Riding High

by Stacy Finz

  “Define meetings,” she said, not trying to be obtuse, but she didn’t want to get something wrong and have them say she’d lied. The truth was, half of Wall Street vacationed in the Cayman Islands during the winter. It was less than a four-hour flight from New York and there were plenty of package travel deals. She and Evan had drinks and dinners with plenty of associates.

  “Did you come together with anyone involved in banking, hedge funds, or any other financial institutions?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what way?”

  “For goodness’ sake, I can’t remember everything we did while we were there. But we met some of our friends, friends of friends, and associates at restaurants and bars. I think we snorkeled with someone from Goldman Sachs.”

  “How about with anyone who was local?”

  “You mean from the Caymans? I don’t think so, but my recollection of something that happened more than a year ago is hazy at best.”

  “Think hard,” Donovan said.

  She didn’t like his tone. “Agent Donovan, I would tell you if I remembered, but I don’t. It wasn’t like Evan and I were together every hour of the day.”

  “Explain that.”

  “What do you mean, explain that?” What the hell was there to explain? “When you and your wife go on vacation, do you spend every waking hour together?”

  “I don’t have a wife,” he said. Big shocker there, Gia thought. The man was a troll.

  “You know, I think I’m done here.” It was like before. They grilled her and grilled her on things that were totally irrelevant. She started to gather up her purse.

  “Ms. Treadwell, we appreciate you talking to us, we really do,” Agent Croce said. “I think we’re making some headway here and if you’ll just indulge us a little bit longer, we’ll be out of your hair. What do you say we take a breather for a second?” He turned his gaze to Rhys. “You have any cold drinks?”

  Rhys rolled his eyes, picked up the phone, and asked someone to bring in a couple of sodas. Gia didn’t want a beverage; she wanted to go home. But she stayed anyway because she wanted to know what the agents were up to and why her trip to the Caymans with Evan was suddenly of interest.

  The Scooby Doo woman came in with a bunch of soft drinks. Donovan gestured for her to take her pick. She intentionally chose the only nondiet.

  “Thanks, Connie,” Rhys said. Connie left and closed the door.

  The agents tried to make small talk with Rhys, who was cordial but not friendly. She got the distinct impression that he wasn’t too impressed with their interviewing skills.

  Croce cleared his throat, signaling that the break was over. “I’m gonna be real straight with you, Ms. Treadwell; we think Evan Laughlin was laundering money out of the Caymans. We believe that during your vacation he made contact with someone who was helping him move the money. We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on that.”

  “I don’t know anything about it.” And if she did, wouldn’t that make her complicit?

  “You said you weren’t always together. Could you help us with that—days, times, where you both went? We’re trying to establish a timeline.”

  “I can’t be specific . . . it was a vacation so it wasn’t like I kept a calendar. I do know that I spent a good part of one of the days at the hotel spa. Another day he went fishing on one of those charter boats and I get seasick. . . .”

  “Do you know the name of the charter company?” Croce broke in. He was taking notes.

  “I don’t.”

  “Can you remember any other point when you were apart for a length of time, like say at least an hour?”

  “He ran in the morning and I went to the gym and one day I went shopping and he stayed at the hotel. As far as dates and times . . . I couldn’t tell you. Like I said, we were on vacation and trying to be spontaneous. So if that’s all, I need to get going.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Treadwell. This was very helpful,” Croce said. He was apparently the good cop.

  She started to get to her feet when he said, “Just one other thing.” He slid another grainy photo across the table. “You recognize this man?”

  Her heart hammered in her chest and she sat back down, trying to look calm while she pretended to study the photo. What the hell did Rufus Cleo have to do with any of this? “Although he looks vaguely familiar, I don’t. Why?”

  “You sure you don’t know who he is?” Croce asked and flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Gia had no doubt of that because Croce had just caught her in a big fat lie.

  Chapter 9

  “You did what?” Flynn paced back and forth across Gia’s front room as she painstakingly explained her impromptu meeting with the Bureau boys.

