Ellie Ashe - Miranda Vaughn 02 - Dropping the Dime (2 page)

Rob's eyes narrowed, but he didn't respond.

"I've only seen Jake once in the last six months," I said.

Rob gave me a gentle smile that deepened the laugh lines that framed his eyes. "Mainly, I just need to know that you are okay working alongside Barnes."

His protective nature gave me a warm feeling. "I'm fine, Rob. Really."

After a second, he nodded and smiled. "Okay, then. Let's move on."

He stood and grabbed another stack of documents from the printer. "Here's all the information Theresa could find online about the Leonidis Development company and the family. Simon is the CEO and president, and his three children are all vice presidents. It's a closely held corporation, and all the shares are held by the family."

Rob then pulled out another envelope. "And these are the papers that Ms. Hammond gave us to review. Looks like a bunch of financial information that I'm going to let you sort through. I'd like you to be there when we meet with the agents."

I took the papers and was heading back toward the door when I heard Rob clear his throat, so I turned back.

"Oh, I forgot to mention, Davy Donnelly is coming by today, too," Rob said, rubbing his forehead in the way he did every time he mentioned his client who had pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud.

"Is he all right?"

Davy Donnelly was twenty-eight, a bright and charming young man, who had made the mistake of lying on his mortgage application. Well, on several loan applications, to be honest. He and his best friend bought up a bunch of houses and flipped them, moving up to bigger and bigger houses and always selling them before they had to make too many of the payments—which they could in no way afford. Then the housing bubble burst, and they couldn't sell their current investment houses for half of what they'd paid for them. The banks foreclosed, found that Davy and his buddy had inflated their income by a very large factor and should never have been approved for the loans, and called the FBI.

Now Davy was facing nearly two years in prison and had to report next month. In the meantime, he was calling Rob every other day to ask about the federal prison where he'd been designated and what his life would be like after he was released.

"Davy's fine. He's going to meet with Quinn Bishop in the library," Rob said.

I shook my head. "I don't know Mr. Bishop."

"He's a former client from before your time here. He's going to talk to Davy about FCI Lompoc. Quinn spent some time there a few years back. I thought it would be good for Davy to meet someone who got his life back together after being convicted," he said. "Quinn does this for me from time to time. You'll like him."

He said that about all of our clients, and he was right. Sure, they were accused of crimes, but they were just people. People who had made mistakes and sometimes were sorry for what they did. Even the ones who were unrepentant were respectful to Rob and his staff. I'd spent more than a year working on my case in Rob's office and met several of his clients then. Now I was working for them, part of the professional staff, and could hear their stories and see the evidence against them. And more importantly, I could see a bumpy future ahead for most of them.

Especially Davy, whom I worried about like he was a kid brother. A good football player, he'd gotten through college on a scholarship, his good looks, and his playful charm. Prison was going to be a whole different experience for him, and he knew it. And it scared him.

Putting thoughts of Davy aside, I focused on the papers in front of me, careful not to drop too many crumbs on the articles. The information was interesting reading—Simon Leonidis, the family patriarch, started a small construction company when he was in his twenties. Forty years later, he was the largest homebuilder in the region. He'd built whole cities of houses, designing communities from the dirt up. His more high-profile developments were a community of custom-built mini-mansions in an exclusive enclave called Garden of the Gods and a major subdivision north of the city that would eventually have fifteen-thousand homes over five-thousand acres, essentially quadrupling the population of the town of Newbury.

His three adult children all worked in the business. His son Milo was a vice president of operations. His daughter, Ana, was in charge of design and marketing. Alexi, the younger son, headed up the construction division.

A sharp rap on my desk jolted me out of my reading, and I looked up to find Sarah standing at my desk, her hands on her hips. Her long, shiny black hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she was wearing her leather motorcycle jacket over a crisp white T-shirt. Her helmet sat a few feet away on her desk next to a pair of gloves. She had a take-no-prisoners expression on her face.

"Where are the goods, Vaughn?" she asked.

"Kitchen," I said, popping the last piece of my pastry in my mouth before she could steal it. Despite her slim figure, she was known to do that.

"There better be some Danishes left," she said, crossing the office.

"Man, you're cranky," I said, getting up and following her to the break room to refill my coffee mug.

Sarah peered into the bag and then pulled out two large pastries. "These will help."

"Bad night?" I asked.

"Bad date," she said and then took a savage bite out of the berry Danish.

"Sorry to hear that." I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and waited for her to finish eating so I could hear the details.

Sarah sighed and leaned back against the counter. "You know Marcela's, that Mexican restaurant on the river?"

"Mmmm, yeah. Good margaritas," I said with a nod. Tangy, not too much salt on the rim. Quality tequilas. "He took you there?"

She nodded. "I had a margarita. One of the good ones."

"With the fresh fruit?"

"No, those are not margaritas. Those are girly drinks. Anyway, I hadn't eaten much since lunch—"

"Well, it had only been six hours…"

She waved a hand to dismiss my logic. "As I was saying, drinking on an empty stomach is never a good idea. Especially on a first date. And we were hitting it off. Then at some point, we were joking around, and I leaned over and ruffled his hair."

Sarah paused, and I waited, my coffee halfway between my mouth and the counter.

"And I felt something," she said.

"What, like crawling?" I had a sudden urge to scrub at my arms.

"No! Like canvas. Like the part of the toupee that holds the hair on," she said.

"Oh. My. God. No."

She dropped her head and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose, as if the memory were causing her pain. "That's not the worst part."

"Oh, no. Did it come off in your hand?"

