The Red Diary (25 page)

Then he glanced down and saw his name.

He pulled his hand away, then studied the piece of paper, just as he had before.

Move slow, don't react too fast. "What's wrong?" she asked. "This invoice."

"What about it?" She glanced down. "Oh, it's yours." "No, that's just it. It's not."

"What?" She raised her gaze. "What do you mean?" "Princess, this has my name on it, but it isn't mine. I turn in my invoices handwritten. I don't have a computer."

"But then ... " She dropped her eyes to the paper again.

He kept studying it, too. "These are my jobs from last week, but ... " he shook his head " ... these fees aren't right. They're too high."

Lauren let out a huge breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She wasn't sure when the lump had formed in her throat, but she could barely speak around it. "Nick, just to clarify, are you saying this invoice isn't the invoice you turned in and that the amounts aren't the ones you turned in, either?"

He gave a short nod, and she felt a little dizzy.

"How the hell ... ?" She plopped into her leather desk chair, dumbfounded. "What does this mean?"

Nick sighed above her. "I guess it means after I turned in my invoice, somebody changed it."

Her mind spun, trying to put pieces together in her head that didn't fit. She had no other invoices of Nick's-they all went back to Phil after she keyed in the amounts and moved the money into the checking account. But she reached down to power up her computer, saying, "Let me show you some other numbers, from previous invoices. Do you think you'd recognize the amounts you billed over the last few weeks?" Her palms were sweating.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"Damn it, hurry up," she snapped at the computer as it blinked to life, her programs loading. She clicked into her payables file, then typed in Horizon Painters. A few more clicks and Nick's billing information for the past quarter appeared on the screen. "Here," she said, shaking now. "Do these numbers look right? Can you tell?'

Eons passed as she awaited his response. "They seem too high," he finally said. He pointed to a couple of amounts in particular. "I don't remember exact figures, but I don't think I've ever gotten checks this big before."

"Damn it!" She banged her palm on the desk. "Babe, you all right?"

She got to her feet beside him. "No." Then she grabbed his hand and headed for the office door, pulling him behind. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"The Ash offices. It's Sunday afternoon-they'll be deserted. And I have to do some digging."

As they headed toward the office in Nick's Jeep, Lauren found herself voicing her suspicions. She could only think of one person who could orchestrate this: Phil. "But that makes no sense," she said as Nick breezed through a yellow light. "He's a partner. Why would he steal from himself?"

"How much of the company does he own?" ''Twenty - five percent."

"How much does Henry own?"

"Fifty-one." She bit her lip. "He never wanted to ... you know, give up control again."

Nick just nodded, but his hands tensed on the steering wheel and she regretted the reminder. Why did she keep shoving his loss in his face, bringing up something that could stand between them?

Finally, though, he said, "Maybe Phil doesn't see it as stealing from himself so much as shifting some of Henry's wealth his way. After all, he can never have as much as Henry does, right? No matter how hard he works or how well the company does. Maybe he resents that."

Lauren took a deep breath. "Maybe," she said, figuring Nick knew a lot more about that kind of resentment than she did. It was difficult to believe, but after what she'd discovered about Phil just a few days ago ... well, he clearly wasn't the man she'd thought.

When they arrived at the Ash Building, she sped up the steps, unlocked the front door, and made a beeline to Phil's office.

Nick followed.

"He doesn't lock it?" Nick asked as she rushed into the room.

"Maybe he doesn't have a reason to," she said, trying to give Phil the benefit of the doubt.

When she turned on Phil's computer, it asked for password, and she tried several that seemed logical, but none worked. Next, she searched for a paper trail, with Nick's help. After rifling through drawers and filing cabinets for a few minutes, Nick turned up his real invoice, saying, "Princess, take a look."

She studied it, recalling older Horizon invoices that had appeared similar. In the same. pile, she found other invoices she didn't recognize, from drywallers, bricklayers, carpenters, electricians. And though she did recognize their names and logos, and even some of the jobs Ash had been paying on recently, the invoices were different; they'd been re-created before being passed to her.

Yet not all of them had been faked, she discovered.

