AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Pretty desperate action when—”
Stormy was shaking her head. “She’s his wife, Tyler! Look how Tully went along with Nina.”
“Tully didn’t do any stealing.”
“No, but he let it happen. Only after Nina was caught red-handed did he come up with a set of morals. And only after you and Mrs. Lowery got involved. I wasn’t going to hang dirty laundry out for the world to see—Lowery forced me to do it. And think. What’s the first thing Tully did? He moved Nina out of sight, still protecting her.
“And that’s probably what Foley does—the reason they move so often, why he changes jobs. As soon as his wife—” She looked at the printout for his wife’s name. “As soon as Cheryl gets in over her head gambling and puts them deeper in debt, he moves the family. Perhaps he’s always hoping for a new beginning. Just think of all the potential problems, Tyler. If she gambles away their money, utilities go unpaid, the kids aren’t cared for properly, maybe the school counselor alerts social services…it goes on and on. A bank vice president can’t tolerate that kind of scrutiny. He’s supposed to be a pillar of the community.” She tapped the pages with her fingers. “We’ve got to catch Cheryl Foley gambling.”
“And then what?” Tyler asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Nothing in those files says she gambles illegally.”
“Then we… We’ll confront Foley!”
“That’s what I meant about grasping at straws. You think if we confront him, he’ll confess? This is the real world, Stormy. The man isn’t going to destroy his life just to do you a favor. He helped ruin you, remember? He perjured himself in court.”
Stormy jumped off the stool and put her arms around Tyler’s neck. “Please. Find out where the Foleys live now. We can at least go talk to them.”
Tyler sighed. “You think you can get me to do anything you ask by rubbing yourself up against me like that?”
Stormy planted a kiss on the corner of his mouth and pressed herself a little more tightly against him. “It feels that way.”
“That part of my body doesn’t have the sense God gave a billy goat.”
“Aren’t you the best asset-recovery agent on the Eastern Seaboard? Don’t you have satisfied clients from here to the Mississippi?”
“Stop throwing my bragging back in my face.”
She pressed her lips to the vein throbbing in his neck. “Your heart is beating faster.”
“All right, all right, I’ll make some more inquiries, but—”
“You can make your calls from here,” she murmured between persuasive kisses.
“This isn’t going to get you anywhere—except maybe on the sofa.”
Stormy began to tingle inside. “That sounds like a reasonable beginning to me.”
He shook his head. “All my notes are in my hotel room. You can’t just call and ask for someone’s personal info. I have a service. But it’s all done online. A digital trail in case someone uses information for illegal activities.” He kissed her once more. “I’ll be back in less than half an hour.”
Tyler was backwithin twenty minutes. “Okay, I’ve set some things in motion. Now let’s go get… reasonable on the sofa,” he said, his arms snaking around her waist and his hands beginning to climb.
“Could we compromise?” Stormy asked sweetly as she poured a layer of hot pink wax into a mold.
“Compromise?” he asked darkly.
“You can shave wax, and I’ll—”
“Unfair, unreasonable, and unlikely,” he protested.
“Liane will be getting off the school bus within ten minutes.”
“You knew that when you were plastering yourself all over me twenty minutes ago,” he grumbled.
Stormy tilted her head to one side. “Ah, but it was twenty minutes ago. Can I help it if you spent all that precious time on your laptop?”
“Dirty, underhanded, and low-down,” Tyler muttered. “All right, all right, how the hell does one shave wax?”
“Goodness, you don’t have to give in so quickly,” she said mischievously.
