So About the Money Page 14

His eyes narrowed. “Which is?”

  “The pig goes to the police department when it leaves here.”

  He didn’t try to hide his smile. “Any particular officer? Or should I say detective?”

  She tapped a finger against her cheek, pretending to consider his question. “The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department could use a laugh today.”

  “Done.” Rick grabbed the cash. “This job’s been good for you. A couple of months ago, you wouldn’t have bellowed.”

  “I didn’t bellow. Bellowing would not be an improvement in my disposition.” Bellowing was a nosedive off the IQ platform.

  “Sure it is. You needed to loosen up.”

  The pig flopped on its side. Shavings drifted through the wires and littered the carpet.

  Holly turned to the amused receptionist. “Think the cleaning service has some industrial-strength deodorant?”

  Tracey’s laughter followed Holly down the hall. She’d love to see JC’s reaction when the pig showed up. After all, she could sweetly explain it was for charity.

  After dumping her briefcase on her desk, Holly made a quick pass through the office. She glanced in her mother’s office—still vacant—and checked on the staff—busy. She settled at her desk with a cup of coffee, and stared at the piles of paper.

  As Tim had noted, life had an annoying habit of moving on. Business withholdings still had to be calculated and filed. The end of the year would come whether she wanted it to or not. The Washington State Department of Revenue and the IRS didn’t care about personal problems—they wanted their money.

  Holly gave the papers another disgruntled look. Maybe they’d magically review themselves. “I need to focus.”

  She pulled the accident report from her briefcase—she had to call her insurance agent—and placed it on her desk. JC’s bold signature scrawled across the investigating officer’s line. Her finger followed the flowing ink in an idle caress. It felt as though a lifetime had passed since Sunday morning instead of a mere three days. In less than a week, JC had strolled back into her life and taken up residence.

  Damn him.

  Was she too close to the situation to be objective? JC thought Alex was responsible for the damage to her car. She didn’t want to believe it. Alex had a hot temper, but he’d never shown signs of violence.

  Did Alex not like her talking to JC because he picked up echoes of the old attraction? Or did he have something to hide? Something she might spill to the detective?

  But if Alex didn’t key her car, then the vandalism must be because she’d stirred up trouble. But all she’d done was talk to Yessica.

  Holly pressed her hands against her forehead. No. The damage couldn’t be related to Marcy’s death. Some thrill-seeking kid or local gang-banger—probably the same ones who tagged the building—had keyed her car, pure and simple.

  With a sigh, she dropped her hands. Her gaze landed on the newspaper. At least today’s article focused on Marcy’s husband. Lee Alders was the most logical murder candidate. He was violent. He’d hurt Marcy before. He had to be the killer. The police would track him down. For once, the word “closure” didn’t sound like a cliché.

  The case wasn’t anywhere near closure. The article contained far more speculation than facts, but if there was one thing Holly knew how to do, it was background research. She turned to her computer, launched the Internet browser, and typed Marcy’s name into a records search program. Within seconds, she was looking at a marriage certificate. Maricella Camelia Ramirez had married James Lee Alders in King County.

  Interesting. The ceremony had been in Seattle and not in Marcy’s hometown. From the size of the crowd at the wake, she’d have thought the wedding would’ve been held in Pasco. Maybe Lee Alders insisted on the inconvenient location. Or maybe Holly was reading too much into the information. Marcy and Lee might have had more friends in Seattle.

  She opened another tab and googled “Lee Alders Seattle.” Amid the links to a museum in Georgia, genealogy sites, and sports results, she found multiple references to Lee Alders’ sale of his company to Telnex.

  The sale made a minor splash in Seattle but the news faded quickly. Subsequent references mentioned a lawsuit filed against Alders in the state’s Superior Court.

  “He stole my idea and I can prove it, ” Nyland, the CEO of a competing tech company, claimed in the newspaper article. “His message caching system uses elements I invented.”

  A female spy in Nyland’s company allegedly provided Alders with key features that allowed him to quickly bring his system to market. The following paragraphs compared details of the two companies’ designs.

  Holly didn’t understand the technical issues, but one thing was clear. Nyland felt he had a good case for patent infringement. And Alders had done the infringing.

  She scrolled through the links. No court decision. Weird.

  She googled Nyland’s name. Dozens of hits filled the screen. She clicked the first link and rocked back against the desk chair. Nyland had died during an extreme sporting competition.

  He was ice climbing with Lee Alders when he fell.

  Son of a bitch.

  “It was an accident,” Alders asserted in a statement to the police. “I heard the crack, yelled at him to get clear, but there was nothing I could do. The first screw pulled and he was gone.”

  She read the rest of the article. Either Nyland lost his footing and fell off the face, or someone tampered with his equipment.

  An accident or murder? Either way, the man who’d challenged Alder’s success was gone.

  Holly stared at the computer screen. In addition to abusing his wife, Lee Alders had evidently abused professional relationships. And possibly killed a man as a solution to his business problems.

  Had he also found it a convenient way to get rid of an expensive, inconvenient ex-wife?

