In A Heartbeat (8 page)

“No,” she insisted.

“—or that I wouldn’t,” he finished.

She blanched.

“My God.” He straightened, suddenly realizing the truth. “That’s it. That’s why you left?”

A pretty blush covered her cheeks. She turned her face toward the wall, but he reached over and gently turned her face to his. The vulnerability in those sweet blue eyes squelched the joy of his discovery. His breath caught.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he apologized. “I was so worried and then—” His chin sank to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Her fingers wrapped around his palm, tugging his hand from her cheek. “It’s not your fault.” Her words rode on a current of sweet breath that warmed his cheek. Her floral scent, soft and inviting, penetrated his thoughts. “I never should have—”

“My, my.” Elizabeth Everett, wrapped in a body-hugging sweater dress, glared from the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?”

Damn. He hadn’t expected her to arrive so soon. “As a matter of fact…”

“You call and say we need to talk. I drop everything, catch a plane to Ohio and find you playing kissy-face with someone else.” She glared at Angela.

“Knock off the dramatics, Elizabeth. Nothing’s happening here.” The woman was a hellcat. Owens’s offer of a million dollars might not be enough. “Ms. Blake and I were merely discussing—”

“Discussing?” She stepped closer, a smug smile firmly in place, and glanced at Angela’s leg stretched across the second chair. “Is that what you call it when some sweet young thing spreads her legs in your office?”

One glance at Angela’s strike face turned his hands into clenched fists. He positioned himself between Elizabeth and Angela. “You have no right.”

“Excuse me,” Angela said behind him. “I think I should go.”

Hank motioned behind him for Angela to stay. If anyone should leave, it should be Elizabeth.

“Right? I have every right,” Elizabeth said. “Is this what you brought me here to discuss?” She pointed an accusatory finger. “Her?”

“Calm down. It’s not what you think,” he said. Angie brushed past him on her way to the door. He wanted to stop her, wanted to explain, but it would be impossible with Elizabeth in the room.

ANGIE LEFT THE office and almost managed to close the door quietly behind her. But Elizabeth’s hand suddenly reached out and stopped its closing. She glared at Angie through the gap. “I won’t forget you,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Nobody messes with what’s mine and gets off this easy.”

Goosebumps lifted on Angie’s arms. No one had ever threatened her before, especially with pure hatred. She jerked the door free of the model’s grasp and pulled it closed.

“Jesus,” a man’s southern drawl sounded behind her. “What was that all about?”

Angie swirled around, practically ramming into Tom Wilson’s chest. As the controller and head of the accounting department, he was one of the few employees who had been with the company since it was founded. As such, he could be crucial to her ability to earn that coveted promotion. He obviously hadn’t been impressed with her at that interview last week. Now he witnessed this. Her heart sank.

“Mr. Wilson.” She smoothed the hair from her face. “I…uh…Mr. Renard had a visitor.”

“A loud one from the sounds of it.” He grinned at the feminine wail partially muted by the closed door. “Daddy won’t be pleased.” He continued down the narrow hallway that connected “executive row” to the rest of the offices.

“Excuse me?” Angie hurried to catch him. She put her hand on his arm, partly to stop him, and partly to ease her own discomfort. The ankle brace hadn’t provided enough support for all the jerky turns and twists.

“What happened to you?” Tom glanced at her bulky ankle brace.

“It’s just a sprain. Nothing serious.” She pulled her hand back from his arm and cocked her head. “What did you mean when you said ‘Daddy won’t be pleased’?”

“That’s Elizabeth Everett in his office, isn’t it?”

Angela nodded.

“Her daddy owns this place.”

“No,” she gasped. “I thought Jim Owens owned the company.”

“He does. Jim is her father. He told me once that Elizabeth’s agent made her change her name.” Tom ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Jim wasn’t too happy about that, either.”

“So Hank…Mr. Renard,” she corrected, “is dating the boss’s daughter?”

“Why the surprise?” Tom teased, one side of his mouth curled in a sneer. “In this business it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” He nodded toward the door. “Why else would he be here? He’s not old enough to know the business.” He continued down the hall, but not before she heard his lowered tone. “Not like he should.”

