Without checking to see whether Jed was behind her, Cooper raced toward the road. Branches scratched her face and neck but she didn't slow down. Breathing hard, she burst out of the woods and waved at Ellie, who had her red fingernails poised over the keypad of her phone.
Ellie put her window down a few inches and frowned. "What in the
world
is goin' on? Do you know how
close
I was to callin' for help?" She fanned her flushed face. "It's gotta be a thousand degrees in this here truck. I've never been so--"
"I found Jed," Cooper interrupted. Ellie's jaw dropped.
"I think he's gone a bit soft," Cooper said, lowering her voice. "He's been roughing it out here for all these weeks." She turned and scanned the break in the trees for a sign of Jed's blue pants and green shirt.
"For heaven's sake, what was the man thinkin'?" El-lie's voice grew shrill. "Does he know what kind of fiery hell he has put my sister through?"
"I'm sorry," Jed said from afar as he stepped warily out of the woods. He no longer carried his weapon. He looked at Cooper. "And I apologize for pointing my gun at you. I didn't mean to scare you like that."
"Lord have mercy!" Ellie opened the door, slid out of the car, and put her hands on her curvy hips. "You look like you've been shipwrecked! Come on now, you're goin' home. I don't know what Eliza's gonna make of her man lookin' like
Castaway
Tom Hanks, 'cept you've got a bit more gray to your hair than ol' Tom, but I suspect she'll recover from the fright eventually."
Jed shook his head. "I can't go back, Ellie. I've been reading the paper pretty regularly since I ride my bike to the library in town every couple of days. Brooke's killer is still out there and now someone's tried to bump off Reed Newcombe. It's not safe for me to be around Eliza. Can you just get her out of the house for a few hours so I can take a shower and get some fresh clothes and food?" he pleaded.
"I
cannot
do that to her, Jed. No sir." Ellie clasped her hands together. "I can see that you're in some kinda fix, but we'll think of somethin'. There ain't no way you're goin' back to that shed. My sister is sittin' in that big ol' house with her heart breakin' into little pieces. You're comin' back with me if I gotta carry you myself." She flicked her eyes over his lean figure. "Skinny as you've gotten, that should be no trouble at all."
"Ellie's right, Mr. Weeks," Cooper said gently. "Not only is Eliza suffering, but your fellow churchgoer, Wesley Hughes, is in jail for a crime he didn't commit. You need to tell the authorities what you know. Your information could break the case wide open!"
Jed rubbed his filthy hands together, indecision playing across his haggard face.
"I'll call the officer in charge of the case. He's a good guy," Cooper assured him. "He can come out here and talk to you without anyone being the wiser. Then you
and
Eliza can go away somewhere."
"We're not gonna keep chewin' the fat on this dirt road. Git in the truck, Jedediah Weeks." Ellie pointed at the car, her eyes steely.
Jed didn't dare refuse her. He climbed into the cab seat like a penitent child.
The threesome rode back to the house in silence. Cooper was dying to ask Jed a dozen different questions, but he had put his head against the seat back and immediately closed his eyes. Even though she disagreed with his decision to hide in the woods behind his property instead of contacting the authorities, Cooper felt a rush of sympathy for him. Ellie was the only person who seemed delighted by the outcome of their foray to the tobacco shed. She hummed cheerfully as Cherry-O bounced up and down among the deep divots and churned up a wake of dust.
As Cooper pulled in front of Jed's house, he opened his eyes, leaned forward in his seat, and touched Ellie on the shoulder. "Give me a minute alone with her, okay?"
Ellie pivoted in her seat and nodded. "Of course, honey. You just hold her tight and tell her it's all gonna be right as rain." She raised her finger and wiggled it at him. "But don't you dare go tellin' her all the details till I'm back inside. I've earned the right to know just what has happened."
Jed's exhaled wearily, but his eyes were alight with anticipation. "Yes, you certainly have and I will spend many days expressing how grateful I am for the comfort you've given Eliza. Aside from my wife, you're one of this world's finest ladies, Ellie May. God bless you for your strength and loyalty."
