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  “What are we looking for?” Candy asked.

  “Anything where a large amount you don’t recognize comes in and then immediately goes out.”

  “Like this one? On the 12th, a deposit of $8500 posted and then on the 13th it came out again. There’s one like that on the 20th and one on the 27th. All different amounts but coming in and immediately going out.”

  My excitement built. We were finally getting somewhere. “Are they all going to the same bank account?” I asked. We both looked at the paper and I grabbed a paper and a pen and wrote down the bank account number of the transaction on the 12th. Then we went to check the numbers against the others and they were all the same.

  “Does this bank account look familiar?” I asked.

  “No, but I don’t have our bank accounts memorized. Let me look. We have several accounts all at the same bank.” Candy navigated to the homepage where the accounts were listed sequentially. We checked all the account numbers against the number we’d written down and none matched.

  “And you’re sure he doesn’t have any bank accounts anywhere else?”

  “I know my husband. I’m sure,” she snapped.

  “Then who could’ve gotten into your account and transferred this money?”

  “Well, that’s how I know it can’t be Colleen. Let’s just say I got the looks and brains of the family. She barely graduated from college and would have no idea how to hack into our bank account.”

  I let Candy’s catty comment slide because it wasn’t important, and she did have a point. Not about her sister, but the banking industry had very good security precautions. At least I assumed because they had to protect people’s money, so it would be far-fetched that Colleen would be able to hack it.

  “Is there any way she could’ve gotten that information while at your house?”

  Candice shook her head. “She hasn’t been over since we moved here. And last year I accidentally locked us out of our account. We had to reset the password. So, no.”

  We both sat there thinking while my initial excitement over finding this information deflated.

  “The only person besides me, Thaddeus, and our financial planner that had access to this information is Shelley.”

  “Shelley? Why would she have access to your personal banking information?”

  “She paid all our bills. I’m not good at that stuff and Thaddeus was too busy. A few months ago, she called me and offered to do it because I’d forgotten to pay the electric bill. Our electricity got shut off. Thaddeus was livid.”

  “Thaddeus didn’t have a problem with his assistant having access to his personal banking information?”

  Candy shook her head again. “Oh, he didn’t know. Shelley helped me get the electricity back on and took over paying all the bills. Shelley promised me it would be our secret.”

  I sat there, my head spinning. I’d known Shelley for a few years ever since I come to the university and I couldn’t imagine her doing anything like this so there was no way.

  Realization suddenly dawned on Candy and her eyes grew wide.

  “Do you think Shelley’s behind this? Do you think she kidnapped my husband?”

  “No. She’d have no reason.” But even as I said that, just because I thought she had no reason didn’t actually mean there wasn’t a reason that existed. I immediately hated myself for having that thought, but if Shelley was the only other person that had access, what other explanation was there?

  Chapter 28

  I left Candy’s house and knew I should be calling to talk to Detective Rodriguez and tell him what I found, but I didn’t feel right doing that without talking to Shelley first. She was my friend and I felt I owed her the benefit of the doubt to at least ask her. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact she might have been framing the president for embezzlement. There had to be some other explanation.

  I pulled up to Shelley’s house. I’d been here several times for girls’ night, but this time I was nervous because it wasn’t going to be fun if what I suspected was true.

  Shelley’s house was a cute 1970s era ranch home. It wasn’t that big, but Shelley added on a four-season room off the back where we would sit and hang out and enjoy her beautifully landscaped yard. Shelley had a passion for growing flowers that I didn’t have, and I greatly admired that.

  I walked up to her front door filled with dread, not wanting what I was about to ask her to be true. I had lifted my hand to press the doorbell when a voice spoke behind me.

  “She’s not home.” I jumped and twirled around heart racing to find Detective Rodriguez on the front walk facing me.

  “You about scared me to death,” I said crossly.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “How do you know she’s not home?”

  “Because I was just here. I thought I saw you on my way down her street, so I turned around to see what you were up to.”

