Torrid Love - Caught!

by Lorie O'Clare

  She left Jordan’s office and walked down the hall to Aaron’s office. She didn’t see Ralph but the smell of cigar smoke through his closed door led her to believe the man had returned to his office. Once she flipped on the light and walked to Aaron’s desk, she saw the light on the phone and realized Ralph was making a call.

  Was he calling Jordan? Would he answer for Roger and not for her? Roxanne felt a sudden urge to be quick with her search and scanned Aaron’s desk for any sign of what caused the young accountant to head up to Nebraska in such a rush. After several minutes, Roxanne realized her search was futile.

  “Ralph?” Roxanne tapped on the man’s office door and then opened it when he didn’t answer.

  “Hold on a moment,” he said to whoever he spoke to on the phone.

  Roxanne watched him push the hold button and then stare up at her as if she were a rude interruption. She gathered her strength to stare down the man and show him his crass behavior didn’t daunt her.

  “I’m headed up to Nebraska,” she began and watched his mouth twist in what might be considered a smile. “I’m not going to get any answers here so I might as well head to the source of the problem. Since neither Jordan nor I will be in the office today, until either of us returns, you are in charge.”

  Roxanne could tell he didn’t like that comment at all.

  “Young lady, I—” Ralph began.

  Roxanne held her hand up to silence him and continued speaking when he sputtered instead of commenting.

  “Whether you like it or not, I am acting office manager in Jordan’s absence. Now with both of us out of the office I trust you can run a smooth ship.” Roxanne enjoyed the annoyed expression that quickly crossed the older man’s face. She smiled coldly at him and turned to leave but then looked at him over her shoulder. “Feel free to let Jordan and this Mr. Dixon fellow know that I will find them once I get to Auburn.”

  Roxanne left the office walking tall, and feeling she had put the arrogant, pompous ass in his place, but by the time she reached her car she felt deflated again. Why wouldn’t Jordan contact her if he knew Aaron had been arrested? She wouldn’t accept the fact that their personal relationship would hinder his work. That wasn’t Jordan.

  Roxanne sat in her car for a minute with it idling, wondering what she would say to Jeannette when she called her. In her present state of mind, Roxanne just knew that if the woman broke down crying, Roxanne would start bawling right along with her. Roxanne needed advice and she needed to be thinking clearly. She knew where to turn, and picked up her cell phone, then punched in the auto-dial number for her best friend.

  “Joanie, are you busy?” Roxanne asked when her friend answered the phone.

  “I haven’t left for the office yet,” Joanie answered. “What’s up?”

  There was no way she could answer that question in just a few words. She let out a sigh, doing her best to organize her thoughts.

  She kept wondering who Ralph Layette had been speaking to when she entered his office.

  “Is everything okay?” Joanie’s tone suddenly turned serious when Roxanne didn’t respond right away.

  Roxanne had to smile at her best friend’s intuitiveness. Joanie was certainly in the right field.

  “No, counselor, and I need your help.” Roxanne decided to start driving, and switched her phone to her other hand, then rested it between her shoulder and cheek. “How much time do you have? I have a serious problem and need some professional advice. I know you’re a sex therapist, and this isn’t actually your area, but do you have a minute?”

  “My first appointment isn’t until nine. What’s wrong?” Joanie asked.

  Roxanne started explaining the problems that Hall Enterprises had with someone stealing cash from their client’s accounts.

  “I stumbled onto it while preparing the accounts for one of our largest clients who was in town this week,” Roxanne explained. “He also found a few discrepancies and I had to walk him through them and then assure him that we were in the process of clearing up the problem.”

  “And he accepted that?” Joanie asked.

