Flash of Death (21 page)

Except Barry had managed to do it. Had he been working alone? Or did he have a cadre of accomplices? Lord knew, enough money was missing for several people to live comfortably on it for a long time. Her calculations showed the missing funds to be on the order of twenty million dollars.

This must be why he’d been murdered. But then Chloe frowned. Why had Miguel Herrera accused her of stealing money from Paradeo if the big bosses had already identified and eliminated the thief? They must think she was one of the accomplices.

She picked up her cell phone and called Don Fratello but was passed immediately to his voice mail. “Don. It’s Chloe. I’ve found something big at Paradeo. This isn’t just a money laundering problem at all. It’s an embezzlement case, too. Barry Lind—that bookkeeper who was murdered a few days ago—was stealing money from Paradeo. Lots of it. We’re talking millions. I think he had help, though. If you look at his bank records, I’ll bet he’s been passing money to one or more people who’ve been helping him. The FBI should be able to track down his accomplices easily. Call me when you get this message.”

Satisfied, she hung up the phone. A quick double-check of the last time money had been skimmed off an account made her jaw drop. Yesterday. Even after Barry had been brutally murdered, his accomplice had continued to steal. She had to give the unknown person credit for having nerves of steel. No way would she have kept taking money right from under Paradeo’s nose if she thought violent drug lords were on to her.

There was still plenty of work left to be done tracking down where Paradeo’s money came from in the first place. The original money laundering case was still open. But it was time to hand that over to the FBI. It would take their resources and access to privileged banking information to track the transactions back to their various sources. She had all the starting points identified, though, and it would be an easy matter for the FBI to finish the investigation.

Which left her at loose ends with not much work to do. And that meant she had plenty of time to ponder her own mess of a life. She glanced at the time. Nearly 8:00 a.m. Where was Trent? Was he ever coming back?

Reluctantly, she picked up her cell phone again and stared at it doubtfully. She was too chicken to dial him directly after last night. He’d been so furious when she confronted him with the truth. But there was no way he would stick around for the long haul with any woman. It was written all over him. She’d merely read the obvious signs and called him on it.

He was right about one thing, though. She had a knack for pushing men away from her. Slowly, she dialed the Winston Ops phone number.

“Winston Ops. Good morning, Miss Jordan. What can we do for you today? Did you lose Trent again?”

It was the duty controller, Novak. She steadied her voice as it started to tremble. “Actually, I did. He left last night a little after midnight and he’s still not back.” Her voice dropped to a tearful half whisper in spite of her best efforts as she confessed, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Trent ordered up a full security team for you sometime last night. I can look up the time if you want. It was before I came on duty. At any rate, they’re inbound to you now. Should be there in a couple of hours.”

Oh, God. He’d washed his hands of her. Trent was handing her off to a bunch of strangers rather than look out for her himself. The pain of his departure cut right through her, eviscerating her soul. Her legs collapsed and she found herself sitting on the floor again, leaning against the bed this time.

“Just a moment, ma’am. I’ll get Jeff.” God, did Novak have to sound so sympathetic? She was so pathetic.

Jeff Winston’s voice came on the line in a matter of seconds. “What’s wrong, Chloe?”

It was the last straw. He was so gentle and sounded so concerned. She slapped her hand over her phone’s microphone jack as a sob escaped her.

“Chloe? Where’s Trent? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

She dragged in another sobbing breath and then steadied herself. She had to get through this conversation. “I don’t know where he’s gone, Jeff. He left last night.” She added reluctantly, “We had a fight.”

Give the man credit for not asking what about. Instead he went for the safer but obvious question. “Are you in a secure location right now?”

“Yes. I’m in the hotel room Trent was using to do surveillance on my apartment.”

“Stay there. We’ve got a team on a jet. They’ll land in San Francisco in about—” he paused while somebody no doubt supplied the answer “—two hours. They should be with you by noon.”

“I don’t need your team,” she replied wearily. “I solved my case a little while ago. Or at least the part that was going to get me killed.”

“Really?” Jeff responded with interest.

