Accessory: The Scarab Beetle Series: #4 (The Academy) (7 page)

“You could do with a little liquid courage right now.” He selected an Irish whiskey and poured a bit into one of the glasses. He selected something else, a label I couldn’t read, and poured it into the second. “Try this.”

“I’m not interested.”

He held the glass out to me, the liquid inside swirling, a delicate pink color. “Entertain me.”

“That’s not what I’m here for,” I said, but took the glass from him. Maybe if I held it, he’d shut up about it. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

He motioned to the deeper part of the lounge, to another small sofa that faced a fireplace that, at the moment, was lit to a few glowing embers. No smoke. Was it fake? “Sit. Please.”

I sat on the sofa, at the far edge corner. “Start talking,
please
,” I said.

Blake sat beside me, close enough that he placed a gentle hand on my knee, warming me through the jeans. I pressed my lips together, and stared at the arm of the seat. I didn’t want him to guess at that I actually did like him.

When he spoke, I looked up at him. “We’ve got five days on board ahead of us where there will be businessmen and women as well as these crooks we’re looking for.” He took a sip of his drink and then settled more in his seat, looking at the contents in his glass. “You and I, we’re going to have to agree to be completely upfront with each other.”

“That might be harder for you than me,” I said.

He lifted an eyebrow. Then his gaze started at my face and worked slowly down my body and then back up to my eyes. It made me self-conscious of what I was wearing again. “Sweet little Kate needs to remember she lied, too, and that she lied first.”

I cringed at remembering the old name I’d used when I had first met him, right after I’d picked his pocket for his wallet. “If we’re going to work this close, we’re going to have to forget about that for now.”

His voice lightened, sweet like honey. “Darling, I’m willing to start over with a clean slate at this point.” He took a sip from his glass. It was the first time I noticed the watch around his wrist. It wasn’t silver exactly, maybe platinum. There were diamonds around the face and the telltale emblem in the center: Rolex. He lowered his hand and then distracted me with his eyes that were focused intently on my face. “Can we do that?”

“Nice watch,” I said, unable to commit, unsure I could hold my tongue if he started talking about the past again. Part of it was my own guilt, too. I did feel bad for blowing up a lot of perfectly good food from his kitchen. His yacht had been okay. It wasn’t the yacht’s fault.

He smirked. “I guess that’s as good an answer as I am going to get.” He put the glass down on a side table and then edged closer until he was sitting with his knee against my thigh. His arm went behind my shoulders and he remained there, really close. “So, co-lead, should we get a room together tonight to discuss what we need to do?”

“Why don’t you tell me now what you need to tell me?” I asked, frightened by how easily I was lured by his coy smile and his constant badgering to go somewhere quiet with him. For the past couple of weeks, the guys had been rather aloof. Not one comment about a relationship, nothing more than a casual hug. At first, I’d been sick and wouldn’t have wanted anyone to touch me, anyway, but then it started to grate on me. It was strange how I hadn’t thought of this until now. “And then I’ll do what I can to convince the guys that they should stay and work with us. And if they don’t leave, you’ll be on your best behavior until we can get to the bottom of what’s going on?”

“And what happens if they do leave?” he asked. “Are you going to stay and help if they won’t?”

I bit my lower lip, unsure of my answer. Would they refuse? I wanted to believe they’d stay if they were helping other people, but I wasn’t totally convinced. They’d say I was too worn down from the last catastrophe to participate in this. They would say they were too close, perhaps. That they were unprepared. They may not want Blake anywhere near here. However, it was only going to be information gathering and we didn’t have to go through with anything else.

Was I just creating a bigger mess getting them onto a ship together for a few days?

But still, the money… That could set us all up for years. They wouldn’t have to work for anyone, Academy or not. I wouldn’t have to work, either. We’d be set. After it was all done, we could do whatever we wanted. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Blake continued to gaze at me while I was thinking. His hand shifted, until he was rubbing my shoulder. “Sweetheart, you’re not answering me.” He leaned in to catch my eyes, the gold in his flashing. “You know, when I got your message and tried to call you back, that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. I felt it before when I tried to visit you in the hospital and they refused to let me see you.”

