Finding Sky

by Cass Sellars

  Skylar shook her head. “The fraud technically took place in the city, so it would be SFPD’s case.”

  “She’s a smart one, Jess. Call me when you’re ready, I’d like to bring it to them with you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m out for now. Graveyard shift will be the death of me one day.” She walked to Skylar. “By the way, I’m glad you’re here.” She tapped her shoulder affectionately and hugged Jess hard. “I’m happy for you both.” She glanced back at them as she rushed toward the stairs.

  “How about a little more breakfast and maybe we can take a few more stabs at finding who had an opportunity to sign your invoices.” Skylar walked back to the piles of paperwork.

  “I just don’t believe it’s Yolanda, Sky.” Jess hoped she could convince her.

  “Honestly? Neither do I. That woman wanted to kill me on your behalf yesterday. She would never enter an invoice you didn’t give her or do anything to hurt you.”

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page about that.”

  * * *

  Jess showed Dino and Detective Peyton Marley into the conference room where Skylar sat.

  “What did you find out?” Jess asked once they were all seated.

  “That Ms. Addison was right and that I hate financial crimes investigations more than anything,” the detective joked, lightening the mood. Dino looked over at him, and he gestured that she could continue with the information.

  “Jess, you already know that Brett was the ringleader, and you assumed correctly that he needed Pam Landry in place when you restructured and he was no longer in charge of that operation.”

  “Yes, I know I was manipulated, Dino. No need to sugarcoat it for me.”

  “There’s something else you need to know.” She looked hesitant, and Skylar slid toward the edge of her seat.

  “We had a search warrant for the account at the bank. We wanted to see who might show up so, under the pretense of a lost signature card, we asked Brett to bring all signatories on the account and all the Secretary of State documents on the DBAs. He took the first appointment the bank offered when they alluded to the fact that they might have to close the account.

  “It turns out that the account was opened outside of policy by some woman who was fired for skirting bank rules on numerous occasions. They thought she was having some personal relationships with those customers.”

  “Dirtbags everywhere.” Jess shook her head.

  “Wait.” Dino held up her hand. “Still more.”

  Skylar glanced over at Jess, who gestured for Dino to hurry up.

  “We got pictures of the signers when they came to the bank.”

  “Oh my God, Dino. Spit it out.” The exasperation in her voice only vaguely eclipsed the fear of what she probably didn’t want to know.

  Dino slid large color photos of the interior of a typical bank branch. The angle was the same for the first three, showing a line of teller windows and a couple entering the lobby. The next three showed the faces of the same couple approaching the branch manager’s desk, followed by a statuesque woman.

  “I’ll be damned.” Jess chucked them on the table. “I need more coffee.” She marched toward the door without another word.

  Skylar collected the photos into a stack and saw what Jess had reacted to. “That’s definitely Pam Landry, right? And that’s Brett and…” She leaned in closer to inspect the slender blonde on his arm. “Oh God. Is that Whitney?” She looked up at Dino, who was nodding at her.

  “How? I mean what…”

  “You mean which came first? Me or the setup?” Jess reentered the room with a cup of black coffee and a scowl. “I’d like to know that, too, actually. Did Brett hire her to meet me accidentally or did they both use me because I was a convenient mark?”

  Skylar winced, not wanting to set Jess off even more, but she had a hunch. “Didn’t you meet her about the time Pam Landry was fired?”

  Jess looked as if the lightbulb switched on suddenly, and she stalked to her briefcase for a folder. She held it out to Detective Marley, her hand shaking.

  Skylar realized she had never seen Jess angry. She returned to her briefcase and held out a greeting card in Whitney’s handwriting. Thank you for a great few weeks, it’s been truly fabulous getting to know you.

  “It’s dated two weeks after Pam was fired. She would be there every Friday. At my house. She even recited my schedule back to me on a few occasions. It certainly explains how I might have signed twenty invoices but thirty found their way into the system. She simply put them in the file after I was finished. No one would ever look. I never did.”

