by Lexy Timms
“No,” Dane said firmly. “That’ll just cause panic. This is inside work. It needs quiet attention, or the guilty parties will run.”
“Dane, you can’t be serious!” she cried. “We have to tell our employees that their pensions and benefits are disappearing.”
“What if Dad’s wrong?” he asked. “Look, I trust your judgment, Dad, but I’m the one in charge here. If we’re wrong and we make a public announcement like this, the panic could ruin us. Prescott has only just started to get back on sound footing.”
“Not to mention bring the police or the feds down us,” his father said. “I’m with Dane on this.”
“The feds?” she asked. “You mean like the FBI?”
Dane nodded. “A financial crime this big is liable to be huge.”
“If it’s as bad as I think it is, they could end up hauling us up to D.C.” His father ran a hand through his white hair. “This kind of corporate malpractice gets people riled up.”
“It should,” Allyson said sharply. “People are losing their benefits and pensions. How could something like this have happened?”
“The better question is, how do we stop it?” his father questioned.
Dane scratched his jaw, his thoughts racing a million miles a minute. “What do you mean?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s still going on,” his father replied. “A million dollars disappeared just last week.”
“How are they getting the money out of the company?” Allyson shook her head.
So did Dane. The Handels… now this? Would it ever stop? Or was this the deal with multi-billion-dollar companies… someone was always hunting them down? Would they ever be free of mistrust, embezzlement, stealing, everything? It was exhausting. No wonder his father was so worn out.
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet.” His father suddenly looked even older. As if the company’s problem was aging him right before their eyes.
“Don’t tell Mom yet,” Dane said. “I’ll get someone to look in to this. Someone we can trust.”
His father nodded. “I won’t.”
“We can’t keep this information to ourselves forever,” Allyson said. “The press might have moved on a bit, but something like this could bring them right back.”
Dane frowned.
She was right. After they’d sent the Handels packing back to London, the media had gone into a frenzy for weeks. Then, one of the local basketball teams had been bought by Karl Roth, some new hotshot billionaire, and the New York City press had moved on. A mess like this could bring the scandal-hungry sharks back in a big way.
Allyson was still reeling from her sister-in-law’s terrible run-in with the paparazzi. Holly was healthy, and due to give birth in a few weeks, but the press was insatiable and dangerous. As long as a scandal like this was brewing, Dane had to protect his wife and her family at all costs.
“That’s why we have to keep this to ourselves for now until I can verify what Dad found,” Dane finally said. “I need to make sure, get some more concrete evidence, and figure out who’s behind it. I’ll look in to it myself, before we get anyone else involved. Keep this between the three of us?”
“The information doesn’t leave this room.” Allyson nodded in agreement. “Got it. How do we figure out who the thief is, Alfred?”
“I’ve narrowed it down to the accounts department, some senior executives, and other division and department heads.”
“That’s, like, forty people,” she said.
“And that doesn’t exclude any others that those forty people might have purposely or inadvertently tipped off to getting this kind of money.” Dane crossed his arms. “How do we start digging for more information?”
His father sighed. “That kind of information is probably somewhere in the accounts department. On a laptop or a memory stick. But there are also hard files with some information that might be useful.”
Dane nodded. “Okay. Let’s see if we can find a quiet way to get our hands on some information.”
“We have to be careful. The only reason I found this out is because I came back to work and was trying to get my bearings. It’s not something I would ordinarily have known. Dane, whoever is doing this…” Terror flickered in his father’s brown eyes. “If they discover that we know, we’ll be in danger. I think the thief would be willing to do anything to keep this a secret. Even kill.”
~~*~~
“Don’t you think your father was being a little bit paranoid?” Allyson bit her lip, apprehension tying her stomach up in knots. His father had just left the office to go to a business meeting. And hopefully he put on a big show of acting like everything at Prescott Global was still normal.
“The thing is, my dad has a good reason to be scared.” Dane was packing away his laptop. “Back in the 1980s, my father lost a friend. His friend was a senior executive who discovered wrongdoing at the corporation he worked at. Right before he went to the press, he was murdered. The wrongdoing came out eventually, but by then it was too late.”
She gasped. Her heart started to pound wildly. “That’s horrible. Would someone actually try to hurt us like that?”
Her husband looked up from his desk, determination turning his blue eyes glacial. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Ever.” Dane crossed the office and stopped at her seat. He looked down at her, reached for her hands, and pulled her to her feet. When he stared deep into her eyes, she shivered. Shivered under the cold intensity of his eyes. “I would kill to protect you, Allyson.”
“I’m sure there’s no need for that,” she said sharply. Now her entire body was covered in goose bumps. Fear, cold and oily, slipped across her skin. But it wasn’t the fear of a desperate thief that was making her react like this. It was the fear of what her husband might do. When Dane got it into his head that he had to protect her, he acted recklessly. Did just about anything to neutralize whatever he thought was a threat to her.
