The Doll Brokers (19 page)

“What now?” she demanded. “You've fed me, harassed me—oh.”

It wasn't Jonathan. Her senior accountant all but leaped back from the threshold.

Everly Bingham was holding a computer print-out in his hands. He dropped it when she startled him. Pages fluttered to the floor. He dove to get them, the overhead lights gleaming on his bald pate between spare strands of pale, blond-gray hair.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Lesage. I saw the light on under the door and I thought, well, if you were still here, maybe you'd have a moment.”

“Of course.” Ann stepped back, embarrassed. “I'm sorry. I thought you might be someone else.”

“No problem.” He had his papers together now and he skittered inside. He had always reminded her of one of those little shore birds, the kind that darted in and out of the white-fringed scallops of surf.

Ann went back to her desk. “You're looking for me? Not Mr. Morhardt?” Bingham's job technically fell under Patrick's domain.

“I met with him earlier today.”

Ann felt her stomach shift uneasily. “And?”

“He told me not to worry, but I … well, I'm simply not comfortable with that.”

His narrow face heated. Small wonder, Ann thought. He was going over his boss' head. “Not to worry about what?” she asked.

“We seem to be missing money.”

“We?”

“The company.”

Her heart dove. “How much?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

Compared to the five million she'd committed in advertising dollars for the doll, it was spare change. But the fact that it was—what had he said?
Missing
—was boggling. “Where did it go?” she asked stupidly.

“That's precisely the problem, Ms. Lesage. I don't know.”

“A hundred thousand dollars,” she repeated.

“I could show you.”

“Please do.”

He came to her desk and spread the pages out. Ann stood to look down at them. He took a pen from behind his ear and began explaining. Drawing lines. Showing transfers. Fifty thousand dollars jumping around and ultimately disappearing. It had happened weeks ago.

“I am terribly sorry to have to bring this to your attention, Ms. Lesage, but in my estimation, someone … well, took it.”

She felt lightheaded. Ann sat and dug her fingers into her temples. She pressed hard. Bingham's calculations had been stellar for eleven years now. She didn't doubt him, but… “You said a hundred thousand. That was fifty.”

“Yes, well, we're looking at two separate incidents. I noticed the first one some time ago. I … well, it occurred to me…” He trailed off, his gaze jumping around the room.

“You thought it was your mistake,” Ann finished for him.

Breath gusted out of him. “Yes. Nothing like this has ever happened before, not while I've had control of the books.”

She nodded. It didn't seem to comfort him, so she added, “I know that.”

“I became more diligent. Checking our balances online daily. I believe that's what enabled me to notice this second discrepancy right away. It's not my error. Someone would have covered this up as well if I hadn't immediately become aware of the transaction. It happened today.”

Ann grabbed a page and looked at it. The first transfer had taken place on the same day Jonathan had been trailing her around Toronto.
What was she thinking?
That his sudden interest in the business coincided with the leapfrogging activity of fifty thousand dollars? He'd been here today, too, she thought, when the other fifty thousand had vanished.

Her stomach rolled sickeningly, then it steadied.

No. She might have believed it a month ago, but she knew him better now. Or so she thought. At least she knew that he didn't
need a hundred thousand dollars. And if he
was
pressed for that kind of cash, Felicia had ample to loan him. He was irritating, frustrating, often outrageous, but he was also brutally honest.

And he couldn't have been moving corporate money around if he was with her in Toronto.

Not Jonathan, then. Patrick.

She'd fought for weeks to get this doll project on reasonable footing so she could give Felicia some halfway decent news. And now … this.

Someone had
stolen
from the company, at the worst possible time.

Bingham's face had gone pale as milk. Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“You're fine,” she told him. “You did the right thing, coming to me.”

She tried to stand. Her legs didn't want to hold her.
Patrick
, she thought again. In so deep, with the liquor and who knew what else? Obviously into something he couldn't go to his mother about. So he'd just taken it instead.

