So About the Money (11 page)

“I feel bad about it now. Did anybody really know her?”

“Her sister?”

“I guess.” Holly measured the distance to the cushions. “Okay, on three.”

Brea nodded. “One, two,
three
.”

With a heaving jerk, they lifted Tim’s limp body and swung it onto the sofa.
 

Holly’s stocking-clad feet slid as his weight shifted. She took a staggering step and dropped his legs. Arms waving, she fought for balance and lost. Her face landed in Tim’s soft belly, perilously close to his belt.
 

Her disgusted, “Oh, yuck,” was muffled by fabric and flab.
 

“What is going on?” demanded an outraged female voice.
 

Trying to find somewhere that didn’t include Tim to put her hands, Holly wallowed off the couch and her client.
 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tim’s wife arranged her baby blue eyes and pink lips into something that looked like a scowl.

Brea silently sidled out of the room.

Damn. No good deed went unpunished.
 

“We all know this isn’t what it looks like,” Holly scrambled to her feet. “The man is passed out.”

Nicole crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
 

“Brea and I didn’t want to leave him on the floor.” Holly closed her mouth to stop herself from babbling.
 

Nicole’s nose went up. “When you blew off your office, I didn’t realize it was a literal concept.”

Holly recoiled, as if the woman had physically slapped her. “I beg your pardon?”
 

“Stick to massaging the numbers. You don’t have the assets”—Nicole raked a disparaging look down Holly’s underdeveloped chest—“for anything else.”

“Now, wait a minute.”

But Nicole stalked past her and touched Tim’s arm. “You can leave now.”

Anger churned Holly’s stomach. Anything she said would make things worse. Gritting her teeth, she retrieved her shoes and briefcase. At the door, she made one more attempt. “Hope he’s okay.”
 

“He has
me
to take care of him.” Nicole repositioned Tim’s arms.
 

Poor slob.

Chapter Nine

Monday afternoon

Holly left the 70s-era concrete building that housed Tri-Ag’s business office. She managed not to strut or high-five herself on the way to her car. She’d rocked the meeting. It had taken a few minutes to get past the newspaper article which implied she was a murder suspect, but everybody had settled down and discussed ways to make use of the latest agriculture tax incentives.
 

She picked up Highway 240 and headed toward her office. Minutes later, she left the highway at Leslie, planning to avoid the worst of the commercial district surrounding Columbia Mall. Traffic piled up near Costco and then stopped for the traffic light at Grandridge. The Tom-Tom Casino was visible on a side street, partly hidden behind a strip mall. The scene in Tim’s office ran through her mind, along with the surprise Brea had revealed.
 

Tim was a gambler?
 

His drunken night at the Crazy Horse could’ve been a one-off, but according to Brea, he gambled a lot.
 

Win or lose, gambling wasn’t showing up in his financial statements.
 

Holly idled at the intersection and studied the casino’s sunbaked building. Brea had no reason to lie about Tim’s gambling. Even if she thought gambling was a waste of time and money, it wouldn’t bother her—if his financial records reflected it.
 

If he was only dropping a few hundred here and there, no big deal.
 

If it was more than a few hundred, and he was deliberately hiding it… That could wreck his credit rating.
 

Not to mention what would it mean if Desert Accounting had signed off on his finances.

The light turned green and the car ahead of her inched forward. She eyed the casino. Everyone connected gambling with money laundering, loan sharks, and the mob. But this was Richland, not Las Vegas. She didn’t see any way Tim’s gambling could be connected to Marcy’s murder. But if he was hiding things from his accountant, she needed to know about it, if only to protect Desert Accounting.
 

Impulsively, she turned into the casino’s parking lot. She
did
need to talk with the Tom-Tom’s manager. After all, he was one of Desert Accounting’s multiple casino clients. Besides, she had the gambling commission audit documents in her briefcase that she planned to deliver this week. So what if she hadn’t called and made an appointment with him? It wasn’t like she was avoiding the place.
 

Okay, being honest, gambling accounting was another area where she was scrambling.
 

Her father understood gambling accounting. Thankfully, the rest of his auditing team was still in place, because her knowledge of the industry-specific rules was…limited. The skills she’d acquired with the M&A Group—spotting risk patterns and anomalies—applied to any industry. But at times like this, she could’ve throttled her father with her bare hands for leaving the firm—and his clients—in the lurch.
 

If she knew where he and his yoga guru could be found, that is.

Contacting the casinos about their gaming commission audits had been dumped onto Holly’s To Do list. She suspected her mother didn’t want any more reminders of her husband than absolutely necessary. Just coming to the office every day had to be a challenge, she realized in a flash of insight and empathy.
 

She could do this for her mother.

And satisfy her concerns about Tim at the same time.
 

~$~

Holly opened the blacked-out entry door and stepped inside the casino. Instead of a pseudo-Native American look, the Tom-Tom had gone for Vegas flash—lots of fluorescent lighting, cheesy casino-themed wallpaper and industrial-grade plaid carpeting so appalling that not even absorbing sound, dirt, and random spilled drinks redeemed it.
 