  She returned to the computer. The patent infringement case died with Nyland, but the story didn’t. Speculation about Alders’s role in both the infringement and Nyland’s death abounded—that kind of mud stuck to a man and never washed off.

  She clicked through more links, trying to find what Alders was doing now.

  No current mention of him.

  The guy couldn’t just vanish.

  The public databases exhausted, she tried the SEC website and queried public companies without success. If Alders went private—joined or started another company—she didn’t have the resources to find him.

  But she had friends who did.

  She picked up the phone and made a call.

  Chapter Twenty

  A squeaky wheel announced the arrival of the file cart. The mailroom kid stopped outside Holly’s office and deposited a handful of envelopes in her in-box. “You won the jackpot today.”

  He reached under the hanging files, hefted a package, and dumped it on her desk. “Some woman from Stevens Ventures dropped this off.”

  Holly eyed the huge manila envelope. She emptied the contents onto her desk and groaned at the pile of forms and reports. The temp agency had sent someone to Stevens Ventures to fill Marcy’s job. Clearly the new person had no idea how to organize and summarize the information. It looked like she’d packed everything remotely related to the company’s finances.

  Holly was half-tempted to send the mess back and tell Tim to organize it himself. “What’s with the shoebox approach?” she grumbled. “They're a business, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Don’t shoot me. I’m just the messenger.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She crammed the papers back in the envelope. “Take this to Rick.” If the guy had time to hustle a pig, he could clean up Tim’s mess too.

  The file clerk scooped up the package and moved down the hall.

  The phone rang, the single beep of an internal call. “What’s up, Tracey? Is the pig gone?”

  Tracey’s amused tone rolled over the line. “On its way to its new home with the sheriff’s department.” She hesitated a beat. “Crystal Blue called. She canceled.” />
  “Canceled as in needed a different time? Or canceled as in don’t call us, we’ll call you?”

  “Crystal didn’t ask to reschedule. She mentioned the Person-of-Interest thing.”

  Damn. Another lost opportunity. She couldn’t afford many of them if she was going to sell Desert Accounting and get out of Richland. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  She replaced the receiver and slumped in her chair. Great. Not only was JC messing with her, he was messing with her business. Pointing him at Lee Alders wasn’t good enough. She was going to have to find more evidence. Otherwise, at this rate she wouldn’t have an accounting firm to sell.

  Her life was not supposed to be this complicated. Things had been simple when she arrived in Richland. Do the job. Make the deal. Sell Desert Accounting. Get back to Seattle.

  Her life in Seattle was busy, interesting. The city held life’s good things—theater, restaurants, and real work. The people she worked with there respected her. If it got a little lonely, well, everything had a price.

  Still, Richland was getting to her. Threatening to suck her in. People recognized her at the grocery store, the dry cleaners. Clients introduced her to their families when she bumped into them at Costco. Even her house had captured a piece of her.

  She straightened her shoulders.

  Forget all that.

  Bottom line, she’d put her life on hold for her parents. It was the right thing to do.

  But she was not getting stuck in Richland.

  She returned Crystal’s marketing materials to its file in the drawer and stowed her disappointment. Why did the losses hurt more than the successes lifted? One “ah-shit” certainly wiped out a dozen “atta-girls.”

  Crystal might get over the gossip and reconsider. If she didn’t, there were other opportunities. Holly resolutely opened another drawer and pulled out Fred Zhang’s folder. She was still studying the Zhangs’ financial statement when one of the staff knocked on her door an hour later. “Do you have time for a couple of questions?” Sammy asked.

  “As long as it doesn’t involve a pig.”

  He hesitated, flight written all over his posture.

  Learn not to scare the staff.

  She’d have to frame that rule and hang it on the wall. “Just kidding. What’s up?”

  Sammy edged into the office and eased a folder onto her desk. “Rick told me to handle the Stevens Ventures paperwork. I transferred most of it to bookkeeping, but there are a couple of companies I don’t know what to do with.”

  Holly opened the folder. The uppermost paper was a property tax notice. “Walla Walla County? I didn’t know Tim owned land there.”

  Sammy pointed at the owner block. “There’s nothing in our system on TNM Ventures, either.”

  “I’ve told Tim to let me know when he starts a new company.” She managed to keep irritation out of her voice. “He’s probably already behind on filing something. I’ll ask him about it.” She made a note of the company name and frowned. “A Wyoming address?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t sure it’s even one of theirs.”

  “Tim must’ve gotten an incentive to incorporate there.” It happened, especially if it potentially meant jobs for the state. She rifled the remaining papers and pulled one. “Creekside is part of the Yakima retrofit.”

  Sammy took it, nodding. “Okay. I saw a folder for Creekside Manor.”

  In all, there were four companies she’d never heard of. All four shared the same Yakima post office box mailing address. “Leave these with me. Do what you can with the rest.”

  “Will do.” He reached for the folder.

  Holly leaned back and crossed her arms. “Is your sister still with the sheriff’s department?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “What’d she say about the pig?”

  For a second, he froze, then gave a lopsided smile. “She cracked up. I know it was a pain—the smell and mess. But the group really needs money. I figured Rick could raise it.”