Invoices from bigger companies-the national carpet chain they used, the large plumbing company that did most of their pipework-were untouched, untampered with. It was the smaller companies, like Nick's, that were being used to siphon money from the Ash accounts. And there were so very many of those smaller companies ... it boggled her mind to imagine the proportions this might take on.

Thumbing through the invoices one by one, she began to feel dense. So many were handwritten, crumpled, smudged-they came from workmen who, like Nick, didn't sit at a computer all day, didn't have secretaries or assistants handling their billing. Why hadn't she noticed when those handwritten, crumpled invoices had stopped coming? Why hadn't she noticed they'd started looking neater, crisper, somewhere along the way? She felt like an idiot. And when she reached the last invoice in the pile, she gasped.

"What is it?" Nick asked.

It was an invoice from PH Construction. P.H. Phil Hudson. And she supposed the ungodly amount typed at the bottom, over twenty-five thousand dollars that particular week, equaled the difference between these real invoices and the phony ones he'd dropped off to Lauren. She shoved the piece of paper into Nick's hand.

"Proof," she said.

Nick had thought, more than once, that Lauren would break down, burst into tears, throw herself into his arms, but she never did. Instead, she'd known exactly what to do. She'd instructed him to load Phil's computer into his Jeep, and she'd taken the pile of legitimate invoices, too. Together, she'd said, it was all they'd need to nail Phil. "The invoice from PH Construction is where he really screwed up," she'd explained as they'd driven home. "There's no such company, at least not on our payroll. It's obviously a fake entity Phil uses to siphon the money to his own personal accounts."

"But why go to all that trouble?" Nick had asked.

"Why not just turn in the rest of the fake invoices and keep the leftover money?"

"He has to have a paper trail that appears legitimate at a glance, needs to be able to account for all the money I issue to pay the subcontractors. His invoice totals need to balance with my mine. My breakdowns are the ones we really use, but he needs a way to drain the account of the excess I was putting in that would slide through without being noticed. Now that I have the two sets of invoices, though, including the bogus one, he's hung himself."

"What now?" Nick asked. "I mean, what's next?" He'd never been involved in any kind of white-collar crime unless you counted what Henry had done to his dad, and he hadn't a clue how she would proceed.

"I'll have to tell Dad. But he's out of town for the weekend, off on some tryst in the Caymans, so it'll have to wait until he's back."

"When is that?"

"Tomorrow morning." She turned to him in the Jeep.

"The lucky thing is that tomorrow is Monday, and Phil spends Mondays visiting job sites, so he won't be in the office to see anything missing until Tuesday." She took a deep breath. 'That gives us a little more time to figure out what to do." Nick had been in awe of her strength. He knew it was hurting her, leaving her disillusioned, not to mention presenting a mountain of problems for her professionally, yet she'd handled it exactly that way-like a pro.

Now, night had fallen, and they lay on her couch watching the rented movie he'd suggested, thinking it might take her mind off things. Even before they'd started the video, she'd been uncharacteristically quiet, but he hadn't pressed her to talk. And since when was he so attuned to whether someone made conversation or not? Since when did he think about talking with a woman? Obvious. Since Lauren.

If only I could tell you, baby, he thought, pulling her closer against him, that I know about your private diary. Then there'd be no more secrets at all. There'd still be Henry, of course, and there'd be enormous differences between their families, their money-God, probably a million other things-but at least there wouldn't be any more secrets. Still, he knew if he told her about the book, she'd never forgive him. She was probably the most understanding woman he'd ever met, but that kind of trespassing ... well, he couldn't think of much worse he could do to her.

The sinking feeling in his stomach abated only when the cat jumped up onto the couch, distracting him. "Hey, Iz, come here," Lauren said quietly, pulling the white cat into her arms.

But only seconds later, Izzy wriggled free and insistently wedged her way between the two of them, curling into Nick's lap. "See, what did I tell you?" Lauren said over her shoulder. "She's got it bad for you."

He leaned down near her ear. "Jealous?"

She turned to gaze up, wearing a small, wistful smile.

"A little."

