Motive

by Kennedy Layne

  MOTIVE

  Office Roulette, Book Two

  Kennedy Layne

  MOTIVE

  Copyright © 2018 by Kennedy Layne

  Kindle Edition

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-943420-58-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-943420-59-9

  Cover Designer: Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Dedication

  Jeffrey—I look forward to every day at the office, because you’re by my side!

  Cole—As I write this dedication, your senior year of high school has come to an end. We are so proud of what you’ve achieved, but also proud of what we know you’ll accomplish in the future!

  The Office Roulette trilogy continues with an epic battle between blame and forgiveness…

  Rye Marshall had it all—wealth, prominence, and the love of his life. But nothing lasts forever, and his perfect world came crashing down around him. When the dust settled, he found himself alone and starting from a clean slate.

  Grace Dorrance had made many mistakes in her life, but one stood out above the rest—an epic ending to a complex and passionate relationship. She left her former lover’s life in complete ruins and tried her best never to look back at the wreckage.

  Seconds chances are hard to come by, but even more difficult when Grace is arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. This gives Rye the perfect motive to forgive and forget, allowing for new beginnings. Unfortunately, someone’s playing a game of office roulette with everyone’s lives.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  About the Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About Opportunity

  Books by Kennedy Layne

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Grace Dorrance? Please sign inside the box.”

  The police officer behind the security window slid a manila envelope through the slot. It contained her jewelry, though some pieces were expensive and some not. It was all she’d had on her person, besides the designer clothes on her back and the clip in her hair, when Detective Fred Nielsen had arrested her for murder in front of all her colleagues.

  One would think that would have been the most humiliating moment of the past twenty-four hours.

  Not even close.

  What came while being processed for committing said murder was mortifying and had the ability to crush an individual’s resolve. At least, for those who were innocent of the offense for which she had been charged.

  She was innocent…or had been, depending on a person’s outlook.

  Grace had not taken a knife and slit the throat of her boss, no matter how many times she might have imagined doing away with him during her employment at Manon Investments.

  “The box,” the officer directed again rather abruptly when she’d hovered the pen over the blank space, deep in thought. “Stay inside the box.”

  There was no imaginary place where Grace could cover up the fact that her hands were still trembling with fear as she scrawled her signature inside the highlighted area.

  Okay, so she was more than scared. She was downright terrified she’d spend the rest of her life in prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

  She’d been placed in a cell with other women who could have easily taken on the prison staff. They had created a dynamic where those minimum wage guards seemed like complete amateurs ignoring the fact of who was actually running the place.

  It had been downright chilling.

  Some of her fellow so-called bunkies had muscles in places she wasn’t sure was possible. She’d done her best to be invisible by sitting in a corner and minding her own business.

  “Thank you,” Grace managed to say after clearing her throat of the frog lodged there. She might be horrified and on the brink of a full-blown panic attack on the inside, but damned if she’d let that show to anyone outside her own inner circle. A part of her felt disconnected, drifting on a rapid river current all alone. It was easier to go through the motions without a single defined emotion crushing the unusual fragile state she’d found herself in at the moment. “Is there anything else I need to do, Officer?”

  “No,” the uniformed functionary replied curtly as he took the clipboard and set it just inside the window, preparing for the next individual who made bail. Somehow, she’d been redefined as a hardened criminal in the matter of a few hours. “You’re free to go.”

  Grace automatically turned on the heels she would have gladly given up to Bertha the Bulldog, one of the women with whom she’d shared her cell, but they had thankfully been the wrong size.

  Bertha the Bulldog had eventually lost interest.

  “Are you okay?” Laurel Calanthe asked as she wrapped her arms tightly around Grace, pulling her close. It was all she could do to hold back the tears that had threatened to fall ever since those cold steel handcuffs had been slapped on her wrists. It was good to have her friends close by to remind her that she could get through this with her head held high. “All that matters right now is that you made bail. We’ll worry about the details soon enough, once you’ve had a shower and a good night’s sleep.”

  “She wasn’t granted bail.” Justin Monroe, the criminal defense attorney who had been brought in to represent Grace, stood off to the side with his briefcase in hand. He couldn’t have been much older than herself, yet he had a reputation of being one of the best peer-rated lawyers in the city. She was just happy he’d done a good job dispelling the charges against her, no matter what outrageous hourly rate he’d most likely include in his invoice. “Grace, the police were provided with proof via the parking garage’s video CCTV footage that someone else had placed the bloody knife in the back of your vehicle. All charges have been dropped. You are free to go.”

