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Reynolds nodded again and waited for her to get to the point.
“To answer your unspoken question, I didn’t know anything about my ex-husband’s criminal activity. Or his affair, for that matter.”
It was the usual denial, but he wasn’t here to be judge or jury. “Got it. So what do you want from me?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I need you to track down my ex-husband.”
“Track him down and do what?” She wouldn’t be the first potential client who’d tried to hire him to do a lot more than tracking some guy down.
“Bring him to justice, of course. And find wherever he’s stashed the money.”
As usual, it came down to financial gain. And vengeance.
Even if she put on a bright smile as she stared back at him. It was a shame. He’d really thought she might be different. “Look, Mrs. Johnson—”
“Waverley. And it’s Abbott now.”
“Waverley. I know for a fact that the US Marshals already have all their resources focused on finding your ex-husband. I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually along with whatever money he might have left. I recommend you let them do their job and try and find a way to move on with your life.”
“It’s not that simple. If it were just me, I probably could. But it isn’t.”
It wasn’t just her? Automatically he glanced down to see if she was saying what he thought she was saying.
She smiled wryly. “No, I’m not pregnant.”
“Then who else is this about?”
She pulled out a letter and handed it to him. He took it but didn’t read it, waiting for her explanation instead.
“Spencer’s sister. Ginny Johnson. She’s twenty-four and a resident of a private full-time care facility, a facility she’s lived in since she was twelve years old. It’s been paid for according to the terms of a trust Spencer’s parents set up on her behalf and, unfortunately, named him as trustee over before they died. Two weeks ago, I received that letter, sent to me because I was one of the last remaining contacts they could find.”
He breezed over the letter, stopping for a moment as he read the kicker about not receiving the last three months of payments. “I’m sure that in Spencer’s absence another trustee could be appointed to draw funds and makes payments on Ginny’s behalf.”
“I’m sure you’re right. If the funds were still in the trust. Apparently Spencer drained all of it before he disappeared. There’s nothing left.”
Reynolds wasn’t surprised by the existence of a sister. He’d found her when Spencer’s girlfriend hired him to look into the guy. He wished he could say he was surprised Spencer had sunk so low as to steal from his own sister, but nothing Spencer could do would surprise him at this point.
He pushed the letter back to her. “How does this become your responsibility?”
She leveled a look at him. “Legally, it doesn’t. But morally, how could I not do everything in my power to help her? She considered me her sister from the moment Spencer introduced us and probably still does.”
She said that last with a hitch in her voice.
He leaned forward. “I’m sorry, but isn’t your father Richard Abbott, CEO of the international textile producer Abbott International? Surely, you could prevail on him to help cover her costs pending the legal outcome.”
“Surely you don’t know my father.”
“Guess not.”
She met his gaze, her wary eyes showing the pressure she was under. “Fortunately, I had a small inheritance that my mom left me that neither Spencer nor the feds could touch. It’s enough to cover the past due balance and possibly the next two to three months, but beyond that…I’ll be completely tapped out. So you can see why it’s important that I find Spencer and recover that money. Which is why I’m here. You owe me.”
He raised his brows at that suggestion. “I owe you? How do you reach that conclusion?”
“From the photographs you took for my husband’s girlfriend, I gather you were spying on Spencer, as well as me, for at least a week. And in that time, I’m guessing you also looked into Spencer’s history, financial and otherwise. And why, shortly after your investigation ended, coincidentally enough, the federal investigation into my husband began. You tipped them off. You set off this chain of events that has led to his poor woman’s current state. So you owe me, or at the very least, you owe her.”
Reynolds assessed Waverley Abbott with a new appreciation. She was shrewder than he’d given her credit for.
She also had a point. Although Reynolds knew that the only person who really was responsible for what had gone down was Spencer Johnson, on some level, he did feel a sense of guilt over how things ended for the former Mrs. Johnson and his part in how they’d gotten there. Not that he’d really change anything that he’d done—although ducking from the guy’s fist might be one.
