Craving Heat

by Adrienne Giordano

  “For embezzlement?”

  “Think about it. They’re a nonprofit. Any hint of impropriety could ruin them.”

  Jay thought back to his meeting with Will and his comment about not making their parting a focal point. “They want it to go away.”

  “Of course they do.”

  He stared up at the gray clouds overhead. Sometimes, hell, most times, he didn’t understand the world. By now, given what he’d seen of a celebrity lifestyle, the backflips people did to save their own asses was commonplace.

  Fix it. He looked back at the phone screen, into his sister’s blue eyes. “I’m not buying it. They wanted to get rid of you because of me. The embezzling is an easy fix. A way for Will, that lying son of a bitch, to squirm out of our agreement. Sam, I’m sorry, honey. I know you liked that job.”

  “I did like it. But if they got rid of me because of you and instead accused me of stealing, I don’t want to work there. They’re not good people.”

  “Now what? You keep quiet? Let them pin this on you? No way.”

  “I have to or they’ll bring in the authorities.”

  A nonprofit willing to walk away from an embezzler to save their reputation. None of it felt right. “How much money are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know. If it’s what’s in that account I found, it’s a lot. Possibly millions.”

  The throbbing behind his eyes intensified. They were lining Sam up for a full-scale investigation. Buying time to make a case against her.

  Lawyer.

  “Sam, you need a lawyer. Just in case. Do you still have those reports you downloaded on your laptop?”

  “The ones showing your supposed travel reimbursements? Sure.”

  “Good. Go home, get clothes, and come to Steele Ridge. We need to figure out what, if anything, they have on you.”

  * * *

  “No way.”

  Maggie sat at her desk eyeballing the expense estimate for borrowed manpower from the State Police. The sun streaming through her windows should have provided warmth, but the estimate? That sucker froze her to the bone. At least she wasn’t so frozen she couldn’t reach into her desk drawer for an antacid.

  She popped one, then another. Couldn’t hurt.

  A copy of the report had been sent to Grif so her cousin would see just how much money his client had to pony up. Who knew having a hunky football star in town could be so complicated?

  The loss of her Bahamas trip confirmed it. She glanced down at the tear-away calendar where today’s motivational quote told her to kick a door of opportunity open and wedge her foot in it. Three weeks ago, she’d drawn one of those silly cocktail umbrellas under the quote. If all had gone well, today would have been getaway day.

  She’d wanted that trip. Badly. Not just for the break, but to connect with other women. She had plenty of friends, but not women on the job, who understood the challenges of a female in a male-dominated position.

  The Bahamas trip, she’d hoped, would provide a mental break from her constant looping mind. Schedules, employee reviews, reports, and budgets. Never enough time for all of it. Since taking this job, she’d gotten comfortable with to-do lists that bumped to the next day. Or the next week.

  A knock on her open door sounded. Blaine—Deputy Do-Right, as Reid called him—stood in his crisp uniform, the creases in his pant legs so sharp they’d slice off a head.

  “Ma’am, Jayson Tucker and his sister are here to see you.”

  A gentle tingle cruised down her neck. Jay. Here. After that line he’d given her about a dinner date, she had reason to feel a little girly-girl over a surprise visit. Besides, when was the last time she’d allowed herself to feel girly-girl over a man? Especially when wearing a drab beige uniform.

  “Send them in,” she said.

  Did she have time to check her hair? Not that she could do much with a ponytail, but a look couldn’t hurt. Maybe throw on some lip gloss she carried in her backpack.

  Lip gloss? A light touch of makeup was one thing. Makeup meant polished. Lip gloss? Whole other affair.

  One she desperately needed.

  With Jay.

  Girl, you need to calm down.

  Except, there he was, in her doorway, all blond-haired and blue-eyed, looking like the stud he was in designer jeans and a white button-down that fit his chest just enough to make Maggie’s mouth water.

  What’s the temperature in here?

  Even if she’d had that lip gloss on, it’d have melted right off.

  “Good morning,” Maggie said as Sam slid into view. “This is a surprise. I thought you went home yesterday.”

  “I did. Now I’m back.”

  And something in the way she said that, the emphasis on “now” gave Maggie pause.

  She pointed to the guest chairs in front of her desk. “Have a seat. Is everything all right?”

  Jay held his arm out and waited for Sam to step inside. She wore a gray skirt that hit just above the knee and a cream blouse under a light blue blazer. A black mesh briefcase hung on her shoulder. Workwear.

  Jay followed her into the office, allowing her to pick the seat she wanted. They had an odd rhythm, these two. Being the oldest of her siblings, Maggie understood it, but this went beyond family hierarchy. This, given what Jay had told her about their mother, was about protection.

  Control.

  Sam glanced at her brother, who lifted one shoulder. “Your news. You tell her.”

  “I went into work this morning and was promptly fired.”

  Okay, then. Rough start to the week. Holy moly. Maggie sat back and the spring on her chair squeaked, breaking the sudden silence. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  “Remember the other night when I mentioned I found weird accounting?”

