Enticing Emily

by Gina Wilkins

  “Were you?” The man smiled, pushing lazy dimples into his tanned cheeks, and looked curiously at Emily.

  Mary Kay made the introductions. “Emily McBride, this is Wade Davenport, Honoria’s new police chief. Chief Davenport, Emily owns the house I mentioned to you yesterday. The four-bedroom frame with the wraparound porch and twenty acres of land?”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. McBride,” Wade Davenport said in a drawl that made it clear that he might be new to Honoria, but was as Southern as any other resident of his new hometown.

  Emily placed her hand in his, trying to reconcile the man in front of her with Martha Godwin’s description of the new police chief. Martha had implied that Wade Davenport was a bit slow. Emily didn’t believe that for a moment.

  She remembered that Mary Kay had mentioned that he was widowed and a single father. How sad that he’d lost his wife so young, she thought with a tug of sympathy.

  “Ms. Evans was telling me about your house yesterday,” he said. “Since I’ve moved here, I’ve been looking for a place with a big yard and lots of room for my son to run in, and yours sounds ideal. But Ms. Evans wasn’t sure you were committed to selling it?”

  “Oh, but I am,” Emily replied decisively. “I’ve just signed the papers. My father passed away a few months ago, and the house is just too big for me now.”

  “I’ve noticed several new apartment complexes being built in town. Seems like quite a few others around here have decided not to bother with maintenance and yard work,” he commented, not quite prying.

  “Actually, I’ll be leaving Honoria,” she replied.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured.

  That was when she realized that he was still holding her hand. And looking at her in a way that made her pulse jump.

  She quickly pulled her hand away. “Mary Kay will tell you about the house,” she said, keeping her voice brusque as she tucked her purse beneath her arm. “If you’re interested, she’ll set up an appointment for you to see it. It was very nice to meet you, Chief Davenport, but I really have to go now.”

  With a quick nod at Mary Kay, she made her exit from the real-estate office. She was aware that she’d been a bit abrupt, but she’d had a sudden need to get away. She felt as if she’d just burned her bridges, and the smell of imaginary smoke was suddenly beginning to choke her.

  “I’M TILLING YOU, Davenport, someone’s been stealing money out of my business account,” Dr. Sam Jennings, the town dentist, stated loudly. “And I’m pretty damn sure who. It’s that McBride woman.”

  Marshall Hayes, president of First Bank of Honoria, frowned and wrung his hands. “Now, Sam, calm down. You can’t go throwing accusations like that around without evidence. Can he, Chief Davenport?”

  Leaning one shoulder against a wall in the bank president’s office, Wade Davenport rubbed his chin for a moment before answering. “It’s always best to have reasonable proof before naming names,” he agreed. “Do you have evidence to support your accusation, Dr. Jennings?”

  “She’s a McBride,” the angry man answered with a scowl. “That’s all the evidence I need.”

  “That’s hardly fair.” Marshall Hayes was obviously annoyed, but still careful not to alienate one of his bank’s more profitable clients. “Emily is a fine young woman. She’s never caused a bit of trouble in this town, despite the actions of some of her other family members. She’s been a longtime, loyal employee of this bank, and not once has she given me any reason for concern.”

  “She’s a McBride,” Sam Jennings repeated, as if that fact was all he needed to support his opinion.

  Wade studied the hostility in the balding, fifty-something dentist’s eyes. “If the McBrides are so bad, why haven’t I encountered any of them professionally during the time I’ve been here?”

  “The McBrides aren’t all bad,” Hayes answered firmly. “Like all large families, they’ve had their share of problems....”

  “The family includes a horse thief, more than a few drunks, a couple of sluts and a murderer,” Jennings sneered. “An embezzler would fit right into that clan.”

