To the Max (38 page)

“It’s a 4-D ultrasound video of Lizzie. I’d arranged it with your OB,” Max said impishly.

Her lower lip started trembling, her chest seizing. Oh no, no. She’d gone through a mugging and its aftermath without shedding a tear, and now she was going to lose it. Correction; she was losing it already, her eyes so watery everything was a blur.

“Ace?”

She threw herself at him, hugging him so hard, her arms hurt.

* * * *

“This wasn’t a mugging,” Max stated. “There’s someone after her.”

He’d been pacing in Cole’s living room for a wile, wearing a hole on the carpet actually.

“How do you know?” James asked.

“The bastard stole her bag, but she was wearing all that fancy jewelry from her grandmother. Why take a bag and ignore the big payout?”

“Because the endgame wasn’t robbing her,” Cole mumbled.

Exactly. Max was sure the mugging was a cover-up. Not that Annie believed a word, of course. She didn’t see any relationship between what she called accidents and the inconsistencies in the Franke accounts. She kept insisting people got run over and mugged all the time in big cities, that statistically speaking there was nothing unusual about that. Statistics, his ass.

James frowned. “Why would anyone target her? I understand she has all that money, but she doesn’t have any real power in the family business. She’s stayed out of it. Why kill her?”

“She has several stepmothers, but none of them seem to want for anything, not even the ex-ones. Annie’s dad makes sure of that.”

“Greed knows no boundaries,” Cole stated.

“True, but I don’t think they would gain anything by killing her. It would all revert to the matriarch, and I think the old lady dislikes them profusely, so they would be worse off,” Max explained. “Do you know Franke Enterprises?”

“That’s the telecommunications conglomerate, right?”

He nodded. “Annie has been auditing them and has found irregularities. Don’t ask me what, because she’s explained it twice and I still don’t understand it, but money from several of the nonprofit organizations has been moved around and diverted to private accounts. Systematically for the last four years.”

James ran his hand through his hair. “That would be one hell of a motive. Who is benefiting from the irregularities?”

“Annie doesn’t know. She’s traced the money to shell companies but suspects someone on the board of directors is behind those. She was hired to audit several companies, not the nonprofit organizations, and her boss has asked her to drop it. Franke Enterprises has been audited before by her firm, and Benito Hayes, her boss, supervised the final report. He could be covering their ineptitude or maybe something worse. Maybe he was in on it. Either way, Annie has told Sebastian Franke about the irregularities, so if her boss is behind it, he’s too late.” Unless, of course, Franke himself was in on it too. “Things could get fuzzy again with her out of the picture.”

“What about the baby’s father?” Cole asked. “Could he want to get rid of her?”

“Why? If the motive is money, then he needs the baby to be born in order to claim paternity.”

Cole shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t want the baby to be born. Maybe he’s pissed Annie decided to keep it and doesn’t want the feeling of guilt that walking away from his own flesh and blood would bring him.”

“So he’d carry on his conscience the guilt of killing the baby and the mother?” James asked, taken aback.

“Who knows? People are fucking crazy.”

Yeah, they were, but Fallon didn’t strike him like one.

“What about a scorned lover?”

“I don’t know any of Annie’s lovers.” Except for the mayor in Redwaters. There hadn’t been any animosity between them, much less enough to justify him coming all the way to Boston to whack her. Maybe to try and whack Max, but not her.

“I meant your lovers, butthead,” Cole said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Well, that was a long-assed list.

“I haven’t been dating any Mata Haris.” He racked his brain, but he couldn’t see any of his former lovers trying to kill anyone. His brother had said it, though: there were many crazy fuckers out there. The person pointing the gun at her had been a man, but there was no shortage of morons ready to dance to a woman’s tune.

“Maybe we should talk with Annie’s boss and find out if he’s involved,” Cole suggested. “Break some bones if need be.”

Christy, who’d just come in, laughed. “I’m the first to recognize the Neanderthal approach has its virtues, but not in this case. Let me get to my computer, and I’ll show you the nerdy approach to kicking ass.”

The three of them followed Christy to her computer.

