“At the beginning and the end of every day, the account looked just as it always did, with no visible withdrawals or deposits. One of the things about pattern day trading is that accounts can’t be held overnight, so there was a guarantee of ending the day the same way it began.” He took another deep breath before adding, “We presume the daily profits went into an offshore account. But we’ve been unable to trace it due to a complicated computer trail and legalities being different from country to country.”
“What happened when he—or she—made a losing trade? Was the money put back?”
“That didn’t happen.”
“This person traded every day without a single loss?” It meant this trader—or traitor, she thought wryly—had to be damned good.
Signaling the turn, Howard shook his head. “There were only a handful of weeks this was done. Money was made with the use of Owens Investments’ funds, but there’s no accounting for that cash. It looks like I made a considerable amount of money I didn’t report.”
Her heart was thudding in her chest. “Can you go to jail for that?”
When he shook his head a second time, Tamara almost cried with relief. “We’ve already submitted corrected tax returns,” he said, “claiming an oversight and paying all appropriate taxes and fees.”
“On money you never had.”
“That’s right. There’s a lot more to it, of course. I’m giving you a vastly simplified version. But you’ve got the gist. The only other thing we found were those expense reports, splitting bills. They were always split between various brokers and me. Basically, someone was tagging me onto various expense reports, from every broker in the house, over the past year.”
“Someone was turning in expense reports in your name?” she asked, incredulous.
“That’s right.”
“What happened with the money?”
“I have all my expense-report checks deposited directly into the charitable donation account.”
They’d turned into the long circular drive, pulling up to the fountain in front of her parents’ home. That fountain had been the site of family photos commemorating just about every meaningful event in her life—including each time she’d come home to tell her parents she was pregnant.
They’d taken one when she’d left to move to Boston, too. She’d been sick to her stomach that day. And felt like throwing up now, too.
“Who in the company knows you don’t keep expense monies reimbursed to you? Who knows you deposit them?”
“Any number of people. My top management, of course. It’s a tax write-off. I offer the option to all my managers. But others know, too.”
“Which traders know?”
He shrugged but his glance was filled with sadness as he said, “Any of them could, depending on whether or not the people I’ve told have talked about it.”
“Have you ever told any of your traders directly?”
Her stomach in knots, she knew what was coming. She knew why her father suspected Flint Collins.
“One,” he said. “Because he mentioned at the Christmas Charity Fund Auction a couple of years ago that he wanted to give back to the company by way of charitable donation. So I told Flint Collins and offered to have his monies deposited into the account.”
And Flint Collins, she knew, as a top producer, was inarguably good enough to have made the trades in question without a loss.
He was also a risk-taker. The day she’d met him, he’d made the company an incredible amount of money on a deal that could easily have lost a bundle.
Her heart felt as though it had been pumped full of lead.
“Did he take you up on the offer?”
“Yeah. Until he started dating Stella Wainwright. That was when he bought the Lincoln SUV. I heard of at least two weekend trips he took to exotic locations using a private jet. And he quit donating to the charitable account.”
The rich girlfriend had a name.
Tamara didn’t want to care anymore whether she existed or not.
She cared about her lunch date on Thursday, though. She might not be making any real progress within the company, but she had an in, just the same. A way to help her father.
She was going to get to know Flint Collins. To infiltrate his life as much as he’d let her and find out everything she could about him.
Just as a supposed friend, of course. She wasn’t going to prostitute herself. Besides, she’d already made up her mind that if by some chance the man turned out to be innocent, she still wouldn’t pursue any attraction she might feel for him. But maybe she’d try to set him up with Mallory. If he was half as good a guy as he led one to believe, they’d be perfect for each other.
If he wasn’t a crook.
Mallory and Diamond Rose would be perfect for each other. That was what she was really thinking.
As she followed her father into the house, she thought about Stella Wainwright. Wondered about her. Planned to look up her father’s firm when she got home. Only for Mallory’s sake. Or Diamond’s.
In the event that Flint Collins was on the up-and-up.
Yeah, she was bothered about the woman—for Mallory’s sake. Which meant she was getting ahead of herself.
Wait until the man’s name was cleared first.
Or not cleared.
Then try to find out more about his girlfriend.
Like, why the woman wasn’t helping the poor guy, leaving him to sleep with a Pack ’n Play next to his bed so he could get a few minutes’ rest.
Again, not her problem.
Or concern.
So why, as she put on a bright face for her parents and focused on giving them no cause for worry on her behalf, was she still thinking about Flint Collins and how he seemed to deserve more than he was getting from Stella Wainwright?
Chapter Ten
Flint had slept better on Tuesday night. Taking Mallory’s advice, he’d laid down as soon as Diamond Rose did after dinner and then alternated dozing and lounging for the rest of the night whenever she slept. He hadn’t gotten anything else done, but he’d woken on Wednesday morning feeling a hell of a lot better than he had since the call from the prison warden telling him his mother had passed away.