  “Now that’s just too much.” Hayes looked as if moral outrage had finally overcome his financial discretion. “I find it almost impossible to believe that Emily is an embezzler. And there are some other fine, upstanding citizens among the McBride clan. Emily’s uncle, Caleb McBride, and his wife, Bobbie, are pillars of their church and community. Their daughter went to Harvard Law School, one of their sons is a political bigwig in Washington and the other attends the Air Force Academy. You’re basing your insinuations on a few totally unrelated incidents, Sam, and you’ll be lucky if the whole McBride family doesn’t sue you for slander.”

  “A horse thief?” Wade murmured, lifting an eyebrow at the irritated men.

  The bank president snorted. “Three generations back, one of the McBrides was accused of being behind a horse-stealing ring. No one was ever able to prove it.”

  “Just like no one could prove Lucas McBride killed my nephew, Roger, fifteen years ago,” Jennings snapped. “But everyone knows he did it.”

  Wade shook his head. “As interesting as all this family history is,” he drawled, “it has little to do with the case at hand. What, specifically, are you claiming has happened, Dr. Jennings?”

  Jennings sighed and rolled his eyes, then repeated his story slowly, as if he was speaking to a dim-witted child. “Three thousand dollars has disappeared from my business account. I’ve got records of it going in, but it wasn’t on my statement.”

  “You made the deposits yourself?” Wade asked.

  Jennings shook his head. “Of course not. My girl at the office handles deposits.”

  “And have you questioned her about the discrepancy?”

  Jennings scowled. “The last one isn’t with me anymore. I hired a new girl last week. She wouldn’t know anything about it.”

  “What about the...er...girl who worked for you before? Have you talked to her?”

  “She moved out of town. But if you’re asking if I suspect her, you’re off the mark. She worked for me for five years and never took a penny she didn’t earn.”

  “Emily McBride has worked for me for almost seven years,” Hayes retorted. “She’s been responsible for a lot bigger accounts than yours, and there’s never been a slip in her work.”

  “Not that you’ve caught, anyway,” Jennings muttered.

  Since the men seemed about ready to come to blows—verbal ones, at least—Wade decided it was time to intercede again.

  “Suppose you call Ms. McBride in here and we’ll talk with her a bit,” he suggested to the bank president. He had met Emily McBride in the real-estate office yesterday afternoon—and if she was an embezzler, he’d eat his badge, he thought. His snap judgments were usually reliable.

  Jennings looked startled by Wade’s suggestion. “That’s your idea of conducting a discreet investigation? You’re just going to ask her if she’s been stealing money from my account?”

  Wade shrugged and reached into his pocket for a stick of gum. “I don’t play a lot of cops-and-robbers games. Most times, the best way to come up with information is just to ask.”

  He didn’t add that he’d seen more than a few amateur embezzlers break down and confess at the first accusation against them. Nor did he see any need to explain that he had a knack for sensing when someone was lying. And when he decided that they were, he had his own way of conducting investigations. Wade’s methods of enforcing the law had never been strictly by the book, and that had gotten him into hot water on several occasions.

  Hayes glared at both Jennings and Wade. “I won’t have her browbeaten.”

  “Left my rubber hose back at the office,” Wade assured him, unwrapping his gum.

  Hayes didn’t respond to the attempt at humor. He punched a button on the intercom sitting on his battered, antique-looking wooden desk and snapped, “Ann, ask Emily to come in here, please.”

  Wade folded the stick of gum in
half and popped it into his mouth. There was an uneasy silence in the office for the three or four minutes that passed before someone tapped tentatively on the closed door.

  Hayes walked around his desk and opened the door. “Come in, Emily.”

  Wade watched with interest as the woman Jennings had spoken of with such hostility—the woman Wade had met for the first time less than twenty-four hours ago—entered the room. She didn’t look like an embezzler, he thought again. In fact, she looked like someone who should be selling complexion soap or toothpaste. Curly, golden-blond hair. Big blue eyes. Skin that was flawless except for a faint smattering of freckles that Wade found rather appealing. Girl-next-door smile. Average height. Better-than-average body, from what he could tell beneath her short-sleeve knit top and long, floral skirt.

