Dangerous Allies (The Ruby Danger Series Book 1)

by Rickie Blair

“Okay, nobody sees them. Nobody. Frankly, I’d be lucky to attract a peeping Tom.”

  Laughing, she pulled a blanket and pillow off the bed and threw them onto the bare floor. Hari settled in and they talked until dawn. After that they were all but inseparable. They chatted in lecture halls, window-shopped along Fifth Avenue, and snuck into office-building company cafeterias for cheap meals. Hari helped her learn her lines, and she listened to his arias.

  Then one day she came home to find the door to his room open. Hari was packing a suitcase. He looked up as Ruby walked in.

  “Going away?” she asked.

  “My parents are here. They want me to go back to Mumbai with them.” He tossed a shirt into the suitcase.

  “For a visit?”

  “To get married.”

  “Married?” Ruby chuckled. “Very funny, Hari. Are you going to Mumbai though?”

  “Yes, and I’m getting married.”

  Her smile faded at the look on his face and her skin tingled.

  “You’re not kidding?”

  He shook his head.

  “Who are you marrying?”

  He turned back to his packing.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.” Ruby stepped nearer. “Who is this woman?”

  “Our parents are business associates.”

  “So you know her?”

  “We met once when we were children.”

  “Hari—”

  “It’s tradition,” he said firmly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Ruby stared at him, dumbfounded, and then looked around. Hari’s scarred wooden desk, normally inundated with books, librettos and empty coffee cups, had been swept bare. She turned to face him.

  “But why Mumbai? Your family lives in London.”

  “My uncle needed help with the business, so my father decided to go back.” Hari sat on the bed, looking up at her. “My family is Brahmin, Ruby. They were never going to let me marry just anybody.”

  “Let you? Don’t you get a say?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “As long as it’s ‘yes’?”

  “It’s not that simple. Besides, romance is overrated.”

  “What about those operas you love? The ones with the dying heroines and the lovesick heroes?”

  He shrugged and looked at the floor.

  “Time to grow up, I guess.”

  Her chest tightened and she struggled to breathe. What would she do without him?

  “Don’t do it. Don’t go,” she blurted.

  He looked up at her.

  “Is there any reason I should stay?” he asked softly.

  She pressed her lips together, swallowing hard. Why did they have to discuss this now?

  “What about your career? I thought you wanted to be a singer.”

  “My career?” Laughing, Hari stood up and tossed the last shirt into his suitcase. “That will never happen. Besides, you know that’s not what I meant.” He turned and looked at her, crossing his arms. “So? Is there?”

  She returned his gaze, biting her lip, but said nothing.

  “That’s what I thought.” He turned, snapped the suitcase shut and swung it onto the floor.

  And that was the last time Ruby saw Hari Bhatt. Until a windy autumn day in a small chapel outside Boston, when he had turned and smiled at her on the day of her wedding.

  Now, years later, he was her best shot at getting answers. He might be her only shot, come to think of it. She shoved the laptop into her bag and pulled on her coat.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ruby tugged the brim of her felt hat over her forehead, pulled her sunglasses down her nose, and nervously scanned the park. Pigeons darted around her feet, snatching the breadcrumbs she had scattered from the newspaper spread over her lap.

  Hari had promised to meet her in Allan Gardens, a small green space nestled beside a nineteen-century Gothic-style Baptist church whose copper spire soared far above her bench. On one side of the park, the glass dome of a tropical conservatory reflected the day’s final sunlight. A gust of wind chilled Ruby’s neck and swirled discarded newspapers through the air.

  Hari seated himself at the other end of the bench.

  “Nice work. I almost missed you.” He gave her a quick glance and looked away. “I’m glad you’re still alive. But I can’t stay long.”

  “I’ll get right to the point, then. Did Antony know I wasn’t dead before I showed up at the house in Boca?”

  Hari clenched his jaw, but didn’t answer.

  “Why did you tell him?”

  “You said you were leaving him,” he said. “Finally.”

  Ruby brushed the last crumbs off her lap, folded the newspaper in half and laid it on the bench between them. She watched the pigeons scrabble over the sudden windfall.

  “Did you find out what he’s up to, at least?”

  Hari bent over with his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, still without looking at her.

  “Carvon’s accounting has always been aggressive. The auditors never used to care. But about three years ago, we were having problems generating adequate returns. A few of the companies Antony had bought were not doing so well. So we borrowed money to do some derivative trades that didn’t go quite as expected.”

  “You’re saying that Carvon wasn’t making enough money and that Antony borrowed money to invest in other things,” she took a breath, “that also didn’t make money?”

  “Well, it’s more complicated than that. But yes, sort of.”

  “Why ‘sort of’?”

  “Well, it’s not that Carvon wasn’t making money. We were. In fact, we were doing pretty well.”

  “If Carvon was doing well, why was it in trouble?”

  “Because the Street expected us to do even better.”

  “The Street? You mean investors?”

  “More than that. Stock market analysts, industry analysts, traders—they all expected Carvon to earn more revenue than it could. They based their forecasts for our stock price on those inflated expectations. And that put pressure on Carvon’s stock.”