Tears sprang into Ellie's eyes. She pivoted and wordlessly pressed her hand into Jed's. She and Cooper watched as Jed strode into his house, his anxiety over reuniting with his abandoned wife revealed in the twitching of his fingers. The door opened and he entered his home.
For a while, the two women sat in the car and watched the windows in the wing where Eliza sat waiting, as though the curtains would be pulled aside and they could witness Eliza's face when she realized that her husband was alive and standing before her. The curtains remained still, however, while Cooper and Ellie made small talk and shifted impatiently in their seats.
"I can't take this much longer!" Ellie declared after ten minutes of waiting. "Maybe we'd best check on Jed. My sister's got a mean left hook and if she's real angry ..." She trailed off as the front door opened and Jed waved at them to come inside.
Ellie jumped out of the car and hustled as fast as her fleshy legs would carry her up the steps, down the hall, and into the room where Eliza sat fanning herself on the sofa. Cooper was right behind an out-of-breath Ellie. Savannah was still settled in the chair across from Eliza, her face infused with a range of emotions. As Cooper watched her friend, Savannah dabbed at her nose with a tissue.
"My fool of a husband would like to take a shower," Eliza began, her voice trembling as she gazed at Jed adoringly. "But he's gonna have to stink to high heaven a tad longer while he tells us all
exactly
why he's been livin' in that ol' shed like some kind of fugitive."
Jed sat on the floor near his wife's feet, clearly reluctant to soil the upholstery of the creamy white couch. He gulped down a glass of water and opened his mouth to speak.
"Hold that thought, Jed. I'll be right back," Ellie ordered and bustled out of the room. She returned with a plate laden with Greek spaghetti. She thrust the plate into Jed's hands and dumped a napkin and silverware onto the coffee table next to him.
"Thank you kindly." He smiled at Ellie and then hungrily twirled a thick wad of noodles covered in feta and mozzarella cheese onto his fork and pushed them hungrily into his mouth. When he had chewed and swallowed, he set the plate gingerly on his lap.
"I've known Brooke Hughes for years," he began. "We served on several Leadership Committees at Hope Street Church together and I saw her as a woman with a kind heart and sound judgment." He loaded his fork again, but this time with careful deliberation. Cooper thought he showed incredible restraint considering how famished he must be. "Therefore, when she asked me to investigate a possible case of internal fraud at Capital City, I was pleased to oblige. Brooke told me that her suspicions of internal fraud were aroused after an elderly African American woman named Hazel Wharton complained that her Capital City statements were inaccurate by a total of three cents and they'd been off for the past four months."
"Three cents?" Cooper asked.
Jed nodded. "Every month, she had been overcharged on her bill by three cents and whenever she called customer service, she received a runaround. There were no records of an overcharge according to Capital City. Customer service representatives checked, but insisted that Hazel was talking nonsense. Eventually, Ms. Wharton contacted Brooke Hughes, who offered to meet with her."
Smiling thinly, Jed recalled Brooke's story of Hazel arriving with an old-fashioned adding machine and a pile of statements and receipts.
"Brooke told me that Ms. Wharton was old and frail and looked like a little owl based on her diminutive size and enormous glasses. Brooke said that Hazel was sharp as a tack. She counted each penny she spent and kept every receipt--no matter how small the purchase. And Capital City had indeed been overcharging her for the past four months, but the overcharge was only reflected on Hazel's statements."
"All the hubbub was over, what, twelve cents?" Ellie sounded dubious.
Jed ate a few more mouthfuls of spaghetti. "Hmm. Delicious." Eliza touched him on the shoulder and he tore his gaze from the food and continued his narrative. "Brooke began to examine random customer statements from the same time period. She actually stopped by their houses and reviewed their statements. It seems that other customers had also been overcharged.
A lot
of other customers."
Savannah raised her brows. "So now it's more than just twelve cents from one person. It's twelve cents times lots of people."
"Yes. Brooke assumed it was thousands and thousands, in fact." Jed ripped a piece of bread in two but didn't lift it to his mouth. "I discovered that she was right. Someone inside Capital City had created a monumental scam, which was to run for six months and charge each customer three cents extra per statement. The person or people involved in this scam were looking at walking away with almost two million dollars."
