LITMIR.BIZ

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      She hoped he’d driven with the roof open.

      “Should we order first?” he asked as he slid opposite her into the back booth of the mostly deserted pub. It was still a bit early for the after-work crowd.

      “Probably.”

      His eyes, when they met hers in the dim light, were warm. Concerned. “That bad, huh?”

      Juliet nodded.

      The older female waitress, who’d already been over twice, made a beeline for their table as soon as she saw Blake. She took their drink order, suggested an appetizer platter, and as Juliet and Blake nodded, smiled and said she’d be right back.

      “We’re either going to have to stop meeting like this, or start ordering dinner,” Blake said with a half grin. “The carbohydrate count in those appetizers must be sky high. Not to mention the cholesterol.”

      “Probably not,” Juliet responded, knowing that, if her stomach didn’t settle soon, she wouldn’t be eating enough of the appetizers for excessive carbs or cholesterol to be an issue. “Not that I pay as much attention to stuff like that as I should,” she added.

      “I have only since finding out about my father’s heart condition.”

      She frowned, studied features that looked the epitome of health. “Are you at risk for heart problems?” The thought had never occurred to her. Somewhere, in the far recesses of her mind, she’d figured she had an entire lifetime ahead of her to tell him he was Mary Jane’s father. Like maybe after the little girl was married. And he was a grandfather.

      Or had she thought that she had a whole lifetime to find out if that magic night nine years before had been anything more than a figment of her imagination, glossed over and made more perfect by the passage of time?

      “I’m healthy as a horse,” he said easily. But his expression changed almost as soon as he’d said the words.

      Was he wondering if longevity might not matter if his life was spent behind bars? She ran her finger along a scratch in the scarred maple table.

      Blake took a long swig from his whiskey and soda as soon as it arrived. Then he set down the glass and looked over at her. “Shoot.”

      Juliet handed him the sheaf of papers she’d had on the table beside her.

      “Eaton James’s wife found these while going through his personal things at home. She sent them to Schuster, who’s admitted them as evidence.”

      Blake remained calm as he glanced through copies of a checking-account register, paying particular attention to the items that had been marked with a yellow highlighter.

      Had Schuster done that? Or Juliet?

      There were copies of bank statements that corroborated the check numbers and amounts. Copies of canceled checks, both front and signed-off back, that also matched—numbers, accounts, dates.

      It didn’t take an attorney, or even anyone very intelligent, to figure this one out. What he had before him was irrefutable evidence that for at least the year before Blake’s father’s death, Eaton James had been making monthly payments to Walter Ramsden.

      “Shit.”

      “That was my first response.”

      Her first. That meant she’d had a second. Blake’s mind raced. “Is it possible James is a forger on a much larger scale then he admitted? Could he have forged my signature on that bank account in the Islands, forged my father’s signature here, and on the post-office box?”

      “It’s possible.” She handed him another cluster of papers. Bank statements from the Cayman Islands account.

      With highlighted deposits matching the ones he’d just seen on James’s personal account.

      “That’s good, right? It fits the theory. For whatever reason, James was writing himself checks out of his personal account and hiding the money in the account in the Cayman Islands.”

      “I’m not sure why he’d do that,” Juliet said. The dim lighting prevented him from seeing the brown flecks in her eyes, but their warmth was evident just the same.

      He wasn’t sure he needed to see that warmth, though. It weakened him. Made him want things that weren’t going to happen.

      “If he was siphoning money from Terracotta…”

      Juliet shook her head. “He wouldn’t run it through his personal bank account.”

      “He would if…”

      Blake had no idea what followed that “if.” He just couldn’t believe that his father had been blackmailing Eaton James. It didn’t fit.

      Juliet slid another statement across to him. He looked to see if there was anything else on the table beside her. There wasn’t.

      He glanced at the statement on top of his pile. Took another sip of whiskey. Read the damning words again. Skimmed the highlighted entries.

      “My father deposited the money into his own personal account.” There was no forging this one. The bank account had belonged to Walter Ramsden. Blake had turned over the information himself.

      Sitting back while the waitress delivered their tray of wings and veggies, stuffed potato skins and nachos, Juliet just watched him, saying nothing.

      He wished she’d speak and tell him it was over, that she couldn’t help him. Or better yet, that she’d tell him she had a theory. That the evidence wasn’t admissible. He wished she’d say she’d had a case just like this once before and it had all worked out fine.

      The food between them went untouched.

      “What now?” he finally asked.

      “We keep looking.” She took a sip of the wine she’d ordered, and then another. “While this might appear to substantiate James’s testimony, we’re planning to get that thrown out on Monday. Assuming we do, the onus will be on Schuster to tie all this together—to find witnesses or some other way to explain what all of this means. Based on what Eaton said, I don’t think he’ll be able to do that. The transactions that took place were kept completely private. Between two men who are no longer here to speak for themselves.”

      Blake nodded, feeling a little less trapped. “You said we keep looking? For what?”

      “Anything that’ll tell us what really took place five or six years ago. I didn’t have time tonight, but over the weekend I intend to go over all of your father’s payables, both personal and through Ramsden. We have a record of deposits into the Cayman Islands account, but no way of proving who made the deposit.”

      “Unless my father’s records show something?”

      She shrugged and picked up a stalk of celery, but didn’t take a bite. “Even if he did, that doesn’t clear you. Technically, that account is still yours and now that Schuster has evidence that’ll hold up in court on that, we have to find a way to prove you didn’t open the account.”

      “You think my father opened that account in my name? That he’s the one guilty of fraud?”

      Blake felt her pointed look. “Do you?” she asked.

      “No.”

      She took a bite of the celery. “And what happens if I find out differently?”

      “Then you do.”

      He’d be free. At least in a legal sense.

      On an emotional level, he wasn’t sure. Had his selfishness of almost four years cost his father not only his physical life, but his soul as well? Had he been forced to compromise the most important thing he’d given Blake—the only thing that sustained Blake at the moment—his sense of integrity?

      Had the old man died a thief and a criminal?

      AS THE BAR

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