  Oh, no. Jay stared straight at her, reading her reaction. Well, he wouldn’t get one. In her job, success often meant suppressing her body language. Whatever this was, she’d handle it professionally.

  When Maggie didn’t answer, Sam continued. “They think I was helping the CFO embezzle money.”

  If Jayson thought he had public image issues before, wait until the press got a hold of his sister being an alleged thief.

  “I see,” Maggie said. “And why would they think this?”

  “Aside from the bogus marketing account that, ironically enough, I discovered, I have no idea. On Friday, I brought the accounting discrepancies to the director’s attention. This morning I got fired.”

  Un-hunh. Maggie slid a gaze to Jay, then back to Sam. Something wasn’t adding up here. “That’s quite a leap. What proof did they offer?”

  “No proof,” Jay said. “They have a report showing some reimbursements. To me. Which never happened. I’ve never taken a dime from them.”

  “You think they set you up?”

  “That’s exactly what I think. Someone, the CFO I presume, threw in a couple of payments to me here and there so it wouldn’t raise any flags.”

  “He’s the one who quit?”

  Sam nodded. “Supposedly. I never thought he quit. He left too suddenly. They probably gave him the same speech they gave me.”

  “What speech?”

  “They told her if she left quietly, they wouldn’t call in the authorities.”

  She’d seen oddball things, but major charities didn’t usually let embezzlers go free. Maggie rolled her bottom lip out. “That makes no sense to me.”

  “It didn’t for me either.” Jay circled one hand. “Think about it. They dumped me over potential bad press. Imagine if people found out that donations—from folks who can barely afford their mortgages—were siphoned off by a greedy CFO. The fallout would be disastrous.”

  “They’d lose donors.”

  “Bet your ass, they would.”

  Maggie met Sam’s eye. “So that’s it? They tell you you’re a crook and this goes away?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jay said. “I see this as them building a case while she thi
nks she’s clear. How much evidence do they need to come after her?”

  So much for the surprise visit being personal in nature. The girly-girl excitement deflated like a punctured tire. Still, of all the people Jayson could have reached out to, he once again trusted her with damaging information. For that alone, she should be grateful.

  Would advising them be a conflict of interest? Maybe. They were friends, though, and for her friends, people she cared for, she’d do just about anything.

  “I have limited information,” she said. “I can only give you generalizations.”

  “Understood. I apologize if we’re putting you in a tough spot. If you want us to go, say the word. No harm. No foul.”

  She waved the suggestion away. “We’ll work with hypotheticals.”

  Hypotheticals, in Maggie’s world, were abundant when it came to garnering information.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. If I were investigating this, I’d be looking for checks written, electronic transfers, anything that shows money went from the charity’s accounts to Jayson’s.” She looked at Jay. “Are you sure they’ve never reimbursed you for something? Even the smallest amount?”

  “Never. I made sure. Celebrities can get crucified over accepting money from the charities they represent. More to the point, I didn’t want it.”

  He’d tried to avoid the very thing happening. The life of a superstar navigating public perception.

  Maggie tapped her fingers on the edge of her desk. “Then we”—We? When did this become a we situation?—“need to figure out what they have.”

  Sam reached into her briefcase and held up her laptop. “When I found the weird account, I downloaded the folder to my online storage so I could work on it over the weekend.”

  Oh, boy. This could be sticky. Most companies stripped terminated employees of all files and access to proprietary information. If they’d asked Sam for the laptop or any charity-related content and she lied…

  Maggie held up her hand. Before she even looked at, never mind touched, that laptop, she needed to ascertain how far over the line she might be here. If Sam had lied about having company files, Maggie would be forced to step back. She cleared her throat. “That’s your personal laptop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they know you have the reports?”

  “No.”

  “Did they ask you for their proprietary information?”

  “No. They asked for my keycard and my company laptop. Which I gave them. They didn’t ask about any files.”

  The line was thin, but it was most definitely there. At the very least, the charity was negligent in ascertaining whether Sam had turned over all proprietary information. They didn’t ask. She didn’t tell.

  Maggie let out a sigh. A thin line indeed. “Let’s go into the conference room and see what we can find.”

  11

  Maggie spread Celebrate Hope’s bank statements, spreadsheets, and a reconciliation report across the conference room table.

  She paused at one of the spreadsheets and skimmed each row. An entry with Jay’s name showed a reimbursement for travel expenses totaling $4,235.00. Below that, another. This one marked miscellaneous.

  $9,729.45.

  That was a whole lot of miscellaneous.

  Even with his wealth, would a man forget reimbursements that large?

  She held up the page. “This one shows two transactions. One for travel and one for miscellaneous. Do we know what they’re for?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “I looked into them. One is supposedly for a first-class flight to LA.”

  “LA,” Jay said. “When did I go to LA for them?”

  “You didn’t.”

  Maggie set the report down. “Can we prove that?”

  “I absolutely can. The only trips I’ve made to LA were for games. My accountant has all my credit card statements and receipts for the last five years.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. “What about this miscellaneous one? That’s the big daddy.”

  Sam shook her head. “I haven’t found anything on that yet. I was looking for that one last night before I went to bed.”