  Hayes began with a brusqueness that was probably intended to mask his discomfort with the situation. “Emily, you know Sam Jennings.”

  “Of course. How are you, Dr. Jennings?”

  Wade noted that her smile was not reflected in her eyes as she greeted the man.

  Jennings only grunted in response.

  The animosity between them was obviously deep and long-standing.

  Hayes motioned toward Wade, who was still leaning comfortably against the wall, his arms crossed over his uniformed chest. “Emily McBride, this is Chief of Police Wade Davenport.”

  Her big blue eyes turned inquiringly in Wade’s direction. He found himself suddenly standing just a bit straighter.

  “Yes, we’ve met. Good afternoon, Chief Davenport,” she said, her tone only marginally warmer than it had been when she’d spoken to Jennings.

  “The chief has some questions for you, Emily, if you don’t mind,” Hayes added.

  “You have questions for me, Chief Davenport?”

  “Actually, Dr. Jennings here has a few questions.” Wade thought he might learn almost as much from Jenning’s questions as from Emily McBride’s answers.

  Jennings huffed impatiently. “Now, you want me to do the questioning? Just what kind of police chief are you, anyway?”

  “The only one you’ve got at the moment,” Wade drawled, then motioned toward Emily McBride. “Go ahead, Jennings. Ask your questions.”

  EMILY WONDERED what in the world was going on. What could Sam Jennings possibly want to ask her that involved her boss? Suddenly she found herself getting nervous. What did they want from her, anyway? And why was the chief of police here?

  She found it rather surprising that she reacted to the sight of him as intensely this time as she had the day before. She wasn’t sure what it was about him that had immediately appealed to her, but she was definitely intrigued.

  Jennings cleared his throat, drawing Emily’s attention to his heavy, florid, scowling face. “I’ve got money missing out of my business account,” he said without preface. “Three thousand dollars.”

  She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she asked cautiously, “Are you saying that we’ve made an error in your account?”

  He pointed to the computer monitor on Marshall Hayes’s desk, and waved a stack of paper in his other hand. “According to your records, the amounts listed on these deposit slips were more than the amounts actually put into my account. It happened on several different deposits during eight weeks, so I find it hard to believe it was a simple error every time.”

  Emily frowned. Surely he wasn’t suggesting...?

  “Your initials are on all these deposit slips,” he added aggressively.

  She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “Are you implying that I took money out of your deposits?”

  He nodded. “Either that, or you are totally incompetent as a teller. Can’t even write numbers down correctly.”

  Emily didn’t get angry very often. In her family, it had been better just to quietly fade into the background when things got tense. Living in the shadow of her mother’s sins and her brother’s reputation, she had become an almost compulsive pleaser in order to be accepted in her town. And it had worked. People liked her. Maybe they used her a bit, but they treated her with courtesy, for the most part. They didn’t humiliate her by making unjustified accusations against her, to her face and in front of witnesses.

  At least, no one had before today.

  Very aware that her employer and her town’s chief of police were watching her, she tried to rein in her flare of temper and speak calmly and confidently. “Obviously, a mistake has been made somewhere, Dr. Jennings. But I can assure you, I have not deliberately taken any of your money, nor would I have made mistakes in your deposits on four separate occasions without catching and correcting them.”

  “I have deposit slips with your initials on them,” he said again, fanning the air with the yellow paper rectangles. “And a statement that shows actual deposit amounts less than those written on the slips.”

  “May I see the slips?” Emily asked, still keeping her voice cool, though her anger was growing hotter. Why wasn’t her boss defending her? Was the police chief waiting to arrest her? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

  She held out her hand. The heavy gold-link bracelet on her wrist clinked with the movement. Jennings looked at the bracelet and scowled, as if the frivolous sound made him even more annoyed than he already was.

  Looking as though he expected her to destroy his “evidence” on the spot, he warily handed the four deposit slips and the bank statement to her. Emily glanced at them, then returned them to him. “Those deposit slips are fakes,” she said without hesitation.

