Death, Taxes, and Green Tea Ice Cream

by Diane Kelly

  “One,” Nick said. “Eddie texted me about it and I told him I’d give you the news. Sundaram rented a car in San Francisco for a one-way trip. Guess where he’s supposed to turn the car in?”

  My ears pricked up. “Dallas?”

  “You got it.”

  A-ha! “So he’s headed this way. When is he scheduled to turn the car in?”

  “He left the date open.”

  “Have you contacted Cinderella to let her know to keep an eye out for him?”

  “Eddie has.”

  I felt my adrenaline surge. I missed the rush that came with a successful bust. I’d hoped to bust the doctors at Rosedale Dental, but we all know how that turned out, don’t we? Fort Worth PD had called me earlier to let me know they’d apprehended Patricia and two of the doctors, but the other two were still on the loose. Dr. Paulsen had apparently tried to hide in his attic, but a police dog had easily sniffed him out. The bloody finger had given him away. Neener-neener.

  Still, Sundaram was on his way. It shouldn’t be long now.…

  * * *

  Thursday morning, when I arrived at Cowtown Candy Company, Chloe’s Town & Country minivan was parked in the lot. Whaddya know. Looked like she’d finally decided to grace us with her magnificent presence.

  The receptionist was at her desk, looking not merely like the cat that swallowed the canary but more like the lion that had swallowed the ostrich. She pointed to the ceiling. “You can go on up. They’re waiting for you.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped past her, through the door that led to the manufacturing facility and administrative offices, and started up the metal staircase. I was halfway across the catwalk when Chloe appeared at the other end.

  “Whoa.” I hardly recognized her. Rather than her usual perfectly coordinated outfits, she wore sneakers, a pair of grungy, wrinkled yoga pants, and a faded sweatshirt. Her normally lustrous hair stuck out at crazy angles all over her head as if she’d simply rolled out of bed this morning and forgotten to brush it. She wore not a molecule of makeup. Without the usual eye shadow, mascara, liner, and blush, she was surprisingly plain.

  Her eyes blazed with vengeance. Even the dimple, which was usually so adorable, seemed to look like a flaw today, a chink in her armor. “How dare you!” she shrieked.

  I stopped in the center of the catwalk. “How dare I what? Do my job?”

  She headed toward me, stomping so hard the catwalk shook.

  The employees on the production staff stopped working and looked up at us.

  As Chloe continued to approach, I found myself instinctively reaching for my pepper spray, once again coming up empty. The Lobo had confiscated my spray along with my badge and Glock when she’d been forced to fire me.

  Dang.

  But no need to worry, right? I mean, this was Chloe “Dean’s List” Aberdeen I was dealing with. She wouldn’t do anything crazy or violent. She was probably just blowing off steam.

  I held my ground as she came closer, though I set my purse and briefcase down to have my hands free, just in case. Instinctively I turned sideways to make myself a more narrow target, squatted into a fighting stance, and raised my hands in front of my chest, ready to fend off an attack if necessary.

  When she was a mere five feet from me, she stopped. She glared into my eyes with a rage so raw, so intense, I found myself inching backward.

  “Aa-a-a-a-h!” She let out a scream like something released from the gates of hell, ducked her head, and hurled herself at me, coming at me like a human cannonball.

  On the narrow catwalk, there was nowhere for me to escape to. She collided headfirst with me, the top of her skull in my gut, knocking me back on my butt and forcing the air from my lungs.

  She pounced on me, slapping at my face, grabbing at my hair, clawing my cheeks. “You bitch! You nosey fucking bitch!”

  I twisted to the side and threw her off balance. On her knees, she struggled to a stand. But I was faster. On my feet again, I held up fists to protect my face and scrambled backward, trying to reach the stairs to escape.

  Chloe launched herself at me again and the next thing I knew we were wrestling in a standing position as if we were playing a game of chicken—without the swimming pool or anyone on our shoulders, of course.

  Jeremy and Dennis appeared at the other end of the catwalk.

  “Chloe! Stop!” Jeremy yelled.

