Pound Foolish (Windy City Neighbors Book 4) (40 page)

     “Ah, there you are.” He burst into the office with a flurry. “Here, have a coffee. I just stopped by Starbucks, so they should be hot.” He held out the cardboard tray to her. “Cream, sugar?”

     “Yes, please. Thank you.” She busied herself fixing her coffee, then remained standing as she started to explain what she’d been doing.

     “No, no. You sit down.” Paddock indicated his executive chair. “You’re the one who’s working here.” He came around the desk and leaned over her as she talked, affirming what she’d been doing, asking a question now and then about some detail. She could smell his aftershave . . . subtle, manly.

     “That’s great,” he said finally, walking around to the front of the desk and sitting down in one of the “visitor” chairs. He leaned back and rested one ankle on the other knee, staring at her a few moments. “Rodney said he picked you up someplace in Andersonville.”

     It was an obvious question. Nicole looked down at her hands a moment. “Yeah. The kids and I are staying at my mom’s for a while.” He’d been so trusting of her, opening his computer and business, she wanted to respond with similar trust and tell him what was really going on between her and Greg. “I . . . well, we—Greg and I—are at a bit of a difficult point. I just needed a little space.”

     Deep lines scored Lincoln’s forehead as he stroked his chin. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

     His sensitivity made her want to tell him everything, but would he think less of her? Still, she really did need to talk to somebody, and before she knew it, she was blurting out the situation. She did her best to not badmouth Greg, but . . . “I know it’s not all his fault, but something’s got to change. The stress is getting to me. I can’t go on this way.” Staring into Lincoln’s concerned eyes, she imagined him coming around the desk and putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.

     When he planted his feet on the floor and leaned forward, she thought for a moment he was going to get up, but all he did was rest his elbows on his knees and steeple his hands to support his chin. “I don’t know quite how to express this to you, Nikki, but . . .” He paused, looking down at the floor while she held her breath, anticipating what he might say—what she wanted? what she feared?

     When he looked at her again, his eyes glistened. “I had a family like yours once, a beautiful wife and three-year-old son. You and your kids remind me of them, make me long for what I once had.”

     Nicole’s mind raced. What was he saying? Was he hoping to recreate his idyllic family with her? She reigned in her imagination. He hadn’t said that. She was foolish to go there.

     “Then I made the worst mistake of my life.” A cloud passed over his face. “We were having problems. Big ones, little ones, who knows?” He shrugged. “There’s no way to compare them to what you and Greg are facing. All I know is they seemed insurmountable at the time. And so, when Annie said she wanted to leave, I just let her go . . . without an objection, really. Guess I thought that’s what she deserved or maybe that’s what I wanted too.” He stopped and turned away, staring blankly at the office wall. “Nothing has brought me more sorrow. And nothing”—his hands made a sweeping gesture of the room around him—“nothing I’ve accomplished since has replaced it.”

     Nicole could hardly breathe. Why was he telling her this? She suddenly felt sorry for him, wanted to reach out to him and make it better. Maybe they could be for each other what they both were missing, maybe—

     “I would do anything to win her back,” Lincoln continued. “But Annie hooked up with some other guy and moved to Atlanta. Now I seldom see my son at all. He’s eleven, the very years a boy most needs his dad.” He paused and looked seriously at Nicole. “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

     What? “But I thought . . . since you . . .”

     He gave a hollow laugh. “You thought since I partied all the time, I didn’t care about family?”

     “No, I—I was thinking that maybe we . . .” What was she saying? Had she really thought she and Lincoln could create the family of her fantasies?

     Lincoln seemed a bit taken aback. “Oh, Nicole . . . Look, I’ve admired you and your kids from the first time I saw you. Guess I idealized you, the family I didn’t have. Made me want to spend time with your kids—you know, the zoo and stuff. And then when you said you could use some work . . . But, oh man, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I mean, I would never want to come between you and your husband. I know what pain that can bring and would never wish it on you or him.” He leaned back in his chair as if suddenly spent. “No, no, there’s no ‘we’ in either of our futures.”

