What wasupwith this guy?
She dropped her head into her hands and stared at the change order, the words blurring as a very dark and sinister thought curled through her. Could he?—
“You okay?”
She shot up and looked right at Connor who was…exactly what she needed. And not for the same reasons she’d been swooning about a few hours ago.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Close the door.”
As he did, she pulled up the Phase One subcontractor log on her screen and scrolled through the HVAC entries. Bayside Mechanical. Bayside Mechanical. Bayside Mechanical. Every single Phase One house. No competing bids on record for any of them.
Connor swung his chair around the desk to sit next to her. “What’s up?”
“Look at this.” She pointed at the numbers, silently thanking God her “broken-armed dental student” could read a spreadsheet with the best of them.
He just tipped his head. “Don’t make me say ‘I told you so,’ Mer.”
“I should have listened,” she admitted. “Because either Doug has been waiving the bid requirement, or someone has been filing paperwork that makes it look like the process was followed when it wasn’t.”
He reached to his desk and grabbed a file folder from the top of an inbox. “Phase Two contractor bids,” he said. “These came in Friday. Look at the bid from Gulf Breeze Electric.”
She scanned the numbers. “Okay. What am I looking at?”
“The pricing. It’s oddly specific. They bid $347,200 for the Phase Two wiring package. That number is almost exactly the budget allocation that Pippin Lake set internally.” He flipped to another page. “Here’s the budget memo that went to Vance last month. Wiring allocation: $350,000.”
“That’s within three percent. Could be coincidence.”
“Could be. Except look at Phase One. Can you get that one on your screen?”
She turned and tapped a few keys, finding the file, a spreadsheet flashing on the screen. Together, they eyed the numbers and found the pattern—just under the allocation, close enough to look competitive but not so close it was obvious.
Meredith felt something cold settle in her stomach. “They knew the budget before they bid.”
He tapped the file folder he held. “I’ve been going through every subcontractor recommendation Vance has made. Every single one traces back to the three companies I mentioned. And I know you say he has preferred vendors, but…this is what I’ve been working on.”
He grabbed his laptop and brought it to her desk, opening it to an internet search. In a flash, he clicked through a link with remarkable left-handed dexterity.
“Look,” he said softly, the seriousness in his dark eyes making her breath catch. “They’re all registered to thesameaddress. A commercial mailbox suite in Fort Walton Beach. Same registered agent on all three filings. I pulled it from the county clerk’s website.”
She stared at him. Then she pulled his laptop closer and began reading.
“When did you do this?”
“When I’m bored.”
She gave a dry laugh. “Do I not give you enough to do?”
He leaned back. “Can I be honest?”
“Please.”
“I talked to my dad.”
“The investigator,” she said with a smile.
“He’s been tracking criminals for most of my life,” he said. “We talk cases and leads all the time, so I told him about this and…” He jutted his chin toward the door in the general direction of Vance-land. “The creep.”
She snorted at the term. “And what did he say?”
