Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (241 page)

“Do you at least have a website?”

“I’m working on it.”

Aileen’s frown grew deeper. Either this John Carry character was not giving her the whole picture or he was a complete imbecile, and he just looked too intelligent to be an imbecile.

“Perhaps I should be completely honest with you …”

“That would be a good start.”

“It is true that I have always wanted to start my own business, but my decision has been … how should I put it … a bit precipitated. You see, I got laid off from my job.”

Aileen felt an immediate pang of remorse. The poor guy had come out on a limb, springing for a swanky dinner at Del Frisco’s in hopes of getting some pointers from her, and there she was, giving him a hard time. She would tell him everything she knew, and she would pick up the tab.

“I’m so sorry, John. I didn’t mean to sound condescending or anything. Please, go on. I think there are a few things that I’ll be able to help you with after all.”

“This pretty much sums it up. I’m still job hunting, but there seems to be nothing out there, so I thought I’d try to get my own business going instead.”

“And what company did you work for before?”

“Oh, just a mid-size IT company. We pretty much offered services to clients across all industries. Of course the big firms that have their own IT departments would never hire us, but the smaller firms that outsourced this sort of thing did. I’ve worked on systems for small financial firms, marketing agencies, and even some non-profits.”

“Non-profits? I think I could help you there. Non-profit organizations are my specialty; I could recommend you to my clients. But first we need to get the basics set up.”

Over dinner, Aileen proceeded to explain the importance of having a company website and gave John ideas on affordable advertising such as reaching out to the local newspaper and contacting the local Chamber of Commerce representative, for which Aileen happened to have the contact information. To her, these pointers were the basic postulates of a marketing plan for a successful business, but to John Carry they seemed to be pearls of wisdom, a reaction that Aileen found very flattering.

When Aileen reached for the bill at the end of meal, John refused to hear of it.

“I invited you, Aileen, and I intend to take care of the check,” he replied solemnly. “I may be out of a job but I have not sunk so low as to be forced to forsake my manners.”

Aileen blushed. “Thank you, John. I only hope that the information I gave you will be helpful enough to cover the cost of this dinner.”

“Oh, I am sure it will be. But to me, that is irrelevant.”

After John settled the bill, he helped Aileen with her coat, and they headed toward the exit.

“Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” said Aileen once they were standing outside.

“Thank you, Aileen.” John paused, suddenly looking hesitant. “I don’t suppose you would be free to see me next week?”

“Why ever not?”

“I thought that your boyfriend might object.”

“My boyfriend? I have lots of male clients,” Aileen replied gaily. “If my boyfriend were to object, he would have been driven mad with jealousy by now. But he seems to be too busy with his own affairs to pay me much mind, but somehow he always finds time to see my father.”

“Your father?”

“Yes, my father, the famous Cornelius Finnegan.”

“The state attorney general?”

“That’s right. I might as well put it out on the table since that’s the question everyone asks me when they meet me for the first time.”

John coughed embarrassedly. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I was merely trying to point out that it’s a good thing that your boyfriend is getting along with your father.”

“Oh, they get along all right. Sometimes I wonder which one of us David is really dating,” Aileen halted, cursing her uncontrolled blabber. It was the apple martinis combined with the bottle of red that followed afterwards sneaking up on her.

John smiled, not at all abashed by Aileen’s frankness. “So are you free this Friday night?”

Aileen considered her options. Her Friday evening loomed wide open, courtesy of David cancelling another one of their dates. She could spend the evening organizing some silly social event for the club with her mother, or she could do something fun. “I’m game if you are.”

“Excellent, so I’ll see you Friday.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Peter Laskin stared at the data on his computer screen: there was enough evidence to launch an insider trading case against David Muller and his sham of a charity, Phoenix Fund. Normally, Peter would have been pleased. Right now, however, he was not happy about this fact in the least. Instead, for the first time in his life, he wished he had failed at his job.

