by Debora Ryan
Fury boiled in Will’s blood. “She didn’t do it.” He forced the words through his teeth before turning back to the locked door. He opened it with one swift, well-placed kick.
The door slammed into the interior wall, revealing four shocked faces. Thomas Dannaker replaced the phone. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “I was about to call security.”
Will turned to the clients seated in various chairs in the room. “Can you excuse us, please?” It wasn’t a request.
“William, whatever you have to say can wait until after my meeting is over.”
Will took a step toward his father. “I can say this to you with or without witnesses.”
“Later, William.” Thomas Dannaker’s grey eyes were as steely as his tone.
If he wanted to have this out in front of his clients, so be it. “Do you want to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing?”
Thomas exhaled sharply. “This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.”
“You had Leah arrested!”
“Three days ago.” Thomas made a sound of impatient exasperation. “She took six million dollars. I know you were aware of it.”
Will barely controlled his rage. “She did not, and you know it. You’re doing this because you think it will damage our relationship irreparably.”
“You had the proof in your own home!”
“You went through my things?” It took Will only a moment to realize that his father had taken his phone call in Will’s bedroom while the rest of them had made cupcakes for Jaden’s party. When Leah was with Cecelia or Anne, he had been working at home on trying to find out who was actually taking the money. His father must have seen his research. That evidence was both misleading and damning.
“You should not have kept this from me.”
The clients quietly exited the room, closing the door behind them as best they could.
“You jumped the gun. She’s been set up. Now whoever was doing this knows what we’ve discovered. I’m pretty sure I know who it is, and now she’s gone. You played your hand too early. And you’ve made a huge mistake. Drop the charges right now.”
“Based on what? The fact that you’re sleeping with her? Son, I’m not willing to lose six million dollars so you can get laid.”
Will took three long steps to his father so that they stood eye to eye. Very softly, he said, “Don’t you ever talk about her that way. Don’t you ever disrespect the woman I love.”
Thomas laughed contemptuously. “That’s rich. You think you’re in love with her. At least it explains why you were letting her get away with this. You know, I thought you were the best in your field. You have an international reputation for sniffing out fraud. I wondered why it was taking you so long.” Thomas shook his head. “It looks like you’ve finally found your Achilles heel. The mighty William Dannaker brought low by a brash redhead.”
Will struggled to control his temper. On his best day, his father could piss him off like no one else had ever been able to do. His jaw flexed with the effort, but his voice was under control when he spoke. “She did not take six million from you. She only took forty thousand.”
Thomas moved to stand behind his desk, putting some space between them. “She told you that?”
“She did. When I told her six million was missing, she was shocked. She didn’t know about it at all.”
“And you believed her? My God, she must be gifted between the sheets.”
The desk between them wasn’t enough. Will leapt over it and flattened Thomas with a well-placed right. Three security guards rushed into the room and pulled him from his father. They held him until his temper was under control.
“Be ready to testify,” Thomas warned. “It was your research that built her coffin. Your testimony and the evidence you’ve gathered will pound in the nails.”
“Go to hell.”
Thomas tsked. “That’s no way to talk to your father, William.”
Will shook the security guards away from him. He straightened his tie and the coat of his suit. “You aren’t my father.”
He went directly to Anne’s office. Though her door was closed, he walked in without knocking. She finished her phone call quickly and stood up, though not to greet him.
“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” she said as she tried to steer him to the door.
He refused to budge. It was one of the advantages of being larger. “You didn’t tell me Leah was arrested.”
A pair of furious eyes bore holes into him. “As if you didn’t know.”
“I have been in a drunken stupor since Friday night, when Leah dumped me. When I sobered up last night, I went to her apartment to find she had been evicted. Then I went to your place. I thought you were lying when you said she wasn’t there.”
Anne wavered uncertainly. “She’s in jail. She’s been there since Monday.”
Will winced. Three days too late. Leah was far too delicate to survive in a place like that. She deserved so much better. “What about bail?”
“A million dollars. Her assets and mine together don’t come close enough to…” Anne looked away guiltily.
“I wish you had called me.”
“I did. You didn’t answer.”
Another knife in his heart. “Sorry. Do you have her lawyer’s number?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know how much I actually need. They only take cash.”
Anne had rifled through her purse for the scrap of paper on which she’d written Gordon Evans’s phone number. “Here.”
Nobody answered. Will tossed his head in the direction of the door. “Let’s go.”
He tried Evans all the way to the parking garage. “We’ll take my car,” he said. “It’s closer.” He had his own spot, just like his father.
Several more times, he tried to contact Evans as he drove. Not even a secretary answered. Disgusted, he threw the phone into the console. “Why is it so much?”
Anne shrugged.
Will shook his head. “Her lawyer should have argued for a reduction. A decent lawyer would have had her released on her own recognizance. Her crime wasn’t violent or something she is likely to repeat.”
“Her lawyer sucks.”
“Why doesn’t she get a new one?”
“Because you get what the court gives you.”
