Page 46 of The Billionaire's Special Relationship

Tabby could feel his penis hardening beneath her tiny bikini, which was probably why he kept repositioning her. And why she heard a very low, very guttural moan escape his lips as he did so.

“You think he has some info?” she asked him.

“He’d better have something. When it became clear to me what the DA was up to, I ordered him to find that ticket taker that claimed to have seen me in that garage, and get the real story out of him.”

“By doing what? Paying him off?”

“And finding out who paid him off first. That’s the idea. I tried to wait until the charges were dropped to avoid accusations of witness tampering, but this is taking too damn long. I’ve got to get more information. I’ve got to get this behind me.”

“I agree,” Tabby said as the elevator door opened to the rooftop and an older, white, stocky man stepped off. Carrying a briefcase, he made his way over to them.

“How you holding up, Boss?” he asked as he approached them.

“I’ve seen better days. How are you?”

The investigator turned his hand from side to side as if he had good news on the one hand, but bad news on the other hand. Then he looked atTabby.

“This is Miss Morgan. Tabby, this is Lou Fenson.”

“How are you, ma’am?” Lou said as he tipped a hat he didn’t have on his head.

Which seemed old-fashioned to Tabby, but in a good way. “I’m good. And you?”

“My old ass tired, but other than that I’m great.”

Tabby laughed. “I hear you.”

“Were you able to find that asshole?” Stuart asked him.

But Lou shook his head. “Not at all, sir. And we searched everywhere humanly possible. He packed up his house and left without a trace.”

“Which could only mean whomever paid him to lie on me paid him handsomely.”

“Oh it had to be major bucks,” Lou agreed. “Every one of his friends insisted he loved his job. To a man they said he wouldn’t walk away from that job unless he was forced to, or somebody paid him big time to leave.”

“Which means whomever tried to kill Alan,” Stuart said, “was behind that takeover.”

Tabby couldn’t connect those dots. “Why would you say that?” she asked Stuart.

“The mastermind behind the takeover of my corporation handed out tens of millions of dollars to get Alan to the finish line. That kind of money doesn’t flow around every day. The money connects it,” Stuart added.

Tabby nodded, but it still seemed like a weak connection to her.

“We don’t have that asshole,” Lou said, “but we got the tape.”

Stuart sat upright, his arm across Tabby’s stomach. “What do you mean you’ve got the tape? What tape?”

Tabby was intrigued, too, as Lou pulled out an iPad, turned it on, and scrolled to the appropriate folder. “That ticket taker turned off all cameras at 9:42pm. And he wiped clean all video from ten minutes before that. But unlike those sorry-ass cameras in Larkin, where they didn’t even both with getting a service, these cameras were the real deal. Just because you wiped something clean with these cameras doesn’t make it clean. Those ten minutes he wiped were already in the cloud.” He handed the iPad to Stuart.

Stuart anxiously took the tablet and sat it on Tabby’s lap. Then he pressed Play. They watched intensely as a red and gray BMW drove into the parking garage at the condominium building where Alan lived. When the driver stopped at the booth, the ticket taker, an overweight Hispanic male, reached for the driver’s ID since only residents could enter the garage.

The heavily-tinted window pressed down, but no ID came out. A thick envelope was passed to the ticket taker. The ticket taker looked at the envelope like he was confused. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Look and see.” It was the voice of a man inside the BMW, whose face was obscuredbecause of the camera angle.

“Damn we can’t see him,” Stuart said irritably as they continued watching.

The ticket taker was on camera as he opened the envelope and found what looked like a massive wad of big bills. His eyes stretched. He looked at the driver.