Accounting for Lust (8 page)

He
r father
worked
hard
at building the company.
He
n
eglect
ed
his family to such
extent that his wife divorced him for a younger man and his children were inconvenient strangers. Only after she started her own accounting firm did she appreciate what he had achieved. To have it tarnished now through no fault of his own
…
 

Was she willing to give her life to protect that? Not that she had
such an exciting
one
to begin with. But dying at twenty eight? Due to her own arrogance?

“I suppose I do need protection.”

“Yep, I think you do.” A wolfish grin spread over his face. “Maybe not only from the bad guys though. I will arrange for a female agent to stay with you during the evenings while I escort you to and from work.”

The thought of another woman sharing her small space stuck in her throat. “I work long hours. Yesterday we only left early because you wanted daylight to prepare for eventualities.”

He nodded. “I know and it wouldn’t matter. We don’t want to interfere with your work. All we ask that you listen to our commands when we feel you are in danger.”

“That sounds fair.” The apartment suddenly
stifled her.
Besides the sexual tension still simmering in the air, a new menace
had
crept into the room. Cassie shivered. The weekend stretched out before her and she made her decision.

“I’m going into the office again today and probably also tomorrow. It’s easier to work when there are no distractions from the staff.”

Jake merely nodded and flipped open his mobile. She listened while he informed Matt of the arrangements, but rose during the conversation to
fetch her shoes
.

Once in her room, her eyes fell on the flash drives she had hidden under her underwear. She’d
forgotten about the drives and tucked them into her bra again before leaving the room.

Jake had also changed into denim pants and trainers with an oversized shirt donned over the t-shirt. He opened the door and waited until she was beside him before he locked and they
took the stairs
.

The
y
rode to the office in silence and Cassie closed the door to her office with a sigh of relief. At least here she had the opportunity to put Jake out of her mind. After he checked that her office was safe, he disappeared. She booted her computer and accessed the network with an encrypted password.
C
hecking the figures of the various accounts against the statements provided by Joshua
soon commanded all her attention
.

Knowing what to look for, she spotted the missing millions Joshua referred to with ease. Checking and re-checking the access codes for the various accounts, she
slumped
in her chair. Joshua was right. Only a board member could have embezzled the funds. Although this narrowed the search to eight people, it was not going to be easy finding the culprit.

All eight board members had access to all the accounts. Why that would be allowed, she’d have to find out. One by one, she revoked everyone’s codes and changed her own passwords. At least that should slow the person and prevent any evidence from going missing. She sent an email to Joshua advising him to change his codes and telling him about the revoked access.

Cassie stretched her arms above her head to ease the kinks in her shoulders. Below her breast
,
the three flash drives bit into her flesh. She took them out and stared at them. What would she find?
It
could be
a further clue to the identity of the culprit, but it could also be just personal documents of her father. If it was the
first
, she could use all the help she could get.

She rose from the chair and paced the room. The drives glared at her from the desk. She must have a look, but why would he hide them there if it
contained
evidence against who-ever stole the money?
Unless . . .

No use speculating.
Striding to her desk, s
he disconnected from
both the
work network and the internet
and
plugged the first drive into her computer. While she waited for the drive to register, she listened for any movement outside the door.
Silence.

The drive opened and Cassie stared at the list of files displayed. All the filenames appeared to be dates
with
locations in Power Point format. She opened the file
dated three years ago
and selected slide show.
S
he watched the first slides run
- a
nd lost her breakfast in the dustbin.

Slide upon slide of her father engaged in various sexual positions flashed over the screen.
A date stamp and location marked each slide
.
Unable to watch fur
ther she paused the program, rose from her chair and paced the floor
. Why would
he
have those photo’s? Did he know
about them
while indulging in his sexual fantasies?

Jake rose from the chair as she flung open the office door. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Cassie shook her head
. The words refused to form on her tongue.
She stood motionless in the doorway with her mouth gaping like a fish on dry land.

Jake gently lifted her chin. “Talk to me. What happened?”

Could she trust him enough to show him the slides? Would it serve any purpose? For so long she had only herself to rely on and her own gut to guide her.
Trusting someone else lead to heartache and disappointment. It was a lesson she had learned early with her parent’s rocky relationship. If she wanted something done, she had to do it herself.

Maybe with his background in the security industry he would be able to help. Hell, she already shared a bed with him t
wice
, what more did she have to hide?
Just maybe your heart?
She ignored the soft voice in her head. Her heart didn’t even feature in the equation. According to her previous lovers, she didn’t have one.

“Cassie?”

“I’m all right. I think.”

She
beckoned him to follow.
“Come, let me show you. Maybe you can make sense of it.”