  Roxanne remembered the lunch she’d had with Roger Uphouse and how Jordan had intervened in the parking lot. At the time, she’d thought that Jordan didn’t want her seeing any other men. Now she wondered if Jordan had thought her guilty, and simply wanted her away from their client. Roxanne’s head spun as she tried to keep the facts straight and not let her mind draw inaccurate conclusions based on her feelings. There were so many reasons why Jordan might not be answering her calls right now. No matter that he’d arrested the wrong man—and she was sure Aaron wasn’t guilty. That didn’t mean that Jordan might think she was guilty of some crime.

  “I think that Mr. Uphouse was a bit preoccupied with trying to ask me out,” Roxanne confessed, and then filled her friend in on the details of her time with the man and how Jordan had saved her from Roger’s kinkiness.

  “But when I realized Jordan was seeing other women, I broke it off with him.” Roxanne continued with her explanation. “During all of that, Aaron Tipley started doing his own digging into files, and trying to figure out who the thief was.”

  “Did you and Jordan continue working together on the problem with the money disappearing after you broke it off with him?” Joanie asked.

  Roxanne had reached the Interstate and made a quick decision to run by her house and grab a few things before heading north.

  “Of course,” Roxanne told her friend. “But then Aaron contacted me after I got home from your house. I was up almost all night last night, and now I need to go to Nebraska.”

  “Nebraska? Why are you headed there?” Joanie shrieked, obviously stunned.

  Roxanne filled her friend in on the recent happenings, and Joanie listened without a word.

  “Joanie, none of this makes any sense. And I’m not getting any answers sitting here. I need to go up there. Aaron is relying on me.” Roxanne had reached her house and noticed Jeannette’s car parked in front. She needed to get Jeannette so she could have her car—shit.

  “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense,” her friend agreed. “So now you’re going to this town in Nebraska? What are you going to do there?”

  “Well, I need to contact Jeannette first,” Roxanne explained, and at the same time dreaded making the call to the very pregnant lady. “I know she’ll be upset when I tell her that I’m headed north. She’ll want to go with me but I really would rather do this alone. I have no idea what to expect, and I swear, Joanie, she looks ready to have that baby at any moment.”

  Roxanne entered her house and immediately went to her closet to grab a small suitcase she kept there. “What do you plan to do once you get to Nebraska?” Joanie asked.

  Roxanne paused in the bathroom, hastily grabbing a few things, and then plopped down on the closed toilet lid. She took a deep breath, her head spinning. “Now I see why you’re the best in your business,” Roxanne chuckled.

  Joanie’s tone grew serious. “You can’t just drive up there without a plan. I understand that you’re panicking, and I would be too in your shoes. But right now you need to focus on a specific plan and you need to stick to it.”

  “You’re right,” Roxanne agreed, and stood once again as she dropped items from her bathroom cabinet into her small bag. “I know what I’m going to do once I get up there, but I doubt you’ll like it.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Joanie encouraged.

  “I’m going to find out who Aaron Tipley thought was stealing money from our client’s accounts and then I’m going to go after that person myself.”

  * * * * *

  Jordan Hall stood with his arms crossed, just inside the small conference room at the Auburn, Nebraska, police station. Two police officers, along with Joe Dixon, sat around the table, the only piece of furnishing the room had to offer, and stared at a small thirteen-inch television screen. Jordan studied the screen as well, and listened to the recorded interview with Aaron Tipley. The young man appeared dis
traught, and fidgeted in his chair, continuously looking around the room, and then down at his hands.

  The quiet whir of the old VCR, playing the tape of Aaron being interviewed after he was brought in, reminded Jordan of the budget this station had to work with in handling this arrest. Jordan wondered what he was doing here. He stared at a good accountant, who should be behind his desk at the moment, doing his job.

  The police officers and the private detective Layette had hired discussed Jordan’s affairs while watching the tape. Jordan didn’t participate in the conversation though. There was a big hole in this entire mess. Something wasn’t right.

  “We checked out the location Tipley says those people were at,” a young man in uniform said, looking away from the television and glancing at Jordan.