My eyes opened wide, staring at his face. I hadn’t heard there were people at the hospital to see me. It was true that I hadn’t felt like company, but I wasn’t even told about it. I lowered my eyes to stare blankly at the grey sweater he wore, wondering what other things the boys hadn’t told me. It hurt. I wanted an explanation and to rationalize it away, but could there be any excuse as to why they hadn’t at least talked to me about what was going on?

“I think we should focus on what we’re here for,” I said quietly.

Blake sucked in a huge breath, held it for a minute and then bowed his head to let it go. “If you need something to convince them to stay, I should tell you about Michelle.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

He lifted his head and I noticed a change in his expression: the sly fox had shifted into something softer, gentle, and troubled. “Michelle runs a children’s foster home, one meant for teenagers. She raises a few rescued animals, too—cats and dogs—and she has the teenagers help her out. She owns an estate out in the middle of nowhere just off of John’s Island.”

“Okay?” I said, unsure where this was going.

“She started a lawsuit last year against Ethan’s company for failure to fulfill promised donations. There’s paperwork that said she got money from the company, but she never did, and the government was looking in on it and accusing her of lying on her tax statements. She also said that since she had been promised money, she had relied on it, and had spent her time with the kids instead of pursuing other avenues of income. By the time she realized the money wasn’t coming, she was in a lot of financial trouble. She was using her last pennies to file and take them to court.”

“Oh,” I said. “Could hers be one of the accounts in the file?”

“We can’t match up her numbers with what’s in that file. So either hers was lumped in with others or something else happened along the way. That is if this even connected at all to those secret accounts.”

“Can we track where her money went at least?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Ethan’s going through the accounting himself. Michelle was looking at foreclosure, and almost had to give up the teenagers to other foster homes. Teenagers are hard to place anywhere.”

I could imagine. “We should do something,” I said.

He lifted a hand in a stop motion. “I already have,” he said. “I gave her the money for her home last week, paid outright so it’s hers to keep. I asked her to drop the lawsuit, with the promise I’d get to the bottom of it and she’d get back-payment for every dollar promised to her. Ethan agreed, and is making arrangements. I’ve got her covered for now, at least until we straighten it out and so people connected to this doesn’t suspect Ethan might be on to them.” He motioned with his hand toward the tablet still sitting near the settee. “I’ll bet you a nickel that she’s a key to figuring out at least one of those accounts. Ethan’s still working out which one.”

“Should we talk to her?”

“I have,” he said. “I’ve got what I think we need.” He pulled from his back pocket a photo of a strawberry blond young woman, standing beside an old farm house, with a pug at her side. “Maybe you can use her as a reason to convince the others to stay. There’s probably more out there like her that haven’t come forward.”

I took the picture in my hands, looking at the photo. “That might do,” I said quietly. It was one thing to talk about taking down evil rich guys. It was another to know how those bad guys affected innocent people. How could they say no to this now?

“She was promised the money from Nightingale: a nonprofit division within Murdock’s enterprise. A couple of the board members will be joining us on this cruise for the next few days, along with CEOs from other companies who make contributions. Someone somewhere will know what’s going on. Doyle’s working on the numbers Ethan could get from that company and trying to establish where the money goes. He’s also trying to gather details about people coming on board, especially those from Nightingale.”

“What was your plan?” I asked.

“I thought Corey could give him a hand, if he’s willing,” he said. “And for this trip, you and I could mosey around the ship, listen in on a few conversations and maybe make friends with a few people. The others could sneak into rooms and snoop around any laptops and find any secrets we can. You might be able to pull a few cell phones, and we can gather some data.”

That sounded like something we could do. “What do we do if we find anything?”

“Nothing at the moment,” he said. “Not unless it’s life and death. This is just an information gathering endeavor this time. No sudden moves.” He crossed his fingers over his heart. “I promise not to even touch anyone unless something drastic happens.”

I gazed at the photo again. If what he said was true, and Ethan was right, billions of dollars could have come from Michelle’s promised money, and thousands of other accounts just like hers. How selfish could CEOs be if they were stealing money from people who needed it most?