  “I lied to them. I got nervous and without stopping to think about the consequences—how it would look—I said I didn’t recognize Rufus Cleo in the picture. Clearly the agents think Cleo had something to do with this. And they were asking all kinds of questions about our associates, about money laundering, about who we had dinner with in the Caymans. I don’t know what came over me . . . I just got scared. I thought if I admitted to knowing Cleo it would somehow implicate me.”

  “This is why you never talk to the feds without a lawyer.” He combed his hand through his hair. “Ah Jesus Christ, Gia.”

  “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?”

  “That depends. Can they link you to Cleo?”

  Gia closed her eyes and slowly nodded her head. “I was on the board of his charitable trust.”

  “Then yes, you’re in trouble.” Big trouble, and so was he because he didn’t want to get involved and here he was, getting involved.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “You get a lawyer, like I told you to do in the first place.”

  “How will a lawyer get me out of this? I lied, Flynn.”

  He sat next to her on the couch and forced himself to keep a fair distance. She was scared and he wanted to soothe her, which would be a mistake. They both needed to keep their heads on this one and, unfortunately, his little head had a mind of its own.

  “If it were me, I’d go back to the feds and say my client had a memory lapse when the agents showed her the photograph.” He turned to face her. “You said the photo was grainy, right?” Gia nodded. “I’d say: ‘The quality of the picture was so terrible that at first she couldn’t identify the subject. But after thinking about it, she now recalls that it was the late Rufus Cleo. She remembered because she used to serve on his charity board.’”

  She snorted. “They’ll see right through that.”

  “Yep. But better to clear it up now than when you’ve been charged with fraud, money laundering, theft, and perjury.”

  “Oh God, am I going to be charged?”

  “I don’t know, Gia. How did Evan know Cleo?” He shouldn’t be asking these questions. They were for her attorney to ask.

  “From the financial world. Cleo went through Evan to get me on his board. But I wasn’t aware that Cleo was in the Caymans, staying in the same hotel as us. That’s why I was so surprised when the agents showed me the picture . . . and why I panicked.”

  Flynn wished he had the photos to see the time stamps. Although he suspected the feds had the times and dates down pat. And probably a lot more. The fact that Gia, Laughlin, and Cleo were at the same place at the same time was hardly a smoking gun. Everyone knew Seven Mile Beach was a playground for financial types. All three of them could’ve had drinks at the bar and no one would’ve lifted an eyebrow. But the part that raised a million red flags was that Cleo was found in his Manhattan office shot in the head a few weeks before the FBI went to arrest Evan Laughlin and found that he’d absconded. The murder had been splashed all over the news. And just when Flynn had tired of the endless coverage of Cleo’s death, the press had latched on to the Laughlin story, and how he’d committed
the largest investment fraud in U.S. history.

  As far as Flynn knew, no one had ever linked Cleo’s murder to Laughlin’s Ponzi scheme, but he was betting the feds had something to link the two, something more than just the fact that the two men had vacationed at the same hotel.

  Cleo was a well-known philanthropist and a certified public accountant. At the time of his death he’d been going through a nasty divorce. There’d been speculation—at least in the press—that the ex had had him bumped off to circumvent a prenup.

  Flynn watched Gia worry her bottom lip until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Best advice I can give you is to rehire your old lawyer. He’s familiar with the case and that’ll save you money in the long run.” Her face had lost its rosy complexion from the morning. She was now white as a sheet of printer paper.

  “I don’t want him.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Why not?”

  “Because he kept telling me to make a deal with the U.S. Attorney. A deal for what? I didn’t do anything wrong, Flynn. I truly believed Evan was aboveboard. For God’s sake, he worked for one of the most respected investment houses in the country. His clients were educated and wealthy people, even powerful unions.” She stopped and stared up at him with eyes so guileless that he wanted to believe that no one could be that good an actress. “What you said about going to the agents and admitting that I knew Cleo . . . it seems like sound advice. And more credible if I do it quickly. Because you know these guys, would you represent me? Just for now. Just until I figure out a game plan. I’m desperate here.”

