the point. Frank and JC are completely different. They’re doing things for different reasons. Someone tried to hit us in a parking lot. We both know it wasn’t an accident. JC knows it too. He cares about you and wants you safe.”

  Holly raised frustrated hands. “But on his terms. He’s deciding for me.”

  “This works in your favor. If it was me and someone I used to be involved with recruits his friends to protect me…Tell me something Holly.” Laurie swiveled toward her, a serious expression on her face. “If something else happened, would you trust JC—the man who was here tonight, not the kid you used to know—would you trust him to take care of you?”

  Part of her wanted to blow off Laurie’s question because it wasn’t what was bothering her, but she couldn’t help remembering how much better she felt when JC showed up Thursday night. She crossed her arms, wrestling with too many issues. She’d always been a Bottom Line women and whether she wanted to deal with the repercussions or not, the Bottom Line was she did trust JC to take care of her. Maybe Laurie was right. JC and Frank’s motives were completely different.

  “Maybe the issue isn’t control,” she said slowly. “Maybe it’s more about communication and trust.”

  “Progress.” Laurie smiled her Cheshire grin. “Keep working on that. Now open the pizza box. I’m starving.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Saturday morning

  The central console pinged a warning when Holly started the BMW. Low air pressure.

  Holly moved the gearshift to park, climbed out and examined the tires. The right front tire did look a little bulgy at the bottom. Great.

  Her first stop was the gas station. A car vacuum and an air pressure machine stood side by side at one edge of the lot. She pulled the manual from the glove box and finally found the tire setting. Okay, thirty five pounds.

  She studied the air machine. There was no regulator. No dial to set. How much was she supposed to put in?

  Hmm.

  As long as she didn’t blow up the tire, she was good.

  She connected the hose, squirted air into the tire, and added “Visit Tire Store” to her long To-Do list.

  Minutes later, she cleared the Interstate 182/82 interchange and set the BMW’s cruise control at seventy-two miles per hour. Tire underinflated, reduce speed, warned the console. As if in response, the front end shimmied.

  She lowered her speed. Damn. Spend the morning at the tire store or drive?

  It might take a few minutes longer, but the car could make it to Yakima, as long as she watched her speed. She reset the cruise control. Slow, but no warnings or weirdness from the tires.

  Elbow propped on the window ledge, she gave her left hand an experimental flex. Annoyed rumbles came from under the bandage, but her fingers weren’t as stiff as they’d been the day before. She squirmed into a comfortable position and watched the countryside stream past her window. Farms, orchards, and vineyards lined the Yakima River—a crazy quilt of yellows and reds that stitched together a series of small towns.

  Hopefully, the extra key in her tote bag fit a mailbox in one of the towns’ post offices.

  The tire seemed to holding its own. She settled in for the drive and tapped her Bluetooth. “Voicemail.”

  Most of Friday’s ignored calls were friends expressing concern over the incident in the library parking lot. Then, “Holly? Devon Edwards.”

  She straightened.

  “I checked that Wyoming proxy. Nothing definite, but the feds are sniffing around. You sure you want this guy as a client?”

  She’d asked herself the same question.

  The next voicemail began and the bottom fell out of her stomach.

  “Hello, Holly.”

  Blood drained from her face, leaving her cold and sweaty. She knew that voice.

  Frank Phalen.

  She’d moved three hundred miles to get away from him. But somehow, she’d known he would find her again.

  “I’m glad you came to see me at the casino. We were meant to be together. To have a second chance.”

  Second chance? Oh God, the flowers were from him.

  “Call me.”

  This could not be happening.

  The pavement before her started a slow, swaying dance. She made it to the side of the road. The car shuddered as trucks rushed past, the buffeting air forming a counterpoint to her chorus of wails.

  ~$~

  Holly wasn’t sure how long she sat on the shoulder of the highway. Gradually, reason returned. Okay. The long hair, the clothes, the hat. Working security. Not what she expected, but she still should’ve figured it out immediately. Creepy Security Guy was Frank. No more rationalizing or explaining it away.

  Part of her wanted to shriek, How could you not recognize him?

  The rest went, Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

  He’d seen her when she met with Peter Ayers. No wonder he’d sent the flowers to the office. Oh crap, he knows where I work. Sending flowers might be a gray area, but calling her violated the restraining order.

  Was the order still in effect? It had been nearly a year. How long did a protective order last?

