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“What’d you find?” Arnett asked as he handed her another mocha.
She pulled off her gloves and took a large sip. “Several files for applicants to Beautiful Bouncing Babies, containing financial and other information. As best I can tell, she was evaluating them to see what they qualified for. But these”—she pointed in turn to three sheets of paper—“seem to be the fraudulent grant applications. That one’s Madison’s.”
Arnett hunched over for a closer look. “Can’t really tell much from them.”
“No. I’m hoping Lopez will be able to find something on her laptop or phone that’ll help.”
“Speak of the devil, and she will appear,” Lopez’s voice said from behind them. “Did I hear you say you have a laptop for me?”
“We do.” Jo gestured to the computer.
Lopez wiggled her fingers. “Give it to meeeee. Sounds like you have something specific you want me to look for?”
Jo filled her in on Naomie’s phone call to her the day before, and the grant money issue she’d called about.
“Ah, well, that explains the pictures I found on her phone before I went home for my cat nap.”
Jo perked up. “Do tell.”
Lopez motioned for them to follow her out to her multi-desk setup, pulled a Rockstar out of her mini fridge and cracked it open, then pulled up a file on her main monitor. A grid of thumbnails appeared; after a double-click, the first picture opened. “These look like client files. There are ten of them, including Madison’s. It looks like Naomie went through and took pictures of every page.” Lopez scrolled through. “Then some pages of what look like a disbursement log.”
“You said Madison’s file is in there. Do you mind if I take a look through?” Jo asked.
“Be my guest.” Lopez rolled her chair out of the way, and gestured to the empty chair sitting next to the desk.
Jo pulled it over, then began to click through the files. “The other two women whose disbursement sheets I found in Naomie’s satchel are here as well, and in each case, there’s a second, handwritten application for the same grant, with different dates. And”— she continued clicking through—“there are double disbursements for each in the log.”
“That would be much harder for Madison to pull off, accessing the other clients’ applications,” Arnett said. “Even if the offices were routinely left unattended, she’d have to know what she was looking for.”
“I think Naomie realized that, too, and that’s why she called us. So the next thing I want to know is whose fingerprints are on these grant applications.”
“Most everybody has legitimate reasons for touching the files,” Arnett said.
“True, but I also want to see whose printsaren’ton the applications. If Madison’s prints aren’t on hers, that tells us something important.”
“Smart.” Arnett leaned forward for a better look. “Standard, non-coated paper. Unless someone wiped them off right away, the prints would have absorbed and be nearly impossible to wipe away.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. I was going to lift the prints myself, but it’s been awhile, and we want to be sure we keep everything preserved. Since we need to head down to Triple-B to interview everyone anyway, I’ll leave it to the pros.”
“I’ll make sure we have prints on record for both Madison and Naomie,” Lopez said.
“Thank you,” Jo said. “If someone is bilking thousands out of Triple-B, it’s very possible they killed both Naomie and Madison to keep from being found out.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE
Chelsea pushed the front-window curtain of her brownstone aside with a finger, just an inch, to stare out at the undercover officer across the street. She’d tried to bring coffee out to him half an hour before, but he’d chastised her, going on about how he couldn’t be undercover if she drew attention to him. She’d shot off an angry text to Julia, expecting her commiseration since she hadn’t wanted any surveillance at all. But Julia took his side, saying it wasn’t just about protecting Chelsea, it was about catching the killer and she needed to be patient, blah blah blah.
Sighing, she let the curtain drop, then lowered herself onto the couch and snatched up her copy ofPersuasion. But her mind wouldn’t be distracted, and she found herself staring off into the distance, her leg bouncing so furiously it threatened to fly right off.
She hadn’t thought through the police protection well enough. On the surface she’d thought it would get her what she wanted—for David to take the situation seriously. She’d talked him into spending the night again the night before—he couldn’t turn her down in light of a second friend’s death, and he couldn’t now deny that pregnant women in the area were in danger. He’d seemed genuinely concerned about her—he’d watched a movie with her, talked to her, all very cozy and sweet. She told him he didn’t have to sleep in the guest room if he didn’t want to, that she’d actually prefer it if he slept in her room, because she didn’t like being alone after everything that had happened. But he’d just smiled and acted like she was being funny, and went into the other room. Then when the undercover officer showed up at the crack of dawn, he’d seemed relieved to hand her off to the protective detail, and hurried off to work, commenting how she wouldn’t have to worry now that she’d have someone watching her twenty-four seven.
The words had hit like a punch to the stomach. She’d given away her leverage. She should have turned the detail down and told David she needed him—how would he have been able to say no? Except, if she’d turned down the detail, Jo would have been sure to tell David. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.
Time was running out. Once the baby was born, it would be so much harder to pull David in. He knew she could afford a nanny, so claims of being overwhelmed would be easy for him to push aside. Even if he didn’t, he could always just take the baby off her hands claiming she needed her ‘alone time’ rather than just staying with her. Because, originally, she’d been sure there was no way that wife of his was going to spend hours taking care of an infant that wasn’t hers, and so David’s visitation with the baby would necessarily be time spent with Chelsea. But now she wasn’t so sure—she’d gotten to know Sophie well enough to know that if it meant removing an excuse for David to be with Chelsea, she’d change every diaper and warm every bottle in existence.
The mental image of Sophie cooing over the baby sent physical pains shooting through her chest. No way was she going to let Sophie get her claws intoherbaby.
She pushed herself up and waddled into the nursery, feeling like a duck who’d swallowed half a loaf of bread whole. She was lucky, pregnancy hadn’t changed her figure much at all, and from the back you couldn’t even tell she was pregnant. But still, galumping around like a mini-elephant just wasn’t cute. No wonder David didn’t want to share a bed with her right now. She’d have to double-up and triple-up on the exercise to get herself back into shape as quickly as possible.