She filled him in briefly, ending with an assurance that the FBI could take the case from here. The big dogs at Paradeo should find out the identity of Barry’s actual accomplice(s) just in time to call their dogs off her before they went to jail themselves for money laundering. “And so,” she concluded, “I’m pretty much off the hook.”

Jeff made a noncommittal noise. “Still, I’d like to keep a few guys on you until the FBI’s investigation is wrapped up and Paradeo’s senior managers are behind bars. Just for your sister’s peace of mind.”

“Why does everyone keeping using Sunny to guilt me into cooperating? She’s a grown woman and can take care of herself. She’s got Aiden and doesn’t need me anymore.”

Jeff answered quietly, “We always need our family, Chloe. Sunny loves you wholeheartedly. She’d die if something happened to you. Why do you think she asked me to keep an eye on you in the first place? She was worried about your new line of work getting you into trouble. Frankly, if not for her concern, you could be dead right now.”

“How’s that?” Chloe asked, startled.

“It was because of her that I asked Trent to keep an eye on you at the wedding. Had he not been there to knock you out of the way, that SUV would have hit you.”

Oh. My. God.
Trent had spent the night with her in Denver because he was under orders to?
He hadn’t even wanted to hook up with her in the first place! Her humiliation was complete. And then she’d asked him to do all those things... God, what he must think of her. Poor, desperate, spinster sister of his buddy’s hot bride. Where was a rock for her to crawl under and never come out?

She mumbled something incoherent and all but hung up on Jeff Winston. No way was she sticking around for another team of his guys to come and take pity on her. Gee whiz, maybe they’d give her a group orgy if she acted pitiful enough. Her skin crawled at what Jeff and his men must think of her.

Oh, God...what must Trent think of her? Not that it had kept him from having sex with her whenever he wanted it, of course. In the wake of her gut-squirming humiliation, anger took root, growing like Jack’s beanstalk until it reached the sky and beyond. How dare he?

Literally shaking with fury, she punched out Winston Ops’s phone number once more.

“Hi, Chloe, what can I do for you, now?” Novak asked cautiously.

“Where’s Trent?”

“Excuse me?”

“I know you can track his cell phone. You did it before. Where is he right this second?” Her tone of voice brooked no refusal.

“Uhh, just a sec,” Novak muttered. “He’s in Malibu. Or rather, off the coast of Malibu.”

“Like in the ocean?” Chloe asked in surprise.

“Yes. I’d imagine he’s surfing. He’s pretty good at it, you know. World champ two years ago—”

She hung up on Trent’s accomplishments. Whatever. World champion surfer, world champion jerk. Same diff. Eyes narrowed, she considered how to find him and give him a serious piece of her mind. Her car. It was in the parking garage underneath her building across the street. She had to get to it without Herrera or whoever might be staking out her place spotting her.

She headed downstairs to ask the owner of the B and B for a favor. If the guy could buy Trent a laptop, he could certainly fetch her car for her. Sure enough, the fellow was more than happy to trot across the street and get her car for his best customer’s girlfriend.

Right. Girlfriend. What the guy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. In a matter of minutes, she was seated behind the wheel of her car and on her way south out of San Francisco. It was nearly four hundred miles to Malibu, but traffic was moving fast on I-5 and she made outstanding time, killing the trip in a little under seven furious hours. Plenty of time to work up a really good head of steam.

It was late afternoon when she parked beside the Malibu Pier. If Trent was surfing, he was no doubt doing so at Surfrider Beach, just north of the pier. It was a blustery day and she secured her hair in a ponytail as it whipped in her face. She grabbed a sweater out of the trunk of her car and held it tightly around her body as she slogged out onto the sand.

The ocean roared its anger and only a few people sat or strolled on the beach. The water was dotted with dozens of surfers, however. And she could see why. The waves were easily twenty feet tall, and the occasional big wave topped thirty feet. These waves were not for amateurs. But then Trent was a world champion.

A half-dozen Jet Skis hauled wet-suit-clad surfers up and down the swells, depositing them just beyond where the breakers started. Which one of the neon-colored specks was Trent? Shielding her eyes from the wind and flying sand, she squinted out to sea.

