“Roark and Reuben are watching Stephen’s house. They have keys. Once the coast is clear, they’ll take in boxes and carry out everything in her room except the furniture.” He rubbed his brow. “I have no idea if that’s the right thing to do or not.”
“If Ariel is afraid of your father for some reason, her departure might set him off,” Evie concluded. “Or will he even notice?”
“If he’s looking to control me, he’ll notice eventually. I need to figure out why my staying here is agitating him. I don’t think anyone else could have known passwords to transfer that Cayman account into my name and set me up for a fall. He’s the one with the Post trust passwords—unless we’ve been hacked. Why would he do that?” He spun around to his computer and typed a message.
Evie reluctantly returned to her feet. He had work to do, and she only knew enough to be dangerous. But she was the intuitive, not Jax, and her deduction skills shouldn’t be ignored. “Do you know anything about check kiting?”
He continued typing. “Where did you pick up that term?”
“I worked for an accountant once. I’m trying to recall how it worked.”
“Writing a check without funds, depositing it in another account, withdrawing the cash before the bank realizes the check is no good. Doesn’t happen much anymore with stricter banking laws.”
“Is there another term for it when we’re talking borrowing from Peter to pay Paul with other people’s accounts?”
He spun around to stare. “Construction companies do it all the time—we talked about that. It’s illegal, especially if you don’t perform the work. That’s why John Post sued Blue Construction.”
“But what if youdoperform the work? You have a large debt, win a lawsuit, use the client’s proceeds to pay your own debt, pay the client with the proceeds from the next suit...”
“And you’re always one lawsuit behind, so if you lose one or more suits, there are no proceeds to pay the clients you’ve robbed. Illegal as hell.” His mouth tightened in a grim line. “What are you telling me?”
“I think there was a reason your biological father had years’ worth of miscellaneous construction company files in his desk and that they all got filed away when he died.”
Evie hated to hit a good man when he was already down, but she had to protect Loretta. She sure hoped she was right in judging Jax as a good man.
Twenty-one
Jax watchedEvie hug a sadly subdued Loretta before sending her off to school on Monday. After the visit to her old school, the kid now had a closet full of pricey clothes but chose to wear jeans and a T-shirt, presumably like the other kids in her public school. A Harry Potter doll stuck out of her backpack.
“Should I hire a therapist?” he asked anxiously once the kid was on her way. “This all has to be hard on her.” The death of their parents had hit Ariel with a double whammy from which she’d never recovered, even with counseling.
“I asked. She refused. Loretta is strong in ways it’s hard to understand. I think she needs to feel helpful. Give her a task, and we can hope she’ll perk up.” Evie returned to scrubbing pans.
Huh. Jax eyed Evie busily scrubbing pans—the task she’d chosen to stay useful? After following up on the bombshell she’d exploded last night, he’d found enough ammo to destroy his mental blocks about looking into the firm’s and Stephen’s finances.
Insanely, it seemed he had accepted that Evie’s abnormal talents and skills had relevance. Which meant Stephen could be in deep shit. If they were both wrong... he’d accept the punishment.
Right or wrong, she shouldn’t be scrubbing pans. Picking up his phone, he finally remembered to punch in a text to his secretary to locate a cook for Loretta. He could add chauffeur to the kid’s employees, and it would still be cheaper than that exorbitant school.
If he got fired, he wouldn’t be able to pay a secretary or his team.
“How good would you be at selling real estate?” he asked, trying to think of a better means of employing Evie’s people skills.
“Truly awful,” she replied without giving it a second thought. “I couldn’t pass the licensing test, couldn’t do the paperwork, and frankly, I’d not be able to sell a balloon to a kid. It’s not in me to hold back vital information likeThe balloon is gonna pop, kid, and if you don’t pay attention, it’s gonna fly off.”
“But you admit to playing with the truth all the time. That’s all sales is—telling people what they want to hear. And you’d be particularly adept at knowing what they want.” He thought. He still didn’t have a good grasp on how she leaped to her conclusions, but scarily, she hadn’t been too far wrong yet. If there were bodies actually in the lake... He’d have to decide if she had paranormal information or if she knew a murderer.
“I do drama to make peopleunderstandthe truth.” She gestured at the kitchen and spoke in a clipped, professional voice. “And here is the kitchen, my friends. Dating back to the turn of the last century, the plumbing and electricity were recently updated in the 1960s, probably to the tune of the Beatles. You can imagine Beetlejuice dancing over the kitchen counter as you pry off half a century of linoleum and sand genuine walnut floorboards.”
Jax snickered. “You’d have a lot of happy customers—eventually. But I guess you wouldn’t be good at producing videos and websites. The business has gone high-tech these days.”
She shoved pans back in their proper places. “I learned to use Val’s computers. If I could afford a phone, I’d learn that too. I’m not completely challenged. Technology simply isn’t who I am. If I’m looking at a phone screen, I’m not noticing your expression or your aura or that you used a dash of aftershave this morning and you’re wearing your lawyer clothes. I could let you head out to confront Emma Blue and the mayor without giving you a head’s up and suggesting you take me along as a diversion. If I want to be oblivious, then a career in real estate involving technology would make sense.”
“I may be wearing these clothes because I’m returning to my office,” he reminded her, even though she’d totally nailed his itinerary for the morning.
“You didn’t pack your computer or a bag of any sort. You have your walking shoes on and not your fancy polished office ones. I have to perform my dog walking duties right now, so unless you’re checking out the pond first, I can’t accompany you to the courthouse or city hall until later. Not that you meant to ask me anyway. Have you heard from Ariel?” She removed the apron sayingMany have eaten here, few have died,and tossed it over a chair to dry.
“I don’t expect anything more exciting at the courthouse than working through rolls of microfiche. Now that I know what to look for, I’ll gather copies of the conflicting deeds and confront Stephen—after my team assures me that all Loretta’s accounts are safely under lock and key, and he can’t blackmail me.”