  If he was here talking to Shelley, then he must know she was the only other one who had access to President Stoddard’s accounts.

  “What were you doing here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “Shelley and I are friends. Maybe I’m just stopping by to hang out with a friend.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t here to ask her if she’d ever accessed President Stoddard’s accounts to transfer money into her own account?”

  So, he did know. “I was gonna tell you. I wanted to talk to her first,” I said in a way of a lame excuse expecting him to be mad, but he didn’t seem to be.

  “The bank records came through after I talked to you and we were able to pinpoint the IP address that the logins came from when those amounts were transferred.”

  My face fell. I had so hoped it wasn’t Shelley. “So, Shelley is the one stealing the money and trying to frame him?”

  “It looks that way. The first floor operates on a different line than the next two floors and hers is the only computer on the first floor.”

  “You think she knew she was about to get caught and she ran?”

  “That’s actually why when I saw you, I came back. I was hoping you could tell me where Shelley might be.”

  I thought for a minute. “She has family in Columbus but if she was in trouble, she probably figured that would be the first place you would look.”

  “We called her parents and she’s not there. They could be lying, but I don’t think so. They said they hadn’t heard from her in a couple weeks.”

  “I don’t know, but I can try calling her.” I pulled my phone out of my purse and hit Shelley’s number. It rang and went immediately to voicemail. “Shelley, if you get this, call me back right away. I have some really exciting news.”

  “Exciting news?”

  “Well if I said I think you stole money, do you think she’s gonna call me back? At least now she might be curious enough, but it went right to voicemail which means her phone is off and that’s unusual.”

  “Not unusual if you’re trying to hide. When I get back to the station, I’ll have them put a trace on her phone. If you hear from her, you call me.”

  “I will.”

  “I mean it.”

  I nodded and watched him walk back to his car. I walked back to mine and got in and started it, but didn’t take off. Shelley had to have a really good reason to do what she did. If she stole money, had Stoddard found out? Maybe she kidnapped him to stop him from turning her in?

  Chapter 29

  “Olivia, you have to come to my house now!” Candy shrieked into the phone when I answered. I could hear her screaming with the phone six inches from my ear.

  “What’s wrong, Candy?” I asked, not even sure if she could hear me over her sobbing. I’d just left her house. I couldn’t imagine what could have happened in the last ten minutes to provoke this response.

  “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

  “Who is?” Even though I knew the answer. She could only be talking about her husband.

  “Thaddeus, he’
s dead. You have to come.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I looked behind me to make sure there wasn’t any cars and made a U-turn, heading back the way I’d just come. I tried calling Don but he didn’t answer.

  I fully expected to see police cars and emergency vehicles when I pulled up, but her driveway was eerily quiet. As I shut my car off, I wondered what was going on. Did she not call the police?

  I walked up to the front door and she must have been watching for me because she opened the door before I could even knock on it.

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “Follow me.” Candy walked through the house and out a side door which led through a breezeway and into the garage. As we entered the garage, I half expected to see a dead body, but there was nothing. In fact, it was pristine. Cleaner than my house was on most days.

  On a different day I would’ve asked her about her flooring. It looked like that epoxy stuff I’d been contemplating for my own garage, but now was not the time.

  “I don’t understand, Candy. What’s going on!” I asked again. Her behavior was so strange. I thought maybe she’d snapped.

  “Up here.” She headed up some stairs and opened the door into an apartment. What one might call mother-in-law’s quarters. Sitting at the dinette table slumped over was Thaddeus, but I had a hard time seeing him through the tears in my eyes brought forth from the stench. Clearly his body had been here since he went missing.

  “Did you call the police?”

  Candy shook her head.

  I didn’t know what she was afraid of unless maybe she did kill him, and she didn’t want to get arrested, but I couldn’t stand here and not call the police. I whipped out my phone when I heard a voice.

  “Please put the phone away.”

  I recognized the voice behind me and turned.

  “Shelley! What are you doing?” I said, my voice shaking as not only was she standing there, but she had a gun.