Cooper frowned. "But if you only had one charge on your bill, surely you'd notice that your total payment due to Capital City was off by three cents."
"I wouldn't!" Ellie declared. "I just look at the bottom line and pay the bill."
"That's how most folks are," Jed said, looking at his sister-in-law. "But whoever wrote the computer program was smart enough to make sure that statements with single items weren't included in the scam. Plus, the extra money only appeared on the person's bill, but not on the electronic balance sheets at Capital City. This devious computer whiz, who I now suspect may have been Reed Newcombe, had to also write a second program to filter the extra money to a private bank account." Jed's expression turned sheepish. "Brooke was killed before I could investigate the fraud any further, but I'd be willing to bet there's a whole pile of money in someone's secret bank account and that Reed wasn't the only fellow at Capital City with dirty hands."
"So Brooke was killed after you gave her your written report," Cooper stated. "That's what was jammed in her copier the day I met her. She was very agitated and said that she really needed copies of that document. Now I see why she was upset and frightened." She sighed. "That poor woman."
"But Jed!" Eliza's eyes filled with tears. "If you were pickin' up newspapers over the last few weeks, you knew Brooke's husband was arrested for murder. How could you let him sit in jail when you
knew
he was innocent!" Her voice was anguished.
Jed's face was filled with shame. "I figured the evidence against him was circumstantial and all I could think about was that the killer might come looking for me and hurt you." He turned and took both of Eliza's hands in his own. "I was just trying to buy time, my love. If I took you away with me, we'd be easier to track. I'd have to take the van and ..."
"People notice me because I'm big and I'm in a wheelchair," his wife finished Jed's thought. There was no bitterness in her tone, but Cooper saw Jed look away, his face etched with anguish.
"I couldn't risk you, Eliza," he whispered softly. "You're my everything. I've been out there, twisting my mind into knots trying to think of a way to clear this up. I even mailed Brooke's boss a copy of my report the day I heard about Brooke's murder on the news, but I guess
he
was too scared to show it to anyone."
Cooper started. "Who's her boss?"
"She reports directly to Vance Maynard," Jed said. "I figured he'd want to know if someone was stealing millions right out from under his nose."
"Unless he was sharing in those millions," Savannah suggested quickly.
"But wouldn't someone get wise to all that much money comin' into a bank account?" Ellie asked. "My bank would notice if I startin' wirin' them truckloads of cash."
All the women looked at Jed. He shrugged. "The money could have gone to an offshore account or to a Swiss bank account. Even in this day and age, you can hide money obtained by illicit means and still look squeaky clean."
Unintentionally, Cooper grabbed Jed's arm. "Vance Maynard just got back from a trip to Switzerland!" She immediately released her grip and returned to her own space, but her voice tripped from her mouth rapid-fire. "And when Nathan and I were searching Brooke's home office, she was reading a book about offshore investing. The chapter she had marked was on
Swiss bank accounts
."
Jed instantly grew alarmed. "Vance was Brooke's mentor. She would have invited him into her house without giving it a second thought. He could have shot her and no one would ever suspect him. After all, he's a charming widower. But good Lord, doesn't the man have enough money?" He glanced forlornly at the women in the room. "Oh, no! What have I done? I should have sent the report to the police! But I was so worried they wouldn't catch the person responsible and then they'd come looking for me. And you, Eliza."
Eliza took her husband's face and cradled it in her hands. "It's not too late, darlin'. Cooper has the number of the man in charge of the case and you'll call him right now. Then you'll take a nice hot shower, put on some clean clothes, and eat some of Cooper's homemade raisin bread along with a nice cup of coffee. While we're waitin' on the investigator, you, me, and Ellie will figure out how to make ourselves scarce until there's enough proof to put the real criminal behind bars and get Wesley Hughes set free."
"All right, Eliza. We'll tell the cops, but then we're leaving." Jed turned to Ellie. "Do you still have that little cabin in North Carolina?"