  She didn’t listen. Hell, as crazed as she looked right now, she probably didn’t hear him.

  Jeremy and Dennis rushed toward us.

  My training gave me an advantage, and I managed to force Chloe against the rail. Pushing her back against the banister for leverage, she kicked out with both feet, hitting me in the chest and knocking me backward.

  Oh, hell no.

  This woman would not best me again.

  I grabbed her legs as she kicked out again and forced them upward. She teetered on the railing, on the verge of falling backward over the side. She shrieked, reaching out and grabbing the lapels of my new coat as momentum carried her over the rail.

  The force yanked me to the rail, bending me in two over the bar. Holy shit! With her height and curves, Chloe outweighed me by a good twenty pounds. No way could I support her weight. If she didn’t let go of me, she’d pull me over with her. I gripped the bar with one tight fist, clawing at Chloe’s hands with the other. “Let go of me!”

  Chloe hung from me for a split second, kicking her feet in the air in a desperate attempt to find leverage. Then the laws of physics took hold and Chloe dragged me over the railing with her.

  chapter thirty-three

  Have Mercy

  Looked like that fortune cookie knew its stuff. I’d reached unexpected new heights, all right.

  KERPLUNK!

  And now I’d reached unexpected depths in an enormous vat of dark chocolate. Headfirst, no less.

  The thick, warm, suffocating liquid surrounded me. I’d heard of death by chocolate, but I don’t think this was really what they had in mind.

  The good news was that the melted chocolate broke our fall. The bad news was that, in my panic, I’d sucked the thick, warm chocolate into my mouth and lungs. I fought my way up through the heavy liquid and surfaced, sputtering and coughing.

  Fortunately, the vat was only four feet deep, so I was able to stand. I wiped the thick goo from my eyes to see Chloe doing the same.

  “Call me a bitch, will you?” I seized her arm, twisted it up behind her, and put my palm on the back of her head, dunking her face-first into the chocolate. It would serve her right if she drowned.

  “Stop!” Jeremy hollered from the catwalk above. He took off running, his footsteps clang, clang, clanging on the metal as he raced down to the first floor.

  Dennis was frozen on the catwalk, his mouth gaping, his eyes wide in disbelief.

  A rounded stirring blade at the bottom of the vat brushed up against my ankle and I lifted my leg to let it pass.

  By the time Jeremy reached us, I’d let Chloe come up for air. Given that I faced an excessive force trial, I figured killing her might not look too good. Still, I had her arm crooked up behind her and a tight grip on her hair to keep her immobilized.

  Several employees had gathered around, unsure what to do. Thankfully, one of them had the sense to turn off the heat and the stirring mechanism.

  Jeremy ran up, grabbed a large wooden paddle off a hook nearby, and held it out. “Grab this, Tara!”

  I let go of Chloe, gave her a forceful shove between the shoulder blades, and took hold of the paddle, using it to leverage myself up and over the side of the vat. No easy feat given my clothes and hair held what felt like fifty additional pounds of melted chocolate.

  Chloe draped her arms over the edge of the vat and hung her head, sobbing now, her tears making rivulets in the chocolate mask coating her face. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m so sorry!”

  Dennis hurried down the steps and rushed over, helping Chloe out of the vat. She slipped as she tried to climb out, twice falli
ng back before finally managing to emerge. She stood hunched over next to the vat, her hands on her thighs, melted chocolate dripping from her to form a pool around her soaked sneakers.

  Flinging wet chocolate from his hands, Dennis turned to me. “Are you all right, Miss Holloway?”

  I was fine, though I couldn’t say the same for my brand-new coat, the beautiful one Nick had bought me for Christmas, the one with the Dry clean only label.

  A half hour later, after rinsing off the best I could in the ladies’ room and changing into a cowhide-print jumpsuit Jeremy had rounded up for me, I sat in Dennis’s office. Chloe sat in the other wing chair, still crying uncontrollably. Jeremy had pulled his rolling desk chair into the office and sat between me and Chloe, as if ready to protect me should his sister go berserk again. Dennis sat behind his desk, staring at his daughter as if she were a complete stranger. At this moment, I supposed she was.