“Do you have the social security number or the driver’s license number of this guy?”

Max shook his head. “No. I have only his name. Benito Hayes.”

“It will do. That combination of first name and last name is peculiar enough. We may not find many in Boston.” The
tappity tap
started on the keyboard, and in no time, Benito’s driver’s license was on the screen. “That’s your man. Employment records confirm it.”

Benito Hayes, or Benny, as Annie called him, was a skinny balding guy in his early fifties. Max turned to Christy, agape. “How do you—”

“You know the difference between an auditor and a computer nerd? An auditor gets all the documentation from the auditee and searches for inconsistencies. Or suspicious patterns. Traces money. Incomes. Outflows. That sort of thing. They see numbers. People like me sneak through the back door and access the info from the source. Names. Addresses. The juicy stuff.”

It took her all of a few minutes to get Benito Hayes’s digital fingerprint, as she called it, on her computer screen.

Annie had mentioned Christy was considered a genius in her field, but this was impressive.

“Where the heck did you learn to do this?” Cole asked. “I thought you created programs. Algorithms. Shit like that. I had no clue you were a security expert.”

She shrugged. “This is basic. To create good programs, you need to know where the weaknesses are in the existing ones. There’s no better way to explore that than hacking into them. Although in this case, you don’t have to, not to get driver’s licenses and credit reports. Most are public records. You just need to know where to search.”

Cole smiled at her, clearly impressed. “You’re brilliant, love.”

“I know,” she said with a wink. Then she turned to Max. “So, I’ve accessed Benny’s financial records, and he’s had a lot of ups and downs. Mainly downs: maxed cards, loan after loan, filed for bankruptcy once. It seems Mrs. Hayes has a spending habit way beyond their earning capabilities. Four years ago, an up period started. Twice a year, they get a big sum that gets diluted by Mrs. Hayes just in time for the next to come. The extra money allows the Hayeses not to hit rock bottom.”

“You see all that?” James asked, watching Christy tap the keyboard, windows opening left and right. “Can you find out what I had for breakfast last Monday by searching in there?”

“If you ate out and paid with a credit card, yes, I can. Even if you paid in cash but used your card immediately after, I would be able to figure it out by matching past preferences for breakfast and location.”

He whistled, turning to a very proud-looking Cole. “Fuck, your woman is scary. And I thought Tim was amazing with computers. Who knew we had a hacker running Alden’s library?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m no hacker. I’m a talented information retrieval geek.”

“What’s this account?” Max interrupted, pointing at the checking balance on the screen. “How do we find out who Benny is getting money from?”

Christy worked more of her magic. “Integral Services Ltd. Based in Delaware. A law firm from Maine acts as the proxy. I bet if we check Annie’s documents, we’ll see this account there too. You know, twelve thousand dollars for a toilet seat and stuff like that. Or humongous fees for consulting. Consulting is the key word in the world of embezzlement and bribery.” More
tappity tap
, and a list appeared on the screen. “These are the main clients of the law firm, and here you can see several names connected to Franke Enterprises.”

Okay, so it looked like Benny had been turning a blind eye to Franke Enterprises cooking the books and had gotten paid for it. Was Sebastian Franke on it?

“If we gave you the private account numbers where the money is being rerouted, could you find out who the beneficiary is?” Max asked.

“Probably.”

“So why hasn’t Annie asked you to do that?”

Christy shrugged. “She’s too much of a law-abiding citizen to ask me to do illegal stuff.”

And Annie’s job was to follow the irregularities and the money, as she’d said to him. Not to find guilty parties. She lived in a world of numbers. The problem was, there was a very real person trying to off her.

Max looked at his future sister-in-law. “How much of a law-abiding citizen are you?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Max stopped by the sushi place near Annie’s office and ordered some rolls to go. She was working late, and he’d decided to surprise her by bringing dinner and keeping her company. Since realizing Benito Hayes was more than an incompetent auditor, Max was uncomfortable having her spend so much time with him, but Benny was her boss and there was nothing he could do about it, especially as she didn’t believe there was any relation between the car accident and the mugging. Nevertheless, Max had started driving her to work and picking her up whenever she allowed it, which, much to his chagrin, wasn’t often. She liked her independence, alleging that as long as her belly didn’t reach the steering wheel, she was very capable of getting herself to work.

