God's Eye (18 page)

“Patricia Sange.” The voice was smooth and professional, and Katharine took a moment to be grateful that the door was already closed. Inside three minutes Katharine had all the information she needed.

“Thank you.” She set the phone back in the cradle and turned to Allistair, who had loosened his grip on her as he sensed the importance of the call. “The account in Panama traces back to Mary Wayne. The original payout has an authorization code that was never assigned, but that Mary Wayne certainly had access to.”

He only nodded.

There wasn’t opportunity to respond further, because the phone rang again. Again the ring was indicative of her private line. She picked it up, still trapped within the circle of Allistair’s arms. “Katharine Geryon.”

“Katharine,” her father barked. “We have a problem with Mary Wayne. I’ll see you in a minute.” With that, he hung up.

She turned to face Allistair, “I have to go see my father regarding Mary Wayne. Come with me.”

Her eyes searched his face and found no trace of artifice. His fingers tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, lingering on her skin and settling himself a little deeper into her soul. This time, she did remember Zachary, waiting for her somewhere beyond the boundaries of Allistair’s arms. But it didn’t affect her at all; nothing penetrated this bond when he was near. He nodded, agreeing, and slowly let her go. His fingers trailed down her arms, briefly twining their grasps before breaking the contact.

With a subtly flirtatious smile she didn’t know she owned, Katharine led him out of the office.

Both her father and Toran Light had frowned as Allistair entered the CEO offices right behind her. But her assistant hadn’t seemed to take as much offense as she did at the gesture. It was Katharine who directed Allistair to a seat, playing the hostess and being gracious despite the ire of both the older men.

For just a moment she toyed with telling her father that she was sleeping with her new assistant. On her desk. During work hours. She stifled the smile that fought to escape and made formal introductions even though she was sure either her father or Uncle Toran had met with Allistair previously to hire him. Then she settled gracefully onto the couch beside Allistair as she smiled at the two owners of the firm.

“Allistair has been assisting me with this search ever since you were able to rule him out as a suspect. He knows as much as I do about the Mary Wayne issue.” She didn’t pause to let them voice any concerns; she wasn’t stupid. “What can we do to help?”

With a breath in, Uncle Toran started. Katharine was grateful that he addressed his statements to both of them.

"Mary Wayne just gave us one month’s notice. Her letter of resignation was tendered yesterday. It showed up on my desk this morning.

We need to know where she stands in this investigation. Is she still a suspect?"

Katharine’s eyes darted sideways at Allistair, as if for confirmation. Which was ridiculous. She had never needed confirmation on this kind of thing in the past, but now automatically she looked to her assistant? She shook it off and started speaking. “She is no longer on the suspect list; she
is
the suspect list.”

“Explain.” Her father sat back, his arms extending along the top of the sumptuous leather sofa, as if he knew he was in for a long and unpleasant story.

“The private investigator we hired traced the missing money to a single account in Central America. We found out this morning that Mary Wayne is the sole holder of that account. Also, the money was moved using a pay code she had access to. It’s either an excellent frame job or Mary is our thief.”

She quit speaking and waited. One of the men would say something; it would just take a minute. Allistair was smart enough to stay quiet too.

Uncle Toran formulated words first. “Maybe she
is
being framed. She moves all that money into a single account with only her name on it. Seems a little obvious for a smart thief.”

Allistair opened his mouth at this point. As it appeared none of them had expected him to actually participate, his voice startled all of them. “Really the name on the account isn’t an issue.”

“How so?” Arthur Geryon took the bait but didn’t move forward, didn’t budge.

“That’s not how she hid the money. We weren’t supposed to find the account at all. At least not until it was too late, so her name being on it doesn’t matter. And she was right about that. It was very well hidden; we would never have found any of it without Patricia Sange’s company. The reason Mary Wayne used her own name on the account is that she did such a good job of getting the money out of Light & Geryon that she didn’t think she needed to hide it anymore.”

“Well, we did find her, so she wasn’t that brilliant.”

Somehow she knew what was coming, and Katharine wondered if she should stop Allistair. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. So she listened.

“With all due respect, sir, you didn’t even know that she was taking the money until a few weeks ago. She’s been at this for months with no one the wiser. And without some serious professional help, we would never have found that account.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees in a casual position that conveyed he was comfortable, even among these people who probably only had a Webster’s definition of the word.

She watched while her father absorbed the idea that his employee had bested him. Then they all discussed what to do. Mary Wayne needed to be confronted. Charges needed to be pressed. Katharine voted to give her one opportunity to defend herself, with the head of security present, of course. After a little badgering, her father and Uncle Toran agreed.

Afterward, she and Allistair went back to their office and tried to come up with a good excuse to talk to Mary Wayne without making her run.

•  •  •

Jeff Grason stared at the video footage, just as perplexed as Katharine was. For three days now she and Allistair had been trying to get Mary Wayne in for a meeting. For three days they managed to miss her–just barely miss her–each time they tried. She left work early. Took lunch at an odd hour. Went to the ladies room with an uncanny knack for timing. Yesterday evening Katharine had hung out in the lobby, waiting for Mary to pass by on her way out. She was going to pretend to have run into her. But Mary Wayne hadn’t come by.

Katharine had waited and waited, but as time passed, her pretense of work at the lobby desk wore thin. This morning she had arrived early and tried again. At ten thirty she had given up and gone to the security division to ask them to keep an eye out for her.

