When she reached him she pirouetted and
asked, "Better?"
"I liked you just fine before...but I wasn't
sure your co-workers would appreciate the sexy cowgirl look as much
as I do."
She laughed and slapped his chest playfully.
"No they wouldn't have...thanks for noticing, or they'd have gotten
an eyeful."
"My pleasure, darlin'," he said then took
her clothes tossed them in the suitcase and zipped it. He slammed
the tailgate and said, "Let's go kick ass, sweet cheeks."
He followed her directions and pulled up in
front of a fancy brick building that had a sign out front
pronouncing it Bellamy and Barton Realtors. The Preppy Boy's name
attached to hers in anyway made hot fury pulse through his veins.
"You're gonna need to change that sign, darlin'," he told her
gruffly.
"I'll probably just take the damned thing
down. There won't be much left after this fiasco," she told him and
her lip trembled. "But I have bigger fish to fry right now."
"Yes you do. And as your assistant on this
job, I'll be heating up the grease for you, honey."
She smiled at him, "Thanks, darlin'," she
said then pulled the door handle and slid out of the truck.
He saw a police car parked a few spaces down
and knew when she walked through that door, she wasn't going to be
smiling. His own smile slipped as he exited the truck and followed
behind her up the steps to the glass door that also had her and
Preppy Boy's name in gold lettering. He bit down the growl that
bubbled up from his toes, and walked into the snazzily decorated
office. Cassie walked over to the desk where a woman he assumed was
her assistant sat looking wary and scared. She patted the redhead's
shoulder and then leaned down to talk softly with her.
He saw a Phoenix cop sitting in a chair
across the room fiddling with his cell phone. There was another
woman sitting two chairs down from him, who looked like she'd
stepped out of one of those women's magazines. Her black hair was
wound up tight against the back of her head, and her red suit fit
her body like a glove. She glanced up from the organizer book
spread in her lap and gave him a wide smile with even white teeth
accentuated by full red lips.
Her black eyes moved over him with interest,
then met his gaze and she licked those red lips. After a few
seconds, she evidently she noticed his lack of sexual interest in
her, because her lips drooped then she shifted her gaze back to her
book.
Sitting next to her was a skinny bird-like
man in a pin-striped suit and shiny shoes. There was a briefcase
leaning against the chair by his leg. It looked to Luke like the
party was about to begin. He pegged the woman as the representative
from the real estate commission and the man as Cassie's banker.
Cassie was still busy talking to her
assistant he noticed, so he went and sat down in a chair right by
the door. He felt like a pigeon in a flock of peacocks here in his
faded black t-shirt, worn jeans and dusty cowboy boots. He reached
up and removed his Stetson and put it in his lap, his fingers
fiddling with the crease.
Cassie walked over to the three people there
to see her and introduced herself with a tight smile, then led them
down a hallway that evidently led to her office, or a conference
room. She didn't glance at him at all, before she led them
away.
A few moments later, he was surprised to see
her reappear in the doorway and crook her finger at him. He got up
and walked over to her, feeling her assistant's gaze wandering over
him, sizing him up, but he ignored it.
"Come on back, sugar," she told him.
Her invitation shocked him down to the toes
of his boots. "You sure?" he looked down at himself then back to
her. "I'm not exactly dressed for a meeting, darlin'."
"You look good enough to eat...as the woman
from the commission noticed," she smiled wryly then grabbed his arm
and pulled him into the hall. "You're just going to watch. I need
some moral support."
"That I can do."
Cassie led him down the hall and into a big
conference room with cushy looking maroon chairs and sat him in one
against the wall. Luke shifted a little bit in the chair then
finally found a comfortable position, and watched as she walked to
the head of the table and sat down in between the banker and the
cop.
Clearing her throat, Cassie began, "As I
told you my banker informed my assistant this morning that a large
amount of money was missing from my business accounts. I recently
broke up with my fiancé and business partner, James Barton, and I
believe he is the one who took the funds." She looked over at the
banker, who had a stack of papers in front of him. "Do you have
copies of the transactions?" she asked him.
"Yes, I brought copies of the cancelled
counter checks. Some have your name on them, although I doubt the
authenticity of your signature. There's also a large one cashed
yesterday by James Barton. I only looked at the records for the
last few weeks, but you may want to consider having your entire
account audited from the date it was opened," the man suggested
then slid the copies over to her.
Cassie looked through the stack as he
continued, "I've requested copies of the checks written on the
escrow account, but haven't received them yet. They were written
from your printed checks and not cashed at the bank, so it will
take a little longer...I've also frozen the accounts and bank
cards."
Luke saw the cop writing in a small notebook
he had open on the table, then he looked up and asked when the
banker had finished, "Can I get copies of those, Miss Bellamy?"
"Sure, Officer Melton...let me get my
assistant to make copies. I'll be right back."
Luke stood up and met her by the door. "I'll
do that, sugar, you go ahead." She smiled her thanks and he walked
down the hall to the front office.
Her assistant, a thirty-something woman with
pretty auburn hair and green eyes stood up and smiled at him when
he walked out of the hall. "Cassie needs copies of these," he held
out the stack to her. He could tell she was extremely nervous and
he wondered why. Nobody was here to question her, that he knew of.
"What's your name, sugar?" he drawled.
Her fair-skinned cheeks flushed and he saw
her hand shake when she grabbed the paperwork out of his hand.
"Diana...who are you?" she asked him her voice not quite
steady.
"Luke Matthews, Cassie's fiancé'."