Will frowned. Of course she would have a court-appointed attorney. He would fix that, too. It took several hours for Will to secure Leah’s release. Bureaucracy was singularly difficult to navigate, even for someone who commonly worked with police and lawyers to catch and prosecute criminals. After all the forms had been signed and properly processed, there was still a wait.
He held out a desperate hope that she could forgive him. He’d grovel on his knees, anything to show her how sorry he was for the way he mishandled their relationship from the start.
Chapter 14
On the third day, instead of being taken to the visiting room, Leah was given her clothes. “Bail has been posted,” Beauchamp announced. “Your stay with us is over for now.” He took Leah to get her things from the deep dark hole in the basement where they kept the personal items of the prisoners.
Leah emerged from her confinement and was led to a desk to sign papers promising she would appear for her trial at the appointed date and time, and that she understood the consequences if she did not. Hastily, she scribbled her name on the appropriate lines. “Is there anything else?”
The clerk shook her head. “You’re free to go.” She pointed to a door. “That way.”
The heavy, slate grey door led into the lobby of the busy police station. It buzzed as Leah pushed it open and walked out. Anne waited on the other side. She hugged Leah to her tightly. “Oh, honey, you were wrong.”
“I was?” Leah clung to Anne, needing the physical contact of a friend who loved her. “About what?”
Anne turned Leah toward the door to the outside. Will leaned against the faux marble wall, watch
ing them.
Leah’s breath caught painfully in her throat. Seeing him there broke her heart all over again. She had spent the past few days in the prison library reading up on embezzlement and looking over the evidence they had gathered against her. It was obvious Gordon Evans was not doing this, so it fell to Leah to know what was going on. One task she had set to him was to petition for a reduction in bail. Until she saw Will, she was certain Evans had been successful. Now, she had doubts. Why would Anne bring him here if not to post the bail?
But he wouldn’t consent to posting bail. He’d come to gloat, to whisper in her ear how he had cleverly turned over all this evidence to the FBI, and didn’t she regret ending things before he wanted them to end?
Rage boiled up inside Leah. She walked toward him. He straightened at her approach. His movements seemed almost nervous, but Leah never wavered. She stopped in front of the doors, looked him up and down contemptuously, and left the building.
“Leah!”
The deep tones of Will’s voice penetrated to her soul. She had to keep going. She was half way down the steps to the street. Anne rushed to keep up with her. “Leah,” she hissed. “He drove.”
Leah stopped and looked at Anne. Her best friend had betrayed her. “Then I’ll walk. Do you have my purse? My keys?”
“He paid your bail.”
“I would rather have stayed there. I can’t believe you called him. I told you not to do that!”
Anne gripped her arm. “Except for that first day, I didn’t call him. He must have gotten my first few messages, and he figured out the rest on his own. He picked me up from work and brought me here. He wanted to bail you out. I couldn’t say no.”
“Yes, you could have.”
“You don’t belong in there!” Anne, who never raised her voice, yelled.
Will had kept a respectful distance until now. “Leah,” he said as he approached. “I swear I had nothing to do with this.”
The fact that she had been arrested the Monday after ending things with Will was too much of a coincidence to be happenstance. Then there was the fact that she had been in jail for three nights. If he had nothing to do with this, then why had he waited until now to bail her out? She knew he was playing games with her.
Leah slowly tilted her head to look up at him. She didn’t bother to hide her profound disbelief. “You have nothing over me now. I never want to see you again.”
She was nearly to the corner when Anne caught up with her. Anne hooked her arm through Leah’s and tugged. “This way.”
Leah followed her to a public parking lot and to Will’s car. “I’m not getting in a car with him.” Leah ripped her arm from Anne’s and started away from the car.
“He isn’t coming with us,” Anne called after her. “Come on, Leah, be reasonable. Did you want to stop by and see Cecelia before we go home?”
Leah stopped walking away. She turned back toward Anne and chewed her lip as she decided. She had avoided asking about Cece for the past few days, but she knew Anne had been diligent in her visits to them both. Leah came back to the car. “Take me home first, then to see Cece. I need to change and freshen up. She can’t see me like this.”
Anne bit her lip and nodded. Leah knew nothing could wash away the misery in her eyes or the pallor of her skin. She didn’t need her friend to voice the thought.
They rode in silence for a time. Leah read the colorful awnings and signs of the businesses as they passed through the downtown area. Finally, she broke the spell the silence had cast over them. “Will gave you his car? Why?”
Anne took a deep breath. “He told me to take care of you. He said he’d come by later for the car. Leah, are you sure about him? I don’t see how he could have done this to you.”
Leah tried desperately to believe Anne, to connect the dots in a way that didn’t point to Will. She failed. “I can’t tell you the details. It’s wrapped up in the charges against me, and I don’t want to drag you into this. The less you know, the better.” Leah shook her head despondently. “If he hadn’t done this, then why did he wait until now to bail me out?”
