A look close to panic slid across his face. “Hell, no. She flips out if I have a drink.”
A drink? How about the whole friggin’ bottle?
“Okay. What if I ask Brea to get some coffee?” She couldn’t leave him like this, but she had to get moving or she really would be late for her meeting.
Maybe she should take him with her.
She resisted the urge to glance at her watch. “C’mon. Caffeine. How about a quick run to the Bikini Barista?”
“I can’t.” He wiped his nose against his sleeve. “Southridge financing closes next week. Gotta do stuff.”
His tone reminded Holly of a petulant teenager. Who are you and what have you done with my charming, confident client?
She didn’t want to set the guy off again, but maybe she could offer loan staff—from somewhere—to help him. “I guess Marcy…not being here…leaves you short-handed.”
“I can handle it.” A look that said oh shit slid across his face, but he stepped back and slouched against his desk. “What’s up?”
Okay, here goes. Tim had been drinking, but it wasn’t like she was looking for courtroom evidence. “I’m trying to understand what was going on in Marcy’s life. She worked for you and—”
Tim’s head jerked around and he lost his balance. His hand flew out and left a sweaty smear across the polished wood. “You think I did something to her?”
“No.” She backpedaled hard. “I just thought, I mean, she did spend most of her time here, and—”
“Her working here didn’t have anything to do with anything.”
“I just thought, since she’s a friend as well as an employee, you might know if something was bothering her lately.”
“You’re an accountant. Keep your interest on business.” His expression and tone approached snarl.
She took a surprised step backward. Where’d this temper come from?
“Ah, Christ.” He pushed away from the desk. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry he snapped? Sorry he told her what he really thought about her? Or sorry he tipped his hand that he might not be blameless in Marcy’s death?
Holly eased behind the visitor’s chair. If he made a move to hit or hug her, she wanted a sturdy object between them.
Tim’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t stand coming here and not seeing her.” He stared at the floor as if it were purgatory. “She was too young to die.”
Then again, maybe he was just drunk and upset.
“She’s alive as long as we remember her,” Holly said gently.
Okay, that was lame.
“Well,” she said, edging toward the door. “I’ll let Brea know you want to be alone.”
Her gaze slid from the bottle on Tim’s desk to the console behind the conference table, where she knew he kept the liquor. Should she confiscate everything inside it?
Tim didn’t answer and she wondered if he’d even heard her.
“I’ll be okay.” His voice was flat, drained of the earlier emotion. “Life goes on. So they say.”
Before she could think of a response, her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and checked the display. Mother. Thank God. She hit the connect button. “I’m leaving in a minute. Can you meet me at Tri-Ag?”
“Well ‘hello’ to you, too, darling.” Her mother’s voice was warm with concern and a touch of amusement.
“Hello, Mother. It’s taken me months to get a foot in the door out there. We cannot be late.”
“That’s why I called. The Chamber meeting is still going.”
Holly glanced at her watch. That meeting should’ve finished an hour ago. “Why?”
“They’re arguing about the Point property. Some people would rather hold onto their private parking lot than see it developed productively.”
“Are you going to make the Tri-Ag meeting?”
“I may be a few minutes late, but I’m more concerned about you. I tried to call earlier this morning, as soon as I heard the news. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. A little tired, but fine.” Guilt over not calling the previous evening poked her.
A thud sounded behind her. She whirled. Tim had vanished.
What the…? “Gotta go.” She dropped the cell phone into her pocket.
“Tim?”
A rumbly belch broke the silence. She followed the sound and peered around the desk. Tim lay sprawled on the floor, passed out cold.
Well, that went well.
She might need to refine her interrogation technique.
Now what?
Brea rushed into the room. “Holly. Thank God. Where’s Tim? That cop’s here again.”
“The cops?” She glanced from the receptionist to the slumbering suspect. Talk about bad timing.