Christy had turned out to be much less of a law-abiding citizen than Annie, but Max had underestimated his woman’s willingness to go along with his plan. Her “absolutely not” had been robust. He had no qualms about going around her and checking the papers himself, but there were thousands of documents. Without Annie’s help identifying the accounts and pinpointing the red flags, they were flying blind. Trying to find a needle in a haystack.

One thing was certain: he was supposed to go away for work in a couple of weeks, and there was no way in hell he was going without her.

He took the elevator to the ninth floor. It was well past seven, but there were still some people working. He greeted several of her colleagues. To Max’s relief, he noticed Hayes was gone. But there were voices coming from Annie’s office. Laughter too.

“You’re radiant,” a man said. “I’m going to be the most envied guy in the whole place.”

Max made it to Annie’s door in time to see Sebastian with his hand on Annie’s back, escorting her to the door. She wasn’t dressed as she’d been when she left that morning. She had on an evening gown, her face heavily made up, her hair done. Sebastian was wearing a tuxedo.

His chest clenched so fucking tight he almost staggered back.

“Max,” she said, clearly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Good question. He was asking that himself. He forced his jaw to unlock. “I brought you dinner. You said you were working late. My mistake.”

Watching her blushing and fumbling for words was excruciating. “Ah yes, that. Sebastian was busy all day. And he’s traveling overseas for a week. He has to go to an art opening downtown, so we decided to discuss matters on the way there.”

Sure. Because that made so much sense.

“Have fun.” The pain in his chest was ripping him apart. It was fucking difficult, but he got his legs working.

Annie called to him, but he didn’t stop. On his way out, he threw the sushi into the trash.

* * * *

Annie was worried about Max and left the art exhibition almost right away. She’d known meeting Sebastian wasn’t a good idea, but she’d needed to speak with him without Benny being around. Or suspecting anything. She hadn’t expected to see Max in her office, much less looking so furious.

When she arrived home, she heard sounds coming from the basement.

“Max?”

She got no answer. This was going to be bad, so bracing herself, she walked down the stairs. Max was laying on a weight bench, pumping iron. By the looks of him, he’d been at it for a long while. He said nothing, his expression tense, all the muscles in his body bulging and shiny from sweat. He was pissed.

“Look who’s here. The heiress. Do us both a favor and go back upstairs.”

She didn’t even consider his offer. Max was her man; she was not going to tiptoe around him. She left her handbag on the sleeper sofa by her side and walked to him.

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” he spat.

Annie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming with dinner. Otherwise I would have told you that I was going to an art opening with Sebastian.”

He put down the weights and rose to his impressive height, directing his stare at her for the first time. His eyes were scary. “You said you were working late, not strutting your sweet ass at high-society parties.”

“There was nowhere for us to speak.”

He let out a hard laugh. “Sure.”

“You’re the one who keeps telling me Benny is dirty,” she yelled, exasperated, lifting her arms. “We couldn’t talk at the office, and Sebastian is a very busy person.”

“I bet he is. So you decided to primp yourself up and go out with him. What? Tired of slumming?”

“I’m not slumming,” she said, aghast.

He took a step toward her. He was frigging intimidating, but she stood her ground. “Yes, you are. Where did you get the fancy clothes?”

“My grandmother came by. She didn’t think I should go to a public event with a suit.”

“I hope Franke appreciated your effort.”

That did it. Who the hell did he think he was? “How am I supposed to dress to go to an art opening? In a wrinkled suit I’d been wearing all day? And, yes, Sebastian behaved like a gentleman and complimented me. What’s the frigging big deal? We just talked. Stop acting like a jerk. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you beforehand, and I’m sorry I let my grandmother go overboard, but it was nothing.”

She wasn’t sure how he moved so fast, but one second he was near the weights, the next he was in her face, looming over her. “What’s the big deal? You’re my fucking woman.”