“Look, the problems we’ve dealt with before are nothing compared to this,” he said in a warning tone. “The Handels were underhanded, but nothing they did was illegal. This is dangerous. You have to promise to let me deal with this on my own.”
“Your father thinks the thief is desperate enough to kill, and you want me to let you face this alone?” She dragged her hands out of his grasp.
“That’s not a request, Allyson,” Dane said forcefully. “That’s an order.”
Anger flared within her. So hot and violent that it chased away the cold fear. “How dare you.”
“Allyson—”
“Don’t you dare!” she cried. “Don’t you dare order me to do anything ever again.”
“Fine.” His expression hardened. “Don’t listen. But I don’t have to share the intimate details of what I’m doing with you.”
“More secrets,” she snapped. “If you want to keep more things from me, you go right ahead. But it’s not going to help you. You can build whatever wall you want. I’m not going to give up on you.”
“I’m not keeping anything from you,” he ground out.
“Really?” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Why don’t you like the house, Dane?”
“Fine. You want to help? Bring the car out back.”
“What?”
“I’m going to be taking some documents home,” he said through gritted teeth. “I need you to drive the car out of the underground parking lot and head to the lot at the back.”
“Why?”
He sighed heavily. “There’s a huge blind spot out there that the security cameras don’t pick up. Right now, we can’t trust anyone. Not even the company security team.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “What documents, Dane? What’re you up to?”
“I want to smuggle some confidential documents out of here,” he said in a low voice, “so that I can confirm my father’s suspicions. He’s gone over the information digitally, so now I need to go over the physical paper trail. I’d go over the files here at hea
dquarters, but I don’t want to risk anyone seeing. Tipping off the thief could make them violent, or make them smart enough to disappear and avoid getting caught. So the best thing to do is take the files home.”
“How’re you going to smuggle them out without being seen?” she asked. “There are cameras everywhere.”
“Not if I take the stairs,” he muttered.
“Are you crazy? You can’t walk down fifty flights of stairs.”
“Sure I can,” he replied. “I’m in the best shape of my life. And I owe it all to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why? Is being married to me that physically taxing for you?”
“Oh, yes. The nightly workouts have been very intense.” There was a mischievous glint in his eye.
Her cheeks burned. “I cannot believe you’re joking about sex at a time like this.”
“It’s this, or we go back to arguing and you being defiant for no good reason,” he said.
She stifled an exasperated sigh. “Just give me the car keys.”
Minutes later, she walked across Prescott Global’s underground parking lot, gripping the car keys in her hand. Allyson glanced over her shoulder as discreetly as she could. There were cameras around and she didn’t want to give anything away.
Finally, she got to their luxury car, jumped behind the wheel, and turned the ignition. She navigated the car out of the underground parking lot, then drove around to the above-ground parking lot at the back of Prescott. Finally, she parked in the spot Dane had instructed her to park in.
Now, all she had to do was wait. Her heart hammered so wildly against her ribcage she could swear she could hear it. With her hands still gripping the steering wheel, she forced herself to inhale. It was obvious that Dane had asked her to bring the car out back to get her out of the way. The only reason she had agreed to it was because she was still determined to help her husband. Even if he was trying to get her out of the way.
The wait in the car was agonizing. Each moment that ticked by felt like an age. What if someone discovered Dane smuggling the confidential files out of headquarters? There were consequences for removing confidential documents. His contract could be shredded, or he could end up with a lawsuit on his hands.
Worse, this had all started before she got the truth out of Dane. She needed to know why her husband was willing to buy a house he didn’t seem to want. Needed to know what secrets he was keeping from her. A crazy thought occurred to her. No. Of course not. There was no way Dane could have known about the embezzlement before his father had revealed it to them. There was no way he’d keep something like that from her.
When the waiting got bad enough for her to consider racing back into the building, her husband finally appeared, a cardboard box in his hands. He got into the passenger seat beside her, breathing heavily.
“Do I drive straight home?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. But don’t drive too quickly. Make it look normal. Like we’re heading home for lunch.”
She pulled out of the parking lot and away from Prescott Global headquarters.
By the time they got home to their apartment, Allyson was a nervous wreck. She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that they were being watched. It was probably paranoia brought on by stress, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.
In the living room, Dane started to take the files out of the box.
She flopped down onto the sofa and whipped out her cell phone to email some of the women’s division senior managers. It was all routine work stuff, but right now she needed a distraction while her husband pored over files.
Finally, Dane looked up from his work, his eyebrows furrowed. “We have a massive problem.”
“What?” She sat up straighter.
“I figured out how the money is being stolen from Prescott,” he said. “It’s being funneled out through the women’s division.”
Chapter 4
The phone she was holding was suddenly heavy in her hands. Allyson’s heart sank like a stone.
“Someone in my division is embezzling money?” she finally gasped out.