“Okay,” I said.

He stared at me, as if waiting for me to say more. “Okay?”

“Sounds like a decent plan,” I said. “Reasonable. Little chance of danger if we’re careful and do it right. But if this is going to work, I need to look like I’m in charge with the guys, and I need you to listen to their suggestions, too.”

“You’re going to let them take over?” he asked.

“I’ll be in charge,” I said. “But Axel’s going to want to be in command of his team. I need you to at least listen to whatever he says and take him seriously.”

He rolled his eyes. “That guy? Last time he gave me an earful of being careless around you. I didn’t want to point out that you got kidnapped under his nose, not mine. And his Academy is the one full of criminals, not that I can find more than just their team.”

I pulled the sleeve of my jacket up my arm and scratched absently at my wrist. “Blake, I really need you to not talk about their criminal history. Or the Academy.”

“I wasn’t going to tell them I knew,” he said.

“But now Ethan knows,” I said. “And Avery.”

“I couldn’t invite them into this without telling Ethan everything about them. He was suspicious from the start about their motives and how they knew certain things. He isn’t sure if he likes this Academy inside their city, either, but so far, they seem to be do-gooders.”

I nodded slowly, recalling when I’d first met the boys, and how quickly I’d guessed that there was more to them than a group of friends. I had spilled the beans a bit to Blake myself, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t have discovered on his own. Truthfully I was in the same boat. I didn’t know that much more about the Academy than they did. “If the boys learn that they know, though, they might not want to stay. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“They’re not that secret,” he said.

“I don’t think their team is actually that good at keeping secrets. They get too involved in people like you who are clever and can do a bit of digging to uncover the truth.”

He smiled big, the fox coming back out to play. “So you think I’m clever?”

I blew a short breath out between my lips. His handsome face was too distracting when he was trying to be playful. I pulled away from him and pressed a finger toward my temple. “Can we just focus on this? I’ll need to go talk to them. I don’t even know what I’m going to say. Just tell the others not to mention the Academy around them. At all.”

“Fine, I promise,” he said. He sat back, picked up his drink again and drained the glass. “But I suggest you try to put some distance between you and them after this. I don’t like hearing that you were locked away without being able to contact me if you wanted to.”

“I called you,” I said.

He put down his glass on the side table and turned fully to me. His eyes focused on me, capturing my full attention. “From a payphone,” he said. “The one on the main floor of your apartment building.”

My heart did a skip. I frowned. Doyle must have traced it for him.

“Huge mistake on their part,” he said, his voice becoming soft. “I don’t know anyone who can keep Kayli from doing what she wants. Not a force in the world could stop you if you wanted something.”

I shook my head without really meaning to say no, just amazed at his crazy words. I stood up, adjusting the jacket on my shoulders, a little warm now that I’d been inside for a while. “I need to talk to them,” I said.

He stood, moving close to me. He cupped my chin in his fingers and directed my attention to him. “I’m going to go hide out for a bit,” he said. He smoothed his thumb across my jawline. “Come find me. And whatever happens, don’t let them convince you to leave if you don’t want to.”

I looked at him, but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t make any promises, because I didn’t want to admit the boys kept me from doing anything. I really hoped that wasn’t the case.

He winked at me and then stepped away, heading down the hall. He stopped and turned, looking at me. “Kayli,” he said, and he paused.

I stood there, not moving, feeling awkward again as I admired his looks and knowing how much of a slob I appeared to be at that moment. Did I look like an emotional wreck, too?

He shifted his weight on his feet and lowered his gaze, looking at the floor. “I thought I’d pissed you off somehow when they said you didn’t want to talk to me.” He slowly picked his head up, and instead of the fox, there was something stronger, more determined. “I swear, girl, if you want to talk to me, don’t ever hesitate. Don’t ever kowtow to anyone. You drive me crazy, but you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to me. You don’t need to send Avery after me to fetch me. You don’t need to call me from a pay phone. I made some mistakes before, and I can only apologize for that now. But I’m here when you need me.”