Crazy in Love (10 page)

Rhonda
’s eyes widened a bit. “Because…” She shifted on her seat. “Because he’s breaking the law.”

“
In which case, it’s my understanding that the appropriate thing to do is go to the police.”

“
I can’t go to the police,” she said.

He angled his head to look at her.
“Why not?”

She sighed.
“It’s complicated.”

“
Breaking the law tends to get that way.”

“
I was in Mr. Chase’s office last week, and I noticed that the safe door was open a crack. I was surprised, because it’s not like Mr. Chase to ever leave the safe open, so I went to shut it and I saw a laptop. The thing is, Mr. Chase? He does all his work at the office, on his desktop computer. I’ve never seen him with a laptop before. So then I…” She wrung her hands and glanced downward. “I did something I’m not very proud of. I snooped.”

“
Really? I gotta admit, I hadn’t pegged you for the type, Rhonda.”

She continued, staring off into the distance, talking as if Jake wasn
’t even there. “I don’t know why I did it. It’s just that I handle all the books, and Mr. Chase isn’t the kind of man to take work home, so I just wondered what it was for. I found some… accounts. A subsidiary company I’ve never heard of. Transactions that just don’t make sense.” She turned her eyes on Jake. “You know Mr. Chase is the president of the Historical Preservation Society.” She lowered her voice, leaned sideways toward Jake, and talked out of the side of her mouth. “I think Mr. Chase has been siphoning money from those funds. You know. The government restoration grants?”

Jake leaned to his side, too. When in Rome.
“You
think
he’s embezzling? Or you
know
?
Do you have evidence?”

Rhonda straightened up.
“That’s just it. Mr. Chase came back in so I shut the laptop and put it back in the safe. I don’t think he knew what I was doing. But I don’t have the combination to the safe, so I can’t get back in there.”

Jake stared at her.
“And again, I’m failing to see where I fit in here.”

She paused, waged an obvious internal war, and then continued.
“There was a large cash withdrawal from the account about six months ago.”

The bartender wandered over and put a napkin down in front of Rhonda.

“A seltzer with lime, please,” Rhonda said, so quietly that the bartender had to ask her to repeat it. Jake waited to speak again until she had her drink, partially because the silence would put her on edge, and partially because he was too stunned at his dumb luck.

“
Six months ago, huh?”

She smoothed her hands over her skirt nervously.
“The withdrawal is dated March twenty-sixth.”

March 26
th. The week after the evidence went missing and Jake’s life went to hell. Right about the time that Elaine Placie ran off.
Well, hellooooo kitty.

“
So, what exactly are you saying, Rhonda?”

Rhonda took a sip through the tiny stirring straw.
“I’m saying that there’s something strange going on. And after connecting some of the dots, I thought that maybe you might want to know about it.”

Interesting.
Jake shook his head. “I just realized you never answered my question before. If you think your boss is such a bad guy, why not just go straight to the police?”

Rhonda held his eye for a long moment, then her lower lip started to tremble and silent tears slid down her cheeks. Jake reached forward, grabbed a fresh napkin off the pile behind the bar, and handed it to her. She dabbed at her face and took a deep breath.

“I know he’s not perfect,” she said. “Trust me, I know that better than anyone.”

Jake stared at her for a while, his brain momentarily resisting the obvious because it was just too weird.

“You’re in love with him,” he said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. Although he guessed, on some plane, it made sense.
Mousy librarian type
+
handsome albeit slimy boss
=
seriously sick love connection.

Actually, he was surprised he hadn
’t thought of it before.

Rhonda sighed heavily and her eyes grew moist again.
“He’s going to need someone standing beside him when all this comes out. If I go to the police, I can’t be that person. But I can’t know about all of this, either, and not do anything.” She turned pleading eyes on Jake. “I know it’ll be hard on him, but his only chance of ever being a truly good man—the man I know he can be—is if all this comes out. He’ll spend a little time in jail, and when he gets out, I’ll be there, waiting. He can start over.
We
can start over.” For the first time in his memory, Jake saw Rhonda Bacon smile. Hell, she wasn’t just smiling; she was glowing from within.

Okay, this chick has watched way too many Lifetime movies-of-the-week.

“So,” Jake said, twirling his glass slowly on its napkin. “You came to me so I could take him down, leaving you free and clear to pick up his broken pieces. Am I getting that right?”

Rhonda nodded.

Jake shook his head. “I’m gonna need more. You’ve gotta give me account numbers, dates, something solid to go on.”

“
I can’t,” Rhonda said. “I mean, I won’t. I’ll give you a nudge in the right direction, but I won’t betray him any more than that. You’re a police officer, Mr. Tucker, surely you can—”

“
Correction.” He lifted his glass and met her eyes, allowing his anger to show through. “I
was
a police officer, until your boss had me taken out of the game. What I am now is a bartender who likes to mind his own damn business.”

Rhonda pushed her drink away and clutched her ba
g primly in her hands. She stared at a point on the wall behind Jake for a while, then sighed and stepped up off the bar stool. Just as Jake thought she was about to leave, she put her hand on his shoulder.

“
It’s not fair, what he did to you, Mr. Tucker,” she said. “Hiring that woman to distract you while he took that evidence. I know it might be hard to understand how I could love a man like Gordon, a man who steals and lies and doesn’t have a strong sense of morality. I know it must look… strange… to you. But the thing is, when you love someone, nothing makes sense. If you decide not to follow up on this, that will just have to be your choice. I’ll know that I did what I could to help Gordon, and if he and I are not meant to be, then…” She sniffed. “Then I’ll just have to accept that, I guess.”