Wednesday evening wasn’t as good. He’d set it up to be—had had a great lunch with one of his most lucrative clients and a successful afternoon of trading because of it.
And Diamond Rose seemed to be getting into a schedule of eating every two hours and sleeping well in between. He’d watched her on and off all day, and Mallory’s report had been positive.
He’d even dared a stop at the grocery story on the way home from the day care, disconnecting the carrier from the car seat as if he’d been doing it all his life, looping the handle over his forearm and setting it into the grocery cart as soon as he got inside.
If he’d been on the lookout for a woman, he would’ve been amused by the attention he was getting from the few after-work shoppers—obviously so based on their business attire—who were, like him, he imagined, buying something for a quick dinner.
Two of them met his gaze and smiled. A third stopped and reached down, as though to pull back the blanket looped over the handle of the carrier, effectively building a tent around Diamond Rose. But his quick turn forestalled that move. The woman apologized, said she was a single mom of two little ones, then handed him her card and said to give her a call if he had any questions or needed help or advice.
How she’d known he wasn’t married, he had no idea. And then, upon further reflection as he walked the aisles, he wondered if she hadn’t cared one way or the other.
Which led him back to the place he’d landed, on and off, all day. Tamara Frost. She’d accepted his invitation to lunch. He’d casually mentioned her to Mallory when he’d received his personal report on Diamond Rose’s day, but had gleaned nothing, other than t
hat she worked hard and excelled at her job.
Things he already knew.
He paused at the deli, considering premade pork barbecue and coleslaw. Both looked one step away from congealed.
In his other life he’d have treated himself—and Stella—to an expensive dinner. As it was, he settled for frozen lasagna that could do what it needed to do in the oven without his supervision.
He made it home without mishap. He’d timed it so that Diamond Rose slept through the entire outing. He put his food in the oven and, when she woke up, was ready with a diaper and a warm bottle. He had her back to sleep in record time and was considering a beer—the hardest he liked his alcohol most days—when there was a knock on his door.
He wasn’t expecting anyone and didn’t ever have drop-in visitors. His thoughts immediately flew to the police, coming to bring yet another bout of bad news about his mother. He was halfway to the door before he realized it wouldn’t be the police. At least not about his mother.
He was never going to have another of those visits. The awareness settled on him—with relief, since he was free from that dread now, and with sadness, too. His mother was gone. Any hope he’d held of her ever turning herself around was gone with her.
To his shock, a uniformed officer stood outside his door.
“Are you Flint Collins?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been served, sir,” she said, handing him an envelope.
By the time he glanced from it to her, all he could see was her back.
Tense from the inside out, Flint glanced at the baby sleeping in her carrier on his kitchen table, with the idiotic idea that he didn’t want to open the envelope in front of her. Whatever it was, he was going to shield her from it.
Shield her from a life in which officers appeared at your door—for any reason at all.
Was he being sued?
Or, God forbid, was someone after Diamond Rose? Challenging his right to her?
Turning around, he tore open the envelope. No one was taking the baby from him. He had money. He’d fight...
What the hell?
He’d been issued a restraining order. By Stella. Reading it, he could hardly believe what he was seeing. Stella was afraid he was going to hurt her. That he was going to retaliate for her breaking up with him. He was not to distribute any pictures of her that might be in his possession. He was to gather up any of her belongings still in his home—she’d provided a list—and leave them outside his front door, at which point the woman who’d delivered the order would take them and would leave a box of his things in return.
The next sheet was a legal agreement whereby he agreed not to attach to any Wainwright holdings, not to mention them, or say he’d ever been associated with them, not to claim anything of theirs as his, for any reason. Stella agreed to the same, regarding him and his family. It was further understood that any child he had in his custody had no relation to, or bearing on, her.
When he got through the last sheet, he started back at the first. She’d gone to court and requested a restraining order. There was a legal document filed with his name on it. A court date would be set within the next three weeks to allow him to dispute the claims therein, and the order would either be dropped for lack of cause or put into effect for up to three years.
It was the paragraph on the second page that got to him.
Defendant. Him. He was a defendant. His whole life, even eight years before, he’d managed to keep himself clean, no charges filed against him ever. And now...he was a defendant?
Flint’s entire being slumped with fatigue. The weight on his shoulders seemed about to push him to the floor as he read the claim.
Defendant has a history of criminal influence and, upon victim asking to end relationship, wouldn’t take no for an answer to the point of victim being frightened for her and her family’s safety and well-being.
When Stella had said she was breaking up with him, he’d given her a chance to calm down, to get used to the idea of the secret he’d kept about his mother’s identity. Because Stella had known the man he’d become. Collins was a common enough name. There’d been no reason for her to remember a court case from eight years before when it had had nothing whatsoever to do with her area of law. Small-time drug dealers didn’t touch corporate lawyers.
