Synergy: New Adult Romantic Suspense (U-District, #1)

by Ashland, Jodi

  The aroma of coffee filled the room and somehow made him feel less groggy. He poured creamer into his mug.

  Stan Templeman was still high on the list. He’d had a secret relationship with Gloria. He’d expected to become CEO and was instead fired by Jade. Right before that, the laptop had been stolen, the financial consultant had been run off the road, and then Jade had been attacked. Yeah, Templeman was still high on the list of suspects, but his love for Gloria seemed genuine. If he was the perp, then Gloria’s death was likely not related. Neal needed to pursue that angle again and put a tail on the man.

  After the break-in and finding out about the holding company, Neal had more resources at his disposal. His captain was starting to believe the possible connection with Arnie Thompson’s death. This was no longer just a minor police matter. It was becoming a major investigation.

  Two detectives came over with their mugs, too damn lazy to make a pot themselves. Vultures. “Get in line.” Neal poured the strong brew into his mug and stirred.

  Timothy Hartwick had an outward dislike of Jade. He didn’t even try to mask his disdain for her. Purchasing reported to Hartwick, making it possible for him to arrange for the bogus companies to be involved. Hartwick was single, had no children, liked young women, and had a lot of expensive toys, despite his debt. He had plenty of motive too.

  What about Arnie Thompson? How does he fit into this?

  Neal had confirmed that Hartwick’s boat was moored at Elliot Bay Marina, five and a half miles from Shilshole Bay Marina, where Thompson’s car had been found. What if Thompson had something to do with the financial issues Synergy was having? Thompson did work in Purchasing. He might have been involved somehow. And Hartwick could easily have met Thompson at Shilshole Bay Marina, but then why would he own another boat under a holding company? That didn’t add up.

  Neal sat back down at his desk. The caffeine was slowly making its way into his system. He glanced at his notes on Donald Haley, who he’d just added to his list yesterday.

  Haley had administrator privileges to the system, but he hadn’t been on the management team when Jade had threatened to fire them, so that didn’t provide motive. Haley did benefit from Stan Templeman being fired, but Jade said he was surprised by his promotion.

  Haley had married his only girlfriend when he was twenty-seven. They had no kids, possibly due to his bad childhood. He had been placed into foster care at the age of six, one year after his mother had died. Haley’s father had gone into a deep depression from the loss of his wife and had forgotten to feed the poor kid. By high-school graduation, Haley was the heaviest one in the yearbook. Neal had read about food hoarding by children who’d gone without. He couldn’t blame the guy. But was food the only thing Haley had an irrational need for?

  Haley lived in Carnation, practically in the wilderness compared to Seattle. It was a small farming town known for its dairy cows. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live out in the boonies. Jade liked Haley, and he was helping her figure out what was financially wrong with the company.

  Interesting. Haley, the director of Finance, hadn’t zeroed in on the financial discrepancies himself. Jade had found them.

  Haley had just recently taken on Stan Templeman’s work in addition to his own, so that could explain why he hadn’t figured out the problem yet. Still, Neal wanted to talk to Haley further. He listed that on his notepad.

  When the computer beeped, Neal glanced up at his screen. It was his travel alert on Stan Templeman. Templeman had just bought two plane tickets to Mexico for three days from now. It was time to pay the man another visit.

  But first, Neal would check whether Templeman had suddenly moved any funds out of the country.

  JADE RUBBED HER EYES. She’d been staring at numbers for the past three hours. She saved the query she’d created on her office computer. There were fifty-six companies with P.O. boxes associated with them. Thirty-eight of those had “LLC” at the end of the company’s name.

  She searched the Internet, comparing the prices on their web sites to what her database showed. She entered them into a spreadsheet imported from the database. The lower-cost parts were overinflated by as little as sixty cents per unit, while the higher-cost parts were overinflated by as much as a several thousand dollars.

  One number stood out in the center of the screen. Where have I seen that figure before?

  Numbers raced through Jade’s mind. No, not from school. It came from Synergy. She focused on her time at the company, seeing in her mind the contracts and financial reports from when she’d worked at Synergy before. Nothing stood out. She focused on her recent time at the company, and more contracts and reports raced through her mind. None had the figure she was looking for.

  Maybe it’s nothing.

  Then her mind stopped at a memory from her first day at Synergy in her new office. She was looking down at a notepad with her grandmother’s handwriting, the weight of the gold pen heavy in her hand. She’d laughed at Gran’s doodling where she’d circled a number several times.

  It can’t be.

  Jade stared at the screen in front of her. It was the same number. Gran had figured it out on the day she’d died.

  It was too much for Gran to bear.

  The guilt of never mending her relationship with her grandmother weighed even more heavily on Jade now that she knew Gran had found out someone she trusted was stealing from her on the last day she lived. Whoever it was had stolen more than just money from her grandmother; they’d stolen her will to live.

  I will figure this out Gran, if it’s the last thing I do. I promise you.

  Jade emailed the spreadsheet to Detective Hawkins with a note that she had to speak to him right away. Shoot! I wasn’t supposed to send anything by email. She smacked her forehead. Too late now.