Angie leaned against the wall. Mental tumblers clicked into place in a very unpleasant combination.
He’s a user
, a part of her brain screamed. He’s after her money. That’s why there were no pictures of Elizabeth in his bedroom.
The man is pond scum. If he used one woman to get ahead, he’ll use another.

Blood drained from her face. Hank already knew about her “other” part-time job. He knew about the rules on relationships between auditors and their clients, and yet he still coerced her into his house. She gnawed at her lower lip. Stephen’s words from this weekend haunted her.

“What do you know about this man?” he’d lectured, just as she expected. “He could be a murderer, a pervert or something. How could you be so stupid, Angie?” Her cheeks warmed at the memory.

“Don’t be silly,” she’d argued. “He’s no more a murderer than that guy next door. It wasn’t as if I didn’t feel safe with him.”

Of course, that was a lie. She really hadn’t felt safe being alone with Hank. She hadn’t been afraid he’d hurt her. It was something else, something she wouldn’t begin to try to explain to her brother. A tremor twisted deep inside.

“Oh God.” Her head clunked the wall with a thud. “What have I done?”

You trusted him, a small voice reasoned. And why not? What proof, real proof, do you have that he’s not trustworthy? She drew in a deep breath. There were two sides to every story, she calmly reasoned. Don’t judge him until you know his side.

She closed her eyes. “Don’t judge,” she repeated, as if the sound of her words would chase the other thoughts from her head. “Don’t judge.”

“Angela? Are you all right?” a woman asked.

Angie’s eyes opened instantly. Mouthwatering smells drifted from the white bag tightly clutched in Cathy’s hand. The secretary’s lips thinned into a line of concern. “Is it your ankle? Max said you’d hurt it. Can I get you anything? Should I call someone?”

Angie sighed, pushing away from the wall. “I’m fine,” she answered for the umpteenth time. “Just fine.”

And she would be, Angie assured herself, as she walked unsteadily down the hall.

Chapter Seven

“MAX, I WANT to be out of here tomorrow,” Angela announced as soon as she returned to the conference room. “Where do we stand?”

“Well, I finished testing that stack of accounts payable invoices you requested.”

Angela eased onto on a padded chair and propped her injured foot up on another. “Anything unusual?”

“Nope.” He stretched, his shirt straining across his chest. “Looked pretty complete to me.”

“So every invoice had a copy of the purchase order and the receiving report, showing the warehouse received the goods ordered and invoiced, right?” Angie rattled without thought, her mind too occupied with her discovery. She shuffled the file folders, looking for the one with the audit program that documented completed versus uncompleted audit steps. The sooner she could distance herself from Hank Renard and his rude girlfriend the better.

“All except the direct ships.”

She paused in her search. “Direct ships?” She recalled hearing that term before.

“Yeah, that’s when the merchandise is shipped directly to a customer.” Max fingered his tie, a shy smile on his lips. “Sara explained it all to me.”

“Sara?” Angie drawled. “Another conquest?”

“No.” He laughed. “Tom Wilson wasn’t in his office, so I asked Sara about the invoices without receivers.”

Yes, it was all coming back; the interview with Tom Wilson and the embarrassing confrontation with Renard. “Can you show me one?” she asked.

Max flipped through the stack of papers before sliding a page with navy blue letterhead across the table. “Most of the invoices from Timone Industries are direct ships.”

“Timone Industries,” Angela repeated, studying the letterhead. “It’s a local company, but there’s no street address, just a post office box.”

“Is something wrong with that?” Max thumbed through the stack of invoices. “Lots of these vendors list PO box numbers along with their street addresses.”

“No,” she hesitated, not ready to disclose her “other” job to Max. Having driven limousines all over town, she recognized most local addresses. Several people knew of her brother’s business, but no one knew of her chauffeur sideline. She quickly modified that thought. One person, one possibly pond scum of a person, knew her secret.

“Now this street I know.” She tapped the ship-to address on the Timone Industries invoice. “Ritchton Street. That’s not in the best of neighborhoods.” She tried to remember the street, but her memory only dredged up images of refuse-strewn alleyways and vacant office buildings. “Were any of the direct ships from someone other than Timone Industries?”