“This detective—God, he’s gorgeous—wants to talk to Tim. He was a little PO’d when I said Tim wasn’t here. I mean, Tim’s Mercedes is right there in the parking lot. Where is he, anyway?”
Holly ignored the “gorgeous” comment—have at it, honey—and pointed behind the desk.
Brea took one look, then her face crinkled, fighting laughter. “What did you do to him?”
“Excuse me?”
Brea waved away the comment. “I knew he was hammered. He lurched in, mumbling, ‘Don’t tell Nicole I’m here.’ ”
“That would explain why she was in our office looking for him.”
“What was she doing there? I told her to check upstairs, with the money people. As soon as she left, I tried to find one of the property guys to help.” The receptionist propped her hands on her ample hips and nodded at Tim’s inert form. “This is getting to be a habit.”
“Really?”
“He was at Crazy Horse Casino Friday night, completely trashed.”
“Are you sure it was Tim?” Surprise colored her voice.
“Oh, yeah. I see him down there all the time.”
“I didn’t know he gambled.” Holly gave Tim another dubious inspection. “I hate to leave him on the floor, but I need to get moving.”
Brea gauged the distance to the sofa. “Think we can haul him over there?”
“Worth a try.” Holly kicked off her high heels.
Brea grabbed Tim’s arms and tugged.
“Gee, thanks.” Holly hooked her fingers under his ankles. “Give me the dirty end.”
“Hey, you’re farther away if he hurls.”
They maneuvered the man around the desk.
“At least Nicole doesn’t have to worry about him driving drunk.” Holly adjusted her grip. “I’ve seen him have a beer or two, but I’ve never seen him drunk.”
“That’s because you only see him when Nicole’s around. He doesn’t drink much in front of her.”
Interesting. “Why not?”
“Her parents. I’m not sure about her dad, he ran out on them, but her mom was an alcoholic.” Brea’s hand slipped and Tim’s arm flopped to the carpet. “Damn. Gotta rest.”
They stopped halfway across the office, Tim’s body sprawled between them.
Wow. “To look at her, you’d think Nicole grew up a pampered princess.” Holly flexed her hands, then re-gripped Tim’s ankles.
“She married well,” Brea said. “Ready?”
They lifted his body and shuffled forward a few steps.
“I thought today—his being drunk—might’ve been about Marcy,” Holly ventured, probing.
“Maybe.” Brea shrugged. “Her being dead totally sucks.”
“Do you have any ideas about what happened to her?”
“No…which is too bad, since I wouldn’t mind talking to that detective again.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “Trust me, you don’t want to hook up with him.”
The other woman grinned. “Speak for yourself.”
They tugged Tim closer to the sofa.
“Did Marcy ever talk to you about some guy named Alders?”
“Never heard of him.” Brea nudged the coffee table away from the sofa. “You know, now that I think about it,
Marcy was a lot of fun but she didn’t talk much about herself.”
“I feel bad about it now. Did anybody really know her?”
“Her sister?”
“I guess.” Holly measured the distance to the cushions. “Okay, on three.”
Brea nodded. “One, two, three.”
With a heaving jerk, they lifted Tim’s limp body and swung it onto the sofa.
Holly’s stocking-clad feet slid as his weight shifted. She took a staggering step and dropped his legs. Arms waving, she fought for balance and lost. Her face landed in Tim’s soft belly, perilously close to his belt.
Her disgusted, “Oh, yuck,” was muffled by fabric and flab.
“What is going on?” demanded an outraged female voice.
Trying to find somewhere that didn’t include Tim to put her hands, Holly wallowed off the couch and her client.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Tim’s wife arranged her baby blue eyes and pink lips into something that looked like a scowl.
Brea silently sidled out of the room.
Damn. No good deed went unpunished.
“We all know this isn’t what it looks like,” Holly scrambled to her feet. “The man is passed out.”
Nicole crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
“Brea and I didn’t want to leave him on the floor.” Holly closed her mouth to stop herself from saying any more.
Nicole’s nose went up. “When you blew off your office, I didn’t realize it was a literal concept.”