Jake stood behind her chair as she opened the file again and
rose from the chair. “I can’t watch this again.” Cassie turned her back to the computer and stared out over the city. Her laboured breathing echoed through the silent room.

As the first image flashed on the screen, Jake sank down in the chair. At least his raging libido subsided with each photo that appeared. He recognised Graham Adams from his file. Not that these photo’s were the kind to display in a client file.
All the scenes shared the same vantage point – a
closet or behind some slated door or object.

Jake narrowed his eyes. H
er father
didn’t know about the photos. Not once did
he
stare directly at the camera.
Graham
stared at his companion or had his eyes closed
. If he took the
photos
as
mementoes,
one would expect
him to at least look at
the camera.

“I don’t think he knew about the photos.”

Cassie slowly turned around and met his gaze. “Why…” She cleared her throat. “How do you know?”

“He is oblivious to everything but the
woman
with him. Someone hid the cameras in a closet or some slated container.
The ladies however, looked straight at the camera in almost all the shots.
”

“Oh.” Cassie turned away as Jake opened more images. “
He was being blackmailed.” Cassie’s voice was little more than a whisper and Jake longed to hug her to him.

Jake rubbed his chin. It was going to be a bitch finding them though. All wore masks to hide their identities. He would need some time to study the photos
and
find possible locations where the pictures could have been taken.

Jake
forwarded through the slides until the last one. It contained only words.
Blind man’s bluff?

“
Could be. Have you checked his personal bank accounts for any unusual amounts?”

Cassie nodded.
“
When we first realised money disappeared from the corporate accounts, w
e looked in his accounts first.” She sighed and Jake wished he could hug her close and make this go away.

“No large amounts deposited or withdrawn?”

“No. For a wealthy man he lived a cheap life. He took only the salary needed to survive.”

Jake’s respect for Cassie’s father climbed a notch. “Then I don’t think blackmail was the motive behind these photo’s. This sounds more like revenge.”

He checked the last file.
The date stamp read a year ago
. Opening the file
,
he inhaled sharply.

“Son of a bitch.”

No explicit photos adorned the pages. Instead,
images of Cassie flashed across the screen
. Cassie at home. Cassie at work. Cassie at the mall. Cassie on the highway. Anger robbed Jake of speech, but he persevered until the last slide.
You don’t want to listen – she’s going to die!

Cassie
peered over his shoulder and
swallowed audibly. “I have three more drives. Let
’
s see if we can find the most recent one.”

The next drive only contained further images of her father –
dated
roughly two years
ago
. The
last
drive
was dated the week before Cassie’s father
died
. Jake
swallowed
. His gut told him Cassie was in way over her head. He’d learned to trust his gut over the years and he didn’t like this one bit.

Images of Cassie flashed over the screen again, but this time the photos held more menace. The first one depicted Cassie standing next to the road after
an accident
.

Cassie paled, “I remember that day. The other driver
bumped me from behind and
just sped off. It had happened so quickly I couldn’t even see what car it was.
He nearly
ran
me off the road.
”

Image after image of
Cassie in situations of stress flashed over the screen. Each image had a caption threatening the next time it would be worse. Jake swallowed his fear for her. He was no good afraid. He was very good when he was pissed. And he was getting thoroughly pissed as the images continued. The last image showed Cassie holding her father’s hand in hospital.

“He died three days after that. They released him the following morning and he came to the office. The next day he was dead.”

Jake pulled her up against hi
m
. Her body trembled against his and he folded her in his arms. “How did he die?”

She buried her face in his chest
, finding comfort in the steady beat of his heart.
“They said his heart just stopped beating. The doctors couldn’t explain why when he was so much better, he suddenly had a relapse.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and lif
ter her face to him. “I think the photos caused too much stress.
”

He hugged her for a moment more before reluctantly letting her go.
“Do you still have much to do? We should get out of here before it gets
too
dark outside.”

Cassie glanced out the window, amazed to see
the light had faded.

“I still have a couple of thing to take care of. Give me another hour.”

Jake nodded and Cassie watched him shut the door. She ejected the drives, connected to the network again and finished checking the figures, trying to keep her mind off the photo’s. When Jake opened the door more than an hour later, she was ready to leave. Outside, dusk had fallen and very little daylight was left.

“You’re ready to go?”

Cassie nodded. “Let me just collect my things.”

S
he
closed
the computer and grabbed the drives. She’d already stuck her hand into her bra when her eyes
caught Jake’s. His pupils dilated and the fire in them scorched her to her toes.
Involuntarily
her eyes dropped to his pants. Yep,
she excited him
.