  Skylar looked at Jess, who had spent months looking for the perfect mate in Whitney Fields when she was simply a tool in Brett’s game. The reality of being made a fool of wasn’t lost on Skylar, and she wanted to put her arms around Jess. The fact that she couldn’t was a reality check she would have to deal with another time.

  “Um. Jess.” Dino spoke cautiously. “Just so you have all the information…”

  “Geez. What’s left? Was Brett sleeping with Pam when he got her the job?”

  Dino handed over one remaining photo from her file. Skylar glanced at it before Jess could assimilate what she saw. Her reaction was stunned silence.

  The exit camera had caught Whitney and Brett locked in an intimate embrace and equally intimate kiss.

  “I’ll be damned.” Jess stared at the photo. Almost to herself, she said, “It was all a setup. From the beginning.”

  “We think that once Brett was no longer over the invoicing and you found out about Pam, he had no choice but to continue the scam some other way. Toni could only be useful for so long before she was moved or IA stopped using temps. Apparently, Liz Manning was next on their hit list. According to Manning, Brett was in talks to take over operations for her, and coincidentally, Liz just started dating Whitney.”

  “Presumably, they’re going to run out of businesses to scam at some point.” Skylar was still trying to imagine how someone like Brett could betray Jess so fundamentally.

  Detective Marley leaned forward. “Ms. Ivan, we don’t believe Brett ever thought he would leave IA. Nor do I believe he ever planned to embezzle from your company. He got into some pretty big debt trouble and simply started stealing from Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. I think it snowballed from there.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for him.” Jess was no less angry.

  Dino tapped on the file. “Jess, Toni used to work for the bank, and we think she was the one who opened the accounts.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Now what?” Skylar hoped the next steps wouldn’t reveal any further betrayal.

  “I stop trusting humans.” Jess’s tone was still bitter but slightly less furious.

  “No. You just get to be like the rest of us and stop being surprised by them.” Dino clearly wasn’t going to pander to Jess’s anger.

  “Actually, what we need is for you to act like you trust him completely,” Detective Marley offered cautiously.

  “What? You can’t be serious.” Jess sounded incredulous.

  “Hang on, Jess. Hear him out.” Dino’s reasonable tone and her hand on Jess’s arm seemed to rein her in for the moment.

  “In cases like this, half the battle is finding out where the bodies are buried. If we go in and arrest him now, there may be others inside that could continue, or at the very least stick around, to commit the same or similar theft in the future.”

  “So, you think there are other backstabbers in my midst? Fabulous news.”

  “Anything is possible. We just need him to think he’s in the clear. He’ll be careful, but he might ramp up the theft if he wants to make a quick buck before he leaves. He may also start letting others do more of the dirty work, so he can distance himself.”

  “Fabulous to know that I’m surrounded by criminals.”

  Skylar nudged against her and shook her head. “Not surrounded, by any stretch.” The gest
ure was meant to reassure her that she wasn’t alone, and this wasn’t the end of the world.

  “And thanks to the research your company did, we’ll have a much easier time making this stick. Fraud and embezzlement cases are hard to prove, and your hard work has given us a ton of evidence.”

  “Wish I could take the credit.” Jess squeezed Skylar’s shoulder in acknowledgement. “The challenging work came from Sky.”

  Skylar hoped for a few minutes alone with Jess. The morning been long, and the signs of stress were showing around Jess’s eyes.

  “We’re getting warrants for his arrest, but I need you and Ms. Addison to find me all the transactions you can. You’ll know where else we need to look. We need fifty counts to make him answer for ten or twenty.”

  Jess shut the door behind the police. Saturday meant the office was deserted and no one would question why the SFPD was in her conference room. Yolanda didn’t know either, but if Jess knew one thing, it was that she could always trust her. Admitting that she had let all this happen was not a conversation she looked forward to.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After two weeks of research, Skylar had produced more a dozen more invoices. Conversations with legitimate contractors had revealed that the scam began when Brett began building his house and ran out of funds to finish it.

