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“Pardon me, but we were a private company. We sold to another private entity. Carter Energy’s financial health isn’t readily available to the public.” The man never lost his fire no matter how old he got. Even though I knew this was a song and dance for Drew’s benefit, it was good to see the man who’d taught me everything about the business at his best.
“Doesn’t always matter,” McCormick said. He wrapped his hands around his knee, and his eyes landed on Drew. “We have reason to believe a substantial amount of funds were transferred into offshore accounts in the last year.”
“There’s nothing illegal about those,” Easton said, the same as he’d told me.
“No, there isn’t. Although it sends up a red flag when it happens in a relatively short period of time.” Agent McCormick leveled Drew with a hardened gaze. “Particularly when all of the transactions are made by one individual.”
“What exactly are you getting at?” Harris asked with well-faked irritability.
“We’re investigating financial fraud and misuse of funds,” he returned matter-of-factly.
Easton stared out toward the window. Harris gripped the arms of his chair. Drew tugged on the collar of his shirt. I looked at the floor.
“Judging by how everyone has become quiet, I’m guessing you don’t necessarily disagree,” McCormick said smugly. We continued to sit in silence. “If there’s something any of you would like to tell me now, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble.”
More silence.
Drew white-knuckled his thighs. The agent waited until he met his gaze. “Nothing? We can do this the hard way.” McCormick stood, still focused on Drew. “We’ve got a pretty clear picture of what happened and who was involved.” He offered his card to the youngest Carter. “When you decide you want to talk, come find me.”
Agent McCormick saw himself out, leaving behind a thick tension.
Drew shot up from his seat and glared at Easton. “You went to the FBI?”
“Keep your voice down. Mama’s sleeping,” he returned, avoiding the question.
“How could you?” Drew pressed, his voice still at atomic levels.
“I could ask you the same.” My husband was far too calm for the direction the conversation was taking. The flex of his fingers on the edge of the sofa was the only giveaway the control he had on his temper was razor thin at best.
“There were five people who knew about the forty million,” Harris said, sounding strained. He produced the letter from the breast pocket of his suit coat. “You went to SPE knowing what your mother wants to do with it.”
Drew bounced on his feet. “Automatically you assume it was me,” he said bitterly.
“No one else is causing trouble.” Pain was etched in Easton’s face. If it were Mitch or Stone who’d done what Drew had, I’d be a mess. I didn’t particularly care for Drew and didn’t need much reason not to, but what he was doing to his family made my dislike turn to flat-out hate.
“She is the one who brought all of this on us.” Drew stabbed at the air as he pointed at me. “We were fine before she became CEO.”
“We were fine until you stole one billion dollars,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you go to the cops?” Without waiting for an answer, he snorted. “See. You’ve turned Easton and me against each other. I should’ve known you were behind this.”
“Again, if you hadn’t done what you did, the authorities wouldn’t be suspicious.” I brushed my skirt off as if there were something on it.
Drew tilted his head to the side, anger and suspicion firing in my direction. “You aren’t stupid enough to go to the police with this. Not when we could all go down.” He paced in a circle. “He never showed us any identification. Was that man even a real FBI agent?”
“Oh, he’s very real,” I said. “But he might be willing to let this goifyou tell SPE you were wrong.”
Drew looked at each of us as if weighing his options. “How do you know I have the power to do that?”
“Because you tipped them off about the money,” Harris said impatiently.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, the gesture so much like Easton and his father I wondered how Drew ended up so different from the other two men. After a moment, he pulled out his phone and fired off a text. He moved to the windows and kept his back to us.
In what seemed like seconds, Harris’s phone rang. He answered and was mostly quiet as the person on the other end spoke.
“I want it in writing. Today,” he said before he hung up. His shoulders relaxed a fraction as he set his device on the coffee table.
“Happy?” Drew still looked out at the city skyline.