  Copies of checks. If they had those, they might be able to tie them back to something. If that something even existed. Maggie said, “My department gets copies of our canceled checks with our bank statement. Does the charity’s bank send copies?”

  “Yes. They come with our e-statements.” Sam scooted sideways in the rolling chair and opened her laptop. “What are the dates on those reports?”

  “One is March and one is August.”

  Jay rose from his chair and cornered the table while Sam’s fingers cruised the keyboard. “I had training camp in August. Nowhere near LA.”

  “I have March and, hold on a sec.” Sam nibbled her bottom lip as she studied the screen. “Here’s August.”

  Intent on seeing the evidence herself, Maggie joined Jay, standing beside him. His shirt sleeve brushed her bare skin, his heat pulling her a smidge closer as the three of them studied the laptop screen. Sam clicked on a PDF file and an image of a bank statement with copies of canceled checks—front and back—popped up.

  “There,” Maggie reached around Sam’s shoulder and pointed to a check made out to Jay. Beside it, the flip side image showed the back of the check.

  With Jay’s signature.

  * * *

  What in holy fuck?

  Jay swiveled sideways and faced Maggie, looking straight at her. Considering what Maggie was probably thinking right about now, his next statement might be the most important of his life because he knew what he’d be thinking. That the guy in front of him was a crook. A liar to the nth.

  “I did not sign those checks.”

  She held his gaze—zero movement, not even a millimeter—while she processed his words. “You’re sure?”

  The way she said it, that tinge of…what? Something. Not doubt, but not assurance either. Something squarely in the middle, but bottom line was she didn’t believe him. Not completely. After admitting things to her he’d only trusted to his inner circle, her lack of confidence damn near gutted him.

  All the years of dealing with Drunk Marlene, the compartmentalizing and visualization, the coping he’d done hadn’t prepared him for the systematic unraveling of his career. And now this? This…this…shit…could land his ass in jail.

  If it got out.

  Protect, protect, protect.

  Still with his eyes on Maggie, he touched Sam’s shoulder. “Would you give us a minute please?”

  His baby sister wasn’t an idiot. She sensed the energy shift and peered over her shoulder, first at Jay and then Maggie. “Um, sure. I’ll grab a soda or something.”

  In the few seconds it took for her to get through the door and shut it behind her, Jay put a stranglehold on his temper.

  He locked his jaw, fought the wave of anger banging around inside him. Goddammit. So fucking tired of living in a fucking bubble where every fucking thing he said became fodder.

  Well, screw that. Officially out of a job, he was done constantly running offense. Let the defense have a shot. Starting with Maggie, a woman who’d interrupted his thoughts—handcuffs and all—way more than any sane man should allow.

  He pointed at the laptop. “You don’t believe that’s not my signature.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t have to, sweetheart. I can read you.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.”

  She could doubt it all she wanted. “Then look me in the eye and tell me you believe me.”

  She looked at him. Dead straight in the eye, just as he’d asked. He waited. Come on, Maggie, tell me.

  A long few seconds of silence dragged on while Jay’s rib cage came apart. Apparently, the good sheriff couldn’t grant the back half of his request.

  “Great,” he finally said. “I thought we’d gotten so close.”

  Sarcasm. The Tucker family go-to. Did it make him a prick? Sure. But from the momen
t she’d stepped into his world, he’d been honest. Painfully honest in detailing things that scared the ever-loving shit out of him if the tabloids got hold of it. And now Maggie considered him a liar.

  Ironic.

  “Don’t be an ass,” she said. “I’m in law enforcement and being as objective as possible. Do I think you’re lying? Of course not. Am I willing to consider, as any good law enforcement official would, there’s a chance your accountant handed you a stack of checks to endorse and these were in there? Absolutely. Anything’s possible.”

  “I didn’t. I’d know it.”

  “Then making sure shouldn’t be a problem.”

  What now? His head snapped back. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about proving it.”

  Let’s do it. “All for it, babe. How?”

  “Knock it off with the sweetheart and babe crap. If you want my help, treat me like I have a brain. Understood?”

  Damn, she had a mouth on her. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you had a brain.”

  “Then act like it. Am I clear?”

  She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. Body language speak daring him to comment. Stubborn woman. Matched with him, they’d take ornery to another level. But she had a point. He’d pushed her. “You’re clear. I apologize if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t offend me. You pissed me off. Big difference. Now, as for proving your innocence, I testified in a trial last year. A fraud case involving a resident. Prosecutors brought in a handwriting expert to verify signatures.”

  A handwriting expert. His life was coming apart and she wanted to bring in someone practicing a wildly imperfect pseudoscience.

  He walked to the window, leaned against the frame, and stared out at the patch of lawn behind the building.

  At least there were no reporters.

  For once.

  Jesus, he couldn’t do this anymore. The hiding. Not defending himself when people called him names and accused him of rotten things. For years, he’d dealt with it. Thrived on it, even. All to save his precious reputation. His money in the bank, as he liked to refer to it, because shoe companies—the absolute gold standard of endorsement deals— liked squeaky-clean athletes.