  JC’s words from the wake resonated in her mind. Tell me if Phalen contacts you.

  She raised her hand to tap the Bluetooth and call JC, but the previous evening’s confrontation made her pause. JC might think calling about Frank was just a pretense to contact him. Was she even remotely ready to talk to him?

  Not just no, but hell, no.

  They needed to finish that conversation, and she wasn’t doing it over the phone.

  Five minutes after she pulled back onto the highway, she noticed a black SUV seemed to be keeping pace with her car. One thing the ordeal with Frank had taught her was to watch her b
ack.

  Her gaze drifted back to the rearview mirror. Even at her reduced speed, the vehicle hung behind her. Her thumb hovered over the cruise-control lever. She couldn’t speed up with the shaky tire. After a momentary hesitation, she tapped the control to decelerate and slowed the BMW.

  The sedan behind her swung into the passing lane. The SUV stayed back. A tendril of concern eased up her spine.

  Damn. It was official. JC and Frank Phalen had made her totally paranoid.

  You aren’t being paranoid if someone really is after you.

  She nipped the invasive thought. Her exit was coming up. It’d be easy enough to prove the black vehicle wasn’t following her.

  The Prosser exit arrived. She watched the SUV as she eased into the turn lane. It slowed, as if its driver might also exit. Eyes riveted to the rearview mirror, she coasted down the off-ramp. The black vehicle accelerated and continued on the Interstate.

  She gave a small sigh of relief. Paranoia was so tiring.

  Within minutes, she reached the Prosser post office and found the short row of mailboxes. Maybe the extra key belonged to Marcy’s personal box. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with Stevens Ventures. She poked the key into the lock and twisted.

  The lock didn’t turn.

  Wrong box.

  Damn.

  Same results in Moxee, Grandview, and Sunnyside.

  She struck pay dirt in Granger. The mailbox was packed with late notices, some forwarded from another box in Ellensburg, others mailed directly to the overstuffed Granger box.

  Rather than stand in the post office and shuffle through envelopes branded with bright red last-notice and past-due warnings, she pushed the stack back into the mailbox.

  Okay, now she knew where the box was and that apparently nobody was cleaning it out.

  Pocketing the keys, she walked to her car as though she knew what she was doing.

  Now she had to figure out a way to make JC trip over the information, so the police could actually use it.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Holly’s conscience walked on the legal side of the law. Breaking into Tim’s office was a bad idea.

  But she wasn’t breaking in.

  Tim didn’t say she could have the keys, her conscience argued.

  But his employee had given them to her, fully understanding she intended to go through the files, because Kaylin didn’t want to do it herself.

  Slippery slope.

  Perfectly legal. She had keys. She had permission.

  So why was she sitting in her car arguing with herself?

  She climbed from the BMW and strode toward the small house Tim used as a satellite office. Eyes front. Act like you’re supposed to be here.

  This side street held a mixture of small businesses and residences. The yards were empty and traffic was light, but who knew if nosy neighbors were already reporting a prowler…

  She stood in front of the locked entrance. Her heart thumped in her ears. What if Tim had an alarm system? Hesitating made her look suspicious, so she swiftly unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  No loud claxon clamored. She scanned the small room. No keypad beside the entrance. No metal box in the corner with a blinking red light. She drew in a ragged breath. Good. No obvious alarm.

  Light filtered through the dusty, open-weave curtains. What looked like a cheap dinette set stood on the right—oak-toned chairs around a spindle table—with a closed door beyond it. Sofa on the left. Desk in the corner. An open doorway opposite her.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  The silence felt not so much empty as…waiting.

  Halfway across the room she realized she was doing the burglar creep—one silent foot in front of the other, with the cartoonish body-lurch in time with the steps.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said aloud.

  The door behind the table revealed a kitchen converted to a break room. It smelled of burnt coffee and microwave popcorn. No surprise there. She stepped through the rear opening and found three closed doors lining a narrow corridor. The middle door opened to an old-fashioned bathroom. She opened the door on the right and stared in horrified surprise. A queen-sized mattress on a platform frame centered the space. Rumpled pillows and tangled sheets swathed the bed. Candles in various stages of disintegration covered ledges and windowsills.

  Ooh. Ick.

  Apparently, she’d found Tim’s love nest.

  Gross.

