LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Speaking of work, I should get over to the shop and help Mom.”

      “You could just relax, you know. You’ve been here less than a week.”

      “And this is one of the busiest seasons of the year.” She hung the towel around her neck. “Especially with her being out tonight.”

      “Can I help it if this is when my company scheduled the Christmas party?”

      Her lips twitched. “You are CEO.”

      “You think they ask me about these kinds of things?” He snorted. “Besides, I know your mother and her business. There’s never a good time, especially at the holidays.”

      “It’s a good thing that I’m here to fill in, then, isn’t it?” Keely said over her shoulder as she walked through the French doors that led into the main house.

      He followed her. “Why don’t you come with us, instead? Give me a chance to show you off.”

      She shook her head. “The town tree lighting is tonight. People will be in a buying mood, so we’ll want the shop open.” Not just for flowers, but for the gift area where they sold ornaments and cards, jewelry and the kinds of foolish, pretty things that made Christmas morning surprises.

      “All for the sake of the shop, eh?” Carter asked. “Nothing to do with the fact that you’ve never missed a tree lighting yet?”

      “Nothing at all.”

      “I see. Maybe we should stay here and go with you. After all, I am CEO, as someone just pointed out to me.”

      “And as such you have responsibilities.” She grinned. “You’re just going to have to tough it out and go swill champagne and caviar with the other swells. I’ll hold down the fort.”

      “You’re supposed to be taking a rest cure,” he scolded.

      “If I just sat around, I’d go nuts. I’m kind of like my parents that way. Got to be useful.”

      “You had to start working too soon,” he said, his smile fading a bit.

      “Dad, everyone works in high school and college.”

      “You, of all people, shouldn’t have had to.”

      She flashed a smile and rose on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “It was good for my character.” She waggled her eyebrows and did her best Groucho Marx imitation. “And I am nothing, if not a character.”

      “She could lose the house?” Lex stared across the smooth, polished ebony of the desk and into the eyes of Frank Burton, his parents’ longtime personal attorney.

      “That can’t be possible.” Olivia spoke up from where she sat by Lex in a powder blue suit and pearls.

      “You’re listed on the boards of five of the LLCs Bradley set up. The shell corporations, I mean, the ones he used to funnel the money away.” He glanced at the sheet before him. “Correction, five that they know of. They’re quite certain there are more.”

      “But I don’t remember any of this,” Olivia said positively. “And I would have. I don’t just sign things without reading them, you know.”

      “He wouldn’t have needed to have you sign, not if he had access to your social-security number and your passport. Did he?”

      That stopped her. “I don’t know. He had access to my office. I suppose he could have found anything if he was looking for it.”

      “At any rate, that’s only part of the trouble. The most damning fact is that he funneled money through your bank account. He deposited five million dollars on ten occasions over the past two years.” Burton held up a thick manila folder. “It’s all documented.”

      Olivia stared. “Five million dollars?”

      “Times ten. Fifty million, all told. The question is, why? Do you have something to show cause? A receipt, maybe? Records of business transactions? It’s important that we demonstrate the transfers were legit.”

      “I didn’t… I don’t know anything about it,” she said helplessly.

      Burton frowned at her over his glasses. “They were five million dollar deposits. Granted, the sums you receive from your quarterly dividends and real-estate holdings are as big, if not bigger, but still, where did you think it came from? And didn’t you wonder when it was transferred out?”

      “A bank error?” she suggested.

      Burton gave her a skeptical stare. “Ten times? Olivia, if you know something, now’s the time to tell us.”

      “I don’t… I can’t…I—” She turned to Lex, a thread of desperation in her voice. “Your father always did our finances. You know how he was. When he passed away, I was just…” She firmed her lips. “There was so much to see to, the funeral arrangements, notifications, wills. Bradley offered to take care of things. It was a relief to hand it over to him. And then it just became habit,” she trailed off.

      “You played right into his hands,” Burton said. “He used his access to launder money through your accounts, bringing it in from his shell corporations and porting it out to an accomplice.”

      Olivia closed her eyes for a moment. “I can’t believe he’d do it.”

      “The feds can.” Burton’s expression was grim. “They’ve got enough evidence to consider you involved. That means all of your possessions and holdings are subject to seizure.”

      “All of it?” She paled. “Everything?”

      Lex leaned forward. “But she didn’t keep the money.”

      “Not at that step. They don’t know where it eventually wound up, though. She could still have it somewhere.”

      “And on those grounds they can take her house?”

      “They can take it all,” Burton assured him. “Not right away, of course. First, they’ve got to get to the bottom of the whole scheme, and it’s tangled enough that it could take a year or more. Quite frankly, that’s the reason they’re sure his fiancée is involved.”

      His fiancée? Keely? Lex frowned. “What do you mean?”

      “She’s an accountant, didn’t you know? Worked for Briarson Financial. It’s unlikely someone like Bradley would have known enough to carry off this kind of scheme on his own and get past his internal auditors. With someone of her background helping him cook the books, though, it would be a cakewalk.”

      “She’s an accountant?” Lex had assumed she’d majored in something like English literature or art history, one of those degrees for the ladies who lunched. Clearly, he’d been mistaken. “So they think she had something to do with it?”

      “They’re almost certain of it. Mind you, they haven’t got any evidence yet, but they will. Trust me, they will.”

      “If she’s involved, she’s in a position to clear my mother’s name, right?” Lex asked. Forget about vulnerable mouths and shadowed eyes. If she had the answers, he’d worm them out of her.

      “Any testimony you can get from someone who’s involved would certainly help Olivia’s case,” Burton answered. “What we really need is to find your brother but he seems to have gone into the wind.”

      Keely, though, Keely was right here.

      “We should talk to the fiancée,” Burton said.

      Lex felt a slow-burning anger awake. “Leave it to me.” And this time he’d get some straight answers, before his mother lost everything she had.

      Olivia took a breath and straightened her posture in a move Lex recognized. No tears, no weakness here. “What happens next, Frank?”

      “Nothing immediately. They’ll keep

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