Numbers Never Lie (Crimson Romance) (18 page)

“Did the sandwich wear off?” He raised his hand and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“A long time ago.”

“Yeah, me too. Why don’t we drive into town and get something?”

“You mean so you can gloat?” She grinned. He responded with a short laugh.

“No, not to Tervis, I was thinking maybe a little farther, into Fredericksburg. Tervis rolls up the sidewalks by eight so nothing’s open there.” He raised his arms above his head and stretched a long, sexy stretch before adding, “Come on, get up.” He rolled her off him and spanked her gently on the behind to get her moving.

An hour and a half later, they were sitting outside under a latticed roof over a large patio, eating pizza and drinking wine. A lone guitarist was singing in the corner of the patio as he strummed along on the guitar. There was a cool breeze blowing just enough that they had to anchor their napkins to keep them from being whisked away.

“This is nice.” Sophie sighed.

“Yeah, it is. Really nice,” Trevor admitted. He patted her thigh under the table and took another bite of pizza. “So, tell me something.” He swallowed. “Do you happen to have another USB copy of the accounting database anywhere?”

“Yeah, sure. I made two copies in case you couldn’t read one of them. Why?”

“I left the one you gave me at the office. I kind of thought we could go back tomorrow morning and look at it but I don’t have it. Also, again, who has access to the server besides you?”

“The two network admins and one of our DBAs.” She looked at him.

“What about client side access to change the data?”

“There are quite a few with that but mostly in the accounting department. In my area, there are only two people. The DBA and a systems analyst that’s been doing the financial reports for years.”

“I need names. Write them down.” He removed the knife that was holding his napkin in place and handed the napkin to her. “You have a pen in your purse?”

“I’m repeating myself, but why are you asking?”

“Soph, I think you already know that, don’t you?”

She studied his expression curiously. He squeezed her leg where he had patted it earlier, and smiled. “Whoever wanted those reports knows you know something’s wrong. So, if what you did find is important to them, maybe criminal, they’ll be back because they know that you know.”

Yes, she’d already thought of that. She wasn’t sure how to deal with it and truthfully, didn’t know exactly what she’d found yet because she hadn’t spent enough time with the data to tell.

“We need to know what’s in the data before your office opens on Monday so we know whether you can go back or not.”

“Of course I can go back! I have to work. How am I supposed to pay my bills?”

“Depending on what’s happening, it might not be safe to go back. I know you’ve thought of that, too.”

“Yeah, I have, but it seemed a little melodramatic.” She talked quietly.

Trev raised his wine to his mouth and took a slow drink before answering. “Crime usually is.”

“I don’t even know if there is a crime right now.” She handed him the napkin with the names on it.

“No, you don’t, but I do this for a living, and I’m pretty sure.” He folded the napkin and pushed it down into his pocket. “Let’s go home and get some sleep so we can leave early tomorrow, okay?”

Sophie found it interesting that Trevor referred to the hunting cabin at Prater Ranch as home. It lent a familiarity to their time together that seemed a little too “relationship-like.” To some extent, it made her uncomfortable, but she still liked the feel of his hand as he reached for hers to guide her reluctantly out of the patio.

“Trev, what am I going to do if it really is that bad? I’ll probably lose my job.” She spoke the fear she’d felt several days before.

“It’ll all work out fine. You’re going to be great.”

When they got back to the ranch, Trevor remained outside and made some phone calls while Sophie went in and changed to her nightclothes. She slipped between the sheets in the girls’ room and closed her eyes. She couldn’t sleep, wondering what would come of all the changes in her life. The door quietly opened and Trevor spoke from the doorway, “Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, why would I be?”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No, not really.”

“Then why are you in here?” He sounded hurt.

“I don’t know. I just wasn’t sure.”

“Wasn’t sure of what?”

“That you’d want — ” She wasn’t really sure he wanted her there and she wasn’t going to assume he did. She heard him walk to the bed and toss the cover away from her. Then he lifted her up and carried her back to his room. He slipped her under the covers and slid in next to her, holding her against him.