“There were only seven direct ships in the sample. Most were from Timone, but I think maybe there were one or two from somewhere else.” He looked up at Angie. “Is something wrong?”

“I just want to be thorough, that’s all.” An uncertainty made her hesitate. “Could you do me a favor, Max?” She smiled sweetly. “Could you make a copy of this invoice for me?”

“Oh, I see how it works now.” Max laughed and took the invoice from her hand. “You’re going to milk this ankle thing for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” She laughed. “Only if it’ll work.”

As soon as Max closed the door behind him, Angela pulled the heavy audit bag on the floor behind her chair around to her side, so she could search for a thick press board folder: the permanent file.

Like most accounting firms, Falstaff and Watterson maintained a complete file of copies of important documents, schedules that spanned years of operations, and other boring but important information. The detailed accounting system descriptions resided in the permanent file. Part of her job was to ensure those descriptions were up-to-date and accurate. If she wasn’t aware of these direct ship invoices, there was a good chance they hadn’t been documented in the accounts payable system description. She opened the overstuffed folder to the table of contents.

Section I. Background Information

A. Dun & Bradstreet Reports.

B. Product Literature

C. Press Releases & Newspaper Articles

D. Industry Audit Guides

Section II. Accounting Systems

A. Flowcharts, System Descriptions and questionnaires.

Angie’s finger slid down the list of contents then paused at “newspaper articles”. Every time a client, or a client’s product, appeared in a newspaper or magazine, the firm clipped the article and stored it in the permanent file. It was a long shot, but…

She passed by the reports and headed straight for the juicy stuff, the newspaper articles.

The articles were filed chronologically with the most recent on top. Not quite the most recent, Angela thought. The office probably clipped the announcement of the new CEO from the paper last week. She’d have to ask Max to stop by the office tomorrow to pick up any updates for the file.

The top article talked about Hayden’s new product line. She flipped to the next page. A yellowed photograph of Jim Owens looked back at her. Nothing new here, she’d seen his picture before. She was about to flip to the next page when a small photograph at the bottom right corner caught her eye. Jim Owens stood talking to another man. To his immediate right stood a slender dark-haired woman. Angie squinted at the fine print of the caption: Owens and his daughter, Elizabeth, discuss the future of Hayden Industries with…

It was true! Hank was dating the owner’s daughter. Bile rose up in her throat. In her heart she suspected this wasn’t a love match, but she hadn’t suspected Hank of something this low. This… She shook her head. No wonder the company was supplying him with that big fancy house. She remembered Tom’s curled lip.
It’s not what you know but who you know.
Well, she knew a lot more now, thank you very much.

The door opened. Angela let the file pages fall back in place.

“The copier outside is broken, so I ran up to Sales to use theirs.” Max tossed the copy of the Timone invoice on the table. “Anything else?”

Angela hesitated, then pulled the invoice copy along with a legal pad closer. “I need to ask Tom Wilson a few questions about these direct ships. How about checking out the audit program to make sure you’ve signed off on your sections. Have you written your memo yet?”

He frowned. “You know how much I hate writing those things.”

Angela smiled. “All part of the job, Max, all part of the job.”

He was still grumbling when she hobbled out of the conference room.

“I’M LEAVING NOW, Mr. Renard. You have a good evening.”

Hank glanced up from his desk, suddenly aware of the absence of ringing phones and slamming file cabinets. “Thank you, Cathy. I’ll see you tomorrow.” After she left, he checked his watch. Six o’clock.

He stood and stretched the kinks from his shoulders. Elizabeth and another screaming confrontation waited at the house. He was in no hurry to jump into the fray, but Owens was calling the shots. Fishing in his pocket for his car keys, he discovered an unfamiliar keyring with a tiny heart. They had to be Angie’s car keys. He smiled. Unfinished business.

He headed down the hallway toward the open door of the conference room. She stood at the end of the long table, staring through the picture window to the parking lot beyond.

“I hoped you might still be here,” he said.

Startled, she spun about unsteady on that boot of hers. One hand covered her heart, while the other braced against the table.