Imperial Stout

by Layla Reyne

  She pulled the paper closer. “For Rebecca... Oh.” Her eyes widened, locked on the top right-hand corner where the account holder’s name was printed.

  Beside him, Nic slid back in his chair and gave him a small nod. Time for him to play bad cop. Normally, Cam was the charm to Aidan’s Irish fury, but in this case, Nic needed to maintain the rapport with his potential witness, leaving Cam to press to determine if she was also a potential suspect.

  “When did you and Becca set this account up?” Cam asked.

  Her head whipped up, dyed curls bouncing. “Me and Becca?”

  “Are you playing us, Abby?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m starting to wonder if Becca is still your number-one priority.”

  Her fiery gaze darted to Nic. “He does know I’m the CI, right?”

  Cam propped his elbows on the table, leaning forward. “Because Becca sent you in here. She set up that third-party rip-off during our raid. Perfect chaos for her cover. And you were in a position to know all about it.”

  Abby angrily jabbed a finger at her chest. “I could have been killed in that chaos. Becca may still kill me for turning on her. I did not set it up.”

  “Then why is this account in both your names? You’re both listed as beneficiaries.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cam reached out, in front of Nic, and pushed the second page from the folder over to Abby. “And why are there deposits from Friday for twice as much money as Scott received?”

  Her eyes grew impossibly wider, taking in the amounts. “I had no idea about this.” She looked back up, first at Cam, then to Nic. “I had no idea she was going to turn on us.”

  “Biometrics say she’s telling the truth,” Lauren reported in his ear.

  Cam’s gut reported the same, at least about the account.

  So where had that money come from? And when was Becca coming for Abby? Because that account, and the money in it, meant Becca still had a job to do. And she needed Abby to do it.

  * * *

  Legs crossed, Nic sat waiting in one of the leather chairs in the lobby of his father’s building. Or was it? Price Holdings was still listed on the lobby directory as occupying Suite 200, and PH still technically owned the building. Nic had checked the assessor’s records first thing this morning. But now there were a dozen other companies listed on the building directory with PH too. While the first floor had always been rented out—the downtown Burlingame location drew premium rents—the second story used to be solely occupied by the family office. No longer, according to the directory, and evidenced by the stream of twentysomethings in branded polos bouncing down the stairs and out the doors.

  Nic squinted against the flare of bright light, the sun reflecting off metal, marble and glass. His father’s first major real estate purchase, the building had been significantly renovated since Nic had last visited. More than once, according to the assessor’s records. In its present incarnation, it bore every appearance of wealth, but if one looked closely, the carpet was worn thin on the side stairs tucked out of sight, the grout between marble slabs needed repair, and the tech at the reception desk was at least five generations out of date. The building receptionist manning the desk probably had better tech on the phone she’d hardly glanced up from.

  When Nic’s sight returned, it was to a smartly dressed young man—smug business school attitude written all over him—striding across the lobby toward him, ignoring the other two gentlemen in the next set of chairs over. “Mr. Price,” he said, hand outstretched. “Harris Kincaid. I work for your father. He’s not in at the moment.”

  Nic knew that. He’d waited in the coffee shop across the street until he’d seen his old man leave, then waited another thirty to make sure he hadn’t come back before entering. “I actually came here to speak to you,” he told Harris.

  The kid, who couldn’t be more than twenty-five, fresh out of business school if Nic had to guess, buttoned his jacket and stood taller, which still left him a half-foot shorter than Nic. Looking up, he jutted out his chin, defiant. “About?”

  “Let’s go up to the office,” Nic said, arm out toward the stairs. The cocky little shit looked like he was going to argue, until Nic reminded him who his boss was. “I don’t think my father would appreciate his business discussed in public, do you?”

  Harris paled, confirming to Nic that his father remained an uneasy man to work for. And he wasn’t Harris’s only boss.

  “Of course,” Harris conceded.