“I don’t know,” Dane replied. “Possibly… Probably.”
“How could anyone do this?” Bile rose in her throat. The thought of a subordinate stealing from Prescott made her sick to her stomach. Anyone stealing from the company was horrible. Her division, the revamped women’s line, had already shown success in the markets. The people working with her seemed like good, solid thinkers. The worst thing anyone from the women’s division had done was gossip. But this, millions of dollars stolen, was on a level she couldn’t comprehend. Someone they knew and trusted was stealing out of employee funds. She swallowed. “What do we do now? Do we inform the staff that their pensions and benefits are disappearing? It’s a lot of money, Dane. It’s not something that can stay hidden for long.”
He ran his hand through his hair, frustration etched on his face. “If we go public with this, it will cause a company-wide panic. Stocks would crash again. Prescott has only just gotten back on track after that mess with the Handels.”
“Our employees have the right to know their benefits are in jeopardy,” she repeated. “I’d want to know.” She’d paid into the fund before Dane and she had gotten married. Shoot, she still could be paying into the fund. Not that it mattered. But it did matter. So did the company’s liability. What were they going to do?
“If stocks crash again, it’ll be more than pensions and benefits being in jeopardy,” he said. “I don’t think we can weather another storm like this. Not six months after the last one. If Prescott gets into trouble now, I can see massive layoffs. And that’s without the police and the FBI getting involved.”
“So, what do we do?” she asked. “If we don’t stop whoever is doing this, they’ll keep stealing.”
“We have to find the culprit before the media gets wind of this,” he said. “If we find out who it is, we can control the narrative. We can hand over the evidence to the police, then keep the press from going into a frenzy. Let’s try to handle this as smoothly as possible.”
Her nerves were frayed. Worry gnawed at her. “I knew something like this was going to happen.”
Dane paused. Focusing his gaze on her he narrowed his eyes. “How could you have known?” he asked, barely able to mask the suspicion in his voice.
“You don’t actually think I had something to do with this, do you?” It was impossible to keep the accusation out of her tone. Especially since the guilt weighing down on her was only getting heavier. Earlier, while she had waited for Dane in the car, she had momentarily wondered if he had known about the embezzlement. Wondered if what he was hiding had to do with the theft his father had just uncovered. Now, it sounded like Dane had suspicions of his own.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he said firmly. “I’m just starting to realize how something like this might look.”
“How does it look?” she asked shrilly.
His jaw clenched. Like he was fighting to keep the words in. “It looks bad.”
“Oh, really? Does it? How do you particularly see this situation?”
“Come on, Allyson,” he said, looking as frustrated as she felt. “The embezzlement started about six months ago. Around the same time you stepped in and revamped the women’s division. And now I’ve just figured out that the money is being funneled through this very same division. Not to mention, you’re the division head. Which means you’re one of the forty people who has access to the company accounts.”
A lump formed in her throat. “You really think I’m capable of something like this?”
“Hell no,” he said. “But a lot of people might think you are. A lot of people want to see you stumble. They’ve been rooting for you to fail ever since we got married.”
She slumped back in her seat, completely miserable. The first six months of their marriage had been wonderful. They had worked side by side at Prescott Global. Taken romantic excursions to Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. And e
ven though things weren’t perfect with her side of the family, Dane had been bonding with her brother James. Meanwhile, she had been working on her relationship with Dane’s parents. The few things that seemed to be an issue had been her friends, the new house, and now this new awful mess at Prescott.
“What people?” she breathed. “I’ve made friends. I’ve been networking with all these business people. Doors have been opening for me. Who would want to see me fail?”
“Your friends,” he replied.
“That’s not true.”
“I know the upper class better than you do,” he said. “They’re all throwing themselves at you now, while they secretly resent your success. If news about this embezzlement gets out before we figure out who the actual thief is, don’t be surprised if your so-called friends blame you.”
“I don’t believe that they’d do something like that,” she said.
“If it’s not your friends, then the rest of the upper class will be happy to see this scandal take you down,” he said. “Resentment over new people coming into high society runs deep.”
She paused. While it was true that Dane understood the upper class far better than she did, she had been learning. Especially from his mother. “If the upper class is as bad as you say it is, then we need allies. Right now it’s us against a thief we can’t see. And it’s not even us; it’s just you.”
“I’m not dragging you into this,” he said firmly.
“Last time you didn’t want me getting involved in our problems, I eventually ended up helping you,” she reminded him.
“That was different. Everything the Handels did was legal. They were underhanded, but they played by certain rules. Whoever is doing this has no qualms about stealing millions. Which means they’re either extremely powerful or extremely desperate. Besides, you should focus on moving into the new house.”
Unable to hide her irritation, she took a deep breath. “Let me see if I have this right…this embezzlement could literally ruin me, but instead of helping you fix the problem you want me to act like a good little wife and spend my time buying furniture for the new house that you clearly don’t like.”