  Jordan guessed the man not much older than Tipley, with the standard-issue crew cut, and a knick on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving.

  “There wasn’t anyone there,” the officer reported.

  “I drove to Auburn because that is where the last transaction took place.” Aaron’s voice sounded tinny on the recorded tape. “Once I had the routing information, I couldn’t reach my employer and so drove up here.”

  The police officer doing the interview scribbled something on a pad. “What phone number did you use to try and contact your boss?” the officer on the tape asked Aaron.

  Jordan watched the officers in the room stare at the TV screen. They had watched this recording last night and Jordan hadn’t seen anything at that time that made the tape worth watching again.

  “So who was on the phone?” Joe Dixon turned to face Jordan and glanced at the cell phone Jordan still held in his hand.

  Jordan had left the room when his cell phone had rung. This small town had more pockets in it where his phone couldn’t get a signal than any town Jordan had ever been in.

  “Layette checked in,” Jordan mumbled, not liking at all the way Dixon made him feel he had to account for his every action.

  The detective nodded and then glanced to hear the comments of the two officers. Jordan studied Joe Dixon who was about the same age as Jordan’s father, or how old his father would have been if he had still been alive.

  Dixon was tall, slender, and well-built. His hair was silver, and he had pale green eyes that seemed to study everything longer than necessary. Jordan knew he had a very good track record as a private detective. He had studied up on Dixon during the time he had to kill the night before while they booked Aaron. The man had solved every case he’d been on for the past five years. Prior to that, he’d served thirty years on the Kansas City police force. His record was impeccable.

  Dixon turned his attention back to Jordan.

  “How is everything going at the office?” the detective asked.

  “Sounds like things are going fine,” Jordan said, deciding not to tell the detective that he had just found out that Roxanne was on her way up here.

  Dixon stared at Jordan for a minute, and Jordan guessed the man thought he wasn’t telling the detective everything. Well, he could just wonder about it. Jordan scowled, and felt the same sensation that had run through him more than once since they had arrived up here. They were on a wild goose chase. He didn’t know if Tipley was guilty or not. But if he was, Jordan had sure judged the young man wrong. And if he wasn’t, then he’d go through hell and high water to make sure none of this went on the young man’s record. Either way, there were still pieces to this puzzle that didn’t make sense.

  “How much longer are we going to be here?” Jordan asked, and the two officers turned their attention to him.

  Dixon glanced at the two officers. He addressed the older of the two, a short thin man who wore wire-framed glasses. “I think we’ll head out to find a bite to eat. You have our numbers if you find anything?”

  “You want us to shake him up a bit?” the younger officer asked. “We can get a confession for you so you can wrap this up.”

  Jordan wanted to shake the officer up a bit. “No, let the man rest. He’s been through enough.” Jordan could tell the officers didn’t like his response but at the moment he couldn’t care less what they thought. “And let him call his wife. She’s due to have a child soon, and probably worried sick about him.”

  The officers glanced at each other, but Jordan didn’t wait to hear their comments. He turned and walked out of the small conference room and toward the front door of the station.

  “You know the evidence against him is overwhelming,” Dixon said once they were outside the police station. “We’ve confirmed that withdrawals were made from one of your client’s accounts last night from a location here in town using a fraudulent card. We show up at Tipley’s room and there is the account number to the exact same account. Why else would he be in this town?” Dixon waved his hand, gesturing as he looked up and down the street. “Do you think he’s here to sightsee?”

  “He didn’t do it,” Jordan mumbled, and left the detective standing there to walk over to his car. “And I won’t have his life ruined by him sitting in that damned jail cell.”

  The town of Auburn, Nebraska wasn’t that big. And Jordan knew if it wasn’t for this ordeal, he would never have reason to be there. He had a room in the same motel where Aaron had been arrested the night before, which was the nicest place to stay in town. The community was small but it was a clean town and the people seemed friendly enough. None of that impressed Jordan right now however. His mood was dark and the scowl on his face matched how he felt.