  Upstairs, it was as Nic suspected. Only one corner of the second floor remained occupied by PH—two offices, a conference room, and a reception area, the desk unstaffed. By the layer of dust gathering there, it hadn’t been staffed in a while. Harris led him through the small lobby, past his father’s office—the solid wood door with the brass nameplate closed—and into the other smaller office, which was meticulously neat.

  Nic claimed a visitor chair as Harris circled to the other side, unbuttoning his coat as he sat. “What can I do for you, Mr. Price?”

  “You knew who I was, in the lobby.” Unless Harris hung out at the courthouse, there was no reason he should. They’d never met, and Nic hadn’t set foot in this building since he was eighteen.

  “The guard called up.”

  “You ignored the other two men in the lobby and headed straight for me.”

  Harris lowered his chin, hiding a small smile. “He talks about how smart you are.” Before Nic could get over that shock, Harris delivered another. “And I knew it was you from the picture in your dad’s office.” Which must have been recent for Harris to recognize him, because other than his blue eyes, Nic did not take after his blond-headed father at all. And certainly no longer looked like the gangly eighteen-year-old in his graduation photo. Harris righted his face, some of the earlier smugness gone, asking again, “What can I do for you, Mr. Price?”

  “I’d like an update on PH. You signed the last corporate filing as the asset manager.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not authorized to provide you that information.”

  Nic relaxed back in his chair, resting an ankle on his opposite knee. He was going to enjoy this, especially after a day spent preparing court documents for tomorrow’s arraignment. This would be a good warm-up, not that he expected to question witnesses tomorrow, but never walk into a courtroom unprepared.

  “The company is still a limited liability company, is it not?” Nic asked.

  “As are many real estate holding companies.”

  “And the sole member of the holding company is the family trust, correct?”

  Harris inclined his head. “You’ve done your research.”

  “I am an attorney, who checks corporate filings on the Secretary of State’s site regularly.” Nic dropped his leg over his other knee. “And last I’d heard, I’m also the secondary beneficiary of the family trust, after my father. So you see, I have a vested interest in this company, and I want to know its status.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in your father’s money.”

  “Your boss tell you that?”

  Harris rested his forearms on his too clean desk. “Your father hasn’t—”

  “Your other boss, Mr. Kincaid.”

  The kid’s gulp was audible in the otherwise silent office. He laced his fingers together, which only made his whole fist shake.

  “You’re married to Duncan Vaughn’s niece, aren’t you?” Nic didn’t give him a chance to answer, going right for the hammer instead. “While I was checking the property records on this building, I also checked the records on your million and a half dollar Silicon Valley hovel. Not one but two loans from an entity that traces back to Vaughn Investments.” He hadn’t actually had time to dig back through the corporate filings and peel back the layers of ownership. He was hoping Harris would confirm his suspicions for
him.

  Which he did. Giving up the ghost, Harris curled in his shoulders and slumped forward, deflating. “I don’t know anything, okay? The day Duncan forced me on your father, Curtis boxed up all the financial documents, took them home, and put a lock on his office door.”

  “So what are you still doing here?”

  He waved a hand at his inbox on the corner of the desk. “Answering calls, going through the mail, signing whatever corporate documents Curtis’s attorney puts in front of me. Collecting a paycheck on the off chance your father decides to pay me, and when he does it just goes to pay Duncan.” Harris ran a shaky hand through his dark hair. “I did not kill myself in business school to be an executive assistant for a shell of a company.”

  “Duncan’s forcing you to stay here?”

  “I know what he is.” Harris dropped his arm, the thump of it on the desk a resigned exclamation mark. “You saw the deeds of trust. We got upside down on that house, and Duncan had to bail us out, just like your father. Now we can’t get out from under him.”

  Excitement trilled up Nic’s spine. Finally, a break. He leaned forward, offering the life preserver Harris so obviously needed. “What if I could help you?”