     Nicole turned her face away and bit her lip to keep it from trembling. What a fool she’d made of herself! How could she have done so? She felt naked—not naked beautiful, just naked, exposed, humiliated. How could she have created all those fantasies?

     She heard him blow out a breath. “Look, Nicole. I’m sure this is very awkward. All I ever intended was to provide you with some work. I knew Greg was starting his new business, and that’s always a rough venture. I just thought . . . And then when you came into the law office, you had the very skills we needed. It was no charity gig. Everyone at the firm thought your work was superb, even old Krenshaw with her cheap perfume.”

     His little joke gave Nicole the courage to look at him through tears that made the whole room swim.

     He cleared his throat. “Hey, I understand. If all this has made our working relationship too awkward, I can pay you for today, and I can find someone else to help me out until Hazel gets back.”

     Nicole sat silently for a long minute, and then swallowed, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack. “I don’t want to leave you in a lurch here, but . . . maybe it’d be best for now. Perhaps later, if you’re open to it, we could talk if there’s an opening at the firm. Maybe in a larger setting like that . . .” She stood up and started to gather her things.

     Paddock stood up quickly too. “Yeah, that sounds good.” He walked her to the outer door of Hazel’s office. “Huh. Guess I’ve been baching it too long, not really thinking how my actions would affect you. So how about we make it a rule: no lunches alone, no rides alone. Would that help?”

     Nicole couldn’t talk. She just nodded.

     “But let me see if Bentley’s free—he could take you back to your mom’s.”

     Nicole took a deep breath and shook her head. “Thanks, but . . . no. I can get myself home.” She didn’t want to talk to Rodney Bentley or Lincoln Paddock or anyone else right now.

     Except maybe God. If he was still around and listening.

Chapter 40

Greg sat down with a personal banker that afternoon. He’d put on a shirt and tie, wanting to look professional. The nameplate on the desk said Mike Walker. Glancing at the desk calendar beside it, he noted the date:
Thursday, July 15.
The day all his troubles were going to get squared away. Especially if it was true that accessing his home equity money would be as easy as writing a check.

     After entering the account number, the banker clicked a few computer keys, and then looked across his desk at Greg. “You haven’t used your home equity before, right?”

     “No, we’ve never had occasion to do so.” Greg felt a twinge of resentment at the question. The personal banker looked still in his twenties. What did he know about the complexities of family finance?

     “Well, everything looks in order. Do you still have those initial blank checks?”

     “Yes, but I actually want to do a couple other things. First of all, I want to pay off our credit card.”

     “Good idea, especially if you have a large balance and high interest.”

     It took only a few minutes to complete that transaction before Walker assured Greg the card was now good to go.

    
Okay. Here goes . . .
“The next thing I need is a wire transfer for $18,000.”

     The banker’s eyebrows went up and his head moved back a bit. “That’s a piece of change. You know, Mr. Singer, if you’re doing a remodeling job on your house, contractors sometimes ask for a 10 to 15 percent deposit, but if the one you’re scheduling is asking for the full price upfront, you might get some competitive bids.”

     Obviously Walker thought the money was going into the house. But Greg had just read the fine print on his home equity contract and hadn’t seen any requirement that the money be spent on home improvements. In fact, he’d seen no restrictions at all. But would the bank find some way to tie up the money if Walker knew it was going to TopOps? Greg couldn’t think of a quick solution other than to proceed as though this was an entirely normal transaction. “It’s not a remodeling job. You can send it here.” He passed over a slip of paper with the company’s name, address, phone number, bank routing number and account number.

     “Hmm, Key West, Florida. So you’re not getting a new bathroom.” The young man glanced up with a friendly grin. “What’s up? You leasing a waterfront villa down there for the winter?”

     “Ha, ha, I wish.” Greg decided not to say any more.

     The banker didn’t even flinch, just typed in the information Greg had given him, explained there would be a $30 service fee, printed out a page Greg had to sign, and then handed him a receipt of the transaction.