  Detective Marley kept Jess apprised of the case as it developed. The last step would be to chat with her right-hand man before she could summarily fire him.

  “You ready for this, Jess?” Skylar slid an arm around her waist. It wasn’t public knowledge by any stretch that they were dating, but they had been a lot more affectionate around one another since the case broke. They had also let Yolanda in on the secret.

  “Yeah. Are you ready?” Yolanda walked in behind Skylar. “Please say you will let me kick his designer-suited ass before this is over, Jess.”

  “Don’t waste a manicure on the bastard. Besides, I believe we technically own all his designer suits and a good portion of everything else he’s bought in the last couple of years. You can have first dibs.”

  Yolanda shook her head furiously. “When does he get here?”

  “Marley’s in the conference room with a guy from Oakland PD as we speak. We just have to wait for Brett to show.” She caught Skylar’s eye. “You ready?”

  “Sure. I’ve no history with him like you two. You have to get over knowing him and liking him before you can hate him. I get to go right to despising him. I am eager to see what he will say, though.”

  “Marley’s got all the docs, and he’s just hoping for a confession.” Jess wondered if that was at all realistic, but narcissism was a special kind of affliction.

  “I should have seen it, Jess. I should have been more careful.” Yolanda’s expression waffled between fury and a bit of guilt.

  “You realize if I let you take any responsibility for this, I have to own everything else for years, and I’ve already beat myself up every day for weeks.”

  “How about chalking it up to an evil opportunist who didn’t know that he would get caught, so he went from needy to greedy and he knew how to play the system.” Skylar looked at them both expectantly.

  Yolanda managed a smile. “Perhaps. But people are going to think we’re crazy when we require second signatures on a check for postage.”

  A knock at the door stopped the conversation abruptly, and Brett opened it without invitation.

  “Anticipating my arrival in groups now, I see.” He grinned and seemed to wait for a round of laughter that didn’t come.

  Jess stepped forward. “We have some bad news.”

  “Oh. All right. Navigation House?”

  “No. It’s going so much faster than we thought. Skylar’s had a lot of input and Kyle was able to salvage most of the flooring, so we are way ahead of schedule.” Jess watched Brett force a sneer into a smile when she praised Skylar and Kyle.

  “So what’s the bad news?” His eyes shifted between the three of them, now facing Brett in a semicircle.

  “We found out that Pam was embezzling from IA, and there’s a detective from SFPD helping us get information to make a case.” She almost enjoyed seeing the color drain out of his cheeks. Jess was watching him carefully.

  “I don’t understand. Who? What happened?”

  “We don’t know. They think Pam Landry counted on our trusting little family letting things slip by, and they sure did.” She feigned a look that she hoped told Brett that their affinity remained intact. “Perhaps she did this at other companies and just interviewed where the controls were less intense because of the company’s size. We just don’t know. I guess it was the perfect storm.”

  “I can’t believe it, Jess. We know she lied to get the job, but stealing from us? I can never forgive that.” He shook his head and looked like his favorite son had just been caught cheating on the SAT.

  Jess nearly choked on the words she had to swallow. “Trust me, I can’t believe it either. Could you please talk to the detective with us? You know this place even better than I do, and you might have answers for him.”

  “Sure, but I can’t fathom what I could offer.” He crossed his arms over his chest and took a step back.

  Closing and distancing, Jess thought. She loved the science of body proxemics. Brett was too easy. She watched him nervously tap his Italian-loafered foot and idly wondered if Ivan Associates money had paid for them.

  “I’m sure the leak has been stopped, Brett, but I think the detective needs to check all the boxes by talking to the key management people at IA. He put us through a pretty good wringer already, so I guess you need to step up, Mr. Vice President.”