One finely arched brow rose over her green
eyes and her lip quirked. "Fiancé?" she snorted and then said, "My,
my she certainly works fast..." Her eyes brazenly roved over him,
then finished, "And has good taste too." Luke didn't miss the
strange undercurrent in her voice.
Luke felt like doing a little digging of his
own. "How long have you worked here, Diana?"
"Three years," she said. "Too long,
considering the mess she's made of things here."
"What do you mean?"
She pinched her lips together, evidently
realizing she'd revealed too much with her off-the-cuff statement.
"I'm going to make these copies. I'll bring them in when I'm
done."
Luke recognized that he'd been dismissed by
the mouthy assistant, and turned to go back to the conference room.
Cassie's face looked strained and pale as she talked with the lady
from the real estate board. "My license can't be suspended now.
I've got a mess to clean up!"
"I'm sorry, you're the principal broker and
until this situation is resolved, there's nothing I can do. I have
to suspend you while the investigation is being conducted."
"How long will that take?" Cassie asked the
woman desperation filling her tone.
She shook her head. "As long as it takes,
Miss Bellamy. You never know about these things. We have to locate
your business partner first. I'm sure the police will help us with
that," she said then gave the cop the same sexy smile she'd given
him earlier, and he gave her a brief twist of his lips and shook
his head affirmatively.
Luke had just sat back down when Diana
brought in the copies and put them in front of Cassie along with
the originals. Cassie flipped through the copies and then the
originals and then looked up at her. "Where's the copy of the large
check cashed yesterday?" she asked. "It's not in either stack."
The woman shifted her weight from one foot
to the other, then her face turned beet red. "I didn't see it.
Maybe it fell out of the stack of originals before I made the
copies?" she offered.
Luke stood and walked over to her and took
her arm. "Let's go see if it's in the copy room," he said his voice
low and lethal.
She jerked her arm from his grasp then shot
Cassie a look before throwing her chin up and walking out. He
followed her down the hall and into the copy room. She walked over
to the copy machine and made a show of lifting the lid to see if it
was under there. It wasn't. Then she bent over and looked behind
the copier on each side.
"It's not in here," she said after her
cursory search.
Luke walked over to the paper shredder he
saw beside a table holding the fax machine and postage meter.
Leaning down, he saw a document hanging from the teeth of the
machine that looked like a copy of a check.
"Wow, looks like it fell into the
shredder..." he said sarcastically then picked the machine up and
yanked the plug from the wall. "Move," he ordered her with a lift
of his chin toward the doorway.
Her eyes widened and tears filled them, when
she met his eyes, but didn't move. "Look, Luke was it? Why don't
you just forget you saw that. That will make me
very
happy...and then I can make you
very
happy," she said
suggestively then walked over to run her red nail down his shirt
front.
What was it with women in this town, he
thought. He'd been here less than an hour and had been
propositioned by two of them. "Like you made James the asshole
happy?" he fished for confirmation with a grin. "Why would I want
his seconds?"
"You're engaged to Cassie aren't you? She's
his seconds." She raised an eyebrow and her eyes glittered.
"Not likely, I had her first. Cassie has
always been mine...and I'm not interested in your offer," he told
her then nodded with his chin again, "Now haul your ass back to
that conference room."
She turned her back to him and walked in
front of him down the hall, her shoulders slumped. When he followed
her into the conference room with the shredder in his arms, Cassie
looked up at him with a question in her eyes. The rest of them
looked at him as well.
"I think Diana has something she needs to
tell ya'll," he looked at her with a warning in his eyes. "Don't
you, sugar..."
"I shredded the check."
That isn't the part Luke wanted her to tell.
"Tell them why you shredded the check," he prompted.
She shook her head and pinched her lips.
Cassie stood up and walked over to her and got in her face. "Tell
me now, Diana...or I'm going to stomp a mud hole in your ass."
Luke chuckled because even though she was
dressed to impress, when push came to shove, her inner cowgirl had
come out fighting. The other woman's eyebrows flew to her hairline
and she took a step back into the wall with fear in her eyes.
"I'm not kidding, Diana. You tell me what
you and that weasel have done to my business, or I'm gonna kick
your ass and love every minute in jail I get for it." Cassie
stepped closer, and pressed her body against Diana until their
noses almost touched.
The cop stood up from the table and grabbed
Cassie's shoulder. Luke took a step toward him and the cop's hand
went for his gun. Luke stopped and took a step back raising his
hands. The cop nodded, but kept an eye on him when he pushed Cassie
to the side and grabbed Diana's arm.
"Turn around," he told Diana and she did.
The cop kicked her feet apart and frisked her, then pulled the
cuffs from his service belt and put them on her wrists. "You're
under arrest for suspicion of grand theft and fraud."
"Wait!" Diana yelled and turned around to
face the officer. "She's the one you should be arresting! She
signed the checks!" she rushed over to the table, turned around and
grabbed the papers. "Look!"
Luke watched Cassie run over and look
closely at the signatures on the checks. "This isn't my signature,
you lying bitch, but it sure as hell looks like yours!" Cassie
stomped out of the office and went up front, then came back a
minute later with a checkbook and other papers in her hands. She
slammed them down on the table. "Take a look at this and you tell
me who signed those checks."
Officer Melton walked over and looked at the
copies then looked at the carbon copy check register that belonged
to Diana. Then he examined the incorporation papers that Cassie had
signed to open the business.
"I'm no handwriting expert, but it sure
doesn't look like Miss Bellamy's signature to me. She doesn't loop
her y like it is on these checks, or dot her i with a circle. The
slant is different too, but you do that in your signature Miss
Tomley," he turned toward the redhead and gave her a lethal stare.
"So, that means you're still under arrest."