Armed With Steele (29 page)

“Milo?”

A grin that would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame stole across Vanessa’s face. “Finnegan. I told you he had fast hands. Trust me, I should know.”

* * * *

“Fifteen?”

Nate was due any minute with carry-out from TJ’s Italian Ristorante. I had the table set and house sufficiently cleaned up. So to pass the remaining time, I’d decided to check my email.

Now I was sorry I had.

“How the hell could I have possibly gotten
fifteen
requests in
just one day
?”

A knock at my front door saved me from an enraged pity party. I closed my email and snapped my laptop shut. With a sigh, I headed to the front door.

It was going to have to be a short night with Nate.

I swung the door open, blocked Brutus from charging outside with my right foot, and waved Nate in. “Hey there.” I stood on tiptoes to give him a hello peck on the cheek. “Thanks so much for grabbing dinner.”

“You bet,” he said, and grabbed my waist with his free hand to draw me in for a second, more satisfying kiss. He pulled back after a moment and eyed me closely. “Everything okay?”

The smell of classic Fort Wayne Italian fare reached my nose. “Yeah,” I said, taking the bags off his hands. “Just fine. Let’s eat before this all gets cold.”

I dished out the large salad we were splitting—no one does salad like TJ’s—and left our entrees in their aluminum take-out trays. Then I proceeded to fill Nate in on my enlightening luncheon. His eyes grew wider by the minute.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re telling me that Vanessa is sleeping with Milo Finnegan? The director of Human Resources?”

I swallowed my bite of salad and reached for the French bread that came with it. “Yep. And he’s married! Can you believe it?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth. “But…why?”

“According to Vanessa, it’s because his wife is always away on business. Says he can’t stand to be alone. You ask me, it’s because Vanessa looks like a freaking super model. And she loves the money he showers on her when the wife is away.”

Nate let out a long whistle. “Sounds like something you’d see on one of the afternoon soaps.” He took another bite of his salad and scowled as he chewed. “But, didn’t she just warn you a few days ago about him being a total perv?”

“She did. And she warned me again today that his hands still wander from time to time.” I shivered at the thought. Thank goodness I hadn’t run into
him
in the stairwell. “Of course, she made me
swear
not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”

“Well, my name’s not ‘anyone’, so you’re safe.”

I rolled my eyes. “Har-dee-har-har.”

“Yeah, that was pretty bad.” He sighed. “Sorry. Been a long day.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No.” He reached for our entrees and served us each a heaping spoonful of baked ziti. “I’d much rather hear what else you learned. And then skip to dessert.”

His eyes flashed to mine.

I knew without having to ask that his definition of dessert was completely different than mine. And where all of that would lead: the same kind of heartache I’d worked so hard these past months to forget.

“Hmm, let’s see. What else did I learn?” I squinted and looked across the room, away from his hungry eyes. “A lot of it was just kinda normal office gossip. You know, this secretary doesn’t like that sales rep. That manager slept with half his ex-employees.”

“Yawn.”

“I know, but of course I had to sit there and pretend it was all the most fascinating information I’d ever heard.”

“Well, she couldn’t have hogged the entire conversation,” he said, swiping a slice of bread from our small loaf. “Didn’t she try to get anything out of you?”

“Geez Nate, this is Vanessa we’re talking about. She’s high on beauty, low on brains. I really don’t think she’s smart enough to be the mastermind behind this embezzling scheme.” I munched on a forkful of ziti. “The only thing she was interested in talking about besides work was shopping, so when she found out I live near Glenbrook—”

“You told her where you live?” Nate slammed a fist down onto the table. “Damn it, Jess, didn’t you learn anything I taught you?”

It felt like he’d set fire to my cheeks. “Give me a little credit, Nate. All I said was that I lived north of downtown, and then made up some bogus distance from the mall to get her to stop asking for specifics.”

“That’s more than you should have offered.”

“Well, what the hell was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, I’d rather not talk about it.’ Or, I know, how about, ‘Gee, sorry, I can’t tell you because it’s a
secret
.’”

Nate set his fork on his plate and took a deep breath. Then another. “Look, I’m sorry, Okay? I—”

“You what?”

Nate looked down at the table, refusing to meet my eyes. “I just don’t want to see…”

My patience waned. “See what, Nate?”

“Anyone else get hurt, alright?” he barked, then shoved his chair back from the table and crossed the room. He reached both arms out to support himself as he leaned on the countertop and looked out the kitchen window.

Brilliant, Jessica. Poor guy’s already told you he had a bad day, and you go and let your temper get the best of you.

I left my seat and walked over to where he stood. “Something happen on your day off, Nate?” I placed my hand gently on his shoulder.

His head dropped lower on his shoulders. “An accident. Out on Lake and Hobson,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“You were in an accident?”

He shook his head. “No, but I saw it happen. Pulled over and called 911. The driver…didn’t make it.”

The pain in his voice nearly broke my heart. I wrapped my arm around his waist.

He sucked in a ragged breath. “She was younger than us, Jess. A college kid. Texting on her damned
phone
.”

Nate slammed both hands down on the counter. The sound echoed through the kitchen. Brutus whimpered from his corner of the room.