  Grace wasn’t sure she’d heard Justin correctly, but the round of cheers that came from her small group of friends told her otherwise. It seemed they’d all missed the catch he’d so eloquently hidden in the middle of his speech.

  Had Justin just made the accusation that someone had tried to frame her for murder?

  As the shock of that stark realization settled over her, Grace thought back to this morning when she’d been arrested on charges of killing her boss even though she’d supplied the police with a completely solid alibi.

  Well, she’d actually fabricated that story, but Detective Nielsen didn’t need to know the specifics at the moment.

  All the police had to do was concentrate on the fact that Brad Manon had been killed in his office and that the person responsible was currently running around the streets of Minneapolis a free man or woman trying to frame innocent people.

  What had been the motive to kill the portfolio manager of Manon Investments?

  Who could have possibly benefited from his death?

  Grace certainly hadn’t profited from Brad’s death. In her opinion, the fact that Brad had been found dead at his desk with his throat slit symbolized to her that his demise was personal. There were numerous suspects according to the police, but no one had been arrested…until today, that i
s.

  Who would have had the audacity to try and frame her?

  Better yet, who else knew that she’d lied to the police about that fateful night?

  “So that’s it?” Grace asked, staring directly at Justin. She’d had no choice but to tell him what really happened the night Brad was killed, but he was bound by attorney/client privilege. “I can go home and not have to worry that the police will come barging through my front door to bring me back to this hellhole?”

  “That’s it,” Justin confirmed, though the sideways movement of his jaw told her that he didn’t agree with her decision to stick with the alibi she’d created…with good reason. But she wasn’t about to change her mind now. “It’s done. You’re free to go, Grace.”

  Laurel stepped back to stand next to Cynthia Ellsworth, who honestly looked ready to cut someone. These two women weren’t simply colleagues. They were her best friends, the ones she confided in, and the two people who would bring a shovel into the middle of the woods at three o’clock in the morning with a single phone call.

  Only Grace hadn’t needed that shovel, and she certainly wasn’t the guilty party.

  “It’s about damned time,” Cynthia muttered, leaning down to grab her purse from one of the chairs. “We’re done screwing around here. Let’s get you home, Grace.”

  There were still questions that needed to be answered, especially if Grace was going to sleep peacefully tonight. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that a lot of people wanted to see Brad dead, such as his ex-wife or the man she’d been having an affair with over the course of the last six months. It had been thought that Meredith Manon’s relationship with her ex-husband had been in good standing, but that could have easily changed when she’d started sleeping with one of the firm’s key employees.

  Amazing sex did have a way of changing people.

  Grace was absolute proof of that concept, but the police didn’t need to know that bit of private information. Apparently, it wasn’t the only motive in play.

  But someone had planted evidence in her car, and she wanted to know exactly who and why.

  “If the police have video evidence that someone tried to set me up for Brad’s murder, then who the hell was it?” Grace asked cautiously, unsure that she should be grateful to finally have this nightmare behind her.

  In all honesty, it sounded like this was just the beginning of the storm that was on the horizon. But right now, she wanted nothing more than to go home and take a long, hot shower to remove the filth she’d been dipped in today. Even then, she wasn’t sure she could wash away the caked-on grime of this horrible experience. Someone out there would have been perfectly happy to see to it that she was put on trial for a murder she hadn’t committed.

  Who could hate her so much to do such an evil deed?

  “Who was it?” Grace asked, losing what was left of her patience. “Meredith? Steve? It wouldn’t be surprising given that the two of them have been sleeping together.”

  Steve Lewis currently worked for Manon Investments as their head trader. He was good at his job, though a bit too serious and edgy for Grace’s taste. There had always been something odd about the man that she couldn’t quite place. Regardless, the bottom line was that he excelled at executing good trades for the hedge fund…and that was the name of the game.

  But had he executed his boss because of his affair with Meredith or was that too apparent a motive for the police to pick up on?

  “The video footage that was given to the police was of very poor quality, making it difficult to determine if the guilty party was even a man or a woman,” Justin shared, moving all of them toward the front doors of the station.

  It was like herding cats.

  Grace had to wonder why she wasn’t still back in her cell, considering the police couldn’t verify that she hadn’t been the one to put the murder weapon in her own vehicle. Thankfully, Justin managed to clear up that misunderstanding by the time they were standing on the front step of the police station.

  “There was a time stamp on the tape, which proves you couldn’t have been the one to put the knife in your car. It was literally the very same moment you made a purchase at the café in the lobby of the building. Thankfully, your receipt was timestamped.”