  “But why did they expect you to do so much better?”

  “Because Antony told them we would.”

  “And they believed him?”

  Hari gave her a quick look, unclasped his hands, and sat up.

  “He’s the CEO. Why wouldn’t they?”

  Ruby turned with a sigh and watched a woman push a bright pink stroller into the park, its rear hood closed against the wind.

  “But why would Antony do that? I don’t get it.”

  “He was trying to keep the stock price up.” Hari gave a rueful grin. “It didn’t start out as a lie. Accountants call it ‘misstatement of earnings.’ It’s bad, but not criminal.” He put his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and slumped back against the bench, hunching his shoulders. “Anyway, now we have to re-state those earnings. Put things right. At the shareholders’ meeting. At least, I thought that’s what we were going to do.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “Everything might have been fine if the market hadn’t collapsed. Antony might have been able to pull it off. But after the crash, the short-sellers piled on. And that gave him even more ideas.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He set up dummy accounts and did a little short-selling himself.”

  “Short-selling?” Ruby wrinkled her forehead. “I’m pretty sure I know what that is, but remind me.”

  “Basically, it’s a bet that a stock’s price will fall. A short-seller borrows shares from another investor and promises to return them in the future. Then he sells the shares and pockets the proceeds.”

  Ruby shut one eye and squinted at him. “And then …?”

  “Then he hopes the price will drop before he has to buy them back and return them. The price can go either way, so it’s a gamble.”

  Ruby glanced around the park. The woman with the pink stroller had reached the far end. A young man
in black spandex jogged past her, headed for the conservatory. She turned back to Hari.

  “But if Antony was short-selling, doesn’t that mean he was betting against his own company?”

  “Yes, but it’s worse than that. Antony knew that Carvon’s stock would fall. Any time that someone with inside information—things the public doesn’t know—makes a trade based on that information, they’ve committed a crime. It’s insider trading, and you go to jail for it.”

  “So Antony broke the law?”

  “Yes. And he made bets in both directions. He knew when we were planning to shuffle assets or inflate revenue numbers, so he also made money when Carvon shares went up.”

  Ruby shivered and turned up her collar against the wind. Antony was breaking the law. And she had not tried to turn him in. Did that make her an accessory?

  “Why didn’t anyone notice?”

  “Antony set up dummy accounts so the trades couldn’t be traced back to him. He had Carvon’s subsidiaries pay fake invoices for nonexistent goods and transferred those payments to the dummy accounts. He used those accounts to make his trades and then transferred the profits offshore.”

  “That explains the deposits that I found on his laptop. Those were the transfers.” She took a deep breath. “Hari, were any of those dummy accounts in my name?”

  “I’m sorry, but yes, some of them were.”

  Ruby rubbed a hand across her forehead, remembering Antony’s warning. My money wasn’t enough for you two. You went after the company’s funds, too. She had hoped he had been lying, that he had fabricated that tale to upset her. A lump formed in her throat.

  Hari cleared his throat.

  “I swear, Ruby, I didn’t know he had done that.”

  They sat in silence for a few seconds, then he turned to face her.

  “Don’t tell anyone about this. Once it gets out, the stock will plummet. I’m trying to clean up Antony’s mess before that happens. Don’t sell any of your own Carvon shares, either, or you’ll be guilty of trading on insider information, too.”

  She straightened up with a grin.

  “Being dead makes that a bit difficult.”

  “Bad financial planning on your part, Ruby.” His smile faded. “What about that list of deposits? Did you destroy it?”

  “Not exactly.” She fingered the Hello Kitty bracelet on her wrist. What was she going to do with it, anyway? None of the documents on it meant anything to her. She ran a finger along its rubber surface. Why was she hesitating? She looked up.

  Hari raised his eyebrows.

  Ruby unsnapped the bracelet and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, dropping it into his coat pocket.

  “None of this explains why the Russian mob is involved, or why they were at our house in Boca,” Ruby said.

  “I don’t know anything about that. It was probably random, it’s a wealthy neighborhood.”

  “But—”

  Hari got to his feet and turned to face her.

  “I have to get back to the office. But first, let’s go into the greenhouse. I haven’t been here in years.”

  The conservatory was one of her favorite places in the city. With its humid jasmine-scented air, palm trees, and orchids, it was paradise even on the dreariest winter day. They strolled along the brick paths. Ruby ran her hand along a palm frond, ruffling the leaflets.

  “Hari, what will happen when people find out about the misstatement?”

  He stopped dead and stared at the floor a moment before shaking his head and walking on.

  “The stock will tank. Shareholders, employees, companies Carvon owes money to—everybody will lose. There might be a little left for the creditors, but we’ve borrowed against most of Carvon’s physical assets. So even selling off our properties won’t help.”

  “Everybody loses?” When he didn’t reply, she put a hand on his arm. “What about the Cayman bearer bonds? Whose are those?”

  His next words fell like blows.

  “You shouldn’t have taken them, Ruby.”

  She took a shaky step back.

  “What are you saying?” she whispered. “I didn’t—”

  He turned away, checking his watch.

  “I have to go. Sorry.”

