By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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could look into her eyes and figure out when she was lying. She wouldn’t tell him anything but the truth, though. She was done with the secrets and lies. They’d caused her enough pain.
“I came to see for myself if you were Leanna Warner,” he said. “The website photo was a bit fuzzy, and you were turned away from the camera.”
“You must have confirmed it was me five minutes in. Why didn’t you call the authorities?”
He shifted in his chair, drank some soda. “You didn’t make sense. I was expecting someone else, even after I realized you were the woman Christian claimed ruined his life.”
She blinked at the slightly disdainful way he said his brother’s name. And he’d used the word claimed. It was nothing for her to be pleased about….“What does that mean?”
“I was looking for an embezzler. Someone who would steal money from charities. I thought I had managed to make some pieces fit when I took into account that you’d only skimmed the profits. What kind of thief leaves the original investments? That part was confusing before I left Dallas. Meeting you, some pieces fit. But not enough.”
“Maybe because I didn’t embezzle anything.”
“I know that now,” he said, and couldn’t be more matter-of-fact. “Hell, I knew before now.”
“When?”
“Did I know you weren’t guilty? The first day.”
She shook her head. It hadn’t been a trick question, but it told her that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. The first day? Did he think she was that stupid? Well, yeah, he probably did, because that’s how she’d played things.
“I didn’t say I thought You were innocent.” His brows lifted, his gaze steady. “Not guilty is different.”
Annie thought for a moment. “You believed I knew something and kept quiet.”
“Actually, after I met you, my theory was that you did embezzle the money, but you were coerced.”
“That’s still stealing.”
“Yes, but with mitigating circumstances.”
She broke down and picked up the can of soda he’d brought her. Her hand still shook, but her mouth was dry and she needed the liquid. Maybe he was telling the truth. He could’ve given her a fluffy answer.
“Look, I’ve had someone working on what happened to that money. He’s good at what he does, and he’s thorough.”
“And?”
Tucker took in a deep breath, wiped his face with his hand before he let it out. “I’ll tell you everything, but first, I have to understand something. Why did you run?”
Her face filled with an all too familiar heat. More than any one thing that kept her awake at night, her skipping town was the worst of it. “I didn’t even know anything was wrong until I got word I was going to be subpoenaed by the district attorney. I thought it was a joke, until I checked the accounts. All the investment interest, dividends, were gone. I’d made a client’s deposit the week before, and the account had been in perfect order.
“I freaked. I had raised all the original funds and made promises about the rate of returns. So I went to an attorney, an old college friend. I told him what had happened, that I had no idea how the money had been taken or by whom.”
“Did you ask Christian?”
She stared at Tucker. “Of course I did. He was more freaked out than me. He told me he was calling the Securities and Exchange Commission, the trade commission, the CEO of the brokerage. He swore he’d get to the bottom of this, no matter what.”
Tucker nodded slowly. “Sorry, go on.”
She drank more soda and realized she wanted water, but she couldn’t seem to move. “My attorney made some phone calls. Because I hadn’t been served yet, or accused of any crime, he didn’t have to report me. Anyway, he told me that the D.A.’s office was out for blood because it was charity money missing. The embezzlement had even hit the papers, although it seemed everyone’s attention was on Christian. He was the most logical suspect, but they didn’t have an obvious paper trail.
“There was no question I would be included in the investigation. My lawyer didn’t think it would matter that I had nothing to give the D.A.”
“What does that mean?”
“He said that in the end, someone would go down for the crime, and if it wasn’t Christian, it would be me.”
“But there was no paper trail leading to you, either.”
“I had no way of knowing that. By then, I was completely shut out. Christian wasn’t returning my phone calls, and when I finally did get through using a friend’s cell, he hung up on me. I had no access to the computers or the accounts. It was a nightmare.”
Annie stood, able to move at last. Never had she hated the size of the room more. It felt too much like a cage. “It was my own fault, though.”
“Wait—”
“No, let me finish.” The anger in her voice surprised her. “I’d been riding high for months, doing the best work of my life. Getting into the right parties, taking meetings with people who really mattered. I should have asked more questions, been more careful. I got cocky. When the world came crashing down around me, I had no idea who had the kind of power necessary to do the job so smoothly. I couldn’t go home…I couldn’t bring this kind of insanity into my parents’ lives. So I bolted. I cleared out my savings and took off.”
“Your parents wouldn’t have helped you?”
Annie’s throat tightened and she couldn’t breathe for a moment as she remembered the last conversation with her mom. “Yes, they would have. And it would have killed them. I knew I was the weak link. The patsy. I assumed Christian was behind everything, and if that were true, I didn’t stand a chance. He had me completely fooled from the beginning.”
“They couldn’t convict you with no evidence.”
She looked at him. “Seriously?”
Tucker waved away his comment. “Never mind.”
“Anyway, if it started looking too bad for Christian, who’s to say he wouldn’t have created a paper trail leading to me?” She expected more reaction from Tucker. That perhaps he would leap to his brother’s defense, but no. Nothing. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I was convicted or not. The key to successful fundraising is credibility and integrity. No one would hire me or work with me again after they discovered the money was taken under my watch. And frankly, I was mortified. For myself and my family. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing anyone I knew. I’d been just hungry enough that no one would ever believe I was innocent.”
“And what about your family? Any contact?”
“I left them a letter, and sent a few hard-to-trace postcards. I haven’t spoken to them since I walked away.”
Tucker’s fingers touched hers as she passed his chair, making her jump. Her face flamed again, her eyes filled with tears no amount of willpower could hold back any longer. “I screwed up everything,” she said. “Every part, except for one.”
Now it was her hand around his wrist. As tight as she could hold on. “No matter what happens to me, you need to promise that you won’t let Safe Haven suffer. I’ve got the rest of the twenty thousand to return to you, and I can cancel the tractor engine. But the animals, they really need this place. It’s terrible here in winter. You don’t know.”
“I’m not taking any money back,” he said, standing to face her. “Annie, I’m not here to bring you trouble. I want to help you. We can find a way to clear your name. Together. You’ve done wonders here. I meant what I said about the foundation. Which is real, by the way.”
She