Bound and Determined (24 page)

The lightbulb finally went off. “Oh, that guy. How did you meet him?”

She hesitated, Rafe’s warning about telling their suspects sounding silly. But hey, she could follow directions as well as the next chump. “Long story. Something wrong? You look upset by that phone call.”

Tiffany looked this way and that, all around. “Not important. So where did Rafe go?”

“To talk to Smikins, hopefully.”

“Has he been looking for some way to prove Mark’s innocence? Has he found anything?”

“Rafe is looking.” Impulsively, Kerry hugged her sister-in-law. “I want Mark back as much as you do. So that’s got to be enough for now.”

Tears shimmered in Tiffany’s eyes. “I want him back so bad, but Kerry, what if Mark really is guilty? And, oh God, what if Rafe only proves that?”

“No!” She was sure incredulity showed on every line of her face. “Mark’s not a thief!”

“He’s definitely not. Usually. I—I just mean, who could blame him for being desperate? Such staggering medical bills at so young an age. Before his arrest, we talked about having kids next year but he decided we just couldn’t afford them. That really broke him up.”

“Tiff, I know that must have hurt you both, but I don’t think Mark would steal under any circumstance. Don’t even think that. Don’t let anything that grouch D’Nanza of the FBI says confuse you.” She grabbed Tiffany’s hands. “And don’t lose faith. Rafe is the best at what he does. He’ll figure it out.”

Kerry refused to believe anything else.

R
afe entered Smikins’s office shortly after noon. An overstarched white shirt contrasted with a slick of brown hair that lay flat and in perfect place. Gray slacks, a nondescript blue-and-gray tie. Black shoes polished to such a high shine, Rafe wondered if Smikins used them as mirrors. Small even teeth, a pale mouth, and round brown eyes made up the rest of an uneventful face.

Rafe stood and, towering over the man by a good eight inches, introduced himself, offering his hand.

He stared at Rafe’s hand, then Rafe himself before taking the offered greeting. “Finally. Glad you’re . . . feeling better. Sick, wasn’t it?”

Pompous slime—Rafe’s gut agreed with Kerry’s perception. “As a dog. Glad to be here now, though. I was able to start some preliminary work late yesterday. I’ll need you to answer a few questions. Is now a good time?”

“I’m very busy and not ready to see you just yet.” His look challenged Rafe.

“Whatever you want. It’s your dime since you’re paying me by the hour.” He shrugged. “I’ll come back when you’re ready.”

“You’re late. Perhaps I won’t pay you anything.”

So the yippy Chihuahua wanted to play hardball?

“If you got it covered, I’ll be on a plane back to New York tonight. Just be sure to let your regional manager know you’ve got everything under control.”

“Well . . .” Smikins backpedaled. “You
are
here for a limited time, and the security of this institution and the money our customers entrust us with is vital. Since your illness set us back at least a day, I suppose we must see to this business now. But I will be talking to my boss about your tardiness and how it affects your fee.”

It was possible Smikins could paint a black enough picture to prevent or delay the bank from paying him. Rafe clenched this teeth and told himself that throttling the little bastard wouldn’t solve anything.

“Talk to him.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “You want me at the top of my game, I have to feel well. And now that I do, let’s get down to it. I have questions.”

Smikins sniffed. “What do you want to know?”

In the guise of asking about the branch’s security, Rafe put the man through a series of questions about firewalls, internal security, software updates, hardware, and coding. In most every instance, Smikins showed himself to be knowledgeable, far more than the average guy off the street. Apparently computers were a part-time hobby for Shorty, as Tiffany called him. The guy was a bona fide hardware junkie.

While he couldn’t conclude for sure that Mark’s former boss was guilty, Rafe couldn’t deny Smikins probably had the knowledge to pull such a heist off. And since Smikins apparently disliked Mark because he wanted his employee’s wife . . .

Speak of the devil. Tiffany bopped into the office with some mail for Smikins. Rafe watched the way the man’s brown eyes followed the redhead’s every move until she walked out the door.

“Pretty girl,” Rafe baited.

Smikins said nothing, just stared at the closed door.

“Very pretty, in fact,” Rafe added.
C’mon . . . take the bait, take it
.