Holly recoiled, as if the woman had physically slapped her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Stick to massaging the numbers. You don’t have the assets”—Nicole raked a disparaging look down Holly’s underdeveloped chest—“for anything else.”
“Now, wait a minute.”
But Nicole stalked right past her and touched Tim’s arm. “You can leave now.”
Anger churned Holly’s stomach. Anything she said would make things worse. Gritting her teeth, she retrieved her shoes and briefcase. At the door, she made one more attempt. “Hope he’s okay.”
“He has me to take care of him.” Nicole repositioned Tim’s arms.
Poor slob.
Chapter Nine
MONDAY AFTERNOON
Holly left the 70s-era concrete building that housed Tri-Ag’s business office. She managed not to strut or high-five herself on the way to her car. She’d rocked the meeting. It had taken a few minutes to get past the newspaper article which implied she was a murder suspect, but everybody had settled down and discussed ways to make use of the latest agriculture tax incentives.
She picked up Highway 240 and headed toward her office. Within minutes she entered the commercial district surrounding Columbia Mall. Traffic piled up around Costco and stopped for the traffic light at Grandridge. The Tom-Tom Casino was visible on a side street, behind a strip mall. The scene in Tim’s office ran through her mind, along with what Brea had said.
Tim was a gambler?
His drunken night at the Crazy Horse could’ve been a one-off, but according to Brea, he gambled a lot.
Win or lose, gambling wasn’t showing up in his financial statements.
Holly idled at the intersection and studied the casino’s sunbaked building. Brea had no reason to lie about Tim’s gambling. Even if she thought gambling was a waste of time and money, it wouldn’t bother her—if his financial records reflected it.
If he was only dropping a few hundred here and there, no big deal.
If it was more than a few hundred, and he was deliberately hiding it… That could wreck his credit rating.
Not to mention what would it mean if Desert Accounting had signed off on his finances.
She eyed the casino. Everyone connected gambling with money laundering, loan sharks, and the mob. But this was Richland, not Las Vegas. She didn’t see any way Tim’s gambling could be connected to Marcy’s murder. But if he was hiding things from his accountant, she needed to know about it, if only to protect Desert Accounting.
Impulsively, she turned into the casino’s parking lot. She did need to talk with the Tom-Tom’s manager, she rationalized. After all, he was one of Desert Accounting’s multiple casino clients. And besides, she had the gambling commission audit documents in her briefcase that she’d planned to deliver this week.
Her father understood gambling accounting. Thankfully, the rest of his auditing team was still in place, because her knowledge of the industry-specific accounting was…limited. The skills she’d acquired with the M&A Group—spotting risk patterns and anomalies—applied to any industry. But at times like this, she could’ve throttled her father with her bare hands for leaving the firm in the lurch.
If she knew where he and his yoga guru could be found.
Contacting the casinos about their gaming commission audits had been dumped onto Holly’s To Do list. She suspected her mother didn’t want any more reminders of her husband than absolutely necessary. Just coming to the office every day had to be a challenge, she realized in a flash of insight and empathy.
She could do this for her mother.
And satisfy her concerns about Tim at the same time.
Holly pulled open the blacked-out entry door and stepped inside. Instead of a pseudo-Native American look, the Tom-Tom had gone for Vegas flash—lots of fluorescent lighting, cheesy casino-themed wallpaper and industrial-grade plaid carpeting so appalling that not even absorbing sound, dirt, and random spilled drinks redeemed it.
With a quick glance around the main room, she spotted the office cluster and headed in that direction. She could introduce herself, drop off the engagement letter, and casually ask if Peter Ayers, the casino manager, knew Tim Stevens.
Adjusting her smile, she opened the door and stepped into a surprisingly modern office. “Hi, I’m Holly Price. I’m looking for Peter Ayers.”