Over the course of the past two weeks, Peter had had three dates with Aileen. To be fair, their meetings were not exactly dates. Nothing of a physical nature had happened between them: Peter had not tried to kiss Aileen or even so much as hold her hand. But there had been flirtation in their conversations, and he enjoyed spending time with Aileen much more than he liked to admit. The latter realization was now causing him great conflict and discomfort.

In an hour’s time, Peter was due at Janet Maple’s apartment to share his findings on Muller with her and Dennis. Already, Peter had more than enough information on the trading activity of Phoenix Fund to prove that David Muller was acting on insider information. Phoenix Fund had been actively investing in options positions in manufacturing stocks, a strategy that in and of itself would hardly raise suspicion had it not been for the specific investment choices favored by Phoenix. The two companies that Phoenix invested in, Orion and Hudson Steel, were obscure mid-size firms that had experienced a sudden jump in earnings and stock value after winning large manufacturing contracts with Rover Industries, a major industrial conglomerate. Both times Phoenix had reaped enormous profit on its investment. Phoenix also had investments in other sectors of the market, such as the S&P index and the Dow Jones, as well as several blue chip stock and some bonds, but those were generating very modest returns. It was almost as though these additional investments were meant to act as decoys, and Peter had caught the drift right away. Granted, had he not been spending as much time with Aileen Finnegan as he had been, it might have taken him a bit longer to solve the puzzle, but with Aileen’s unwitting aid he had been able to get to the heart of the matter in no time.

The minute Aileen had mentioned that Muller was spending a lot of time with her father, Cornelius Finnegan, Peter’s ears had prickled with suspicion. Cornelius Finnegan was a very powerful man—what reason could he possibly have to spend so much time with Muller? There had to be more weighty reasons than the mere fact that Muller was dating Finnegan’s daughter. The Treasury Investigations department had a background search software that could find links between people based on common factors. The search process, however, was far from easy: the software produced many false positives that one had to sift through before unearthing relevant results, if any at all. Most investigators, including Dennis Walker, eschewed the software due to its tediousness. Peter, on the other hand, was of a different opinion. Over the years he had perfected his search skills, and there were many times when he had unearthed key evidence for investigations through the background search software. That was the tool he turned to this time as well. The way he saw it, he had three leads: David Muller’s investments in Orion and Hudson Steel stocks through the Phoenix Fund, David Muller’s connection with Finnegan, and Orion’s and Hudson’s connection to Rover. If Peter’s hunch were correct, there had to be a link connecting the three leads.

Peter’s first step had been to identify the top executives of Orion and Hudson Steel and see if there were any links between those individuals and Finnegan or Muller. The search had come up empty, but Peter had half-expected it to be so; he had simply started with Orion and Hudson because these companies had a smaller universe of executives to search than Rover. Peter’s next move was to search the backgrounds of the top executives of Rover. After the search of the company executives did not produce any results, Peter’s zeal was beginning to cool, as he began to wonder whether he had indeed been mistaken. Just to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, Peter did a search on the board members of Rover. His last search had been on the newest board member, Kevan Magee, and that was when Peter struck gold: it just so happened that Kevan Magee and Cornelius Finnegan had gone to the same Catholic school. Finally, Peter had the connection he had been looking for: Magee was Finnegan’s and Muller’s informant.

The data that Peter had gathered so far would certainly provide strong evidence to prove the insider trading link between Magee, Finnegan, and Muller, but Peter would be first to admit that the evidence was far from being ironclad. It could take years to prove that Muller’s trades on behalf of the Phoenix Fund were indeed based on Magee’s tips, and it would be even harder to prove Finnegan’s involvement. If only there was a way to show evidence of interaction between the three men …

The worst part of the matter was that Peter knew just how to procure such evidence, but the fact that he had learned of it from Aileen made him reluctant to use it. During their last meeting, Aileen had mentioned that Muller was going to have a meeting with her father this Saturday. She had mentioned the matter jokingly, but there had been bitterness in her voice when she remarked that she had again been stood up by Muller in favor of her father. What matter could Finnegan possibly have to discuss with Muller on a Saturday night? Peter had wondered. When he attempted to broach the matter with Aileen, she had replied that it was business related and that she kept out of Muller’s business affairs. It had taken all of Peter’s self-control not to press the subject further.