  Chapter Six

  Scott and Mike’s arraignment was scheduled to start in ten minutes, and Cam had no idea where it was actually going down. Ear pressed to the stairwell door on the sixteenth floor, Cam could hear the muffled chaos on the other side, a crowd of people as equally confused as him. He checked his phone again—still no reply from Nic. The court calendar listed the arraignment on the seventeenth floor, but that federal courtroom was empty. Probably why all the squawking press had trampled down to the clerk’s office on sixteen. Cam had known this was the plan, for Abby’s safety, but this morning’s radio silence from Nic was complicating matters, for him at least.

  Taking a fortifying breath, he swiped his all-access card over the security lock and pushed out of the stairwell. He flashed his FBI badge at the guard posted on the door, nodded at the cute law clerk he passed in the melee, then smiled and cajoled his way through the crowd of reporters to the court clerk’s front desk.

  “Agent Byrne,” the desk attendant greeted him. “Please tell me you’re here to rescue me.” Mandi usually delivered that line with a wink and toss of her long blond hair, but today she looked like she actually meant it. Expression pinched, hair yanked back in a severe bun, she’d put the kitten away and unleashed the tiger. And it was a very tired and grumpy cat. Not that the press weren’t still trying to shove proverbial chairs at her.

  Cam had come prepared with a different, hopefully more effective, strategy. He reached into his inner coat pocket and withdrew a bar of dark chocolate from one of those ridiculously overpriced San Francisco factories. Aidan would probably never notice it’d disappeared from his desk drawer. Flirt turned up, Cam held out the bar to Mandi, tempting. “How about I rescue you, and you return the favor?”

  She snatched the chocolate out of his hand and sniffed it, eyelashes fluttering in ecstasy. “Well, it’s not an airlift, but it’ll work.” She unlocked the service counter swing door and held it open for him to pass through. “Karen, cover me for a minute,” she said to one of the other attendants before leading Cam around the corner, out of earshot.

  Out of view and out of earshot, Mandi ditched her heels with a relieved sigh and propped a bare foot against the cinder block wall, giving Cam a view of her toned thigh under a hitched-up pencil skirt. Not the only show she was putting on either. Pretty brown eyes with lips that were just this side of decent, she slowly peeled back the foil candy wrapper, eyeing him through long lashes. “You looking for Attorney Price?” she said. He’d unwrapped the bombshell a time or two, back when he’d only just swing through town for a case or to visit Jamie. Before he’d moved here, before... Mandi spoke again, saving him from jumping through avoidance hoops. “He’s down on fifteen, Courtroom C.”

  “Magistrate’s chambers?”

  “You saw that out there.” She waved the chocolate bar toward the lobby. “It’s worse on seventeen.” Where the main federal district courtrooms were. “Vultures won’t look for them on fifteen.”

  Grinning, he leaned in close, a forearm against the wall by her head. “I always did say you were the smartest person here.”

  “Don’t you forget it.” Her cherry-red lips closed around the chocolate bar, over the line of decent, but his mind was already a floor away.

  She read him like a book, dropping the seduction and chuckling. “Use the internal staircase,” she said, tilting her head back and right. “Thanks for the chocolate.”

  “Thank you for the assist,” he said with a wink, before he took off for the stairs.

  He exited onto the fifteenth floor, in the staff hallway behind the courtrooms. Halfway down the corridor, Tony stood outside one of the holding rooms. “Agent Byrne,” the guard said.

  He blew out a dramatic huff. “Had to run the gauntlet to get here.”

  The door opened, and Nic stood there, in all his full-suited glory. Light gray three-piece, crisp white dress shirt, and monochrome blue tie that matched his eyes. Sharp. Add to that the barely contained excitement vibrating through him, the hype of the coming courtroom, even for a perfunctory arraignment, and Cam forgot how to make words.

  Nic filled the silence, albeit with a knowing smirk. “Sorry, the gauntlet was my fault.” He opened the door wider for Cam to step through. “Just give us a minute.”