  She grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. You haven’t told me about Quentin’s account. What did you find out?”

  Hari looked puzzled for a moment.

  “Oh. That account you asked me to look at. You must have made a mistake. It’s inactive.”

  “What do you mean, inactive?”

  “It’s closed. Empty.” His phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket and thumbed in a few words.

  “Empty?” Ruby’s voice rose. “What do you mean, empty?”

  “Empty.” He shrugged. “As in, no money. Everything in it was withdrawn over a year ago. Maybe you copied the number wrong.”

  Ruby fumbled in her tote bag for her phone, scrolled through the notes app and held it up. “This number?”

  He looked at it and then clicked through a few screens on his own phone. “Yes, that’s the one,” he said. “I’m sorry, was it important?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “I have to go, sorry.” Hari pocketed his phone and headed for the exit.

  Ruby stumbled to the nearest bench and sank onto it. She bent over, her head in her hands, and tried to breathe.

  “Are you okay?” A woman leaned over her and held out a tissue. “Can I help you? Are you ill?”

  Ruby took the tissue with a grateful nod and blew her nose.

  “No, thanks,” she said, her voice quavering. “I’m fine. I got some bad news, that’s all.”

  The woman nodded and walked away.

  Ruby stared at the brick floor of the greenhouse. How could the girls’ money be gone? And worse—Hari thought she had taken the bonds. If he didn’t believe her, who would? She looked up dully as a butterfly fluttered past. She was no closer to learning who had the bonds, or why, than she had been on the Apollonis.

  Wiping a tear from her cheek, she thrust out her chin and turned to the entrance. If Antony had taken the girls’ money, then Antony was going to put it back. Two weeks remained before Carvon’s annual meeting. After that, according to Hari, the company would be wiped out, on paper at least. She had to get the girls’ money back before then.

  The woman who had given her the tissue bent to peer at a nameplate under a flowering plant. She looked up and smiled, rubbing her ear briefly, as Ruby brushed past.

  Outside, Ruby zipped up her jacket and looked around. The jogger was gone, the woman with the stroller was gone, even the homeless man who had been sleeping on a bench was gone. He had been fast asleep, with a paper bag nestled in the crook of his arm. What could have woken him?

  “Miss Delaney?”

  She stiffened and turned. Flashing red lights reflected off the domed glass roof of the greenhouse. Two men in gray trench coats stood behind her. One of them flashed a badge.

  “Miss Delaney?”

  She stared, speechless.

  He put the badge back into his jacket pocket.

  “We need you to come with us, please.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ruby sat at a metal table in a windowless room for what seemed like hours. The detective seated across from her bent his head over a file folder, occasionally flipping a page. Ruby’s throat was dry, but she hadn’t been able to drink more than a sip or two of the water he had brought her for fear she would throw up.

  A double knock broke the silence. The detective walked out, the door latch clicking behind him. She was alone—well, almost. Ruby had watched hundreds, probably thousands, of police procedurals and had even been in a few, so she knew the mirror on one wall was two-way. She reached for the water bottle with a trembling hand and tried to swallow.

  The detective walked back in and held the door open for a second man, who plunked Ruby’s leather tote bag on the table and pulled up a chair, sitting down across from h
er. The new arrival had a big smile on his face.

  “We meet again,” Pete Osler said.

  Ruby pulled over the tote bag and settled it on her lap, staring at Pete. What was the detective from the Apollonis doing here? Had he brought more of those grisly photos?

  “Hi,” she croaked, grasping Pete’s extended hand with an eagerness that surprised even her. She tried to smile.

  “Sorry I can’t offer you a beverage,” she said.

  “That’s been taken care of,” Pete replied. The door opened and a young constable entered with two coffee cups in a cardboard tray and a paper plate of muffins, which he put on the table.

  “Cream and sugar?” Pete asked.

  Ruby nodded and he pushed a cup across the table to her. She stirred two creams and two sugars into the coffee, but shook her head when Pete offered a muffin. After taking a sip, she put the cup down.

  “Thanks.” Her hand still shook, but the knot in her stomach had loosened. “Why are you here, Pete? This is a long way from New York.”

  “You’d be surprised how popular I am this week. Something about being on a cruise ship with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells.” He leaned in, grinning. “But first, tell me how you did it. Tell me how you got off that ship without anyone seeing you.”

  “I went out with the garbage. In a barrel.”

  The detective at the door snickered and she looked up.

  “Was that … wrong?”

  Pete pursed his lips.

  “Well, it’s not … it’s not something you should have done, for sure.” He paused, and Ruby got the impression he was stifling a chuckle. Pete continued, his face grave. “For one thing, it triggered an expensive search and rescue operation and it’s not altogether clear who’s going to pay for that. Also, it doesn’t explain the video.”

  “What video?”

  “The security camera video that supposedly shows you jumping from a balcony into the ocean.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t jump from the ship. How could there be video? Oh,” she paused with her mouth slack. “I did jump, but onto a balcony. Not into the ocean. I jumped onto the balcony below. I was trying to get away. I was—” Ruby squared her jaw. “You know, I don’t think I have to talk about this.”