“If you don’t want to be here, you can leave whenever you want to, but if you think I don’t want you here, you’d be wrong,” he whispered into her hair. “I wish I could stop wanting you here. It would be so much easier for both of us.” He was so warm against her back. It made her feel really, really safe — and wanted.

“You feel great, Trev,” she murmured as she drifted off to sleep. Really great.

• • •

The ride back to Houston was quiet. Too quiet. Trevor was focused on driving and didn’t seem to want to talk. After an hour of silence, Sophie laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes.

“You tired, Henry?”
Finally, he speaks.

“No. Just tired of talking to myself. You haven’t said a word since we got in the car,” she muttered grumpily. “What’s bugging you?”

“Nothing.” His lips tightened. “I was just thinking about, well, everything I need to do over the next couple of days.”

“And I got in the way of that?”

“No. That’s not what I meant. I’m worried about how it’s all gonna pan out in the end.” She had no idea what he was talking about but it sounded like she should.

He slid his fingers around hers and squeezed. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just deep in thought, I guess. What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing really.” She closed her eyes again. Now she was ready for some quiet time.

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.” Her thoughts were screaming
Yes! I want to talk about YOU … US. What’s going to happen when we get back? Do we act like this never happened? What do I do if we really do find a problem in the data? Why are you here? Now that the weekend is over, are we over, too?

“Okay, then.” He squeezed her hand one more time, then let it go.

Chapter Sixteen

They arrived back in Houston just before noon on Sunday. Trev never told her where they would stop first. He didn’t ask where she wanted to go and knew he couldn’t take her back to her place yet, not unless he went with her. He doubted she’d ask him to, so he took the only option that seemed easy and plausible — he took her to his apartment. It was the best way to keep her safe, he told himself, and they could use his computer equipment to investigate the data.

She had nodded off but woke when they got into the city and the stop and go driving became more difficult for sleeping. He looked at her on the passenger side with her hair pulled back and the sunlight flickering across her face. That same face had lain on his arm all night, her soft breathing had tickled his flesh. He still felt the warmth of her back against his chest and the thought made him want to go back to the ranch.

Things were probably going to get sticky now. She would hate him when she found out he had been following her for a long time. If he told her now, he’d risk everything they’d done so far on the case. If he didn’t, he would most likely lose her when she found out. There wasn’t really a choice — he had to do his job.

“Here we are,” he stated quietly as they pulled into the parking garage.

“Why don’t I call Callie to come get me? That way you won’t have to babysit me anymore.”

“I’m not babysitting you. We need to work together on this if we’re gonna figure out what’s happening at your office. I need your help.” Then he corrected himself. “You need my help.”

Sophie sighed. “I wish we could have stayed there longer. I liked your friend’s ranch.”

“Yeah, me too.” She had voiced his own thoughts. “Wanna go back?” He quirked an eyebrow at her, wishing she’d say
yes.

“No.” She stretched her arms above her head, hitting the roof of the car. “We’re here, let’s do this.”

Was it possible to be disappointed and relieved at the same time? He turned off the car and walked around to her door to open it.

“Let’s don’t go up just yet.” He had a thought. “Let’s go down the street and get some lunch. I’m hungry. What about you?” He knew it was probably risky to have her out in the open, but he wanted it to be normal. Like it could have been if they’d met differently. He wanted her to be with him under her own volition, not because he was keeping her safe.

Sophie lifted herself from the car, taking the hand he’d offered. When she rose, she was against him, not really touching him but he felt her. He waited for an answer.

“Sure, sure. Yeah, we skipped breakfast so I’m a little hungry, too.”

“Are you a breakfast person?”

She nodded as he turned to walk toward the door of the garage, keeping her hand in his. “Most important meal of the day!” she answered cheerfully.