“I don’t know why exactly. He said he hadn’t checked his messages until this morning. Maybe he was out of town? Or out of his mind with grief? You did break up with him.”
A bitter laugh escaped from Leah’s throat. “You give him too much credit. No, this is part of his game.” Leah debated telling Anne more. Part of her resented that Anne didn’t unquestioningly take her side. “He’s still playing with me. Maybe he’ll play with me until I’m dead and not so much fun anymore.”
Wisely, Anne kept silent and let Leah enjoy wallowing in her pity-party for one.
It wasn’t until they arrived at Anne’s house that Leah said anything. “Anne, I need to go to my apartment. My things are there.”
“No,” Anne sighed, “they’re not.” She sneaked a peak at Leah, and then she looked directly at the steering wheel. “You’ve been evicted.”
Leah looked out the passenger window, unsurprised. She thought she had a few more days. She must have miscalculated the first notice.
“Lee-Lee, why didn’t you tell me you needed money? I could have helped you out.”
Without answering, Leah got out of the car and headed toward the front door of Anne’s modern style ranch house. She didn’t answer until they were inside. “I couldn’t have paid you back.”
“I would have given you the money.”
Leah shook her head. “Cece’s care runs about fifty thousand a year. It would have been a temporary solution.”
Anne sank down onto her couch. “I had no idea. Well, that explains your apartment. You’ve been paying for her to have a resort-style living experience at the expense of your ability to support yourself.” Her tone held a note of reproof.
Leah crossed the room to head down the hall to the lone bathroom in the three-bedroom house. She stopped at the beginning of the hall. “It’s my fault she’s this way. And look at what they’ve done for her. She was walking. When I took her there, she was tied to that wheelchair and she wasn’t able to interact with anything or anyone. Then there’s this latest breakthrough.” Leah shook her head. “I owe her, Annie. I took from her the life she wanted. This is the least I can do.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Anne said. This argument was old. “You weren’t driving.”
“I bought the drinks. It was my promotion we were celebrating. It should have been me in that car, not her.”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen, Leah. Stop blaming yourself. Cecelia doesn’t blame you.”
“Cece doesn’t know,” Leah retorted.
Anne could hear her false bravado. “Cece knows far more than you give her credit for. Ask her tonight. Tell her everything. I bet she will consent to less expensive care.”
Leah made a bitter sound. “Well, she’s going to have to. I don’t have a job, and I’m probably going to jail. She’ll end up back in a state home.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “I will do some research on the different facilities in the area. There has to be something affordable out there.”
“Let me know when you find it,” Leah said cynically as she disappeared down the hall. Did Anne not think Leah had already done that research? Leah didn’t lack intelligence, only money. In ten years, after she had climbed sufficiently up the ladder at work, then she would be able to afford Cecelia’s care and an apartment in a nice neighborhood. She had done the math time and time again. She knew how much time it would take. That was one reason she’d put so much into her job; she needed the raises and promotions in order to continue to care for Cecelia.
Now, she had no job and no prospects. Things definitely were not going her way.
Leah’s visit to Cecelia did not go as planned. Anne had ruined everything. Leah’s original plan had been to tell Cecelia some lie about how she had been working so much. She planned to apologize to her sister for her absence and to prepare her for the eventuality of Leah being gone for a longer peri
od of time. Leah wanted to present it as a business opportunity.
Anne had other ideas. She took the honest approach, but she didn’t let Leah in on that piece of information until the three of them settled on a bench in the greenhouse. “I already told her you had been arrested and that the charges were bogus.”
“I know you lost your job, Leah,” Cecelia said sympathetically. “Don’t worry. When this is all over, you’ll find another one.”
Leah glowered at Anne. “I can’t believe you told her that.”
Anne shrugged, her delicate shoulders rising and falling gracefully. “I’m not going to lie to her.”
“You’re forgetting that my mental faculties are intact, little sister,” Cecelia teased. “I can handle the truth.”
“But it’s not your problem,” Leah said. “You shouldn’t have to deal with it.”
The disbelief and cynicism marring Cecelia’s features wasn’t something Leah was used to seeing. “You’re my sister, my closest friend. I get to share in the sadness of your life as well as the happiness. You share neither with me.”
“I tell you about the good things,” Leah said.
“Some of them.”
Leah stood and paced in angry, leonine movements. “You want to know details? Fine. My car is totaled. I’ve been evicted from my apartment. I have no job, and after this, no prospects of getting another one. I will most likely be convicted. Right or wrong, I already know the evidence points to me. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to afford to keep you here, Cece. You’re most likely facing the next eviction in the family.”
Cecelia’s expression was more serene than worried. Leah wondered what medications they had given her today.
Anne stood on the narrow path, forcing Leah to stop in front of her. “You have both of your best friends. As long as you have me, you have a place to live, so don’t worry about that. And if Cecelia gets kicked out of this place, then she can come live with us. If you’re not working, then you can be her main caretaker. Who needs nurses?”
“This isn’t your responsibility, Anne! This isn’t actually any of your business.”
