AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, how much was the transaction for?”
I shook my head, certain it didn’t matter. It wasn’t any kind of concrete proof of anything. But I crawled out of bed anyway and returned to my office to retrieve the pages we’d printed, since they’d be easier to read than the screen of my phone.
Gabby was still sitting on the bed, naked. I had to pause a moment in the doorway, to appreciate the view. But she shook her hand, insistently asking for the pages, so I ignored the stirring in my body and handed them over before sitting next to her, right next to her, where my flesh pressed against hers, warmth to warmth.
God, she was so soft and smooth and lovely. And she smelled good. I dipped my face to kiss the top of her bare shoulder just as she let out a whistle and shook her head. “This transfer was for twenty grand. I bet you could pay a hitman to do a lot with twenty grand.”
“Or it might not have anything to do with Mad Manny,” I countered, moving on to the side of her neck.
“Could the detective you talked to find out who owned each account?”
“Probably,” I said, sighing and pulling my mouth from her flesh when she remained all business. But she was right. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sure Gutierrez could figure out who owned each account. Hell, I bet the private investigator I’d hired to find Finley could discover such information.
That’s when it struck me what I’d been doing: ignoring the possible importance of that bank receipt because I didn’t want to know what the money transfer was about. I didn’t want to learn anything worse about Lana.
When I glanced at Gabby, I inclined my head at her respectfully for forcing me to face the facts. We could definitely dig deeper.
“I’ll call Gutierrez first thing in the morning,” I said.
Gabby nodded, distracted, still studying the receipt. “Maybe the date can help us narrow down what this was about too. It’s over twenty years old.” She shifted it over for me to see as she pointed out the date. “Do you know if that was close to the time the couple went missing?”
I read the numbers and squinted, thinking back to when Brick and I had been left at the mall. If Lana had just paid off someone to make two people disappear forever then maybe she really had left us there on purpose, hoping we’d never find our way back to her.
I shuddered, repressing the memory, and shook my head. “No,” I said. “This date would be closer to the time that—” When I realized when the transfer had happened, my skin went ice cold. I looked up at Gabby in shock.
“Close to the time that what happened?” she asked in a hushed tone.
With a reluctant sigh, I admitted, “That my father died.”
Gabby’s mouth fell open. It worked a few times before she was able to ask, “And how did he die?”
“Heart attack,” I answered. “Just like Arthur.”
“Oh.” She looked down at the sheet in her hand, then up at me, taking in my expression, and suddenly, she was shuffling the pages together and setting them on the nightstand in a neat, orderly fashion. Once she was done, she turned back to me. “Well, that bank transfer could be about anything.”
Except we were both almost positive it had been about Lana putting twenty grand into Mad Manny’s account in order to pay him off to make my father’s death look like natural causes.
Her smile was tight and forced as she flashed me an encouraging look. “What did you and the detective discuss, anyway? And how did the portfolio presentations go?”
She was trying to distract me. That was sweet. So I let her. I answered her questions about the meeting I’d had with Gutierrez. And I told her how the presentation had been a success. I even told her about the shoe design Kaitlynn had made for my department, and how it had been chosen by Lana without her being the wiser.
In fact, the only person who hadn’t gone away from the presentation satisfied had been Lana herself. She’d been pissed at me for not thinking to destroy the PDF copies Kaitlynn had made for the portfolio. Now she couldn’t sell the designs to our competitors.
What surprised me most was how angry Brick had been with Lana before that, though. He was always the easy-go-lucky kind of guy, nothing ever seemed to bother him. But he’d taken it personally when his department’s portfolio had gone missing. And he’d blamed it on his mother entirely.
“No wonder why he hadn’t been able to keep her distracted and out of the apartment for over five minutes tonight,” Gabby mused. “He probably confronted her about it.”
“Just think what he’d do if he knew I’d been the one to take it,” I murmured in a hollow, guilt-stricken voice.
She stroked my arm in a comforting fashion. “If he knew the whole story, he’d understand. Hell, he probably would’ve helped you trick her into thinking you were stealing the portfolio.”
I glanced at her. “Except I didn’t tell him. And if he found out now, he might never forgive me. And honestly…” I shook my head before lifting a helpless hand. “I wouldn’t blame him.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Gabby insisted, clutching my face and forcing me to look at her. “From the way you talk about him, he’s the most important person in your life. He didn’t get that way from not trusting you as much as you trust him. He would understand. Hell, you’re doing most of this for him anyway, to help free him from Lana too. Who could just shrug that off?”
I gulped before lowering my face. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am.” Then she preened and straightened her back. “I mean, I usually am, so you might as well just get used to me always being right, anyway.”