“That’s right. Most important,” he agreed. “I’ll make breakfast tomorrow.” She looked at him when he said it and he wasn’t sure if she smiled a little or not.

“Who said I’d be around for breakfast?”

“That’s up to you. If you want to go somewhere else, just say the word.”

“I really want to go home.”

“Okay, well, not that word — anywhere but there or work.” He squeezed her hand and they walked to the deli near his apartment. He made sure to keep an eye on every person there — and watched the street, also.

It took a while to get the data restored onto his computer because he didn’t have the right version of SQL database software to read it. Once he loaded the right version, they restored the data and started digging through the transactions looking for the detail that she’d seen on the reports stolen from her apartment. Without the reports, they were working mainly off Sophie’s memory of the transactions, so backtracking through the various tables of the database was tedious at best. By ten
P.M.
, Trevor had determined that the database had indeed been manually edited to hide the transactions. He also saw that most of the transactions ended up going to a trust fund called Brotherhood of Hope. The address was a post office box so that wouldn’t help a lot. He’d have to get a subpoena for the state filings on the business name and the bank records.

Trev went to the bedroom for a little privacy and called Cheryl on her cell, expecting to leave a message. “Hey, Trev! You’re a hard man to get in touch with.” She was cheerful for this time of night.

“I need your help. I need to subpoena bank records for the Brotherhood of Hope trust fund. I’ll email you the address and bank account number.”

“No problem. Hey, we got the bank records back on the folks you asked for last week. I tried to call you Friday but I just kept getting voicemail.”

“Oh, sorry. I must have missed the ring. Why didn’t you leave a message?” He was pretty sure the records were going to be inconclusive so he only listened halfheartedly as he glanced toward his office at Sophie. She was sitting at the desk, tapping a pen up and down, looking bored and beautiful.

“I wanted to talk to you directly and a message might have been a problem for you. Wasn’t sure.”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“Well, yes there is. Boss wants you to bring the girl in tomorrow morning. Apparently, she has a string of deposits to her bank accounts from anonymous sources that date back quite a while.”

Trevor’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone. His eyes widened as he watched Sophie tapping away. He tried not to sound panicked. “Are you sure it was her account and not one of the others?”

“Trev, come on! Do I ever get people confused? Yes, it was her. Looks like you guys were on the right track. Have her here around nine.”

“Got it,” he confirmed, his voice hollow. His stomach felt sick. He thought he was going to vomit.
How could I have been wrong?

“Oh, and Nate’s doing the interrogation. They think you’re probably a little too involved.” The phone went dead as she hung up but he couldn’t lower it yet. He just stood there, watching Sophie tap a pen to his desk as if nothing at all was wrong.
Fuck!

Chapter Seventeen

Another rainstorm brewed outside and Lenny grabbed his jacket and umbrella before leaving for the office. Even though their garage was covered at work, he intended to take a trip to the lockbox during lunch and deposit his latest copies of data and recordings. This was starting to be almost a daily occurrence lately. There were too many loose ends, too many tracks to cover. He had a splitting headache most of the time from trying to keep it all straight.

The traffic was moving pretty well for rush hour and it gave him time to think on the way in. He wasn’t satisfied with just lying low. They needed to do more than that. He didn’t want things to get to the point where they did something crazy — like they’d done last time. They were only trying to scare Bob. He wasn’t supposed to die. Unfortunately, the guy had an overactive imagination and his jittery paranoia caused him to hit an embankment too hard and flip the car. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That had been the turning point. When the realization hit as to how far they would go to cover this up, the likelihood of him being able to get out became nonexistent.

Use the numbers,
he told himself. It had taken most of the night to set up the script that would make the edits necessary to finish his cleanup work. While doing so, he also added in a small script that would solidify her place in this and take the heat off his team. Just one tiny transaction and she’d be in hot water. Unfortunately, it had to be done at the office. The VPN tunnel to the bank would only work from their office IP address. And it required an authorization to complete.