“Looking for someone?” A grizzled beachcomber startled her by asking from right beside her.

“Uhh, yes. Trent Hollings.”

“Hollings. Let’s see. Big, good-looking guy. Dark hair. Light eyes. Prefers a left-hand curl...big wave rider. Uses a long board. That the one?”

“Yes. That’s him.” She didn’t know what kind of waves Trent preferred or what kind of board he used, but the physical description certainly fit.

The long-board thing narrowed down the possibilities of which surfer he was since the majority of them were using short boards. But there were still at least a dozen long-board surfers on the waves. At the end of the day, she supposed it didn’t matter which surfer he was. It wasn’t like she could march out into the ocean and demand that he come in to shore and explain himself.

Actually, she didn’t give a darn what he had to say for himself. She did have a few things to say to him, however. She’d had the entire drive down from San Francisco to plan her scathing speech, in fact.

Realizing the beachcomber was still standing there, she asked him, “Any idea when the surfers will call it a day?”

“Not till sunset. That’s in about an hour-and-a-half.”

Impatient to give Trent a piece of her mind, she had no intention of leaving and letting him slip away from her unscathed. She would wait. But it was cold out here. She slogged back to her car to dump her shoes in the trunk and fetch her emergency blanket. Plopped down on a corner of the blanket on the sand, she wrapped the remainder of the wool-plaid throw around her shoulders.

The surfers were mesmerizing. They flew across the waves like ballet dancers with wings beneath their feet. And they looked as fragile as brightly colored butterflies against the towering walls of water crashing down around them. Although the occasional surfer was overtaken by a break and swallowed up for a heart-stopping minute in the frothing surf, most of these guys were really, really good. They safely dropped off the back side of the crests or rode the waves in until they petered out. Then they’d paddle over to the nearest Jet Ski, ride back out and do it all again.

Which one was Trent? She narrowed it down to three or four of the tallest, most powerful surfers. But beyond that, she couldn’t tell. The sun expanded into a giant, pulsing ball of red as it slipped below the cloud deck to briefly show itself and then slide behind the sea.

No big surprise, teen girls started filtering onto the beach as sunset approached. Chloe was a bit shocked by the sheer number of groupies and the scantiness of their bikinis in this chilly weather.

The temperature dropped precipitously with the sun, and the last of the surfers grabbed quick waves and rode them all the way in to shore. She thought several of them actually eyed her appreciatively as she searched for Trent. But in light of the nubile, half-naked phalanx of hot chicks swarming the surfers, she probably was mistaken. At thirty years old, she was a senior citizen on this beach.

Trent was one of the last to jog ashore, a bright yellow-and-orange surfboard tucked under his arm. Her heart raced at the sight of him. Or maybe it was anticipation of the confrontation to come making it pound like that. Either way, she hurried to where he bent over his board, unhooking it from its ankle tether.

He glanced up as she drew near. The lanyard slipped out of his hand and fell to the sand as he straightened abruptly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice rough like he’d been shouting over the surf and swallowing saltwater all day.

“You and I need to talk,” she shouted back over the crashing-ocean noise.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” he growled. “You’re convinced that I’m incapable of real feelings or sustaining a relationship. That basically says it all.”

Dammit, he’d stolen her line! “And it’s over?” she demanded. “Just like that?”

“Yup. Just like that.” He picked up his board and commenced hiking up the beach toward a crowded surf shack. Warm, yellow light poured out onto the sand as twilight fell quickly.

She followed him, not about to let him get away with an exit line like that. Although she wasn’t at all sure what there was left to say between them. If he could walk away from her without a backward glance like this, then she’d been right about him, after all. He wasn’t capable of real feelings or any remotely resembling commitment.

“I loved you, dammit!” she shouted over the roar of the ocean.

Trent stopped a dozen yards short of the surf shack and its raucous crowd of surfers stripping out of wet suits and hoisting cans of beer, staring like she’d just spoken to him in Martian. “You love—” He broke off, looking past her first, and then all around the beach. “Where are your bodyguards?” he demanded.