Jeff Grason had agreed to keep an eye on the cameras. As Katharine had been leaving, he hollered to her retreating form that she should come back.

Typing in any employee’s name would bring up the nearest video surveillance. In Katharine’s case, this was the hallway outside her office door, and for Mary Wayne, who had a cubicle, it brought up a clear frame of the woman’s desk.

Mary Wayne was sitting in her chair, working away.

Katharine’s brain stuttered. “How did she get there?” There was only one way in and out of the Light & Geryon building that wouldn’t set off serious alarms and security checks. “Unless she just didn’t go home last night.”

Grason shook his head. “That couldn’t happen. Security would have found her, and someone would have been notified or it would have been logged.”

Katharine was sure her face must have shown her confusion. Security was certainly the next division she needed to learn, as she clearly didn’t understand all that was going on.

He explained. “Night shift makes a sweep. Security logs everyone in and out. Last year an employee was investigated as part of a hit-and-run investigation. He claimed he was working late that night. We showed the police his computer logs, and it was clear that someone with his access codes had been doing his work on his computer at the time of the incident. We even had footage of him entering and later leaving his twelfth-floor office. It made for a pretty airtight alibi. We can also show you that Mary Wayne wasn’t here last night.”

While Katharine watched footage of the darkened office in fast forward, she could see that there wasn’t any activity around Mary Wayne’s desk all night.

“Maybe she stayed in a different part of the building.” Then she groaned. “Would that require watching every video camera, all night, for signs of movement?”

He shook his head and offered a slight smile. “It’s not so bad as all that. But it would be a pain. So let’s not do that unless we have to. Still, you might want to pull up a chair.”

Katharine nodded and then settled in and listened as he explained what he was doing. First, he checked for when Mary Wayne’s computer activity had stopped the night before. Then he used that time as a starting point for monitoring her desk. Sure enough, she stood up, grabbed her bag, and headed down the hall. A few camera switches allowed them to follow her all the way to the lobby–and right past Katharine.

“Go back!” Katharine almost apologized for the outburst. It was so unlike her. But Jeff Grason didn’t seem offended, and he was already reloading the footage she wanted. As she watched herself on the video, her own eyes seemed to look right through Mary Wayne. The woman had walked blatantly in front of Katharine, as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

Son of a bitch.
How had she missed that?

Katharine shook her head as Jeff Grason rewound the footage again. The third time through she was able to voice her disgust. “I completely missed the one person I was looking for. And then I stood there for another two hours waiting for her to go by.”

Jeff Grason seemed like the other security employees she had met at the firm–he wasn’t fazed by anything. He just offered a kind smile and a suggestion. “Let’s see when she came in this morning.”

Twenty minutes later Katharine was seriously pissed.

She fumed her way up to her office wondering if Jeff Grason was watching her in the security cameras and if she was leaving a trail of smoke behind her. Twice she had stood at the front desk, pretending to work. Twice Mary Wayne had walked right by and Katharine had been totally oblivious.

How? How had Mary done that? How had Katharine missed the one person she was looking for?

She wanted to stomp right up to payroll–Mary Wayne had been sitting at her desk when Katharine left the security division. But Katharine was smarter than that. She’d blow everything if she went up there in a huff. And given her thief’s ability to be absent at just the right times, she would probably just make everyone else nervous.

Instead, she went to her own office, upset about the whole thing. Lisa stood abruptly and asked if she could help, but Katharine refused. That earned her a sour look. Though she wanted to soothe the hurt feelings, there wasn’t much she could do about it. She couldn’t tell anyone about the investigation, certainly not her assistant. And she and Allistair had been locking the doors so much to talk about it …

She looked at Lisa. “It isn’t what you think it is.”

Lisa sat back down, but her eyebrows declared Katharine a liar. Katharine closed the door and sagged back against it. She
was
a liar. It was a lot of exactly what Lisa thought it was. As she spotted Allistair looking up from his desk, her hand reached back and clicked the lock on the door.

His look was sympathetic. “Baby, what happened?”

But Katharine shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to feel.

Perhaps she had gone crazy. Zachary had come back to her after the long weekend. He’d come to her condo every night. Each night they had made love and he had left. That meant he wasn’t there to see her getting dressed in the morning. He didn’t know that she had put on an old camisole with straps that wouldn’t stay up. With her gaze on Allistair, who was still in his seat, she shed her jacket and pulled her strapless bra out from under the silky material, just the way she had planned this morning.

She had worn a garter belt today rather than panty hose. She’d pulled her underwear over the top of the garters, telling herself it was easier to use the ladies room that way. Which was
true.
It just wasn’t the
truth.

Allistair’s breathing was heavy by the time she reached his chair.

She was a fiend.

She was likely going straight to hell.

•  •  •

Allistair lay on his back in the sand. He was completely naked and breathing heavily, with Katharine curled at his side. Just as naked and just as sated.

He had convinced her to come out with him tonight, to walk on the beach, to talk with him. As usual for them, one thing had led to another, and another–right there in a little secluded piece of beach they had found.

He had kept her on top, his eyes enjoying the sight of her in the moonlight, his skin savoring the twin bites of brisk air and cold sand abrading him from either side. There wasn’t enough of her to have. She was nearly enslaved to him, a servant to the drive that bound them.

Which was a good thing.