Two women half-hidden behind cubicle walls looked up, but it was the man at the desk in the corner who rose and came forward with an outstretched hand. He gave her suit a quick scan. A frown twitched his eyebrows, but he smiled and said, “Donna mentioned you’d be by this week.”
An air of quiet confidence accompanied his firm grip. His poly-cotton shirt and giant western belt buckle were standard business attire for the area. Holly knew her designer suits were excessive, but since she was only going to be in Richland for a year, she couldn’t justify a new wardrobe.
Peter led the way to his desk. “Do you have a draft of the engagement letter?”
“In my briefcase.” She took the closest of the visitor seats.
The casino manager eased into a swivel chair. He moved a few things around on his desk, squirming a little. “Sorry to hear about your dad.”
She nodded, not interested in talking about her father’s desertion.
Peter gave her another doubtful inspection. “Will you be taking his place?”
Her father’s vanishing act had left Desert Accounting scrambling on too many fronts. “No, it’ll be the same team as last year. Amanda is our most experienced auditor and I don’t want to get in her way.”
His expression first gave away his relief—her inexperience wasn’t going to create a problem for him—and then showed his confidence in Desert Accounting in spite of her father’s AWOL status.
They discussed the initial fieldwork for the cage accountability and listed target delivery dates. “That’s all I need today,” she said. “I’ll stop by on Wednesday. We can wrap up the details then.”
“Okay.” Peter gathered the documents into a tidy pile. “I’ll follow you out. It’s time for me to do a walk-through.”
They angled across the main floor toward the entrance. Gamblers stood and sat in front of an astonishing variety of machines, with enough lights, whirlers, and sounds to please the most jaded five-year-old. An overweight woman slumped on a stool in front of the machine at the end of a row. A cup of quarters nearly disappeared in the folds of her thighs. She dropped coins, pushed the button, and frowned at the result
s.
Holly tilted her head and said, “I thought everybody had converted to electronic script.”
Peter gave the patron a quick glance, then scanned the remaining rows of slots. “We keep a few of the older machines. I’m not sure if it’s a nostalgia thing or if some gamblers prefer the tactile sensation of handling the coins.”
A grin lit his face. “Personally, I think they like the coins spraying everywhere when they hit a jackpot.”
He filled the remaining walk with pleasant conversation. Spillover from the local vineyards’ harvest tours was filling seats in the casino. The glorious autumn weather—blue skies and moderate temperatures—was drawing droves of tourists to the Columbia River Basin.
“One of my clients mentioned how much he enjoys coming here,” Holly said.
“That’s the sort of feedback I like hearing. Which client, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Tim Stevens. You know him?”
“Oh, sure. Nice guy. Comes in about once a week.”
With a sinking heart, she thought, every week? “I guess all developers are gamblers at heart.”
“Good point. Stevens is a good customer. Doesn’t make a scene if he loses.” Peter smiled. “He brought his wife in a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh?” Nicole didn’t seem like the type who’d enjoy it.
“She had a blast playing the slots. I was surprised he didn’t bring her in again.” He shrugged. “Maybe I just like seeing pretty women in here. I’m real partial to brunettes.”
“Brunettes?” She couldn’t keep the startled reaction out of her voice. Nicole was as blond as they came.
“No offense. Blondes are pretty, too.”
A brunette? Oh crap. She scrambled, thinking furiously. “That’s okay.”
Damn. Tim was gambling and cheating on his wife? What else was he doing?
Peter suddenly blinked and looked as if he’d love to rewind the conversation and answer a different way. “Uh, I could be thinking about a different guy.”
Before she could decide how to tactfully ask if the brunette was Marcy, Holly’s internal alarm sounded a warning. She glanced to the side, expecting to see one of the gamblers checking her out. Instead, she noticed a man leaning against the far wall. Deeply tanned with dark hair brushing his collar, he wore jeans, a fringe-trimmed shirt, and a cowboy hat with an intricate turquoise band. The hat-brim shaded his features, but his posture said he was watching something with fixed determination.
For Love of Money Page 7