  Shelley took a few steps toward me and I wanted to back up, but Candy stood right behind me.

  Shelley held her hand out. “Give me your phone.

  I handed it over. Refusing didn’t seem to be much of an option.

  Shelley took my phone and slid it into her pocket.

  “Now you two over there,” she jerked her head toward the table and chairs, where there were three empty chairs next to the one Thaddeus sat in. I didn’t want to, and could tell Candy didn’t either, but we didn’t have much choice. As we inched closer, I could see a knife sticking out of his back.

  “You killed him?” I said to Shelley in disbelief.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “But I am going to kill the two of you. You’ve left me no choice. Now sit.”

  Candy and I both sat down, not looking at the dead body slumped over the table.

  “You’re the one who stole the money. You set him up. But why kill him?” I said, hoping to stall and figure out how to get us out.

  “I told you I didn’t kill him!” she yelled this time. “Now close your eyes.”

  Candy closed hers and the tears still fell down her face, but I stared at Shelley. Not that I wasn’t scared to death, but I wasn’t going without answers and was still hoping for a way out of this.

  “If not you, then who?”

  “I did,” Robert said, walking in the apartment.

  “It’s about time you got here,” Shelley said crossly, handing him the gun and I felt the situation go from bad to worse.

  “You’re in on this?” I said to him. Shocked to see Robert here holding a gun on us would be an understatement. “Why? Why would you guys do this?”

  “Why not?” Robert shrugged. “Why shouldn’t we be able to live the life of luxury. Especially, when the person we were stealing from was too dumb to notice.”

  “How long have you been in on this, Shelley? Did he make you?” I asked.

  “Oh, please,” he sneered. “She’s the greedy one who came to me.”

  I looked at Shelley and she looked down. I couldn’t believe she’d be part of something like this.

  “You won’t get away with this,” I said, unable to stop my voice from trembling now.

  “Of course we will,” Robert sneered. “Our plane leaves in two hours and we will be long gone, with enough money to stay hidden forever,” Robert said, raising the gun.

  “I wouldn’t count on that!” A voice came from the door and we all whipped our heads in that direction. I breathed a sigh of relief and let the tears finally flow as I saw Detective Rodriguez and two uniformed officers with their guns drawn. More importantly, I saw Don.

  The police quickly took Shelley and Robert into custody while Detective Rodriguez hung back.

  “How did you know we were up here?” I said after I’d finally got Candy to calm down.

  “I was coming here to talk to Candy and saw your car and the open front door. Robert cut through the backyard and I saw him through the window so hid and waited to see where he was going.”

  “How did Don…” I trailed off.

  “He sent me a text when he saw your call.”

  Don wrapped his arms around me and gave me a squeeze.

  “I can’t believe Shelley and Robert did this,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “People do crazy things for money,” Detective Rodriguez said.

  “They sure do.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  A little about me…

  As a child, I thought I would either be a truck driver (thanks to Jerry Reed in Smokey and the Bandit) or work at Taco Bell (my favorite restaurant as a child). As I grew older, I realized my talents lay in academics and business and for the last several years have been a business consultant and college professor where I use the analytical side of my brain and not the side that makes up stories.

  Through all my career choices I continued to have a passion for writing. This stemmed from childhood where as an only child I developed a vivid imagination spending most of my time making things up and thinking the Incredible Hulk lived in my closet.

  Proud of my vast experiences in life from barrel racing to being on the dance team for a semi-pro basketball team to being a mom of 2 amazing kids, I tell my family and friends that no one is safe from their escapades slipping into my books.

  Taking the plunge to write books (cozy mysteries and chick lit) that I actually let people read in 2010, I have worked my way up to being a real author, having 5 fans (maybe 6 now).

  You can also find me at:

  Thanks for Reading

  If you loved this book, I know you’ll enjoy the rest of my novels. Scroll through the titles below, or check out my website at Laina Turner. If you like fun, flirty, and sometimes mysterious books then take a minute to sign up for my mailing list and you will receive a FREE book!

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