  Dennis handed me a stack of paperwork, including invoices, bank statements, and utility bills, all of the documentation I’d asked for. I thumbed quickly through the material. The increase in electric bills was explained by a switch to an environmentally friendly green plan, though there were sticky notes on pages showing that Chloe had diverted the extra mortgage payments and fraudulent janitorial fees to her personal bank account, along with tens of thousands of dollars in payments allegedly made to suppliers.

  “You stole from this company,” Dennis said to his daughter, his voice more incredulous than accusing. “You stole from your own family. How could you do that, Chloe?” The hurt and betrayal he felt were etched on to his face, his dimple drooping, the dent in his face nothing compared to the hole in his heart.

  “I wanted you to b-b-be proud of m-m-me!” she stammered, gulping air between her sobs. “I wanted you to think everything was f-f-fine.” After a few seconds, she finally got her sobbing under control. She took a breath to calm herself. “I only intended to borrow the money, Dad. I planned to pay it back. Really!” She sounded desperate now, desperate for her father to believe her. She gestured to the computer. “If you look in the system you’ll find a spreadsheet under the file name ‘Company Loans.’”

  Dennis maneuvered the mouse, hit a few keys, and pulled up the document. I stepped over and took a look over his shoulder. Sure enough, each payment Chloe had received from the company was documented by date and amount. She’d even tacked on interest at 10 percent and tracked the total accumulated outstanding balance.

  She sniffled again and dabbed at her nose with the tissue. “I was going to pay it all back as soon as we got on our feet again.”

  “On your feet again?” Dennis asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Over the next fifteen minutes, I learned everything there was to know about the Aberdeen family, the skeletons in their closets, their interpersonal dynamics, the full extent of their dysfunction. Seemed young Chloe had clued in early on that Jeremy was a disappointment to her father. Being a daddy’s girl, she didn’t like to see her father upset and did her best to make up for Jeremy’s perceived shortcomings by being as perfect as possible herself, always pleasant and polite, pretty and punctual. It was a habit she’d developed as a young child, a role in the family that had, in some ways, been thrust upon her.

  Problem was, life isn’t perfect and neither was Chloe.

  That alleged killing she’d made in the stock market had actually been the opposite. She’d lost hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in a start-up company that had seemed like a sure thing but later went belly up. Her husband had been ousted from his job at Jennings Prefab a year and a half ago when he missed the deadline for submitting a bid to supply portable buildings to the Fort Worth school district. The flub cost the company half a million dollars in potential profits and was the last straw in a long line of blunders made by a sleep-deprived father with a colicky baby.

  Chloe worked the crumpled tissue in her hands. “He’s sent résumés out all over Dallas and Fort Worth but hasn’t gotten a single call.”

  Their exclusive lifestyle necessitated two good salaries and, with only one of them bringing home the bacon, their financial woes began to snowball. They fought to keep up appearances in their upscale neighborhood while also dealing with a costly foundation repair on their house and Chloe’s husband’s battle with depression.

  “We’ve talked to an attorney about filing bankruptcy,” Chloe said, out of tears now, though still sniffling. “We’ve also been going to a marriage counselor. All of this stress has been hard on our relationship.” She looked down at her lap for a moment before forcing herself to look back up at her father. “I’m sorry, Dad.” She turned to me. “Tara, I’m sorry about…” She waved her tissue around as if not sure how to encapsulate in words what she’d put me through. She finally settled on, “Everything.”

  Dennis was quiet a moment before releasing a long breath. “I wish you’d told us what was going on, Chloe. We could’ve helped you out.” He tilted his head. “You be honest with me from now on. You hear me?”

  She nodded.

  Dennis glanced at Jeremy before turning his attention back to Chloe. “I’ve been way too hard on your brother all these years. We may not see eye to eye or go about things the same way, but he’s a good kid.” Dennis told Chloe about the data I’d given him that showed Jeremy’s candy concepts were the company’s best sellers.