With a quick glance around the main room, she spotted the office cluster and headed in that direction. She could introduce herself, drop off the engagement letter, and then casually ask if Peter Ayers, the casino manager, knew Tim Stevens.
 

Adjusting her smile, she opened the door and stepped into a surprisingly modern office. “Hi, I’m Holly Price. I’m looking for Peter Ayers.”

Two women half-hidden behind cubicle walls looked up, but it was the man at the desk in the corner who rose and came forward with an outstretched hand. He gave her suit a quick scan. A frown twitched his eyebrows, but he smiled and said, “Donna mentioned you’d be by this week.”
 

An air of quiet confidence accompanied his firm grip. His poly-cotton shirt and giant western belt buckle were standard business attire for the area. Holly knew her designer suits were excessive for the area, but since she was only going to be in Richland for a year, she couldn’t justify a new wardrobe.
 

Peter led the way to his desk. “Do you have a draft of the engagement letter?”
 

“In my briefcase.” She took the closest of the visitor seats.

The casino manager eased into a swivel chair and moved a few things around on his desk, squirming a little. “Sorry to hear about your dad.”
 

She nodded, not interested in talking about her father’s desertion.
 

Peter gave her another doubtful inspection. “Will you be taking his place?”

Her father’s vanishing act had left Desert Accounting scrambling on too many fronts. “No, it’ll be the same team as last year. Amanda is our most experienced auditor and I don’t want to get in her way.”
 

His expression initially gave away his relief—her inexperience wasn’t going to create a problem for him—and then showed his confidence in Desert Accounting in spite of her father’s AWOL status.

They discussed the initial fieldwork for the cage accountability and listed target delivery dates. “That’s all I need today,” she said. “I’ll stop by on Wednesday. We can wrap up the details then.”

“Okay.” Peter gathered the documents into a tidy pile. “I’ll follow you out. It’s time for my walk-through.”

They angled across the casino’s main floor toward the entrance. Gamblers stood and sat in front of an astonishing variety of machines, with enough lights, whirlers, and sounds to please the most jaded five-year-old. An overweight woman slumped on a stool in front of the machine at the end of a row. A cup of quarters nearly disappeared in the folds of her thighs. She dropped coins, pushed the button, and frowned at the results.
 

Holly tilted her head and said, “I thought everybody had converted to electronic script.”

Peter gave the patron a quick glance, then scanned the remaining rows of slots. “We keep a few of the older machines. I’m not sure if it’s a nostalgia thing or if some gamblers prefer the tactile sensation of handling coins.”
 

A grin lit his face. “Personally, I think they like the coins spraying everywhere when they hit a jackpot.”
 

He filled the remaining walk with pleasant conversation. Spillover from the local vineyards’ harvest tours was filling seats in the casino. The glorious autumn weather—blue skies and moderate temperatures—was drawing droves of tourists to the Columbia River Basin.
 

“One of my clients mentioned how much he enjoys coming here,” Holly said.
 

“That’s the sort of feedback I like hearing. Which client, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Tim Stevens. You know him?”

“Oh, sure. Nice guy. Comes in about once a week.”

With a sinking heart, she thought,
every week?
“I guess all developers are gamblers at heart.”
 

“Good point. Stevens is a good customer. Doesn’t make a scene if he loses.” Peter smiled. “He brought his wife in a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh?” Nicole didn’t seem like the type who’d enjoy it.

“She had a blast playing the slots. I was surprised he didn’t bring her in again.” He shrugged. “Maybe I just like seeing pretty women in here. I’m real partial to brunettes.”

“Brunettes?” She couldn’t keep the startled reaction out of her voice. Nicole was as blond as they came.

“No offense. Blondes are pretty, too.”

A brunette?
Oh crap
. She scrambled, thinking furiously. “That’s okay.”
 

Damn. Tim was gambling
and
cheating on his wife? What else was he doing?

Peter suddenly blinked and looked as if he’d love to rewind the conversation and answer a different way. “Uh, I could be thinking about a different guy.”

Before she could decide how to tactfully ask if the brunette was Marcy, Holly’s internal alarm sounded a warning. She glanced to the side, expecting to see one of the gamblers checking her out. Instead, she noticed a man leaning against the far wall. Deeply tanned with dark hair brushing his collar, he wore jeans, a fringe-trimmed shirt, and a cowboy hat with an intricate turquoise band. The hat-brim shaded his features, but his posture said he was watching something with fixed determination.
 

His body type—and the intensity of his scrutiny—reminded her of Frank. For half a second, part of her shrieked
Run!
while the rest chided,
Frank’s in Seattle
.
 

Everything about the guy said, “law enforcement.” Except here, it must be “security.” But what had caught his attention? As subtly as she could, she scanned the room, looking for anything out of place. Was something about to happen? Something bad, like a robbery?
 

She stole another glance. He’d moved away from the wall. Hands on his hips, he blatantly stared at
her
.
 

A shiver of unease ran down her spine. She hadn’t done anything he could consider threatening. Her briefcase looked out of place, but all it held was a bunch of papers.
 

Peter said something about the Basin’s winter gloom holding off, and then cocked his head. “You okay? You look a little peaked. Can I offer you something from the snack bar?”