“Mr. Morhardt told you not to worry?” She had to be sure.

“Actually, he told me he'd meet with me later in the week, that his schedule was tied up for now. But not to … uh, sweat it.”

That would give him time to cover the second transaction, Ann thought.

“Maybe this is why you have no furniture,” said a voice from the door. “Why bother? You live here.”

Her gaze flew up.
Jonathan.
She had the single, almost giddy thought that she'd known he would show up tonight. It took her another moment to realize that he looked as bad as she felt.

He cocked his head in the direction of Bingham. Ann opened her mouth to ask him to leave, but Bingham was already hurrying to gather up his papers. He fled the room, muttering apologies for the intrusion.

“What is it?” Ann asked when he was gone.

“I need you to come with me. And bring the company checkbook. We've got problems.”

“The company checkbook is a little shaky at the moment.”

His eyes went thin but he didn't ask why. And that, she thought, was unlike him. “It's Pat,” he said. “He's been arrested.”

Ann gripped the edge of her desk, pictured her life exploding into tiny shards, raining through the cosmos. “For what?”

“DUI.”

That didn't surprise her. “Okay. Is Irene digging her heels in about coughing up the bucks? I'm sure I have enough in my own account to bail him out.”

“Irene says she doesn't have the money. And Mom doesn't know about this yet.”

“So?” Ann said.

“God!” He paused. His face was haggard, she thought. His eyes were stricken. “They're also holding him for possession of cocaine … and conspiracy to commit fraud.”

V
incent waited in the dark shadows, far from the reach of the streetlight, watching the entrance of the precinct where Patrick had been taken. He felt a cold thrill at the thought of Ann arriving here, and couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of her face.

It was a risk, the type of risk that fed a kind of sexual excitement into his blood. She'd come here, he knew. She'd rush to try to save Patrick, even though she despised him. She'd do it for the old woman, and because of her own galling self-righteousness. But soon he would delight in her denigration, the slow but meticulous tearing apart of everything she believed in and held dear to her heart.

Ann's upbringing should have twisted her. Would have turned most women rabid. But Ann had become staunch. Perhaps her survival could be attributed to some misshapen gene at odds with the others. Or maybe to the debt she thought she owed to the hand that had pulled her out of the quicksand. Regardless, Ann Lesage had matured into a canny but moralistic force of nature, and he hated her for that alone. She would soon find out that honesty and a rigid work ethic meant nothing in the world today, and it would give her no protection from her past.

Patrick Morhardt and his petty weakness had ruined everything for her. He hoped that something vicious would squirm its way into her heart so she would finally learn to hate.

Vincent smiled into the night, savoring all the moves he had made. Discovering the source of Patrick's financing had presented even greater complications than just having the loan called due. He'd put pressure on the loan officer at Atlantic who had in turn given him Richard Salsberg. He'd convinced the attorney that it was in his best interest to demand another fifty thousand dollars from Hart Toy. Let's see her fight back now, Vincent thought.

Her vice president of finance was about to be indicted on the basis of the evidence slipped into his briefcase. The cocaine only added a diversionary complication. No matter the outcome, Ann would lose her precious baby doll … and a great deal more.

Then she would be his, and he would make sure she understood that she could never escape her past.

Vincent stepped further into the shadows as a cab pulled in front of the precinct. Ann Lesage stepped out, as sure of herself as always and—as he had hoped—very angry. The color of her cheeks gave her away. That, and the fury in her eyes.

Then Jonathan Morhardt emerged after her.

Vincent frowned. He'd never entirely gotten a handle on that man. The younger Morhardt brother tended to be unreadable. His sudden collusion with Ann Lesage was not something Vincent had foreseen. He'd initially dismissed it. Now it caused him some concern. But in the end, the odd hitch was always to be expected. And he was confident that, in time, he would turn it to his advantage. For now, he would allow himself the luxury of savoring this desired change in Ann, seeing her unnerved, shaken to the core and about to unravel.

