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“He’ll be back tonight,” Lucy said, trying to mask her reaction. She wondered if Bryan knew just how worried his family had become about him. That was something he’d tried to avoid at all costs.
Scarlet asked about Lucy’s clothes, how everything was working out and whether she needed anything else. “We’re doing a shoot tomorrow with the most gorgeous Givenchy eveningwear. One of the dresses would look perfect on you. Hey, maybe you could model it. We pay well.”
Lucy laughed. That was all she needed, her picture in a national magazine. She might as well send a map to the embezzler with a dotted line leading straight to her.
“No, I don’t think so. I have work to do.”
“Oh, your novel! I’m so glad you decided to give it another try. How’s it going? I know an agent at William Morris. I could probably get you a read.”
“I’m a long way from having anything to show.” And, boy, wasn’t that the truth. “But thank you. You’re awfully nice to me.”
“That’s because I want you to stick around. Bryan clearly needs you in his life. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite as happy as he was last night. He couldn’t stop staring at you.”
Lucy blushed. She wanted to reassure Scarlet that she would stick around. But, of course, she wouldn’t.
“Scarlet, hi!” A striking woman with the brightest red hair Lucy had ever seen stopped at their table. Scarlet stood to give the other woman a hug. The redhead towered over Scarlet, no easy feat. She had to be well over six feet tall. Then Lucy realized her face was familiar. She was a supermodel. She went by Redd.
“Redd,” Scarlet said, “this is Lindsay Morgan, Bryan’s girlfriend.”
Lucy had never quite gotten over her awe of celebrities, even after the Cruz disaster. She babbled something to Redd, who eventually left to find her own table.
“It must be fun, seeing celebrities all the time,” she said.
“You’ll get used to it.”
Lucy only wished she would have the opportunity to get used to it.
Bryan didn’t get home until close to nine that night. Lucy couldn’t help herself. She launched herself into his arms the moment he got off the elevator.
“Hey, hey,” he said, returning her hug, rubbing her back. “Is something wrong?”
“I was just worried about you.”
“Why? I told you I’d be late.”
“I know. But I didn’t know what you were doing, and I have a vivid imagination. I saw you getting shot, stabbed, poisoned—”
“Oh, Lucy.” He kissed her tenderly. “I wasn’t doing anything dangerous. Just boring legwork. Checking in with snitches, trying to get a lead on Stungun. I met with Siberia.”
“Does he know Stungun’s true identity?”
“No. Only the head of the agency knows. But he’s going to find out. He’s making a case to the director tomorrow. We’ve got to find him.”
“I’ve made some progress on my end.”
“Really?”
“Do you want something to eat? Stash delivered a huge dinner. I didn’t eat a third of it.”
He didn’t let her go. “I’m starved, but not for food.”
“Hmm. I think you tend to confuse your appetites.” She slid out of his grasp. “Sit. I’ll warm up a plate and explain what I’ve found.”
As she heated up the coq au vin tempura, she told him what her research had led her to that afternoon. And she didn’t like it one bit.
“I’ve eliminated everybody but one person. I’ve double- and triple-checked, and she is the only one who has been logged in every single time there was an illegal withdrawal.”
“She?”
“Peggy Holmes, Mr. Vargov’s personal secretary. She’s a mild-mannered grandmother who’s been working at the bank for more than twenty years. I don’t really see how she could be a terrorist sympathizer.”
“You’d be surprised. One of her children is married to a man who travels frequently to the Middle East with his business. Nothing wrong with that in itself—”
“You already know that?”
“I’ve done background checks on everyone at that bank. Now that you’ve identified Peggy as a viable suspect, I’ll zero in on the son-in-law.”