  She wanted it on the record. Pump him up so hopefully he would get too cocky, be too confident. The harder they fall, and she pictured him falling, hard.

  “Of course. I’ll stand with you until we get it resolved, Jess. You and Billy have always been my family.”

  Jess shuddered at the thought that he was any part of her family. She walked past him, leading him and Skylar to the conference room, where Detective Marley sat with a notepad and several stacks of files. He stood when he saw Brett enter the room.

  “Brett Lincoln, I’m assuming? I’ve heard a lot about your contributions around here. Sounds like they’re lucky someone else hasn’t snatched you up.” He was playing to Brett’s ego as well.

  Brett sat in the head chair and Jess took the one opposite him. She gestured for Skylar to have the seat directly to her right.

  “Well, I can’t say there haven’t been offers, but I’m nothing if not loyal.”

  Jess felt Skylar’s fingers dig into her hand beneath the granite slab of the table. She had to admit that it helped her not hurl obscenities at Brett, and it was inexplicably empowering to have Skylar next to her.

  “Well, I know your time is valuable, but I wondered if you could help me decipher some of these accounts. I understand you know this place like the back of your hand.”

  “I do my best, but I don’t know how much help I can give you. I try to do everything by the book.”

  Jess thought the hole he was digging for himself was awesome.

  “Have you ever heard of Continental Supply? They sell construction safety gear. Your company sent thousands to them.”

  Jess watched him rock slowly from side to side in the plush executive chair as if he was stiff from hours of sitting. Jess thought of offering him a tissue for the excessive sweat beading on his forehead but then decided it couldn’t be less her priority to make him more comfortable.

  “Nope. But as you know, we do a lot of business, and I don’t look at every invoice. I’d be working seven days a week. Besides, electronic invoices are paid online and not by me.”

  “What made you say it was handled online?”

  “Uh. Well. I mean, if they were local, I’d probably know of them. I assumed. Y’know.” He swiped his palm over his forehead.

  “Of course.” Detective Marley proceeded to ask the same questions of eac
h bogus account with fake invoices, and each time Brett skirted, evaded, denied, or shrugged away any knowledge.

  Marley shifted toward the front of his chair and leaned closer to Brett, who now had visible rivers of sweat sliding past each temple.

  “You all right, buddy? You look a little pale.”

  “No, of course not. I’m fine. Just pissed that people get away with crap like this when we work so hard.”

  “Indeed. It’s shameful. What do you think should happen to them when we gather all the facts, Brett?”

  “Well, I mean, it would be pretty tough to prove, what with the Financial Privacy Act and regulations like that.” He casually swiped his palm along his cheeks and cleared the water from his skin.

  “Funny about that. The more layers you put in place, the easier the trail is to follow. Mostly because people screw up or get cocky.” Marley was playing with him now.

  Jess bit the inside of her cheek to keep her smirk from being fully formed.

  “We’re nearly done here.” He flipped the page on his notebook. “You know anyone else who might be part of this, Brett? Can you think of anyone you don’t trust here who might have helped Pam Landry?”

  Brett shook his head vigorously. “I never trusted her. I should have known.”

  “Anyone she was close to? Or could have known before?”

  “Well, I suppose you’re already looking at her assistant, Toni Starr. That one should have been gone ages ago.”

  Jess noticed how quickly he turned on his accomplices. She wondered if he worried that they would turn on him. He swiveled his chair so he could no longer see her. His lies were transparent, and he probably knew it.

  “So, Toni Starr. Anyone else?”

  “Nope. I would imagine if you get those two under lock and key, we can resume business as usual. Clean slate and all that.”

  He wishes, Jess thought, gripping Skylar’s knee until she jerked away from the strength of it. Jess shot her a look of apology.

  “Anything else you want to tell me, Mr. Lincoln?” The detective’s shift from casual first name to formal address changed the tone in the room.