  Flynn leaned his head against the back of the couch and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Only until you find someone else. And until then, Gia, these are my ground rules: From now on, you talk to no one about the case unless I’m present, you understand?” When she nodded in the affirmative, he continued. “No lies between us—I don’t like surprises. And no sleeping together.”

  She jerked into a rigid position. “Who said anything about sleeping together?”

  “Ah, give me a break. We’ve been dancing around it since you found me in your shower. The other night, when that pinhead with the camera showed up, you wanted me so bad I could feel it from over the garage.”

  “You’re either seriously delusional or you’re transferring your own feelings onto me.”

  His lips curved up. “Cowgirl up, Gia; you’re attracted to me, just admit it. And I definitely want you, have since you held that Winchester on me. But as long as I’m representing you, nothing’s gonna happen. Those are the rules. Take it or leave it.”

  Color returned to her face. “Believe you me, it won’t be a hardship.”

  Maybe not for you.

  “And by the way,” Gia said, “I met your mother. She’s sweet and lovely and it’s hard to believe you’re her son.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, I get that a lot. You meet her at the farmers’ market?”

  Gia got up, rummaged through her hand bag, which she’d left on a side table, and held up the jar of honey. “I bought this.”

  He smiled. “Good stuff, huh?”

  “Amazing. I may just raise bees and hire your mom to make honey.”

  “She’d be better than Reynolds, that’s for damn sure. You never did tell me where you dug him up.”

  “I told you, he came highly recommended. Did you talk to your friend?”

  “Yeah; I tacked her number up in the barn.” That was before a panicked Gia had waylaid him on his way out. “I’ve gotta go. I’d like to settle this Cleo thing tomorrow, which means a drive to Sacramento. In the meantime, I’ll have Doris send you a representation agreement.”

  “Okay,” Gia said. “Do you want me to write you a check?”

  Yes, if I were smart. “We’ll settle up at some point. And, Gia: no secrets, you hear me? I catch you in one lie and we’re done.” The last thing he needed was for her to make a fool of him in front of his former colleagues.

  “Starting when?” she asked, following him to the front door.

  Ah, for Christ’s sake, what was he getting himself into? “Starting now!”

  She grimaced. “Okay, then you’d better sit back down. I need to tell you everything.”

  Just when he’d started to believe her innocence bullshit . . . He wanted to kick himself for being swayed by a pretty face and a great ass. This time he took a chair instead of the couch. “Start talking.”

  “This is the thing,” she said, nibbling on her fingernail. “You’re wrong about the shower. While I lied about you not being impressive”—she let her eyes fall to his crotch, as she had that first time—“I also thought you were rude, arrogant, and extremely presumptuous. However, in the interest of full disclosure, in a moment of deep weakness—and too much wine at the McCreedys’—I did want you the night you stayed over the garage . . . for cheap sex and nothing more. So there’s my confession. Are we all good now?”

  Good—and hard.

  “Yep. See how telling the truth will set you free?” He got up and walked out before doing something stupid like bending her over the sofa.

  * * *

  After Flynn left, Gia went down to the barn to spend some quality time with Rory and to retrieve Annie’s number. She found both horses in the corral with their noses in the grass. Since the rain, the meadow seemed greener and everything smelled fresher. She remembered once reading that scientists called the scent “petrichor,” created when rain hit the ground, releasing plant oils and actinomycetes into the air.

  Rory came up to the fence and nuzzled her hand. The beggar was looking for a treat. Gia usually brought apple or carrot slices. Not this evening, though. She’d been too distracted, thinking about Flynn’s edict that they not sleep together. We’ve been dancing around it since you found me in your shower.

  Guilty as charged.