     “How long will it take for that to be transferred?”

     Walker glanced up at his clock. “It’s not yet three . . . shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes to reach the bank. Somebody there waiting for it?”

     Greg shrugged. “Oh, one more thing. Could you transfer the remaining amount of our home equity line to our checking account?”

     The banker frowned. “And you want to do that because . . .”

     “We just have a number of bills we want to clear up. We’re reorganizing our finances, and it would simplify everything if we had a single payment rather than several small ones.”

     “I understand, but that doesn’t leave you any margin for an emergency.”

     Greg bit back a sharp response. This young man really didn’t have authority to quiz him on what he planned to do with the money, or a more formal declaration would have already been required. He took a breath and tried to relax. Obviously, Walker thought he had Greg’s best interests at heart. “You’re right, having an emergency cushion would be nice, but right now this consolidation has higher priority. Know what I’m saying?”

     “Of course. Consolidation can be good.” The banker did some more work on the computer, had Greg sign another form, and then they shook hands.

     It was done!

     Greg kept up a good pace on the walk home, hoping to arrive in time to make some serious money that afternoon before trading closed. But his TopOps account still showed a balance of just $51. Almost four o’clock . . . it’d been nearly an hour since he’d sent the transfer. A cold fear gripped him. What if the whole thing was a scam, stringing victims along until they made a large investment, and then stealing their money? No, that couldn’t be. The TopOps site hadn’t disappeared, and his account was still open showing
he
hadn’t been erased. But if the banker was right, the money should be there by now. What was the problem?

     Wait . . . the banker had asked if someone would be there waiting for the money. Maybe that was it. Maybe he needed to notify TopOps. He clicked on the
Contact Us
link on the website—and did a double take. TopOps headquarters was in Italy! What? They were located overseas? He swallowed nervously. Wasn’t the Mafia in Southern Italy and Sicily? What if the Mafia was running this thing? Somewhere he’d read that they were expanding into Internet fraud.

    
Okay, calm down,
he told himself. After all, the bank he’d sent the money to was located in the U.S. That ought to provide him some protection. Could he get his money back? How many months or years would that take? Greg clicked his way through the screens to the page with the instructions for wire transfers to check that he’d copied the address correctly. And then he noticed an asterisk by the words
Domestic wire transfers.
He scrolled down to the bottom of the page to find the note:
“Bank transfers within the United States will be posted to personal accounts by the next business day after they are received in the respective TopOps bank.”

     He read it again, processing the information. So even if his money had safely arrived at the Key West bank, it wouldn’t show up in his TopOps account until tomorrow.

     Whew! If that was true, he was still okay. But the scare had been so strong it took him half an hour of reassuring himself in order to calm down. Even then, he kept checking his balance.

     Walking into the kitchen, he made some fresh coffee. Sliding into the breakfast nook, he took several sips of the strong hot liquid. Time wise, not what he’d hoped for. He’d wanted to call Nicole that evening and tell her everything was cleared up, she could come home now. But maybe he should wait, call her tomorrow when he had even better news.

     Greg didn’t like these kinds of emotional roller coasters. Maybe he should just walk away from the whole thing.

     But he couldn’t. He was too far in to quit now.

* * * *

The bedroom was still dark when Greg woke up the next morning. Something was wrong . . . and then he remembered. The other side of the bed was empty. The whole house was empty. His wife and kids were at her mother’s, had been for two nights.

     But maybe by this weekend they’d be home. As soon as Nicole knew the credit card had been paid off, that there was money in the checking account, and he was bringing in a healthy income, surely she’d return.

     He flopped over, telling himself he should go back to sleep for a couple more hours. But he felt wide awake, his mind racing. Should he get up? Go to work? No . . . Even if the money was there, he couldn’t do any trading yet. He tossed and turned, still haunted by the possibility that TopOps was a huge scam. He tried to calm himself down with the notice he’d found on their website that his wire transfer wasn’t even scheduled to show up until today.