  Jennings scowled. “I should have known you’d say something like that.”

  “Yes. You should have known I would tell the truth.” She glanced at her boss. “I always stamp deposit slips with a date stamp. These slips aren’t stamped, and I didn’t write the initials on them. It isn’t my handwriting.”

  Marshall Hayes smiled at her in a way that suggested he’d known all along that she was innocent of Jenning’s charges. Or was she only seeing what she wanted to find in her employer’s expression?

  “Of course it’s your handwriting. E.McB. That’s the way you always initial your work. I checked,” Jennings added a bit smugly.

  “Then you should have noticed that I elevate the small c and put a dash beneath it,” she retorted. “It’s the way I’ve always signed my initials. The dash is missing on these. Why would I change my signature only on slips that I’ve supposedly falsified? That wouldn’t make sense.”

  “I can bring in dozens of documents with her initials on them to verify her handwriting,” Hayes offered.

  The police chief cleared his throat. “Seems to me,” he said, his voice a leisurely drawl, “we need to talk to your former employee, Dr. Jennings. It’s entirely possible that she wrote out two deposit slips on these occasions. One with the correct amount on it for your records, another with the actual amount she deposited.”

  Jennings glared at him. “You’re blaming my girl.” “I’m not blaming anyone—including Ms. McBride,” the chief replied. “I’m simply saying we have to consider all the angles.”

  “I can produce paperwork proving I deposited the full amounts I was given,” Emily volunteered, grateful that Davenport didn’t seem to be in a hurry to haul her off to jail.

  “It would be just as easy for you to fake paperwork as it would’ve been for Tammy,” Jennings retorted.

  Emily met his eyes without blinking. “But I didn’t.”

  To her satisfaction, Jennings was the first to look away. “You aren’t going to do anything about this?” he demanded of Davenport.

  The police chief nodded. “I’ll look into it. I’ll need the name and new address of your former employee, and of course I’ll want to see all the paperwork.”

  “I—er—don’t know where Tammy is now,” Jennings muttered. “I’ve tried to contact her a couple of times, but I can’t seem to locate her.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve got a lot more reason to suspect Tammy than Emily,” Marshall Hayes commented, gi
ving her a reassuring nod.

  Emily knew exactly why Sam Jennings would rather suspect her than his former employee. Emily was a McBride. Daughter of Nadine, sister of Lucas. That was reason enough for Sam Jennings to accuse her of all manner of sins.

  She looked pointedly at her watch. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you now, I need to get back to work. Friday afternoons are our busiest time.”

  “Go ahead, Emily,” Hayes said promptly. “I think you’ve given us all the information we need for now, don’t you agree, Chief?”

  Davenport nodded, looking at Emily with thoughtful brown eyes. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. McBride. I’ll be in touch if I need anything more.”

  “You’re going to just let her go off and handle other people’s money?” Jennings asked Hayes with a show of incredulity.

  “Yes,” the bank president answered. “I am. Chief?”

  “I have no further reason to detain her,” Davenport agreed, to Jennings’s visible disgust. “I assume Dr. Jennings is aware that he shouldn’t be publicly casting blame while the investigation is ongoing.”

  Jennings scowled.

  Emily nodded, turned on one heel and left the office. She didn’t speak to Sam Jennings on the way out. Nor did she look at the police chief again. But she was aware that both men watched her until she was out of their sight.

  She could hardly take in the fact that she had just been accused of embezzlement. Surely no one who knew her could ever believe such a thing. And yet...she was a McBride. McBrides had been falsely accused before. Her brother Lucas. Her cousin Savannah. No one had believed claims of innocence from either of them.

  Would anyone believe Emily if Sam Jennings persisted in his allegations? Or would they see her as just another McBride turned bad?

  2

  OLIVER WENT NUTS when Emily’s doorbell rang Sunday afternoon, just before four o’clock. The little gray poodle yapped and bounced in front of the door, ferociously warning off potential invaders.