  She needed a break before she made another mistake and did more analysis to find out when the bogus transactions had started and how much money had been taken. If she could trace the earliest transaction to before Bryce was hired, she could clear his name. Based on the initial numbers, she assumed over a million had been stolen from her company. She picked up her mug and headed to the break room.

  Jade was pouring honey into her green tea and nearly jumped out of her skin when Donald walked up behind her.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m just a little jumpy after the break-in.”

  “I heard about that. Are you okay? You look like you haven’t been sleeping. Rumor has it you were in the house when it was being robbed.”

  “Yeah, it scared me to death.”

  “Do the police have any leads?” Donald put a dollar bill into the vending machine and chose a bag of chips.

  “Unfortunately, no. They think my jewelry was taken for drug money.” Jade was careful to keep up the pretense. Donald was one of the five on the list, though she suspected him about as much as she did Zach. Still, if she could suspect Bryce, she had to suspect them all. She wasn’t taking any chances.

  “What brings you in here on a Saturday?” Donald filled his coffee mug.

  Jade laughed. “I should be asking you that. I normally work on Saturdays.”

  “Guess I’ve been the lucky one then. I’m trying to get two contracts done for Bryce.”

  “Any luck hiring a replacement controller? You can’t keep doing two jobs forever.”

  “I know. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m too busy to interview, so I’ll never get anyone in here.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Linda? Maybe HR can find you a short list of candidates.”

  “Yeah, I will, as soon as I have time.” He smiled sheepishly at Jade.

  “I think my workaholism is rubbing off on you.”

  “Afraid so. I don’t mind really. How is the analysis going?”

  Jade paused, not knowing how to answer. “I’m still looking at the numbers. It was great to see profits rise this month. I think some of the changes we’re making are paying off.”<
br />
  Donald smiled. “Good to hear it. I’m sure we’ll have things turned around in no time.”

  “I’m sure of it. When are you heading out?”

  “I’m hoping to leave by noon. Tanya and I have plans with friends. We’re sailing to Orcas Island.”

  “That explains your outfit.”

  Donald was wearing a pair of long khaki shorts, one of his Hawaiian shirts, and a pair of brown sandals. “At least it will be cooler on the water. It’s hotter than Hades in here.”

  “I know. Roz said they’re waiting for parts to come in on Monday. The air should be working by then, I hope.”

  “Figures we’d have ninety-degree weather when the air conditioning goes out.”

  “When else would it decide to break?”

  Donald laughed. “Well, I better get back to work. Bryce will tan my hide if I’m late with another contract.”

  “I’ll put in a good word for you.” Jade smiled and headed back to scrutinize more numbers. But one number stood out. The one Gran had circled the day she died.

  Something Neal had asked came to mind. He’d asked her if Gran was allergic to almonds. Why would he ask her that? And why had a detective been involved in Gran’s death at all?

  A chill ran down Jade’s spine. Only one reason came to mind. Now that she knew about the fraud, now that someone had attacked her and possibly attacked her professor, now that someone had broken into her home. There was only one reason a detective would be involved in Gran’s death.

  Gran had been murdered.

  CHAPTER 31

  NEAL’S IRRITATION GREW after he’d driven all the way to Stan Templeman’s house in Redmond only to find that Templeman wasn’t there. Neal plugged in the GPS coordinates to the Carnation location only twenty minutes away. He’d stop by to ask Donald Haley a few questions and then come back to Templeman’s house. If he didn’t find Templeman by mid-afternoon, he was putting out an APB.

  BRYCE SHOOK STAN’S HAND when he joined him at the coffee shop in Bellevue. Stan sat at a table with two cups.

  “Still take it extra hot?” Stan asked.

  “Thanks.” Bryce sat across from him.

  “You said you needed to see me. It sounded urgent.” Stan couldn’t mask his concern. “Is Jade all right?”

  “She is for now. Her place was robbed two nights ago. It’s getting serious.”

  “Who would do such a thing? I can’t imagine anyone at Synergy wanting to hurt Jade.”

  “I don’t know. I need your help figuring this out. What can you tell me about Johansson Tek?”

  “Johansson? What would they have to do with Jade?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? She went there two days ago and hasn’t been the same since. Her place was robbed the same night. Looks like someone is trying to make sure Jade doesn’t know too much.”

  “Greg Johansson and Synergy go way back. We’ve purchased our flat-panel displays from him since the company’s inception. Gloria made a lot of long-standing relationships, and Johansson was one of them.”

  “Why aren’t we getting competitive bids from other companies? I was told you required them to be a sole source provider.”

  “We used to bid out every year. It didn’t matter. Johansson always had the best prices. Donald suggested we reduce the quoting to every five years. We were wasting money on bids when we knew Johansson and others like him always came in low. I agreed with his recommendation.”

  “So Donald made the recommendation?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see how Donald can possibly be responsible for attacking Jade.”

  “Neither can I,” Bryce agreed, “but somebody used his recommendation to start stealing from the company.”

  “Stealing?”

  “Yes, Jade made it very clear that someone has been stealing from the company for years.”

  “How can that be? I would have seen it. What did she say?”