"No, no. But then I couldn't stop staring at his hairline. You know when you've had a drink or two and you sort of lose control of your impulses? Well, I couldn't look anywhere but his forehead, trying to see if he was really wearing a rug."

My eyes watered with the effort to suppress a laugh.

She looked up, her expression pained. "I thought it would be better to just address the issue directly."

My eyes widened at the thought. Sarah could be very direct.

"And?"

"Well, long story short, we ended up in the restaurant bathroom, shaving his head."

I clapped a hand over my mouth. "You did not!"

She nodded. "It looks a million times better."

The laughter burst forth, and I nearly doubled over. Sarah wasn't laughing, though. Instead, she had a thoughtful expression, almost serious.

"And you know what he said when he looked in the mirror?"

I shook my head, wiping at my eyes.

"He said, 'It does look good. But how am I going to explain this to my wife?' Can you believe that?"

"He's married?" I choked out the question. "What did you do?"

She shrugged. "Locked him in the bathroom, told the hostess there was a pervert in there shaving himself, and took a cab home."

I tried to disguise my laughter behind my coffee mug, but the glare Sarah shot me said it wasn't working. Then she sighed. "Why is it so hard to find a decent guy?"

Without meaning to, I turned toward the door to Burton's office and then looked back at her. It was widely if silently acknowledged that Sarah and Burton definitely had feelings for each other. Unfortunately, neither one of them seemed ready to act on it, so instead they channeled that pent-up sexual energy into bickering. If Sarah saw me look toward Burton's door, she ignored it, tucking into the next Danish.

"Yeah, it's not like men are just showing up at work, yours for the taking," I said.

"No shit," she mumbled through a mouth full of fruit filling.

I rolled my eyes and left her to her breakfast, hearing Rob greet someone in the lobby. I turned the corner from the break room, expecting to see our new client and stopped in my tracks.

It wasn't our new whistle-blowing accountant standing at Theresa's desk.

The man was tall, a couple of inches taller than Rob even, with tousled light brown hair and bright blue eyes. When he smiled at Rob, his eyes crinkled in the most appealing way, as if he were someone who laughed often. He had an aura of casual confidence, from his smile to the tips of toes, encased in worn leather.

Holy Marlboro Man.

The man was sex in boots.

"Miranda, come here and meet Quinn Bishop," Rob said, seeing me standing like a moron in the doorway.

Quinn Bishop, who appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties, stepped forward and took my hand in a firm grip, his fingers wrapping around mine in a warm embrace. I blinked up into his face. His incredibly handsome face.

I was literally dumbstruck in the face of his rugged good looks. I gave myself a mental shake and tried to look normal. It wasn't easy.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Bishop," I said.

His smile grew, doing nothing for my self-control.

"Call me Quinn, please," he said. "It's nice meeting you, too. I've heard a lot about you."

I nearly grimaced at the thought of what he'd heard. It wasn't that long ago my image had been on the front of the newspaper and video of me walking out of the federal courthouse had looped on the evening news.

"Rob says you're his new secret weapon in white-collar cases," Quinn said, letting go of my hand.

"Oh, yes," I said. "I mean, I guess so."

The front door to the office opened, and Theresa held the door for Burton, who carried a stack of two Bankers Boxes with ease.

"Just set those in the war room, please, Burton," she said then looked up to see us standing at her desk. "Oh, Quinn!"

Theresa wrapped her arms around him and squeezed with affection.

"Hi, Theresa. You look great," he said, returning the hug.

"It's been too long," she said with a smile. "You need to come by more often. How's the ranch?"

A ranch, of course, I thought. He'd look right at home on a horse.

Burton dropped the boxes and shook Quinn's hand. "Good to see ya, Q."

"You, too, Burton."

A squeal from behind startled me, and Sarah launched herself at the cowboy.

"You're here!"

Quinn picked her up and twirled her around, something I've never seen anyone else ever try.

"Sarah Mei! How's my girl?" He kissed her forehead as he set her down, and she beamed.

"It's so good to see you!"

I'd never seen Sarah show such joyous affection for anyone or anything. Not even food, which she loved beyond measure. No trace of her foul mood remained as she wrapped an arm around the visitor and hugged him to her.

Quinn laughed, keeping an arm around her shoulder. "Burton, you still want to catch the game tonight?"

The investigator nodded and smiled, not a bit of jealousy on his face, which was unusual because he always seemed to get a little edgy when Sarah talked about dating. Yet here she was with an arm around a gorgeous cowboy's waist, and Burton was as relaxed as always.

"You got it," he said, unlocking the door to his office. "Let's meet at Finnegan's around five."

Burton disappeared into his office, and Theresa ushered the rest of us out of her lobby and into the library, where Quinn could have some privacy to talk to Davy.

"I've got to run," Sarah said, picking up a stack of filing to take to the courthouse. "You guys have fun tonight. Come visit more often, Quinn."

"I will," he said, his eyes meeting mine, causing a flush to creep up my cheeks. "You should come out to the ranch next weekend. We're having a party for the ranch's centennial and my parents' wedding anniversary. I'd love to have you all there."

Sarah stood up her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "I'll be there."

"Bring a date," he said.

"Nah, I'll bring Miranda, though," she said over her shoulder as she left the office.

"Even better."

He gave me a wink that sent my pulse skipping.
Damn
. What was wrong with me?

I followed Sarah out quickly, fumbling through an excuse to go work in the library before my cheeks exploded into confetti from the blushing. I closed the library door behind me and leaned against it, then fanned my face and exhaled.