Jake looked up at her. It wasn
’t hard to pick out liars. They didn’t make eye contact, they tended to look up and to the left, they fidgeted. What was hard was when someone didn’t do any of those things, like Rhonda Bacon. It didn’t necessarily mean they were telling the truth; it could just mean they’re sociopaths. With those people, you had to go on pure gut instinct alone, and Jake’s gut said Rhonda Bacon was telling the truth. Somehow, despite natural law and common sense and the fact that Gordon Chase was way below her, she really loved him, and she really thought the only way she could have him was by surreptitiously sending him to jail. Jake had had one or two tangles with love that had made him nuts, but he had a deep suspicion that, in this case, love-crazy was being piled on top of standard-issue-crazy.

And that was one dangerous combination.

“I’m not making any promises,” he said.

Rhonda cocked her head to the side, studied his face for a while.
“I believe you’re a good man, Mr. Tucker. I trust you to do what you think is best.”

She pulled an envelope out of her bag and placed it on the bar.
“This is as far as I’m willing to take things. The rest is up to you.”

Jake grabbed the envelope and opened it. At first it seemed empty, but when he shook it, a single key fell into his hand.

Looked a helluva lot like an office key. He chuckled and turned it over in his hand. Rhonda laid one hand on the bar in a quick good-bye, then turned and started out.

“
Rhonda,” Jake called after her. She turned and raised her eyebrows at him expectantly.

“
That laptop you found. Was it by any chance a Dell, with a little splash of red nail polish on the cover?”

A look of confusion crossed Rhonda
’s face, but then, slowly, she nodded. Jake waved at her. She watched
him
for a few moments longer, then turned and retreated.

So, Chase had wiped the laptop, then kept it and used it to track his latest nefarious activities. He was either the stupidest guy on the planet or he had an ego like nobody
’s business.

Or a little bit of both,
Jake thought. He tossed twenty bucks on the bar next to his full glass and told the bartender to keep the change.

He was feeling lucky.

***

Flynn threw her feet up over the edge of the tremendous oak desk that had been Esther
’s, and was now hers. She concluded that fairies themselves must have built the leather office chair she was sitting in, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that comfortable sitting up. The carpet below her was a deep green, and the walls an antique white. Two large, glass-paned French doors faced out into the courtyard, with an unobscured view of the fountain in the center. As she tucked her cell phone between her ear and shoulder, she wondered if she could bring the desk and chair back with her to Boston.

“
Freya Daly.” Even at a spa in Tucson, Freya could not get the business out of her voice.

“
Just checking in, boss,” Flynn said. “So far this morning I have taken a detailed tour of the grounds, had four cups of coffee, a wonderful lunch of grilled Alaskan salmon with a side of the creamiest saffron mashed potatoes known to man. I’m sitting here in my office with my feet on the desk, and doing absolutely no work.”

“
Oh, my God,” Freya said, her voice rising in a fake cry. “Did you just say ‘my office’?” She sniffled dramatically. “You’re going to have to give me a moment.”

Flynn pulled her feet off the desk.
“What am I even doing here? There’s nothing for me to do. Apparently, Aunt Esther did nothing but sit here and look pretty, and everything’s running just fine without me lifting a finger. The concierge practically bit my hand off when I tried to get a look at the reservations system.”

Freya released a sigh.
“Honey. You’re not there to work. You’re there to be a
presence.
And the staff is gonna be territorial. Change freaks people out. Your purpose there is to keep them from freaking out. Leave the damn reservations system alone.”

“
So… what?” Flynn pulled out the mammoth file drawer on the left side of the desk. It was empty. “I’m supposed to just… what? Exist?”

“
Pretty much. Enjoy it. I promise, I’ll have plenty of real work waiting for you when you get home.”

Flynn stood up and walked over to the French door
s looking out over the courtyard and leaned her head against the frame. “I can’t just exist here, Freya. This place is freaking me out. There’s nature everywhere.”

“
You know, you would have made a horrible cave-woman,” Freya said.

“
And the front desk girl? Totally perky. You know how I feel about perky people.”

“
Well. No wonder you’re freaked.”

“
Exactly. I need something to do. Something to distract me. I think hard work is the answer. I think if I can apply myself to something, then maybe ...”
Maybe the lamb
s
will stop screaming.
“Plus,” she went on quickly, “these people already don’t like me. I thought maybe if I pitched in, proved myself, I could get their respect, you know?”

“
You get their respect by paying their salaries,” Frey; said. “Don’t get all romantic about it. Look, if you don’t like sitting around, then don’t. Hit the town. Pick some apples, tip some cows, do whatever the locals do. Find a good-looking man and have inappropriate sex. Just make sure he doesn’t work for us.” She paused. “Trust me. Bad idea.”

Flynn tou
ched the window glass with one finger, and a flash of Jake Tucker’s face went through her mind. “Oh God, Fray. I would never. That would just be…”
Kinda nice, maybe?
“…wrong.”

“
I can’t believe you’re calling me to complain about not having enough work. Most people would love this you know.”

“
Most people aren’t being haunted by their dead aunts,” Flynn muttered.

Freya snorted.
“Sorry, what?”

Flynn hesitated, then closed her eyes tight and said it out loud.
“Aunt Esther. She’s been haunting me every night.”

“
Darling, Aunt Esther is dead, and there’s no such thing as haunting. Dead is dead. Dead is gone.”