  Closing the door behind them, Nic turned back to Abby, who sat at a small table reading through a stack of documents. She wound an iPod cord through her fingers, the motion gaining speed when she looked up and caught sight of Cam. He’d backed off the bad cop routine but she was still skittish toward him. He leaned back against the wall, as nonthreatening as possible, while Nic claimed the chair across from her. “Do you have any questions on the affidavit? On your testimony?”

  Cam had thought that was what the papers might be. Nic had spent the rest of Sunday in Holding Room Two with Abby, taking her official statement and preparing her for questioning. Yesterday, he’d been a ghost, locked in his own war room preparing court documents, save for a brief meeting with Scott’s and Mike’s attorneys, then an early departure to take care of something at the brewery, he’d said.

  “I didn’t misrepresent anything you said, did I?” Nic asked gently.

  She abandoned the iPod and cord for the pen next to the papers, mashing the clicker-end against the table. “No, everything’s right.”

  “Clearly something isn’t. What’s got you nervous?”

  “Besides the obvious,” Cam added, gesturing at their surroundings, then at Nic. “He lives for this shit. Fucking junkie. The rest of us...” He wrinkled his nose in exaggerated disgust. “Not so much.”

  “Hey!” Nic twisted in his seat, looking over his shoulder. “You give your fair bit of testimony.”

  “Because your ass drags me in here.” He pushed off the wall and slid into the chair next to Nic. “It’s not just you, sweetheart.” People tended to overlook his suit and badge when he lengthened his vowels, letting himself sound like a blue-collar garage rat from South Boston. Which he was. Before he’d become an Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the FBI.

  Worked on Abby too, finally chipping through her nerves, and also it seemed, her reluctance toward him. Good; if she betrayed them again, he’d use that. She chuckled, relaxing in her chair and laying the pen down. “Do I have to go in there, with Scott and Mike?”

  “I’m going to try to avoid that.” Nic nudged the stack of documents with his index finger. “This is your statement about Saturday’s events, plus my and Agent Byrne’s recommendations to waive any charges against you, as a cooperating informant and witness. You sign the affidavit and the recommendation, which Agent Byrne and I already signed, then I’ll hand the papers, together with Stefan Kristić’s statement�
�” he pulled a trifold sheet of paper from his inner coat pocket “—over to the judge.”

  “Then why did I have to come here?” Abby asked.

  “In case the judge has questions about your statement or our recommendations. Same reason I asked Agent Byrne to join us. Mr. Kristić, unfortunately, hasn’t been released from the hospital yet.”

  “Isn’t this just an arraignment?” Cam asked, mentally scratching his own head, not that he minded seeing a pre-court-jazzed Nic. “Scott and Mike walk in, plead not guilty, and you move for prelim or trial.” He’d seen more than a few of these too.

  “It’s felony murder,” Nic explained. “Someone was killed in the act of committing a felony, the attempted robbery. Neither Scott nor Mike pulled the trigger, but they’re on trial for murder.” Abby shivered, no doubt realizing that could be her on trial for murder too. “I’m covering all my bases,” Nic said.

  “Where do I sign?” Abby said, almost a squeak.

  Nic walked her through where she needed to execute each document, finishing just as two swift knocks sounded against the door. Tony opened the door to the court bailiff. “Attorney Price,” the bailiff said. “Judge O’Donnell is ready to start. Courtroom C.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Nic replied.

  Seeing Abby jolt, Cam reached across the table, covering her trembling hands. “Hang tight. Shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes, twenty at most.”

  “Can Tony wait inside?” she asked.

  “Don’t see why not,” Cam said as he stood. The big man could do his job on either side of the door.

  Nic followed Cam to his feet. “How far are you into the book?”

  “Chapter eleven, I think.”

  “That’s a good one.” He collected the legal documents, putting them all in a bucket folder, and left behind the pen and a legal pad. “Big conclave between the warring factions. Lots of interesting voices.”

  Abby had the earbuds back in before Tony even closed the door.