“Texting! And now she’s gone.”

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Nate.”

After a moment he straightened up and turned to face me. He said nothing at first, eyes searching mine for the answer to an unasked question, then reached out and pulled me into his chest. Nearly crushed me between the strength of his embrace and weight of his despair. “You have to be more careful.”

Chapter 22

Nate left soon after dinner, not bothering to mention dessert again after his outburst. I tried to get him to open up about the accident, but it was no use. He’d pulled himself back together and clammed up tighter than a set of grizzly bear’s teeth on a prize salmon, leaving me to wonder what kinds of scars mark a man in uniform on a daily basis.

And what the effects of those scars might be.

His early exit turned out to be a blessing in disguise—it gave me a little extra time to catch up on my real job. Even so, I didn’t finish until 1:04 AM. Brutus had long since given up on me, and was on his makeshift bed—a soft, fluffy bathmat I’d sprung for over the weekend—snoring softly, when I finally crawled into mine.

Needless to say, I was a walking zombie the next morning. I hit snooze a few more times than normal and ran out of time to make up a pot of coffee. So when Michael asked at 8:30 if I’d like to make a Starbucks run, I nearly kissed the man. My grande chai latte gave me the caffeine boost I needed to stay alert on job number two. Which was even more important today, as Michael had decided to expand my responsibilities this morning.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Michael sat in the chair across from my desk. Tall mocha in one hand, his Blackberry in the other.

I took a sip of my drink and savored the burn as it traveled down my throat.

Ah, caffeine, how I’ve missed you.

“Really, I wasn’t kidding in the car when I said I was all caught up with the other things you’ve given to me. And trust me, I’d always rather have too much to do than not enough.”

More work had to eventually mean more network access. And the more access I had, the more undercover research I could do.

“Very well, then. I’ve held back from showing you this because—” He stopped. Got up, crossed the room to close my office door, then resumed his seat. “I’m sure you’ve probably heard by now, but we discovered a significant amount of money missing last month.”

I pasted a look of innocence and indifference on my face. “Vanessa mentioned something about that. And…about the woman I replaced.”

Michael’s handsome face clouded. “Miss Sullivan was the best AA I’d ever had. When I heard that she might have been responsible…” He shook his head.

I shrugged. “Maybe she wasn’t?”

He sighed. Leaned back in his seat. “Trust me, if there’s anyone here who wants to believe that, it’s me. But the facts were all there. The time she left the building and then re-entered it. The time the file was opened and then closed. The fact that it was run from her desk, using her credentials. Well, the idea that she’d abused my trust nearly broke my heart.”

Unable to refute any of it nearly broke mine.

“I can only imagine.”

“I suppose that’s neither here nor there now. I’ve been holding off showing you this until…well, until I felt like you were a good fit. And from the work you’ve done this week, Jessica, you have definitely proven yourself in my eyes.”

I blushed at the compliment. “Thanks, Michael.”

He set his mocha on my desk and withdrew a pair of collapsible bifocals from his blazer’s interior pocket. “Now, what we’re going to start working on today is billing and payment processing. Have you been exposed to that at your prior jobs?”

Being a one-woman show at Hartley Designs had definitely prepared me for this. “Yes. But, on a much smaller scale.” Much, much smaller.

“Excellent. Now, I requested you be given access to our finance system, and that should have taken effect this morning. Go ahead and click the icon for Orange Financial.” He pushed his notepad across my desk. “That’s the username and password you’ll use to get in.”

Excitement pulsed through my fingers. I keyed in my credentials and hit
enter
. An hourglass, a flash of color…

I was in.

Michael spent the next hour or so explaining each of the program’s modules. I was relieved to discover Maxwell Office Solutions’ financial system was quite similar to the one I used for my own company. Still, I took notes as he spoke, writing as fast as my fingers would allow.

“I don’t know about you,” Michael said with a wince, “but I could use a short break.”

Our foo-foo drinks must have hit our bladders about the same time. Relieved, I pushed back from my computer and spun my chair around. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

When I returned from the ladies’ room, Vanessa sat perched in the seat Michael had just vacated. She had a way of magically appearing in my office…and usually when I least expected it. Maybe we really did need to have her wear a bell.

“Morning, Vanessa.”

“Morning,” she said with a sigh.

I settled back into my seat and spun around to face her. She didn’t look her usual, bubbly self this morning. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and sighed again. “Just been a stressful week. Having some computer issues.”

“Oh?” My mind instantly went back to the conversation I overheard between her and the mystery IT guy earlier in the week. “Is it something I can help you with?”

“I don’t know,” she pouted. “It’s something to do with the financial software, darn thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes is doesn’t.”

“Ironically, that’s what Michael and I have been working on all morning.”

Her eyes shifted to the notepad on my desk and a grin dawned on her porcelain complexion. “So has he given you the Aardvark password yet?”

I glanced down at the notepad. “Aardv—?”

“Vanessa!”

Both our gazes flew to the doorway. Michael stood there, scowling. “I wondered where you were. The front phone has been ringing off the hook for several minutes now! Better check those batteries in your headset.”