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“Yep,” Jenny nodded.
“He pulled this in the first couple of months she worked there. That must have been the point she signed the corporation papers and the bank account under her name. But of course, Edgar had all the access to the account.”
“Of course,” Jada said.
“So, four months later when she finds out that over two million pounds have been embezzled from the company, she traced it back to Edgar. Then she realizes all the money has been deposited into an account in her name. She’s screwed. By that time, we had become friends, and she tells me what has happened.”
“Why would you believe her?” Gideon asked.
“You have to know her background to believe her. We had a girl’s night at my apartment one night and exchanged war stories.”
“War stories?” Brax asked.
“Our childhoods. Hers won. She had documentation. She showed me the articles on the internet. Her dad killed her mother, then held Fiona and her little sister hostage for ten hours before killing himself. Her dad was a thief, and the cops had been closing in on him. Her mom was trying to leave with Fiona and her sister, before the cops raided the place. There is no way that Fiona would ever steal anything.”
Jenny looked around and saw that everybody was nodding.
“So, Fiona did a runner?” Brax said. “Do you know where she is?”
Jenny nodded. “She changed her identity, got new papers, and is currently living in Spain. She speaks fluent Spanish, so she’s fine. She wants to hire someone to clear her name and bring Edgar to justice, but I haven’t talked to her since my kidnapping.”
“Did you ever email Fiona?” Gideon asked.
“Sure, we worked together. But I didn’t contact her at all after she left, or after she told me what was going on. I didn’t want any kind of communication going on between the two of us.”
“How about when you were in Bangladesh?” Brax asked.
“Only from a new Gmail account that I made up just to talk to her.”
“That won’t work,” Gideon said. “You still have to point back to other email accounts for backup.”
Jenny frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. But would the company be watching my email?”
“Did you email from your company computer?” Gideon asked.
“No, I did it from my private computer.” Jenny grinned.
“Did you do it from work, when you were connected to the company internet?” Jada asked.
Jenny nodded.
“You’re hosed.”
“So do you think Jenny being shoved in the street could be due to this thing in London?” Brax asked.
“Could be,” Gideon said slowly. “The other wildcard is that the VP of Public Relations, Roy Jeckel, was fired three weeks ago after thirty-five years. When I read through his HR file, it was clear that the company set him up as the fall guy for the bad PR surrounding the Jenny scandal.”
“That wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his decision not to pay my ransom,” Jenny protested.
“Yeah, but they’re saying it’s his fault for all the bad press and their plunging stock price,” Jada said.
“Assholes,” Jenny muttered.
“There you go. We have a couple of people who are suspects. Edgar and Roy,” Jada said.
“Edgar has no reason to come after Jenny. He doesn’t know about her connection to Fiona,” Brax argued.
“If the VP of HR here in the States mentioned the two of them in the same email, then I’d say they’ve been connected,” Gideon disagreed.