The Player's Club: Finn (21 page)

“Glad you’re picking up.” His father’s voice was tense. “Son, I didn’t want it to come to this. Not any of it.”

“Dad, unless you’ve got something new to tell me, or you’re going to apologize and give Diana her job back…well, I don’t see what else we have to talk about.”

“I’m not losing this one.” He could almost hear his father’s molars grinding together. “I’m not going to lose
you
. Not to some brainwashing thrill cult and not to an embezzling whore.”

Finn clicked off the phone. It rang again, shrilly, and Finn let it ring. He stood on Diana’s back porch, fuming.

He knew, somehow, that his father loved him. At moments like this, he could have done with less love.

Finally, there was the beep that told him his father had texted him. He glanced at it…then stopped. It didn’t say anything obscene or redundant. It had just four words.

Check your bank balance.

He felt his stomach knot. He wouldn’t.

Quickly, Finn used his phone to call up his bank accounts.

Empty. All of them.

“What the hell?” He dialed his banker’s private number.

“Finn, I’m sorry,” his banker, Frank, said without even so much as a hello.

Finn’s spirit fell further. “He can’t
do
this, Frank.”

“The money from the malpractice lawsuit… Technically, his name was still on the account. Your parents turned it over to you, but…”

“I’m the one who almost died!”

“Yeah, but they were the ones footing the medical bill. It’s a gray area.”

Finn growled. “The trust fund. Grandma Amelia’s. It wasn’t much, but…”

“Your father’s contesting the will and your feasibility to manage it. He didn’t take the money, but it is frozen.”

Finn blinked. “What about…” Jeez, what about what? “What does that leave me?”

“Right now, not much.” At least he sounded apologetic. “I would’ve fought him, but he’s one of my biggest clients.”

“I’m getting that a lot.” Grim resolve was like a frozen fist against his chest.

“I don’t suppose you know a lawyer that would work for cheap?” Frank asked.

Finn smiled. “Strangely enough, I’ve got one that might help—but I don’t think it’ll come to that. Thanks, Frank.” He hung up, shaking with anger and confusion.

His father was playing hardball. He’d heard about his father’s invasive modus operandi in business, about his high-handed and manipulative tactics. He’d never thought Thorn would stoop so far with his own son.

He walked back into the house.

“Do you like Greek food? I was thinking…” She stopped when she saw his face. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She went to him, framing his face in her hands. “Don’t lie to me.”

“How can you tell?” he said, bargaining for time.

She smiled weakly. “Because that’s what my face looked like when your father fired me.”

He told her everything…the bank accounts, the threats, the whole nine yards. She accepted it all with a stoic face.

“He’s been planning this,” she said. “He kept the contingencies in place just in case.”

“Damn it. I guess I should have seen that, but…”

“But you didn’t want to believe it.” Diana nodded. “Believe me, I know.”

“So. I guess I’m, er, broke.” He laughed, then a thought struck him. “Jeez. What’ll happen to my house?”

“Don’t worry about it right now,” Diana counseled. “We’ll talk to the Club. They’re your friends. They’ll want to help you.”

Finn felt so helpless. So furious. But he didn’t know what else to do.

14

THEY DIDN’T WASTE ANY TIME. They decided on Tucker’s loft once they’d settled on the details of the plan. They were going to hack into the computers at Macalister Enterprises and from there they’d trace how the embezzling had happened, how the frame had been constructed. And they’d find the files that held Lincoln’s personal information and delete any trace of it.

“Is that all?” Tucker asked, almost gleefully, at her house. “Because I can sneak in a virus if you want, clean Macalister’s out. Hell, I could…”

“No,”
Diana and Finn had said together, and Tucker had grudgingly complied.

So now they were at Tucker’s place. It was in an industrial district, and his seemed the only inhabited space, a loft with a unique dystopian feel that was a little creepy. Diana moved instinctively next to Finn. She hated this. She
hated
this.

“It’ll be all right,” Finn said, putting a protective arm around her after they stepped into the freight elevator. As it bumped and screeched its way to the loft, Finn leaned down, pressing a gentle but thorough kiss against her lips, warming her from the inside out. She leaned into him.

“Finn,” she breathed.

“Later, I promise. When this is all over, I’m going to do about a million different things to you and you won’t even remember your name, much less what we had to do tonight.” His voice was full of sexy promise. “So hang in there.”

The elevator screeched to a halt, and Finn opened the door. Several other Players were there already, Diana noted. Juliana wasn’t, though, nor was Amanda. There was a woman named Jackie who was apparently a new recruit.
A pledge,
she reminded herself, and she wondered what the woman’s three challenges were. She didn’t look as if she’d lived a life of regret, so what would she want to do before she died…

“All right,” Tucker said, licking his lips and opening a liter bottle of Mountain Dew. He was wearing a T-shirt that said L33T—the cryptic, nerdy notation meaning
elite.
“The sitch. You’re not under arrest or anything, right?”

