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“Bloody hell.” Ash rolled her eyes. “Anyway—apparently, Declan was there one day for a meeting with his accountant, and she overheard their discussion.”
“Doesn’t seem like a very secure space,” I noted.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “Stop distracting me, damn it.”
I clamped my hand over my mouth.
“Jelly said they were talking about the situation with Alan and paying him off. Now, don’t get me wrong, Declan Tierney was rich as shitballs, but a lot of his actual assets were in the business.Hehad personal cold, hard cash, but the business—where Alan’s money was—is largely in assets. A lot of it is wrapped up in current projects.”
Wow.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. “So, if their company went bust, Declan was fine, but Alan was screwed?”
“I don’t know. She said she didn’t hear much after that, but the general consensus was that Declan would either have to hand himtwelve millionout of his own pocket for his share in the company, or he’d have to offload some assets to raise the funds.”
“Twelve million? Holy shit.” I blinked at her. “And let me guess, Declan didn’t want to do either?”
“No. Aunt Jelly thinks he knew he would eventually be screwed over in his divorce with what Steph would get and he didn’t want to do anything until he knew where he’d be, financially speaking.”
“Kind of makes sense. If he knew he was going to be out of pocket and started selling off some of their property to fund Alan’s buyout, Steph could use that in the divorce.”
“Exactly,” Ash agreed. “That was his real issue and why he was offering Alan less than his share was worth. Aunt Jelly thinks he was trying to fiddle the books to make the company worth less, therefore having to pay out less to Alan and to Steph, but especially Alan. He’s the one who’d lose out the most. He had a personal obligation to Steph as his wife, but not to Alan as his business partner.”
I sat back, pulling my lemonade with me. “Woah,” I said slowly. “Do we think Alan knew about this?”
“Surely he knows how much the business is worth. He’s the one who spends all his time in the office, after all.”
“Then how the hell did Declan think he could cook the books and get away with it?”
Ash pressed her lips into a thin line. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Maybe he didn’t get away with it.”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t know about you, Lottie, but I think Alan has one hell of a motive if he knew what Declan was doing.”
“Right, but how do we find out?” I held her gaze for a moment. “Who’s going to tell us anything? It’s one thing me talking to Steph, it’s another thing entirely us trying to eke out of Alan what he knows.”
“I dunno,” Ash finally said, sinking back into the booth with a regretful expression. “We’ll just have to hope we get lucky, I guess.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eight days after I stumbled on Declan Tierney’s dead body, I had the key to the bed and breakfast back in my hands.
I was both annoyed it’d taken this long and happy it hadn’t taken too much longer. I was, after all, now officially paying for electricity and water in this place, and the standing charge for electricity was a punchline short of a joke.
At least I had the place back in my hands. That could only be a good thing, right? The police wouldn’t have let me back in here if they thought I was responsible for Declan’s murder, surely.
It just didn’t make sense.
The only thing I really was happy about was the fact the badger was now gone. The officer who’d called me to return the key had informed me they’d had its carcass removed during the investigation, and honestly, I’d kind of wanted to kiss her.
That was just the best news she could have given me.
Outside of me not being a suspect anymore, of course, but I didn’t think anyone was going to offer me that little nugget anytime soon, so I’d take it.
It was overwhelming, though.
I’d been standing here for ages. I wasn’t sure about going inside. Declan Tierney’s body had haunted me every single day since I’d discovered it, and I wasn’t sure I was in a place to go into the main part of the bed and breakfast right now.