P
anic rushed through her veins. Patrick had really done it this time; it was doubtful whether she, or anyone else, could save him. Just the thought of arraignments and bail hearings was enough to drive her to distraction.

“Want some coffee?” Jonathan asked.

She jerked around and stared at him. An hour ago, maybe two, one of her biggest concerns had been the things this man was suddenly making her want. Now—irrationally, perhaps—she saw him as the enemy.

“I guess not,” Jonathan said. He didn't need a direct response; he could read her expression.

Ann scrubbed her palms against her cheeks, trying to create friction that would bring some warmth back to her skin. “Did you honestly think we would be able to spring him free? From this, Jonathan? He's gone over the edge.”

He turned away from the coffeemaker to face her fully. They were waiting in a twelve-by-twelve precinct room overlooking the detective's bullpen on the other side of the drawn blinds. The air smelled of sweat and smoke.

Jonathan moved to a cork board, yellow pages with curled edges affixed to it. “Pat didn't commit any of these offences,” he said finally.

Ann gave a shrill laugh. “Sure. Go tell that to Detective Whetever-the-hell-his-name-is. I'm sure he'll take your word for it and let Pat go.”

“We'll straighten this out.”

“You came to get me instead of calling a lawyer! What were you thinking?”

“My first impulse was to try to contain the situation. If it can be contained.”

“We're talking trafficking in cocaine here, Jonathan!” She heard her voice screech and she pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.

“Calm down,” he said. “Emeril will be here soon.” Emeril Lacey. Their lawyer. They'd called him from the cab on her cell phone. But he was their corporate counsel, not a lawyer capable of dealing with a situation like this.

“You're blind where Pat is concerned.” She didn't want to fight with him, didn't have anything in her to fuel a fight, but the words spun out anyway.

Jonathan turned back to the cork board. “You always want to paint him black, but he's just a weak shade of gray.”

“This isn't some damn canvas we're dealing with here!” she shouted. More fighting words, unstoppable. She was helpless to change the course of them. “I need you to wake up and see the facts.”

“The facts,” he repeated. He rubbed his jaw. “Okay, how's this? There's not a doubt in my mind that he was drunk to the gills when he got stopped. He has a drinking problem.”

“Eureka.”

“I might even be inclined to bite on the possession charge.”

“What's another addiction or two?”

“You're pissing me off, Ann.”

“I'm trying to get through to you!”

“I know my brother. There's no way that man is capable of fraud and extortion.”

Ann waved a fist at him. “
He stole a hundred thousand dollars from the company!
Would you have thought he was capable of
that
?”

Emotion played over his face like a film on fast-forward. A mottling anger. And that same distrust that had marked most of their early days together. “You're out of your mind,” he said finally.

“I'm not.” She began to pace. “I found out just before you sailed into my office. That's what Bingham was doing there.”

“And you can prove this.” His tone was flat.

Ann shoved her hands into her hair hard enough that the clip holding it tore free. “I will.”

Jonathan gave a bark of ugly laughter. “A hundred grand is missing so you're going to find a way to pin it on him?”

“In light of all this, don't you think he invites just a little suspicion?”

“In light of all this, I think he deserves a little compassion!”

“People need to earn compassion!”

“Did you, Ann? Did you earn it when my mother dragged you off that church floor?”

His words stunned her. Cold rolled through her, chased by something unbearably hot. Ann dropped her hands and stared at him. “You bastard.” She was shaking.

“Were your wilted flowers a fair trade for a cushy job and years under our roof?” he persisted. “You took all that, then you killed a piece of her. She never recovered, was never the same. Now you think you can just take the rest?”

As soon as the words left him, he wanted them back. Her face went the color of ice. She didn't know what had happened that night on the boat. Only three people had ever known, and one of them was dead. The only sure way to keep the truth from Felicia had been to hide it from everyone, even Ann. And it had been the only way to keep Patrick out of jail all those years ago.