Peter’s usual course of action would have been to share his findings with Dennis and Janet, but when it came to his meetings with Aileen, he had done no such thing. Instead, Peter had done the unthinkable: for the first time in his life he had concealed information from his colleagues. Oh, he had shown Dennis and Janet the trades that Muller had run through the Phoenix Fund, but he had said that the background search on Rover’s executives did not produce any leads to Finnegan or Muller. Deep down he knew that he was doing something wrong. He did not want to obstruct the investigation, but neither did he want to help it along at the expense of his own happiness. He liked Aileen, and he could tell that she liked him too. Each time they met, the chemistry between them seemed to grow, and who knew what it could lead to eventually? From what she had told him, Aileen had been head over heels in love with Muller at the beginning, but Peter could tell that she was starting to become disheartened by Muller’s negligent treatment. Peter, on the other hand, was lavishing Aileen with attention. True, he could not compete with Muller’s riches, but he could make Aileen feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Why should he lose what he could have with her because of some stupid investigation? He had solved hundreds of cases, and what did he get as a reward? Being called a geek by Dennis Walker, who received all the accolades for Peter’s backbreaking work behind the scenes. No, he had decided, if Dennis wanted to solve this case he would have to get his hands dirty and do the background search on Rover’s executives himself. Rationally speaking, Peter knew that his protective attitude toward Aileen was compromising his duty. In his defense, he did not intend to hinder the investigation, but he liked Aileen and he did not want to hurt her.

* * *

Alex Kingsley leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk. His new job as the head of the Treasury Investigations department was turning out to be a very nice gig indeed. He got to boss people around all day, and the best part of it was that there was no one to boss him around. Aside from having to report on the department activity to Finnegan every other week, Alex did not have to answer to anyone. And this was only the beginning. Finnegan was bound to move up the political ladder, and as his trusted protégé, Alex would follow Finnegan’s trail. Who knew, a few years from now Alex could very well be the next attorney general—he certainly had the credentials for the job. The key was to keep Finnegan satisfied, and that meant not questioning Finnegan’s motives, even in Alex’s own thoughts. To say that Alex did not find Finnegan’s keen interest in the doings of the Treasury Investigations department odd would be an understatement, but at the moment Alex did not see a way of gaining from his suspicions. “At the moment” was the key element in the current state of things: a few years from now, should Finnegan fail to reward Alex’s loyalty, Alex might very well remind Finnegan of the rendered services. But for now Alex had to focus on supplying Finnegan with the requested information. And that meant keeping a watchful eye on each and every investigator in the department.

Alex was fairly certain that he had gauged the characters of the majority of his employees. There was, however, one exception: Dennis Walker. The so-called star investigator of the department was the only possible rebel and the source of Alex’s worries. Alex was certain that the others were too mousy to defy him; even Janet, who had been so defiant at the beginning, had seen the light and became his informant. Alex smiled at his victory: subjecting Janet to his will gave him a new thrill that exceeded that of sexual attraction. It pleased him to know that she was within his grasp once again, and he could do with her as he pleased. It amused him to play the game of cat and mouse with her: he would ask her out, she would refuse, he would ask her again, and so on. For now he accepted her excuses, content with her usefulness as the office spy, but he would reclaim his prize soon enough, not because he wanted her but because he could have her.

Still, one must not get drunk on power. While he was ninety-nine percent certain of his influence over Janet, there was still that one percent of doubt that Alex reserved in all of his personal dealings. To check for any possible omissions in Janet’s reports, Alex had requested Georgiana to run a report on the log-ins into the department’s background search software. The background search software was a nuisance to use; Alex had used a similar version at the onset of his investigative career at the DA’s office but had quickly abandoned the use of this cumbersome tool. But just because the system was a nuisance did not mean that Alex could not use it for his advantage.