He nudged the cat until she pounced to the carpet, then wrapped both arms around Lauren from behind. "Better?" This time when she turned, she smiled wider. "I hate to tell you this, but I meant I was jealous of you. Izzy hardly ever snuggles up to me like she does with you."

A few days ago, that might've made him feel like a dope, but now he just teased her. "Maybe I should take off and let you and Izzy have the couch to yourselves."

"Shut up," she whispered. "You're not going anywhere." She covered his arms with hers, and he settled back and tried to concentrate on the movie again, when Lauren suddenly spurted, "I just feel so incompetent!"

They both sat up, and he reached for the remote, pausing the video. "What are you talking about?"

"I noticed that everyone's prices were going up, and I even questioned it, more than once. But why didn't I realize the invoices were different? I've been processing them for years-why didn't I pick up that they-were all changing?" She sighed. "I guess in the back of my mind I just figured everyone was finally getting computerized, but I can't help thinking that if I'd just questioned more, just noticed more .. ."

"Hey, you trusted the guy. You thought you were on the same team with him. You didn't have any reason to doubt him. Besides"-Nick shook his head, still impressed by her actions this afternoon-"you knew exactly what to do today when you found out."

"Well, not exactly. I have no idea what will happen when I tell Dad tomorrow."

"Still, you knew to take the computer. And you figured out the paper trail and recognized the fake company. And you didn't fall apart."

"I wanted to," she confided softly. "But you didn't, Princess."

Nick was pretty amazed at himself sometimes these days-at the moment, amazed that he knew how to reassure her, that the words came to him as easily as if he were talking to Davy or Elaine, not a woman he'd spent countless years envying. But when the words ran out, he still figured he was best at letting her know how he felt in other ways. Lifting one hand to her cheek, he leaned in to kiss her.

Their tongues flirted around each other, awakening the first hints of arousal, but then Lauren stopped. "Would you hate me if I said I just wasn't really in the mood?"

He shielded disappointment with understanding. "Not at all."

"I wouldn't mind ... if you held me, though."

He pulled her into his arms, pressing her back against his chest, dropping a tiny kiss onto her temple, and she reached for the remote, restarting the movie. As the sound of it filled the room, he leaned near her ear to say, "I think Ash Builders is gonna be in damn good hands someday."

Lauren watched Nick sleeping next to her in the bed she had begun to fear would feet empty without him. Last night, they'd fallen asleep in front of the TV, and when she'd awakened, she'd nudged him and said, "Let's go up to bed." He'd followed wordlessly, stripped down to his underwear, and climbed in beside her, as comfortable as if they were an old married couple. She shook her head in an attempt to banish the last thought from her mind. They'd been together a little over a week, so tossing the M word around, even just in her head, was no less than insane. And besides, God knew she had plenty else to think about-she was just glad Nick had been with her last night, glad he remained with her now. She'd woken up feeling aggressive, even if not fully revived. She had a rough day ahead, but was ready to face it.

"Hey," Nick murmured, his eyes easing open. She summoned a smile for him. "Hey."

"How ya doin?"

She nodded against her pillow. "I'm okay. I'm ready to push through this."

His expression held admiration. "Sounds like a woman with a plan."

"As a matter of fact, I am. Dad's flight doesn't arrive until mid-morning, so I've decided the first thing I'm going to do is go over to Phil's and bring Jeanne up to date, on everything."

Nick looked a little surprised, so she went on.

"Not to hurt her, or even Phil, but to protect her. She needs to know how this man is screwing with her life. And whatever happens with Phil now, he's going to be in big trouble, so I want to give Jeanne fair warning. I want to give her a chance to take some money from their accounts, figure out how to keep her life from being wrecked along with his when the embezzlement comes out."

"But what if she tells him? Before you tell your dad? I don't know how much money's gone, but if it's a lot, he could run." She took a deep breath. Of course, she'd already thought of that, but when she considered Jeanne's innocence in all this, she simply couldn't do things any other way. ''I'll just have to believe she won't. I'll have to believe she'll protect herself and not him. Besides, Dad should be home by the time I get back from Jeanne's, so it won't be long before this all comes down. I'll ask her to keep it from Phil for just one night."