But she’d looked up the case. And when, after a few hours, he’d stopped by her office to see her, thinking they could talk, she’d been pissed off. He’d waited outside and she’d warned him not to stalk her.
Stalk her?
That had been that. He’d left. And hadn’t tried to contact her since.
He was no threat. Had never been a threat.
But the Wainwright name was apparently too pristine to be linked, in any way, with his.
Or Diamond Rose’s.
In the end, that was what stuck in his throat. The fact that she’d mentioned his newborn baby in her dirty court papers.
Glancing at the sleeping baby, he grabbed a garbage bag, collected the things on Stella’s list, down to the toothbrush he’d meant to throw away, thankful he’d been too distracted to do that yet—could he be sued for a toothbrush?—and left the bag out on the porch, looking over at the waiting unmarked car at his curb. He’d sign her document in the morning, with a notary present.
And he’d call an attorney, too. One who was good enough at his or her job to go head-to-head with the Wainwrights. He wanted the whole mess gone before anyone was the wiser. Wanted no evidence it had ever existed. There was no way in hell he was going to live under the threat of a restraining order for the next three years. Anytime Stella wanted to, she could “run into” him somewhere and claim he’d violated the order. He could end up in jail.
The idea gave him the cold sweats. His whole life, everything he’d worked for...
He was going to “be someone,” his mother had told him so many times. What he’d taken her words to mean was that he’d never see the inside of a jail cell.
He’d barely escaped the nightmare eight years before. And had been hell-bent ever since on making sure he never came remotely close again.
He wasn’t a defendant. Wasn’t ever going to be a defendant. That order had to go away.
When the baby awoke, he was bothered enough by Stella’s bombshell that he forgot to be nervous about giving his little one her first bath. Mallory had offered him some pointers and he’d watched several internet videos, too.
He talked to Diamond Rose the whole time, taking care to keep his voice soft, reassuring. He’d turned up the heat in the house first, kept the water tepid and a towel close so she wouldn’t get cold, and he worked as rapidly as he could with big hands on such a small, slippery body. In the end, the two of them got through the process without any major upsets.
Something else came out of the evening. Any feelings he might still have had for Stella were washed down the drain with the dirty bathwater.
Too bad about his frozen dinner, though. It dried out in the oven.
* * *
Tamara had expected Flint to take her to an establishment not unlike the one they’d visited for lunch on Tuesday. Instead they’d gone to Balboa Park, sitting in the sun on a cement bench, having a wrap from a nearby food truck—possibly one of the best-tasting meals she’d ever had.
With a man she found more attractive than any other man she’d ever shared lunch with. Business or otherwise.
What was it about Flint Collins that did this to her? It wasn’t like he was drop-dead model material, not that she went for that type. Yeah, he was fine-looking—enough that she’d noticed several other women checking him out during the time they’d been in the park. But the blond hair and brown eyes, the more than six-foot-tall lean frame, even the expensive clothes, could’ve been matched by any number of other “California blond” men. The state was flooded with them.
“You’re talking about Angel’s food truck! I didn’t know it had been renamed!” she said, glad to have something other than his sexuality to think about. It’s a Wrap fit the menu better. It wasn’t fancy, but she liked it so much more. It was as though he’d known she’d prefer sitting in the park during her lunch hour to being trapped at a table in a fancy restaurant. She spent a lot of the day trapped in a seat at a desk.
“I never met the couple because I was in Boston,” she continued, “but Mallory called me about the case from the first day she met them. The woman wanted Mal’s help in identifying her abducted son, without alerting his father, the abductor, to the fact that he’d been found out.”
“Why not just call the police?”
“Not enough evidence for them to do anything. The woman was acting on instinct, based on a picture she’d seen at the day care.”
“What did Mallory do?”
“She helped her! Without giving up any confidential information, or putting the child or his father at risk, in case the man wasn’t guilty. Anyway, it all turned out well.”
He was staring at her as though he couldn’t get enough. Of her story, she had to remind herself, not of her.
“So...it was the woman’s son?”
“Yeah. And Mal was the one who got the proof.”
Flint Collins’s full attention was a heady thing. Wiping everything else from her mind. And—
This wasn’t going to help her father.
He’d pulled out his phone. Had it on his thigh. She couldn’t hear any sounds coming from it, but realized, if she glanced at the screen, she’d see the newborn child he’d taken on that week.
Busy avoiding that choice, she wanted to ask if he knew anything about offshore accounts, but couldn’t figure out a legitimate reason for wanting to know.
And wondered why he’d asked her out to lunch.
“How’s everything going at home?” she asked instead. Not a Stella question. Unless he happened to mention her in the course of his answer.
An Unexpected Christmas Baby Page 9