“But Peggy Holmes? I just don’t see it. Of course, she does enjoy helping others and being of service. She lives to please Mr. Vargov. So maybe if someone approached her, made it sound like she’d be doing a great service …”
“What about Mr. Vargov? As the bank president, he’d be in a position of authority and power. You haven’t said much about him. He has relatives in former Soviet republics—”
She shook her head. “It couldn’t be him. I was able to eliminate him as a suspect first thing. He was in a meeting during every single transaction.”
“Every single one?”
“Well, the first few that I looked at. I stopped checking after I was able to eliminate him.” When Bryan still looked skeptical, she added, “Mr. Vargov does attend a lot of meetings.”
“Just for fun, let’s see where he was during all of the transactions.”
“All of them? There are dozens.”
“All of them.”
Three hours later Bryan had the answer he was looking for. Mr. Vargov had been in some type of meeting on the bank premises during every single illicit transaction. During the two weeks he was on vacation, not a single withdrawal took place.
“But he wasn’t even logged onto the computer during most of the transactions,” Lucy objected. “He couldn’t have performed those withdrawals without logging in and using a password.”
“And how hard do you think it would be to figure out his trusty secretary’s password? She probably has it written down someplace.”
“But how could he have—”
“On his PDA. Your conference room has wireless capability. He could carry on a conversation, casually tapping on his Palm Pilot as if recording lunch plans, log on to the bank’s system using Peggy’s password, and move money around. Easy as pie.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it. It’s so obvious! Oh, but Mr. Vargov is so nice. He’s like a father to me. He’s always been kind, gave me a job when he didn’t know me at all, paid me more than I was worth, gave me a really nice office.”
“Think about it. If you were going to raid pension funds, who would you want doing the audits?”
Now Lucy got it. “Someone inexperienced. Under-qualified. Stupid.”
“You would want to pay that person handsomely, keep them happy. A happy employee is much less likely to rock the boat than a dissatisfied one. But you were too smart for him. And too conscientious to forget what you saw just to hold on to your cushy job.”
“It all makes sense now.” She swiveled in her chair to face Bryan, who’d been sitting behind her looking over her shoulder. “That has to be the answer.”
“We are a good team, you and I,” Bryan said with a broad grin. “I never could have figured this out without you.” He pulled her into his lap and nuzzled her neck. “What do you say we celebrate?”
She kissed him hungrily. After her long day at the computer, and all her worrying about Bryan, she craved release—and she knew just how to get it.
“You’ll never guess who I met today,” Lucy said later as they lay in bed. “Redd, the supermodel.”
“She comes in a lot. She likes the wasabi pate.”
“Don’t you love owning a restaurant? I think it would be so fun, like entertaining every day. Making up special dishes for special customers, recommending wine—Well, okay, I’d have to learn about wine. But you must enjoy it.”
“I do. I wish I could devote more time to it.”
Lucy hesitated, then decided she owed it to Bryan to be honest with him about what she’d heard from his relatives. “Your whole family is worried about you, you know. They’ve noticed your long absences—and your injuries at your brother’s wedding. What was that all about?”
“Car accident.”
“That’s what your father said, but he didn’t believe it.” Bryan sighed. “It was actually a car bomb. In France. I realized something was wrong and got out just before the explosion. No one was seriously hurt, thank God.”
Lucy was horrified. The car bomb in Paris? “I read about that in the news. It was blamed on terrorists.”
“I was with Stungun, investigating the charity, the one our embezzler is sending his funds to. I must have gotten close to them—but not close enough.”
“You’re not ever allowed to go back to France, do you understand?” Lucy said fiercely. “My God, someone there tried to kill you!”
He shrugged. “It happens a lot.”
“Don’t tell me any more. I can’t stand it.”
“I won’t. But you have to reassure my family that everything’s fine. Can you do that?”
“No, Bryan, I can’t. I can’t tell them not to worry when you could get blown up at any time.”
“I’m not going to get blown up.”
“Someday, some bad guy is going to catch up with you,” she said in a small voice.
He kissed her cheek in an achingly tender gesture. “I’m not going anywhere. I promised I wouldn’t leave you, didn’t I?”
