Perilous Refuge. Kathleen Tailer
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so. “Miss Abigail doesn’t need to get sick during her trip.”
Chelsea startled at the mysterious attorney’s harsh question. She had been looking forward to this Hawaiian excursion, but ever since Alex Sullivan had joined her and the elderly lady she was caring for, the excitement had quickly disappeared. Alex had done nothing but glare at her since he’d arrived at the airport this morning, and his fierce expressions were sending cold shivers down her spine. He seemed to be watching her every move, and his perusal made her nervous and jumpy.
He’s an old friend of Miss Abigail’s, she reminded herself. He’s not connected to Justin Carver.
But she couldn’t seem to stop the nervousness she felt whenever anyone looked at her for too long or asked her too many questions. She was sure Carver was still looking for her—would today be the day he found her?
Stop. One way or another, she had to stop worrying—at least long enough to do her job. She forced her mind back to Mr. Sullivan’s question.
“No, it’s nothing contagious. I promise.”
Alex’s eyes didn’t waiver. “I care a great deal about Miss Abigail. Her health and safety are my priority. I would do anything I could to protect her. I hope you realize that.”
“Of course,” Chelsea agreed. His antagonistic words were no surprise—his behavior had been harsh toward her all morning. She had no idea why he had joined them on this trip, and wasn’t sure how she was going to manage several days in his company. Even in his casual clothing, the attorney seemed to exude intimidation and authority. His eyes slanted toward her and she quickly looked away, even as she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. She wished he wouldn’t watch her so carefully. As far as she knew, she had done nothing to garner his interest. In fact, she didn’t want anyone paying attention to her, and she had gone to great lengths to erase her identity and live inconspicuously under the radar for the past four weeks. If there was anything she didn’t need right now it was an attorney asking questions.
She watched him fish something out of his briefcase and then snap the latches closed. He wasn’t bad-looking, she decided, even if his behavior was driving her crazy. He had short dark hair and smoky-gray eyes that seemed to reach right into her soul and read her thoughts. He was also tall and broad-shouldered, towering above her five-foot-five height like a giant. She wondered how he would be comfortable in the small confines of the plane once they boarded, even in the first-class seats.
She quickly glanced away before he could nail her once again with his ferocious glare and watched a plane taxi and take off into the sky. Despite Alex Sullivan’s unsettling presence, he might actually turn out to be the least of her problems. Besides the anxiety of being in such a public place, Chelsea was terrified of flying, and had been ever since a plane she had been traveling in nearly three years ago had given her the roughest flight of her life. Despite her fears, however, she hadn’t been able to turn down Miss Abigail’s pleas to accompany her to Maui. It was a vacation of sorts for the elderly lady, though the end of the trip included a surgical procedure for Miss Abigail’s Crohn’s disease, which was ultimately the reason for the journey.
Chelsea pulled out her phone and checked her messages. “Dr. Winchester’s office confirmed your pre-surgery appointment,” she informed Miss Abigail. “It’s set for the day before the surgery.” Dr. Winchester had been Ms. Abigail’s doctor in Tallahassee for years, but had recently moved to Maui where he was semi-retired. The elderly lady only trusted Dr. Winchester to operate, and had planned the trip with time to play tourist for a couple of days before she actually had to report to the hospital for her procedure.
“Thank you for taking care of that, dear.” Miss Abigail reached over and patted her hand. “It makes the vacation part of the trip so much more pleasant to know that you have all the other details well in hand. Hiring you to be my companion and helper for this trip was the best decision I ever made.” She gave the words a peculiar emphasis, seemingly aimed at Alex Sullivan. Chelsea wondered what that was about, but decided not to ask.
She looked back at her phone, scanning again for a message she wanted to see that wasn’t there—a message from the business manager of Southside Renovations, one of the shell corporations Justin Carver was using for misappropriating funds.
The only way she’d feel safe again was if Justin was in prison...but she didn’t trust the police to put him there, and knew they wouldn’t take her word against his without some sort of proof. She’d had too many negative experiences with law enforcement and the court system in the past to believe in that fallacy. No, if she was going to see Justin Carver imprisoned for his crimes, she’d need more evidence than her own sworn statement.
Carver Enterprises was both a real-estate acquisition and development company, and made the bulk of its earnings from buying undervalued commercial properties, renovating them and then selling them at a considerable profit. Justin had been the executive vice president, in charge of managing most of the company’s renovation projects. According to the documents Chelsea had uncovered, Justin had created fictitious vendors, opened bank accounts in those vendors’ names and then submitted phony invoices for renovation services that had never been performed. He then laundered the money through various businesses such as Southside Renovations before depositing them into his personal accounts in the Cayman Islands. Once the embezzlement trail had been discovered, Chelsea had helped trace more than ten million dollars that had been funneled into Justin’s accounts.
According to the internet though, Southside Renovations was still in operation and had a corporate office in Hawaii. The business manager had promised to meet with her in two short days and to provide her with copies of all of Southside’s latest internal accounting audits.
Knowing that Justin had committed murder and was still lining his pockets with stolen money was a bitter pill to swallow, but at least her resources indicated he’d made no attempt to cover up what he’d done or to get rid of the records. If the money laundering scheme was ongoing, then there should be plenty of evidence that could be used against him—if she could just get her hands on it. It was a long shot, but hopefully the Southside business manager would give her what she needed to put Carver away once and for all.
The manager still hadn’t texted her with the location of the meet, so she stowed her phone, hoping that by the time they landed in Maui she would know a time and location when he was able to sneak away and give her the documents.
The gate agent announced the boarding call for the flight that would take them from Atlanta to Maui, and the three of them stood and gathered their belongings.
Mingled anxiety and excitement churned Chelsea’s stomach as they got in line to board the plane. Would Hawaii give her the keys to free herself from fear? Or was she marching even further into danger?
As the plane began its ascent, Alex glanced at Chelsea who had a death grip on the armrest. The prospect of sitting next to this woman for the rest of the trip made him decidedly uncomfortable. He gritted his teeth. Who was he kidding? This whole trip made him uncomfortable. Alex lived an ordered life and enjoyed keeping surprises to a minimum. Spontaneity was definitely not his friend.
He checked his watch as another wave of frustration swept over him. He needed to be back in the office working his normal seventy-to eighty-hour work week, not gallivanting across the United States to some tropical paradise. Because of Chelsea, case files were piling up in his office and here he was flying halfway across the world in the opposite direction.
He looked her over suspiciously. She was actually an attractive woman. Her high cheekbones and wide chocolate-colored eyes only served to irritate him more. He didn’t want to find her attractive in any way, shape or form.
About thirty minutes into the flight, Chelsea gingerly touched his arm. “Excuse me. Can you let me get by?”
“Yes, give me a minute.” He closed his laptop, then got up and stowed it in the overhead bin. “Where are you headed?”
Chelsea