  “She won’t talk to me. I’m one of the suspects.”

  “Suspects? I don’t understand.”

  “Somehow she and the detective have a short list of suspects, and I’m at the top of the list.”

  “I see.” Stan’s brows rose. “I guess you bumped me down a notch.”

  “Yeah. You were at the top of my list too, until you called.” Bryce leaned back and drank from his cup.

  “So now what?”

  “I don’t know. I need to look into Johansson Tek more to see where it leads me. It all starts there.”

  “I wish I could be more help to you, Bryce. When Gloria grew ill, all my focus was on her. I didn’t give a damn about Synergy. I know she’d hate it if she heard me say this, but she was more important to me than the company ever was. I’m sorry I let this problem fall onto Jade’s shoulders. Gloria would be absolutely furious with me.”

  “I’m sure Gloria would be furious with us both. If you think of anything that might help, call my cell, anytime. I’m desperate.”

  NEAL BARRELED ALONG SR-202 from Redmond to Carnation. Vast evergreen cedars and deciduous alders lined the drive. Peppered here and there along the highway were farmhouses deep within the lush valley. As he approached Carnation, the Cascade Mountain range spired out of the earth, dwarfing the one-hundred foot evergreens. Gorgeous. Now he understood why someone would want to live out here.

  He drove over a metal bridge spanning the Tolt River. The small town of Carnation boasted a grocery store and coffee shop, along with a gas station and several antique shops and art galleries. He supposed one might call it quaint. He turned right where the GPS told him to turn, just past the gas station. It was nice driving along the narrow streets, where each house looked different, old custom homes instead of miles of cookie-cutter houses. He stopped at a blue and white two-story house with a porch out front.

  Neal stepped carefully onto the rickety porch. He guessed the house to be somewhere around a hundred years old. He knocked on the door.

  A girl around eight years old with big bright blue eyes greeted him.

  “Hi, can I speak to Mr. Haley?”

  “Mom,” the girl shrieked and ran off, leaving the door wide open.

  Guess they don’t have much robbery in these parts.

  “Can I help you?” A young woman about Jade’s age asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m looking for Donald Haley.”

  “Mr. Haley doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “Oh, sorry. I have this address for him.”

  “I can give you his new one if you want. I rent this place from him. I send him a check every month.”

  “Yeah, that would be great, thanks.”

  Again, she left him standing on the porch with the door wide open. A few minutes later, she handed him a piece of paper with the address. Not once did he have to identify himself as a detective.

  Interesting place. He shook his head and plugged the new address into the GPS. Carillon Point… what the hell?

  Neal zoomed out of the driveway, the wheels spinning against the gravel. He cursed at the GPS when it told him it would take fifty minutes to get there.

  LOOKING FOR ANSWERS, Jade queried the financial database. She sorted the results by date, showing the oldest first. As the CFO at Johansson Tek confirmed, the embezzling had been going on for five years.

  Bryce had been with the company for six. She couldn’t even imagine him doing anything to hurt her grandmother. He loved her.

  Didn’t he? Or had he come into the company, gained everyone’s trust, then started stealing?

  He’d once said he didn’t know enough about finance to look into the problems. Was that a lie? He had the administrative access, but did he know enough about the database to manipulate it on the backend? Everything about Bryce told her that he didn’t know how. Not that he was incapable, but that he’d never been trained, or interested for that matter. Still, she needed proof.

  She created a grand total at the bottom of her spreadsheet. Her eyes fixed on the large amount at the bottom of the screen. Sh
e scanned the report, making sure she hadn’t pulled in anything that didn’t meet her criteria. She found no discrepancies.

  Four point three million?

  The amount should have been inconceivable, but it made complete sense to her. This was why she’d pushed the managers so hard, why the numbers never added up. She had to get the report to Detective Hawkins right away. She was about to fax it through her desktop printer when something caught her eye.

  Jade stared at the screen in front of her. Just above the grand total was the latest entry. A new company by the name of Sentra Systems, LLC, created two days after Stan was fired. Stan couldn’t have had anything to do with it. That shortened the list to four people, and Bryce was still on it.

  Jade couldn’t see the details behind the new company; she’d have to dive further into the database for that information. She faxed Neal the report of what she’d found so far. Then she pulled up the vendor files for Sentra Systems, LLC, on the database’s backend and ran a query against the audit history.

  When the answer popped up, she gasped. No, it can’t be.

  CHAPTER 32

  NEAL DROVE WITH HIS SIREN BLARING until he reached the outer limits of Carillon Point in Kirkland. High along the hill overlooking Lake Washington stood homes and condominiums worth millions. Pristine sidewalks, maples lining the road, and symmetrical landscaping added to the atmosphere of pure luxury. He parked on the street across from the condominium complex.

  Its modern glass exterior was designed to bring the scenery of Lake Washington and the Olympic Mountains into the interior of the home. As he crossed the street, a champagne-colored Cadillac SUV caught his attention. The driver’s side quarter-panel was streaked with red paint and needed some serious work. He called the license plate in. If his suspicions were accurate, the SUV’s paint would match that of the car that had run Professor Murti off the road.