  Joe Dixon had told him they thought Roxanne was behind Aaron stealing money from the accounts. They had documented evidence of her being in contact with Aaron right around the same time several of the unauthorized withdrawals had occurred.

  She had been in close contact with Roger Uphouse, and during the dates she had spent time with the man in person, someone had tampered with the accounts that reflected missing money.

  It didn’t sit right that she would have intentionally adjusted balances on any account. That simply wasn’t characteristic of Roxanne. She had left him notes telling him of the discrepancies. She hadn’t tried to hide them. Not to mention she wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. No matter how difficult she was being right now, Roxanne cared about him. He knew she did.

  But Dixon had shown him activity on the account that Layette had provided for him. Roxanne had been the only one who had accessed the accounts during the time in question. That knowledge left a sick feeling in his gut.

  Then there was the handful of other accounts, all with money missing. And each time a discrepancy had been noted, it was Roxanne’s personal login password that appeared as the person who had accessed the accounts.

  Roxanne wasn’t guilty. Jordan would stake his reputation on it. But proving her innocence was going to be damned hard to do while he was up here in this small town in the middle of nowhere. Jordan planned on telling Dixon he was headed home over breakfast.

  “I think it would be a good idea to go over all the information we have while we’re at breakfast.” Dixon had caught up with Jordan and stood next to him as Jordan reached his Porsche.

  “I can’t imagine what else there is to discuss.” Jordan didn’t try to hide his contempt. “Personally, I don’t think we’re accomplishing a damned thing up here.”

  “I know it’s frustrating trying to get all the pieces to add up.” Dixon smiled and patted his shoulder. “You’re a man of action, Jordan, just like your father. But if you’ll allow me just a bit more time, I think we can wrap this up with the facts painted clear enough to satisfy all of us.”

  Jordan nodded and reached for his door handle. As long as the facts didn’t paint Roxanne as guilty, he would be satisfied.

  “I need to run by the motel room to gather all the files,” Dixon said. “I hear there is a decent restaurant a few blocks from here and we can have a nice breakfast. How about if we meet there in about forty-five minutes?”

  “That’s fine.” Maybe a shower and fresh clothes would
help his mood, although he seriously doubted it.

  An hour later he sat across from Dixon and listened to a cute, young waitress tell them about their morning specials. She caught Jordan watching her and smiled.

  “You two aren’t from Auburn, are you?” she asked.

  The woman was short, with breasts that were a bit too large. The material of her T-shirt stretched tightly across her chest, and then fell just above the waistline of her jeans. Jordan got a glimpse of a tanned and muscular tummy. The woman was in good shape, although she didn’t hold a flame to Roxanne. He wondered where she was at the moment. If she’d left Kansas City right after Layette told him she was headed up then she would be in Auburn soon.

  Jordan returned the smile although he felt like scowling. “Just got here last night,” he offered. “I think I’ll have toast and coffee.”

  “Good man,” she answered. “A heavy breakfast isn’t good for the waistline.”

  The waitress ran her hand over her belly, showing just a bit more of that tight and well-tanned abdomen. There would have been a time when he would have enjoyed casually flirting with a waitress—it almost always resulted in much better service. All he could think of right now though was where was Roxanne. This town wasn’t that big. He needed to call her, verify where she was, and make sure she came straight to him as soon as she arrived.

  The waitress turned her attention to Dixon. “Do you see anything you like?” she asked, applying the same flirtatious grin to the older investigator.

  “Sounds like I should definitely have the same.” Dixon smiled, and Jordan watched the older man’s gaze drop to the waitress’s well-endowed breasts.

  “I’ll have everything over here to you two gentlemen in just a sec,” she said with a smile, and looked from one man to the next. “Now you two let me know if there is anything else that you want.”

  Dixon watched the waitress walk away and then turned his attention to Jordan, still smiling.