  She closed the door, not wanting to know more. If anyone ever needed evidence of Tim’s infidelity, an anonymous tip could suggest a prime location to look for it.

  With a shudder, she moved to the other end of the hall and wondered what lay behind door number three. If this were a Gothic haunted house, a soundtrack would be playing creepy music and a voice would shout, “Don’t open the door, idiot!”

  She turned the knob and again felt the bottom fall from her stomach. An industrial-scale shredder stood in the middle of the room. Several trash bags that held thousands of tiny paper chips slouched against a row of file cabinets.

  Maybe the shredding was routine housecleaning—Tim getting rid of old files, unneeded project specs.

  Nothing unusual. Nothing damning.

  She crossed to the desk and picked up a handful of documents from the pile closest to the shredder. Thumbing through them, she felt no pleasure in being right. If this had been a due diligence with her Seattle M&A team, she’d be congratulating herself. Instead, she stared at documents that represented an $830,000 loan to one of the mystery companies. The stack contained the complete loan package, detailing a series of loans for a project that didn’t exist, as far as she knew.

  The papers fell from her hands, joining the blizzard of documents.

  If it had really been a project that went south, the bank would’ve attached any assets inside the corporation, collected whatever it could on the loan, and written off the rest. Tim’s credit rating would’ve taken a hit but business would go on as usual.

  Instead…he was gambling on a shell game. Trying to cover his tracks…

  She picked through the papers. More loans. More late notices.

  At the height of the housing boom, Tim had borrowed money for projects he never planned to build. He’d sucked out the money to other operating companies and sent it—where?

  To cover gambling losses? An expensive wife and mistress? Both?

  How could you, Tim?

  She looked from the papers to the shredder. Clearly the documents were being destroyed, but she couldn’t tell how recently anyone had been in the office. She cast a troubled glance over her shoulder, feeling the quiet as an uneasy presence.

  “Screw it.” She was already in trouble if someone walked in and found her there.

  She poked through the document piles, found key pages and stepped over to the copier. The groan and thump of the paper handler sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the office. She shot another anxious look at the door.

  “Shaky ground” barely covered where she stood.

  Do what you came for.

  She opened the first file cabinet drawer. Haphazard folders contained documents for loans, incorporations. It would take days, weeks, to process it all.

  A phone shrilled.

  She shrieked, jumped, and dropped the incorporation filing she’d been examining. Her injured palm slammed against the drawer. “Ouch, dammit.”

  Clutching her sore hand, she spun around. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream. Her gaze darted around the room, searching for the phone. It gave a second blast, then a fax-tone chirped, and another machine spat out a page.

  She’d already stayed too long. The sensation of hidden, watching eyes grew stronger. Her heart hammered, preparing to run. Maybe JC wasn’t Just Crazy. Maybe he was right and the parking lot incident really wasn’t an accident. Maybe Frank was driving that SUV. He could be waiting for her right outside.

  Get moving and get out.

  With a shudder, she scanned th
e room. What should she salvage?

  She zeroed in on the shredder. Her sore knees complained when she knelt and retrieved the papers scattered around the machine. More default notices. Demands for payment. Intentions to foreclose.

  Sorting though the mess, she found papers from eight banks and several subprime lenders. She made copies and added the duplicates to her growing pile. The originals drifted back into the snow-bank of deceit. Through it all, the creepy feeling of a stalking presence grew stronger, until tension churned her stomach.

  Enough.

  Even if the rest of the papers disappeared into the maw of the shredder, she had the lenders’ names. The lenders would have originals too.

  She stuffed her motley collection into her tote bag and reexamined the office. It looked no more disorganized than when she’d arrived. She hoped no one would notice her fleeting presence.

  In the front room, she peered through the curtains, then reached for the doorknob. On the plus side, no police cars outside with guys ready to arrest her ass. No black SUV lurked down the street. The downside? Her car was parked at the curb right out front.

  Smooth move. She’d never make it as a PI.

  Anybody looking for her would know exactly where she was, if not what she was doing. Her gaze dropped to her fingers, wrapped around the doorknob.

  Fingerprints.

  She’d left them everywhere.

  Her hand jerked away from the door. Oh, crap. Fear squeezed her throat, stifled her breathing. What if the banks—the cops—found them? Thought she was part of it?

  She ran her fingers through her hair, took a deep breath. Panic solved nothing. Be reasonable. Think logically.