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Finally ready to get some answers, Everly called down to the security office and got one of the guards on the line. He would watch over her from the cameras and send a sentry in if she got in trouble.
Now she had someone to watch her back. Everly could watch her own front.
It was time to figure out who her informant was and what the hell he knew.
• • •
So you’re telling me Mad was murdered over money?” Dax shook his head. “I always thought he’d fall off the roof while trying to sneak out of a married lady’s house. Or be shot by some jealous husband.”
Gabe looked at the receipts Dax had brought with him. It had taken his friend a few hours to gather the evidence they needed, discuss the situation with Connor, and cross town. He wished Everly would have made time to eat lunch with him, but she’d claimed she had too much to do. He’d spent a few hours organizing the receipts and Valerie’s HR file. Tavia had been right . . . and wrong. The purchase orders and receipts in the file looked damning but weren’t solid enough to convict Valerie if Mad had decided to threaten her with prosecution. But he may have found an ace up his sleeve. He had so much to wrap his head around but he’d been glad when Dax showed up.
“I don’t know if I would say it was entirely over money, but money was definitely involved. He apparently fucked Valerie at some point, before he dated Sara. I suspect he discovered that she was skimming money from the budget Crawford donated to the foundation’s galas. I found more information this afternoon. He’d gathered a pretty solid case against her. His secretary gave me a backup of his computer. According to her, he handed it to her in a sealed envelope the evening he died, just before he left the office.”
“Like he knew he was going to die?” Dax frowned.
“Hilary said he often did that before he went out of town because he’d lost or dropped more than one laptop during his travels. He refused to use the same backup system as everyone in the building because he didn’t want anyone having access to his sensitive files. So he’d often backup to a thumb drive and seal it up in an envelope. When I asked Hilary where I should start figuring out how Mad ran this place and what plans he might have had, she handed me this thumb drive.”
Dax shook his head. “So you can piece together his case against Valerie?”
“Yeah. I found a whole folder about her. He’d compared the last three foundation fundraisers. Valerie handled all the ordering and catering for the last two. Between the year before Valerie stepped into this role and last year’s gala, the expenses went up nearly a hundred and fifty percent.”
Dax whistled. “Didn’t she think that would attract attention? Unless she’s stupid, she had to know it would.”
Gabe nodded, pondering Dax’s words. He was right; Valerie hadn’t been at all subtle. Everly had claimed the woman wasn’t smart. She’d managed to steal money, but not quietly. She had, however, shown enough creative accounting to make tracking her difficult. And that took brains. Still, if she’d been the one to blow up Mad’s plane, that would require more than passing intelligence. If she didn’t have much, wouldn’t there be some lingering clue? A smoking gun somewhere?
“I don’t know. Mad knew more than I first thought. I found some additional files, but he had them password protected. I need Connor to break in.”
He’d tried all the obvious passwords. He knew Connor could hack in, however. Since he wasn’t sure what he would find, he didn’t want Everly involved.
“Pressing charges against an employee for theft could give that foundation some bad press.”
“I don’t care.” He’d considered it and decided it was worth the bad publicity to make sure that woman went to jail. If he was right, then she’d killed his best friend.
And he really hadn’t liked the way she looked at Everly. He knew a jealous woman when he saw one. Some women would merely be catty, but others—like Val—would go the extra mile. “The money was taken from Crawford Industries, not the foundation. It was an abuse of the company’s largesse, and as long as I come out with a firm statement of support for the foundation, it should be fine.”
Gabe didn’t worry about that. But what the hell was he going to do to keep Everly close to his side if the imminent danger passed? He could buy a couple of weeks at most because of the press. If he couldn’t change her mind by then . . . He cursed under his breath. He needed more time because he did not intend to become friendly strangers with her. He didn’t intend to be someone she said hello to at the kid’s birthday parties or at business meetings.
“I texted Connor. He’s already working up a dossier on Valerie. Roman has a couple of his associates compiling files on all of the workers here. And by the way, I talked to Everly’s mom this afternoon. She’s a real peach. She confirmed the information Everly gave us. I know your girl doesn’t want any more exposure than she’s already got, so I threatened her if she went to the press, just in time apparently. She was poised to make money off her daughter’s new fame.”
“If she speaks a word, I’ll ruin her.”
Dax chuckled a little. “I thought you’d feel that way. I spent some time with Everly’s employees. They’re really loyal to her. A couple admitted to being wary at first because she . . .”
“Has breasts?” He could imagine what some members of the cybersecurity team had thought about reporting to a petite female.
“Yeah. The last head of cybersecurity was an older guy, former military. Everly must have been a massive change for them. She proved herself very quickly. They now call her the queen of the geek squad. They like the hell out of her. They’re worried about her. You should be prepared for them to give you a hard time. You need to face facts, Gabe. She’s happy here.”
Damn it, he’d rather have her with him at Bond. A working relationship would help foster their personal one, but she wouldn’t switch jobs for him. He respected that, even as he found it irritating. But she hadn’t given him much choice; he was going to have to deal because she was smart and competent and deserved her own career. Sara would likely back Everly up on this, so he would find himself outvoted.
“What else did you learn?” He wasn’t worried about any skeletons in her closet.
“She’s a hard worker. Everyone in her group likes her.”
Because Everly was the sort of woman who exce
led. Unlike him, she hadn’t had a multimillion dollar company to fall back on. No inheritance. No cushy job or trust fund waiting for her. She’d had nothing but her own grit and she’d worked her ass off to succeed.
His heart constricted. He’d dated a lot of girls, but she might be his first real woman.
What was he doing with her? Playing around? Protecting his temporary turf? Because nothing they shared seemed that way. It felt so damn serious.
“She is exactly what she says she is,” Gabe said.
Dax nodded. “Yeah. You’re an asshole.”
“I know. I should have believed her when she said she hadn’t been another notch in Mad’s bedpost. But I can’t take it back now. And I can’t let her go.”
Regret weighed on him. He wished he’d had more time to convince her they could be great together. He would have come to the right conclusions about her platonic relationship with Mad on his own, but now he wouldn’t have the chance.
Dax nodded in complete agreement. “No. You can’t let her go. You need her. She makes you halfway decent to be around, man.”
“Asshole.” But he was smiling because it was good to have his friend’s approval. Dax liked Everly. Mad had loved Everly. Yeah, that mattered, too. He wondered why Mad hadn’t trusted him with the knowledge that he had a sister.
His intercom buzzed. With a long sigh, he picked up the receiver. He recognized that he didn’t have the same enthusiasm for Crawford business that he had for his own company. He loved building planes and helicopters. As a boy, he’d been obsessed with anything that could fly. Bond had been his birthright. Crawford