At length, Smikins sighed. “Married.” He shuddered. “To a big, arrogant hulk, complete with a tattoo around his biceps. A shame, if you ask me.”

“No doubt. Why would such a pretty girl marry that kind of guy?”

Now that they appeared to have an opinion in common, Smikins began to warm to him. Rafe settled back to listen.

“I can only imagine he bullied her into it. Mark Sullivan is a lug. He could probably be a success in the WWF. He’s the employee we arrested, you know, for embezzling. I, for one, was not surprised when all the signs pointed to him. Egotistical. Obviously disloyal. Tiffany could do so much better.”

I’ll bet you remind her of that
—
every chance you get, weasel.

“Now that he’s in jail, hopefully she will.”

Smikins smiled. “My thoughts exactly. Hopefully this time, she’ll choose someone a bit older, a man with a bright future who’s a tad more settled in life.”

Is that supposed to be you?
Rafe bit his tongue to keep that
question inside. Clearly, the boss man had a major johnson for Tiffany Sullivan.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to sidetrack you from business. Any other questions?”

“Just one.” Rafe rubbed his chin, looking for the right phrasing. “Do you have a list of all the terminal IDs and their associated employees for the last, say, two years?”

“I don’t. My former assistant left following a . . . disagreement. I subsequently discovered that she had a destructive streak, and those records are gone.”

Just as Jason had said. Damn! “Do you recall any terminals that have been brought into service or retired?”

Smikins thought hard, if the sudden slant of his brows toward his nose was any indication. “Several new ones: 4104 belongs to Cassie Wilkens, and 4258 to Leon Jones.” He hesitated, still thinking. “Oh, and 4389 was retired. Keyboard didn’t work properly.”

Bingo!
Finally, some useful information. Rafe repressed a smile. He didn’t know who the guilty party in all this crap was, but getting information on that terminal was a first step in clearing Mark and giving Kerry back a bit of happiness.

“Retired?”

“Indeed.”

Rafe waited for elaboration, but none came. He held in an impatient sigh. “What happened to the terminal? How was it retired?”

“I’m not sure. I left that with my former assistant. Not sure what she did with it.”

“But no one uses it anymore.”

“That’s correct.”

Bullshit
. “Do you have someplace I can plug in?” Rafe gestured to his laptop.

“Directly across the hall. It’s a storage room now, but there’s an old desk, and since it was once an office, it’s fully wired. Is that all you need to improve the bank’s security?”

“For the moment. Thanks.”

Rafe left Smikins and crossed the hall, shutting the storage room door behind him. It was dusty and smelled like stale coffee and mildew. Boxes littered the floor in stacks, their warping cardboard illuminated by the afternoon sun slanting in.

Setting up quickly, Rafe worked into Standard National’s system. He took an hour to reconfigure the bank’s software, update patches, and generally tighten up security. Then he sent the particulars, along with suggested new electronic approval processes, to Smikins and the guy he’d indicated was their IT manager.

The routine side of his business complete, Rafe started looking at the software and the records from a more personal point of view. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for at first. Transactional activity, patterns, something that would show an “off” pattern on the days Mark’s supposed thefts from the bank had occurred. Comparing activity with the terminal numbers Jason had provided, he saw that Tiffany, Jason, and Smikins had all been logged on during those days, so he couldn’t rule anyone out.

And now . . . what? Rafe didn’t know and aimlessly ambled around the system, looking for
something
helpful. He had so little time left in Florida to set Kerry’s world right. She’d never had a break in life, and he wanted to give her the first. For whatever reasons, he wanted to be the first in something in her life other than sex.

He couldn’t stay here; it was impossible. He had a job in Jersey on Thursday morning. And what they had . . . it was more than sex. Denying that would be as stupid as saying the earth was flat. Okay, so he cared. They shared something almost too powerful. But like a supernova, it would burn out quickly under the intense heat and pressure. It had to. Especially since he sucked at relationships. Loners with crappy work schedules just didn’t make good boyfriend material. As far as commitment went, who could he have learned from, his dad? Yeah, there was love for you. Rafe knew he’d never shared well, especially of himself. Beyond that, he and Kerry lived too far apart, had totally different lives. Why was he even jogging this mental path?