  She thought Evan had drained her sex drive, actually obliterated it. Guess she was wrong because every time she saw Flynn she wanted to pull him into the bushes and rip off his clothes. But he was absolutely right. As long as he was her lawyer he couldn’t be her lover.

  The specter of being convicted and sent to prison for a crime she hadn’t committed was too real. And if anyone could undo the blunder she’d made that afternoon it was Flynn. He had a relationship with the agents. As a former agent himself, they trusted him. Hell, they even played poker together.

  So, yeah, sex was out of the question.

  She went inside the barn, found the note with Annie’s number, went back to the house, and gave her a call. Annie came bright and early the next morning.

  She wasn’t what Gia expected. Younger than someone with a master’s in ag managerial economics. Her hair was stuffed under a beaten-up straw cowboy hat, there was a tattoo of Cesar Chavez on her left arm, and she wore combat boots and a cropped pair of cargo pants. She had a turquoise Ford pickup that looked right out of the movie American Graffiti and a broad smile that made Gia like her instantly.

  “You’ve got a great place here,” Annie said. “Flynn wasn’t kidding about the house.”

  Gia knew it was impressive, despite its rustic attempt to be otherwise. It made her wonder whether Annie knew her story . . . if she was already passing judgment.

  Annie gazed out over the land, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “Flynn said you’ve got a thousand acres. How much of that do you want to plant?”

  “Not all of it.” Gia didn’t have to know a lot about agriculture to know that the start-up cost to farm the entire property would cost a fortune. Plus, she had the cattle to contend with. “Just enough to look serious.”

  Annie gazed at her strangely. “Look serious?”

  Gia pretended to be joking; she still wasn’t ready to tell anyone except Dana the real plan. “Clay said people grow alfalfa here. What do you think of that idea?”

  “I think it’s a good idea. The weather is good for it and Plumas County has a proven track record.” Annie stuck both hands in her back pockets. “But
I think you should diversify.”

  Gia smiled because Annie was definitely talking her language. “What else do you think I should grow?”

  “Let’s walk while we talk.” They headed to the same pasture Reynolds had tested and Annie bent down and stuck her thumb in one of the holes he’d made with his soil probe. “Nice.” She wiped the dirt on her pants.

  “You could do a large block of alfalfa,” Annie continued, “and a second block of meadow hay, which, according to my research, does well here. But I also think you should do Christmas trees. There’s good business in it. Besides the trees, you can sell cuttings and wreaths. A fancy wreath can go for as much as fifty bucks. The trees are low maintenance and this is the perfect climate. I’m thinking balsam fir, Douglas fir, and Scots pine.”

  Christmas trees? Gia had never thought of that. “How long does it take to grow a tree?”

  “About eight years for a tree ranging five to seven feet. You can plant fifteen hundred trees per acre. Most growers replant two hundred new trees each year to replace the ones they sell.”

  “I don’t have eight years.”

  Annie laughed. “Gia, as you well know, any good investment takes time to germinate. Besides, you’ll have the hay. That’s a much shorter turn around, but you’d have to plant in the fall and you’ll have to irrigate, which is costly. My suggestion, because you’re starting from scratch, is to go organic. There’s a high demand for organic hay and low supply.”

  Jeez, she was impressive. Reynolds hadn’t discussed any of this with Gia. He’d been more programmatic, wanting to test the soil and examine weather patterns. She supposed Annie didn’t have to because she actually knew what she was doing.

  “How soon would we have to plant the trees?”

  “Right now. But we’d have to find seedlings that are dormant.”

  “Well, that’ll be a problem because Flynn has grazing rights for the year. I suspect he’ll move the cattle when it starts snowing, but . . .”

  “Flynn.” Annie shook her head and grinned. “He’s always a problem.”

  She said it in such a teasing, lighthearted way that Gia wondered if the two had been romantic . . . were still romantic. It was pathetic, but Gia felt a little sick about it. Annie was one of those mother-earth types—with her healthy skin, lithe frame, and musical voice—that men like Flynn really went for.