  It was well known among the tenants throughout the building that someone had access to the security cameras around the building that housed Manon Investments, as well as the attached parking garage. All footage on the building’s video security hard drive had been erased the night Brad had been killed, but that didn’t explain why the new recording that had surfaced couldn’t identify the individual who had purposefully tried to frame her for murder.

  “Why did the footage have such poor quality?” Grace ignored the evening chill that wrapped its cold and clammy tethers around her body. Honestly, anything was better than the stale air in that suffocating cell down in the bowels of the jail. She wanted answers, though, because something wasn’t right with this scenario. “Couldn’t the technical department of the police do their magic to clean it up?”

  “Unfortunately, this isn’t television where a computer whiz can press a few buttons and gather the evidence needed for a conviction inside an hour-long show.” Justin turned to face the three women, ensuring they all remained underneath the awning and out of the cold, drizzling rain. “The owners of the building and the garage are still investigating how their security system was broken into the night of the murder. It was a commercial grade system used by a large number of corporate office buildings. It’s monitored twenty-four-seven. In the meantime, they installed a backup system while their current system is being run through various tests to determine if it has any vulnerabilities to electronic interference or tampering.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that someone knew the security system would be down this morning, yet they had no idea they’d installed a backup system with limited capabilities, and subsequently took advantage of the gap created by this unique situation.” Cynthia had pointed out the obvious, but she was a stickler for crossing her Ts and dotting her Is. She was the compliance officer, after all. But her summation proved one thing—the guilty party had to work inside the building where Manon Investments rented their space. “Grace, the police have all this information now. It’s just a matter of them weeding through the possible suspects and making an appropriate arrest this time around.”

  “That’s our best hope.” Justin didn’t need to elaborate on his meaning, given that he still appeared agitated that Grace wouldn’t allow him to clear up the misconception she’d purposefully given as an alibi. He held out his arm and firmly shook her hand before dropping another huge bombshell. “All costs for my services have been taken care of, but please call me should you need any further representation in the future.”

  “Who?” Grace blurted out before Justin could walk away. She didn’t want to be indebted to anyone. Had Laurel and Cynthia forked up the money? A sliver of suspicion took hold when they both looked to Justin for an answer. “Who took care of your retainer?”

  “Rye Marshall.” Justin pulled up the collar of his suit jacket to protect his neck from the cold rain. He didn’t seem at all curious as to why a competitor of Manon Investments would have paid her lawyer fee, but then again, it wouldn’t surprise her if Justin and Rye weren’t friends. Like her, Rye only hired the best of the best. “Have a good night, ladies.”

  Rye Marshall.

  He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man, yet she’d fucked him over without either of them realizing it. And that was the sole reason she’d protected him in this case. The alibi she’d created for the night of the murder wasn’t for her benefit—it was for his.

  Grace would write Rye a check for the whole amount of her defense the moment she walked into her apartment. She didn’t want to be beholden to him under any circumstances. She hadn’t even wanted him to know that she’d been arrested, which begged the question why he wasn’t here if he’d been made aware of what had taken place this morni
ng.

  “Let’s get you home,” Laurel said, bringing out an umbrella from nowhere and scooting closer to Grace. “Smith is around back with his vehicle, which the media has all but surrounded with cameras waiting for you to exit out the back. Unfortunately, your arrest has been splashed all over the local news, as well as the talk of the financial industry. We’ll take Cynthia’s car to your place, and Smith will meet up with us there later.”

  Grace’s friends had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that she was taken care of, and that circle now included Smith Gallo. He was one of the top analysts at Manon Investments, and also intimately involved with Laurel. The fact that the two of them had been able to make their relationship work under such recent pressure had Grace envious of their ability to do so.

  Not even Laurel or Cynthia understood how heavy the baggage was that Grace had lugged around in the name of Rye Marshall. It was time she come clean, considering there wasn’t any other aspect of her life that they weren’t privy to under normal conditions.

  “Get in the car before our ruse blows up in our faces and one of those press troglodytes figures this out,” Cynthia directed in her take charge manner, firmly pressing a button on her key fob. The lights of her BMW M coupe flashed to indicate that the doors were ready to be opened. “We all need a good stiff drink after today’s fiasco.”

  “I need a shower first.” Grace ducked into the backseat, not in the mood to talk about what she’d been through at the police station. She wasn’t ready to come clean about her past relationship with Rye, either, but it needed to happen sooner rather than later. Grace was surprised when Laurel joined her in the backseat instead of riding shotgun. “And you guys don’t need to stay. You’ve been at the station all day. I’ll be fine, really. I just want to take a shower and then fall into bed for a few hours.”