Shaking his head to clear it, Rafe glanced down at the screen and focused. The daily activity report. He scanned down the list quickly—then came to a dead stop.

Terminal 4389 accessed at 9:55
A
.
M
. today, again using Mark’s ID and password.
What?
That hadn’t been deleted yet? Talk about a big security no-no.

Rafe then looked for a list of transactions performed at the terminal and found none. But his heart raced. Finally, he’d found something concrete. Whoever knew about terminal 4389 had been in this building this morning. Might still be here. And it wasn’t Mark; he was behind bars.

He rushed down the hall to find Kerry. He pulled her away from her sister-in-law’s recap of some soap, then hustled her into the storage room.

“Someone accessed the terminal today. With Mark’s ID. Got any idea what time Tiffany and Jason came in?”

“They both opened, so they probably started at nine-thirty.”

“From what I can gather, Smikins hid in his office all morning. He logged in about nine. Whoever accessed the terminal did it just before ten. That puts them all here. Smikins admits to knowing about the terminal but says he asked his old assistant to retire it. Jason said he didn’t know anything about the terminal. He could also be lying. Did Tiffany say anything?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Rafe grimaced. He’d like to be working with full information, but he could start with what they knew. Asking too many questions about the terminal might alert someone’s suspicions. “Jason and Smikins are more likely candidates anyway. Both probably had access to Mark’s ID and password. Both know something about computers and had motive to want Mark out of the way.”

“Do not tell me you still think I’m Jason’s motive.”

“Take off your blinders, babe. If you do, you’ll see it.”

“The way you do, through hallucinations?”

Rafe shot her a sarcastic smile and saved the report on his screen to his hard drive.

“Is that concrete enough for the Feds?” Kerry asked, biting her lip.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t tell us who did it, but it does point out that other people might have used the same information earlier to perpetrate the crime. And that they’re still on the loose. We shouldn’t have to prove his innocence, just cast doubt so they’ll reopen the investigation.”

“I have the investigator’s number. I’ll call. I’ll get him to believe.”

Before Rafe could protest, Kerry had dialed the number.

“Robert D’Nanza,” the investigator answered after the third ring.

Kerry took a deep breath. “This is Kerry Sullivan, Mark Sullivan’s sister. I know why my brother is innocent.”

“I’ve already heard your ‘he’s too honest’ speech. I hear that from family members a lot.”

“No, I have new information. You see, Rafe found a retired terminal. But the bank may not know it’s still being used. The real thief is still using it, though. He used it today!”

“If the bank has a retired terminal, I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Well, Mark is in jail, so he can’t be using his ID and stuff, right? I mean, Smikins has access to Mark’s password, and he hates my brother. Since he’s really after my sister-in-law, it’s obvious he’s guilty.”

Rafe heard the quaver in Kerry’s voice, the same trembling he recognized from his very first conversation with her. She was so nervous, and she was not handling the explanation well. He squeezed her hand for support.

“What?” exclaimed D’Nanza.

Biting her lip, she looked to him with desperate green eyes. Her panicked face and reddening nose told him she was about to cry.

“And—and it’s obviously someone from the inside since the system hasn’t been tampered with. Rafe said so. That means—”

“That you’re rambling.” The investigator interrupted her, then said something else Rafe was too pissed to hear.

He grabbed the phone.

“This is Rafael Dawson, owner and CEO of Dawson Security Enterprises.”

Then Rafe laid out his findings. Special Agent D’Nanza listened . . . for about two minutes.

“Look,” the agent said. “We got tons of proof on this guy. Since you were hired by the accused’s sister—”

“She didn’t pay me a dime.”

“Whatever. Point is, we’ve got nearly an airtight case against Sullivan, and the word of someone new to the case who’s in league with a relative of the accused isn’t compelling.”

“Then who is still using a supposedly retired terminal? Who the hell is using Mark Sullivan’s ID?”

“For all we know, the bank reassigned this terminal or they’re simply testing it. There are a lot of what-if’s here. Mr. Dawson, frankly, I don’t have any way of knowing the veracity of this information and I don’t have time to chase ghosts.”