Her Christmas Surprise. Kristin Hardy
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advice? I don’t know a thing about any of this. And quite frankly, I find it hard to believe. Why would Bradley embezzle? He’s rich. His family, the stock, his salary… He’s chief operating officer of one of the biggest communications companies in the country. Why would he need to embezzle?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know,” she burst out.
“Funny, his bookie does. So do his poker buddies.”
“Poker? He plays in a home game, for fun.”
“With a ten-grand ante. Between that and the bookie and the high-roller game in Atlantic City, he’s lost millions over the past five years. Your fiancé’s in one hell of a financial hole.”
Her fiancé.
And immediately she was back in Bradley’s condo, staring at his bare back as the muscles flexed, as he made love with another. Betrayal of the most exquisite kind. Without thinking, she sought out her now bare ring finger. “Ex,” she said aloud.
“What?”
“Ex-fiancé.”
The gaze Stockton turned on her was flat, skeptical. “You’re due to be married next month. Tavern on the Green, according to my file.”
“Not anymore. We broke up this morning, you can ask Bradley.”
“We would if we could find him. Your…ex-fiancé has apparently skipped town.”
She’d seen them before on the television news, victims of disaster, people overwhelmed by a mounting series of calamities, unable to cope, their expressions vacant with shock. Keely knew how they felt. First Bradley, then the search, then the reality of what he’d really done.
Done and dropped in her lap.
She couldn’t say how long she’d been in the interview room, protesting over and over that she didn’t know anything. And feeling the web draw tight around her. She supposed she ought to get a lawyer, but getting a lawyer would be admitting that it was really happening and she hadn’t done anything.
But Bradley had.
He’d stolen tens of millions, they said. Alexander Technologies may have been family controlled, but it was still a public company. He hadn’t been stealing from himself. He’d been stealing from shareholders. He’d ported funds from Alexander to fake vendors, LLCs he’d set up himself, to pay fraudulent charges for services that had never taken place, goods that didn’t exist. That was just the start, though. Once the money was there, it had been funneled through a tangled web of corporations.
Corporations that listed her name on their boards of directors.
“I’m telling you I don’t know anything about it,” she’d protested.
“It’s in your own best interest to work with us, Ms. Stafford,” they’d said.
“I am.” After hours of questioning, frustration had taken hold.
“How did he get your personal information?”
“He was my fiancé, for God’s sake. He was in my apartment all the time. I didn’t watch him every minute.” And sometime when her back had been turned, when she’d been in the shower or kitchen, he’d found her social-security number and used it to link her to an embezzling and money-laundering scheme that might land them both in jail for a good long time.
Her saving grace was that they couldn’t show she had any of the money. Mostly because she didn’t. She’d known nothing about it, been no part of it, but the only person who could tell them that was Bradley, and sometime between the moment she’d stepped out of his door and the instant they’d simultaneously broken into her apartment and his, he’d disappeared. She’d been walking across town in that time. Bradley? Maybe some sixth sense had warned him. Maybe her walking in and finding him had gotten him out on the street sooner than he otherwise would have been.
She’d saved him from arrest. And in return, he’d slapped her in the face with betrayal. Then again, cheating on her was nothing compared with the scheme he’d embroiled her in. And now here she was, under investigation, her home invaded and ransacked, her life upended, her very freedom in jeopardy.
The door opened, startling her. It was Stockton.
“Ms. Stafford? We’re finished with our questioning for now.”
“I’m not under arrest?”
He shook his head. “You’re free to go, but we’d like to be informed of your whereabouts. Don’t leave town without telling us.”
Of course. They’d want to watch her, see if she contacted Bradley.
She picked up her purse and rose.
“Ms. Stafford.” Stockton held out a card. “If you find anything, if you think of anything that will help, call or e-mail. It’s in both of your interests.” His eyes watched her, unwavering.
“If I find out anything to help you, it’ll be as much news to me as to you, Mr. Stockton,” she said, and walked out without looking back.
* * *
Keely sat at her desk, staring at the parallelogram of sunlight that slanted in through the window and listened to the ringing of the phone held to her ear.
The way it hadn’t rung for her in the two days since the police had searched her home.
“’Lo,” said a laughing female voice.
“Lara,” Keely said with a rush of gladness. “It’s Keely.”
There was a beat of silence. “Oh. Hi, Keely,” Lara responded, the laughter gone now.
Lara Tremayne, her closest friend in the city. Lunches and gallery openings, committee meetings for fundraisers, they saw each other once or twice a week. Lara didn’t, Keely noticed, ask what was new. She didn’t have to. The newspapers and television news had taken care of that. Still…
Keely swallowed. “The cancer ball is coming up and we need to get the planning committee together.”
“Oh, right. I meant to call you. The committee had a discussion—”
Keely’s fingers tightened on the phone. “About what? I’m the chairperson.”
“Yes, well, that’s the thing. The feeling is that with your, er… With what’s going on, well, we thought it was better if someone else took over.”
“I see.” Keely fought to keep her voice emotionless. “When did you make that decision?”
Lara hesitated. “The day before yesterday.”
“When, exactly, were you planning to tell me?”
“Soon, Keely. I’m sorry. It’s just awkward.”
It hurt, Keely realized. She’d thought Lara was genuinely her friend. It looked like she’d thought wrong.
Lara cleared her throat. “Look, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you would ever have gotten into this without Bradley.”
Keely bit back a reply as the phone line beeped and the caller ID panel flashed her boss’s extension. “Look, Lara, I have to go.”
“Me, too,” Lara said in obvious relief. “Bye, Keely. I’ll call you.”
Yeah. Keely would hold her breath for that one. She pushed down the hurt and punched the button by the flashing light. “This is Keely.”
“Keely, Ron. Can I see you in my office?”
Ron Arnold, her boss. Normally if he wanted to talk with her, he just stuck his head into her office when he walked by. This time, he was summoning her. With a sense of foreboding, Keely rose.
Since the day she’d walked in on Bradley, work had been the only