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Without opening her eyes, she frowned. “No,” she said, cutting in before he could say anything else. “Let’s not talk about that tonight. Let’s just enjoy being together for now.”
There was a ta
ut moment of silence and she could tell he wanted to argue, but to her relief, he let it go. His arm tightened around her. “All right. We won’t talk about it tonight. We’ll wait.”
A tense moment averted, she relaxed into his embrace again.
The call came late Tuesday as Casey and Natalie lingered over hamburgers he had cooked on the barbecue grill outside her cabin. Casey watched as Natalie checked the screen on her beeping cell phone, went very still for a moment, then lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello, Andrew.”Casey made no pretense of not listening to her side of the call, though she didn’t say much. Andrew did most of the talking. It was obvious from Natalie’s expression that she was shocked by whatever his cousin was saying to her.
“Are you sure?” she asked at one point. “Absolutely sure?”
Andrew must have answered affirmatively.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you, Andrew.”
She closed her phone and looked rather blankly across the table at Casey.
“He solved your case?” Casey asked. “After only three days?”
He hoped it was true, of course. He wanted Natalie to be cleared as soon as possible. But after spending almost every minute of the past three days with her while she’d waited for a report from Andrew, Casey wasn’t looking forward to saying goodbye to her when she went back to her own life.
She nodded, and he told himself he was glad.
“He said it wasn’t really that difficult to solve. He said if the upper management of my firm had been more interested in finding out the truth than in covering up the potential scandal, they’d have hired someone themselves to look beyond the so-called evidence provided by their anonymous source. And he said Beecham was obviously milking me for every penny he could get without working all that hard on my behalf, or he would have come up with a name himself.”
Casey could almost hear the tone of disgust in which Andrew had probably said those things. “Was it that Linski person? The one who’s been spending all the money lately?”
She shook her head. “Andrew checked her out first thing. He said she’s got a boyfriend. Older. Married. Willing to pay quite generously for a hot young woman to spend time with him while his wife takes regular trips to Europe and Las Vegas. A very obvious explanation, actually, and one Beecham should have easily found. Andrew thinks Beecham had a pretty good idea of where Cathy’s money was coming from, but by keeping me focused on her, it made him look like he was making progress on my investigation.”
He almost hated to ask the next question. “Was it your friend Amber?”
“No.” There was both relief and lingering shock in her expression. “It was Thad.”
“Thad? The guy you dated?”
Natalie nodded slowly. “He wanted money to keep up the extravagant lifestyle he’s been living. He was approached by someone from the tabloids about one of the clients, a country music star in the middle of an ugly divorce, and he thought he could make a little extra cash by leaking some juicy information about the confidential terms of the divorce. He was so successful getting away with it that time that he became a regular source for the so-called reporter. And he found it easy enough to set me up to take the fall if someone figured out what was going on.”
Casey wished he had the bastard in front of him now. His hands itched to do some damage to the jerk’s probably pretty face. “How stupid was he to think he could get away with doing that to you?”
“He almost did get away with it,” she pointed out, a glint of anger slowly replacing the shock in her eyes. “I can’t imagine that he’d be stupid enough to try it again after letting me take the blame.”
“How did Andrew find out it was him?”
“He didn’t tell me the details—said he’d fill us in tomorrow when he brings the evidence I need to prove my innocence. But he tracked down the reporter and managed to ‘persuade’ him to give him Thad’s name. Beecham had talked to the guy, but he wasn’t as successful as Andrew at convincing him to reveal his source.”
“Andrew does have his ways,” Casey murmured. “What else did he find?”
“The reporter admitted that the checks were made out to me, but given to Thad. Andrew followed Thad around for a few hours and took some pictures of him with a woman who’s apparently living with him now. Andrew thinks the woman probably posed as me and cashed the checks at various local banks. He said he could probably find at least one teller who remembers her. He has all the evidence I need to convince the senior partners that I have a very good case if I decide to make this fight messy and public. Thad’s been caught. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Congratulations, Natalie. I’m glad it worked out for you.”
She still looked a little dazed. “I just wanted to clear my name.”
“I know. Once you’re back in your old job and Thad’s gone, I’m sure everyone will realize that you were accused unfairly.”
“I don’t even know if I’ll get my old job back. Herb and the other partners will probably still want me to quietly disappear.”
“Yes, well, you have a little leverage on your side,” he pointed out. “You have the means to embarrass them pretty thoroughly. Not to mention grounds for a lawsuit.”