“No.”
Not yet,
the voice in her head said, and she forced herself not to focus on the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Why can’t you just go to the police?” Jackie, the recruit, asked.

“I’m being set up,” Diana answered. “Whoever’s doing it is on the inside of the company, and now there’s attention. They’ve got to cover tracks. They’ve got to finish the frame and hope it doesn’t get discovered.”

“You don’t think that Macalister’s accountants will figure out what’s really going on?” Jackie pressed. “I mean, he’s richer than God. I’m sure his money people are good and all.”

“They are,” Diana said. “Which is why I’m betting it’s one of them.”

That statement met only silence as its import sunk in.

“They’ll fix things in a way that locks me in, and then eliminate all evidence that proves my innocence. By the time the police get a warrant—or were invited in—I’ll be the only suspect.”

Tucker cracked his knuckles. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You used to have a remote sign-in, right? A way to access your files online, no matter where you were?”

She nodded. “But they’ll have shut that down, changed the passwords,” she said, with a quick, bitter smile.

“You sure? That sort of thing takes time.”

‘It’s standard procedure when somebody’s terminated,” she said. “I should know. I enacted it.”

“Ouch.” He nodded, then rubbed his hands together. “All right, then. Do you have anybody else’s password?”

She hesitated, feeling awkward.

Tucker looked grim. “Diana, I think we’re past all that, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I remember my old boss’s password. It was before the standard procedure went into action, I think.”

“It’s a start,” Tucker said absently. “All right. From here, we dig.”

Tucker started the digging, and in what seemed like a ridiculously short time, he got in. Soon they were sifting through the computer’s databases, looking for the information she’d gotten on Lincoln and the accounting files that were being used to frame her. Until they had those files, the real criminals wouldn’t be caught.

She stared at what they were doing.
As opposed to the “fake” criminals, like you?

She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Lincoln was already there, drinking a Bass ale, leaning casually against the countertop. His gaze chilled, and he began to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That I pulled your financials. I thought, I mean, lots of people have Swiss bank accounts, and it looks like you were laundering money, but it’s not my business. I’ve done shady things…”

“Like pulling my financials,” Lincoln noted.

“And I said to myself as long as my work was involved, I was doing whatever I needed to for the only thing that mattered to me.”

Lincoln took a deep breath. “The money is being laundered.”

She blanched. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “In fact, really—don’t tell me.”

“It was from my father,” he said. “He was a prominent politician. I was illegitimate. He and my mother never wanted the connection made public. That’s the only reason for the secrecy.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. Twelve years ago, more, I wasn’t exactly walking the straight and narrow. Hung out with a bad crowd and learned a hell of a lot of bad things.” He shrugged. “I stopped. You might say I channeled it into the Player’s Club.”

“Oh?”

He must’ve heard suspicion, because he shook his head. “We don’t thrill seek for the hell of it. We sure as hell don’t hurt people. And generally speaking, we don’t break the law.” He paused, then smiled. “Okay, there was the Mighty Mouse mural, and I wound up buying that anyway, so it’s practically legal. And we did break into George’s house that one time.”

She choked.

“But that was to retrieve something he’d stolen, something he was planning on using to get a bunch of us into trouble,” he pointed out. “Much like you’re doing now. Call it self-defense.”

“Self-defense,” she mused, wondering if she believed it or simply liked the sound of it because it made her own position defensible.

He crossed his arms. “I was doing it to protect Juliana,” he said. “I was doing it to protect Finn, and all these people I care about like family.”

“Like a family.” She couldn’t keep the envy, or longing, out of her voice. “I can see why Finn fought tooth and nail to stay in.”

Lincoln’s expression softened slightly. “There’s that. But Finn wouldn’t lose us if he’d just scale back his activities.” He took a long pull from the beer bottle. “I think his father’s a tough bastard—don’t get me wrong—but Finn’s been getting progressively more… Well, he’s more of an extreme player in the Player’s Club.”

She tilted her head to one side. “You know why he does this,” she said quietly, knowing how they started the Club. She was surprised to see the censure in his eyes.

“I didn’t know you knew,” he said, and it was as if some tension was released. “He must really trust you. He doesn’t generally let anyone know about his past, or his…”

“Yes,” she said, when he didn’t finish the thought. “He trusts me.”

Lincoln shifted his position, taking another sip of beer. “I love him like a brother,” he said. “But I’ve been worried.”

“Worried, why?”

“I don’t suppose he told you about Everest.”

“Everest?” She blinked rapidly. “As in, the mountain?”

Finn came in just then. “You okay?” he asked, looking pointedly at Diana.

“I’m fine,” she said. “What’s this about you going to Everest?”

Finn scowled. “Really, Linc? You brought that up
now?
”

“I didn’t know you hadn’t told her,” Lincoln said innocently. “You seem to have told her a lot of other things.”

Diana crossed her arms.

“This is so not the right time,” Finn pointed out with irritation. “After all this is over and things get back to normal, it’ll be fine. Believe me. We’ll talk about it then.”