  Chloe’s lip quivered as she turned to her brother. “Oh, Jeremy, I wished I’d noticed. I’ve been so wrapped up in all of my problems I never thought to analyze the sales data.”

  Jeremy raised a forgiving palm. “It’s all right.”

  Dennis shifted his focus from his children back to me. “We’ve got a fine mess to deal with, Miss Holloway. Where do we go from here?”

  I mulled over my options.

  Option one, I could be a hard-ass, hit the company with a variety of penalties, seize their assets to satisfy their tax debt, and refer Chloe for criminal prosecution. The crazy woman could have killed me earlier. If not for that vat of chocolate breaking our fall my neck would likely be broken now.

  Option two, I could go easy on them, work out a payment plan to ensure all taxes were paid and that both the company and Chloe stayed in compliance from here on out.

  Sure, Chloe had done some bad things, some wrong things. She’d gone whacko earlier when she’d attacked me, her emotions taking over.

  But I, too, had been there, done that.

  Chloe didn’t need a criminal record bogging her down. She needed a second chance.

  Here I was, finally in a position to expose Chloe Aberdeen to all the world for the phony she was, and I wasn’t going to take it. I was going to show some mercy toward her. Besides, Dennis and Jeremy had done their best to cooperate. They hadn’t been parties to Chloe’s fraud. No sense punishing them for her actions.

  Maybe Anthony Giacomo was right. Maybe I wasn’t as tough as I thought I was.

  “Replace my coat and we’ll keep what happened today between us. I’ll work up the numbers and send y’all a bill. If you’re not able to pay the taxes all at once, an installment plan can be worked out.”

  “That’s it?” Dennis asked, his brows raised hopefully.

  “That’s it.”

  Chloe thanked me in a soft, teary voice. “I did remember you, Tara,” she admitted. “I’m sorry I pretended like I didn’t.”

  A-ha! But I supposed that was all water under the bridge now, huh?

  “You were always smart and thoughtful and willing to lend a hand.” She looked at me with eyes filled with remorse. “I kind of hated you for that.”

  Though her words sounded harsh, I knew she meant the comment to be a compliment of sorts. Who would have guessed it? Chloe Aberdeen had been jealous of me.

  She dabbed at her eyes again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was afraid, I guess. I knew you’d figure out I was a fraud.”

  “We all make mistakes,” I told her. Hell, I knew that better than anyone.

  The situ
ation thus resolved, Dennis shook my hand and Jeremy walked me out to my car.

  I looked down at the jumpsuit. “I’ll get this back to you.”

  “Keep it. It’s cute on you.” Jeremy stepped over and gave me a warm hug. “Give me a call sometime when you’re free. We’ll have a rematch at darts.”

  chapter thirty-four

  The Hot Watch Heats Up

  “What in the world are you wearing?” Clyde Hartford stopped as I came up the hallway in the black-and-white jumpsuit. “And why does your hair look gooey?”

  “I fell off a catwalk at the candy company and ended up in a vat of chocolate,” I said, making a very long, very complicated story as short and simple as possible.

  “Lu warned me you’d be a handful.” He shook his head as he headed back to his office.

  I plunked down on my rolling chair in my cubicle. I would’ve loved to go home for a shower and shampoo, but by the time I drove to Dallas and back half the day would be gone. With my days as a free woman potentially numbered, I didn’t want to have to make up any more lost time.

  I couldn’t wait for Nick to get home tonight. I knew he’d probably be tired again, but at least I’d get to curl up next to him in bed. I might only have a couple more weeks with him. I wanted to make the most of every day, every hour, every second.

  I spent the afternoon looking over the accounts receivable for Corner Pocket, Inc., a store that sold pool tables. Unfortunately, it sold them on credit to an exceptional number of deadbeats. The store had taken a large write-off that triggered the audit, but after I’d examined the ledger it seemed the deduction was legit. I was on the fence about some travel deductions that seemed to be part business, part personal, but decided to let them slide. They weren’t significant and a good CPA or tax attorney might find a way to justify them. I wrote up a clean audit report and called the business owner to tell him there’d be no tax assessment.