  Holly waved a hand, dismissing the pig and Sammy’s apology. “I thought it was rather…innovative. Just tell me one thing.”

  Sammy’s tightly curled fingers betrayed his tension. “Yes?”

  “These farmer friends of yours. Do they raise llamas?”

  “Um… I’m sure they don’t send them to people’s offices.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Too bad. I hear they spit.” She was still thinking about that payback.

  Looking a little confused, Sammy vanished in the direction of his cubicle.

  She eyed the four new Stevens folders.

  Damn, she needed to get a life.

  She’d barely gotten her head back into the Zhang financial statements when the devil himself appeared at her office door. That’s what she got for thinking about JC. She’d gone and summoned him.

  Before he could open his mouth, she raised her hand in a palm-out, “stop” sign. “No. No more questions.” She gave him her best evil-squint.

  He smiled, a long, lazy invitation.

  Her stomach did a slow flip-flop. “I’ve told you everything I know about Marcy. Twice. I would do anything to help find her killer, but I. Don’t. Know. Anything.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  She cocked her head, letting surprise and more than a little suspicion cover her other reactions. “That I don’t know anything? You know I meant about Marcy.”

  “That you’d help. Come on.” He waved a hand and gestured her to her feet.

  “Why? Where? This isn’t about the pig, is it?”

  His dimples appeared and her pulse kicked into a higher gear. She really had to get a handle on those dimples.

  “Translating.”

  Damn, hung with her own words. She had opened her mouth and offered to help.

  She reluctantly reached for her jacket. “Surely you have someone on the force who speaks Spanish.”

  “You won’t need your coat.”

  Huh? She followed him out the door. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, so she couldn’t help but notice his nice tight butt. “How’s the investigation coming? Find out anything about Lee Alders?”

  “Does your lobby usually smell like a pine forest?”

  “Is that your normal negotiating style? Ignore anything that doesn’t fit your script?”

  His head turned and his dimples reappeared. “Did you say something?”

  She rolled her eyes and trailed him into the lobby. The pig cage was gone, the shavings vacuumed. The place smelled overwhelmingly piney, but it beat swine stench any day of the week.

  Tracey gave them an approving smile. “Enjoy your lunch.”

  It wasn’t worth trying to explain.

  JC opened the outer door and gave every indication he was enjoying himself.

  “You know, this is exactly what irritates me about you,” she said. “Does it even cross your mind I have my own work to do?”

  He just smiled and stepped across the atrium to Stevens Ventures’ door.

  The kind of interpreting JC needed suddenly occurred to her.

  She halted abruptly. “No. I can’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  JC’s hand at the small of Holly’s back propelled her into the Stevens Ventures’ lobby. Except for JC and her, the place was vacant—the receptionist desk empty, the phone lines blinking.

  She dug her heels into the plush carpet. “I won’t be part of an interrogation. These people had nothing to do with Marcy’s death.”

  JC finally looked at her. “Lillian isn’t being interrogated.”

  So, she was right about the kind of interpreting he needed.

  “We need to ask her about Marcy. Lillian worked with the vic— the woman. She might know who Marcy was seeing.”

  Holly turned away. This wasn’t like translating at the wake. That was spontaneous, defusing a crisis. This was…insulting. “You’re using me.”

  “Holly.” JC pulled her in front of him. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t important.
She’s your friend. She’ll be more comfortable with you.” He slid his hands to her shoulders in a gentle caress.

  Refocusing her or reassuring her, Holly wasn’t sure what he was doing. For one long moment, she wanted to put her arms around his waist and lean into his shoulder. Make all this go away.

  “Lillian’s upset. I’m not using you to get to her.” His tone managed to sound intimate and reasonable at the same time. “If you can talk to her. Well, sign. Help her calm down. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “That’s not all you’re asking, and you know it.” She broke free of his hold and moved to the receptionist’s desk. He was making nice to get what he wanted, in this case an interpreter, not because he cared about either her or Lillian.

  More manipulation, an area he excelled at.

  “Please. I need your help.”

  “You need me when it’s convenient.” She scanned the foyer, refusing to look at him. “What happened to ‘stay out of my investigation’? That’s always been your problem. You bend the rules, but only when it helps you.”

  JC didn’t say anything. Reluctantly, she glanced up. He was watching her, a curious expression in his eyes. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “Yes. No. Yes.” She wasn’t ready to have this conversation. She certainly didn’t want to have it where anyone could walk into the middle of it. “But you’ve always done it—made up the rules. For everybody else,” she blurted.

  It left her feeling she couldn’t depend on him.

  “Always?” His lips thinned.

  She really, really didn’t want to have this conversation.

  Apparently he didn’t either, because he moved in front of her and studied her. He didn’t try to touch her again, but he stood between her and the exit.

  “The guy who works back there, Fu…” JC hooked a thumb toward the back office area.

  “Phoua. He’s a property manager.”

  “Yeah, him.” JC took a breath and plowed straight ahead. “Look. Pho said he’d seen you do that ‘hand stuff’ with Lillian. And I remembered you used to do it in high school, so—”

  “That ‘hand stuff’?”