“You’ll be gone again tomorrow.”
“For a few hours only. I’ll be back. We’re having a big party at the restaurant. The half-year profit margins have been calculated at EPH, and the company has broken all previous records. Apparently Granddad’s little game has produced the desired results.”
“Which magazine is winning?”
“Charisma. No one’s too surprised, the way Aunt Fin’s been working her tail off. But there are still six months to go.”
“Have you talked to your dad?”
“He doesn’t seem to care that Snap is in last place. I think he’s a little more broken up about his divorce than anyone suspected.”
“Well, the breakup of any marriage is traumatic, even a bad marriage,” Lucy said pragmatically. “He’s got another six months to pull things together. Do you want him to get the CEO spot?”
Bryan shrugged. “I just want him to be happy. He hasn’t been happy in a long time.”
Lucy was bored out of her mind. Bryan had been gone longer than the “few hours” he’d promised, but she didn’t hold it against him. He was working hard to catch the embezzler, which was his job.
But she missed him, and she had no more computer puzzles to distract her. She’d gone about as far as she could with the data she’d downloaded from Alliance Trust. Now it was up to Bryan to confirm the theory they’d come up with.
He didn’t give her many details, but she gathered that he was having Mr. Vargov put under surveillance. Such operations were tricky, involving other arms of Homeland Security besides his own. And given that he had to protect his anonymity, even from other operatives, arrangements had to be made through intermediaries and other secure communications, all of which could take time.
Three hours before the EPH party, Bryan’s phone rang. Lucy checked the Caller ID and saw the call came from Une Nuit, so she answered happily, thinking Bryan must be back.
Instead, she found Stash Martin on the other end of the line. “Lindsay, I am glad I caught you at home.” Like, where else would she be? “Bryan just called and said he would be delayed. He wants you to finalize the menu for the party tonight.”
“Me? Why?”
“He said you have good taste.”
“Good taste in men, maybe,” she said, which made Stash laugh. “All right, I’ll be down in a minute.” She was grateful for any distraction, provided her magic key still worked on the elevator. She hadn’t asked Bryan about that.
Fifteen minutes later she and Stash were bent over an array of menus, some printed, some handwritten, that had been assembled for various parties over the years. Apparently, the regular menu didn’t include even a fraction of what the kitchen could do. Bryan regularly rotated dishes on and off, which kept things interesting for the clientele.
“Stash, you have to help me choose,” she said, overwhelmed by the exotic-sounding dishes. “Is there anything that’s a particular favorite of the Elliotts? Anything they hate? Do any of them have food allergies?”
“No allergies. One or more of the ladies are always watching their carbs, so you should choose at least one dish with that in mind.”
“All right, how about this grilled chicken with the cashew and water chestnut stuffing?”
“Excellent choice. Now, something with a bit more oomph for the adventurous palettes.”
“Quiche Cantonese?”
Stash nodded his approval. They went on in this fashion, with Stash giving her hints. Obviously, he could have put together the menu by himself, but Bryan had wanted to let her make the choices, which warmed her heart. He was being very thoughtful. Her choice of wine was strictly a guessing game, but she trusted Stash not to allow her to make a really dumb mistake.
As she showered and began to dress a little while later, she realized she was looking forward to her dinner. She’d enjoyed planning it and couldn’t wait to see how the Elliotts reacted to it.
She’d meant it when she told Bryan she thought owning a restaurant would be fun. She’d always enjoyed good food and had been ecstatic to discover dishes beyond the plain meat and potatoes she’d been raised on. She could hold her own in a kitchen. Her mother had taught her the basics, and she’d done some experimenting during her In Tight days, before Cruz had begun taking up all her time and attention. During the past couple of years she hadn’t cooked anything too exciting—that would have fallen under the category of indulging herself and having fun, things that had been off her list. But she’d bought cookbooks and read them.
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