happy. She didn’t have the heart to tell her daughter yet that he was gone, and when Max called her later that morning, Tallie didn’t take the call. She knew she couldn’t have talked to her without sobbing. She needed some time to absorb what had happened before she told Max. Tallie knew that she would be crushed too. She loved Hunt.
She remembered then the FBI agent that the investigator had wanted her to call. She didn’t have the heart to talk to him either, but she knew it was important to call him. They needed to know now who was stealing money from her, and Meg had given her good advice. She looked for her big canvas tote bag, and found the piece of paper with the number on it. She saw the folder on the kitchen table with the photographs of Hunt in it, with Angela and her son, and she started to cry again.
She called the number for Jim Kingston, FBI special agent, and he didn’t answer, so she left him a voicemail. All she said was her name and number and who had referred her. She didn’t explain what it was about. And then she went upstairs and got back into bed. She couldn’t think of a single reason to get up. She felt like her life was over as she sobbed into her pillow.
The baseball team of Hamilton High School was playing Fairfax High. A tall dark-haired boy was at bat. He was a sophomore, and he looked intent as he watched the pitcher and waited for the ball. The bases were loaded, and the score was three to two, Fairfax was winning, and when the batter hit the ball, he sailed it right out of the ball field, and everyone on base got home. It was the last inning, and all the Hamilton parents in the stands were on their feet and cheering. And a tall, good-looking man in a baseball cap was grinning from ear to ear as he watched. He went down on the field as fast as he could get there and threw his arms around his son. He gave him a high-five, and the boy looked embarrassed.
“You did it!” his father said excitedly.
“We would have won anyway. Their pitcher sucks,” Bobby Kingston said to his father.
“That’s not true, and you know it. You’re a hero!” his father teased him. Jim Kingston never missed a game if he could help it. His older son, Josh, was at Michigan State on a football scholarship. Sports had always been a big part of their lives, and Jim had gotten them even more focused on athletics since they lost their mother five years before. He was a widowed single father, had coached Little League for both boys, and he loved spending time with them whenever he wasn’t working. They were his whole life. That and his job at the FBI, as senior special agent. He had taken tamer assignments in recent years, since his wife died, and spent more time in the office. He had the boys to think about, although in two years, when Bobby left for college, he’d be alone again, but for the past five years, since Jeannie died of breast cancer, he had dedicated himself to them. The boys had been ten and fourteen when she died, and he had been mother and father ever since.
“Way to go, Bobby!” one of the fathers said as he walked by.
“You guys played a great game,” Jim said proudly, as Bobby came out of the locker room a few minutes later and they left the field.
“Yeah, it was pretty good.” Bobby grinned. He looked a lot like his father, with the same long, lanky, dark- haired appearance. And his brother did too, although Josh was broader and more powerful than his father or brother. Josh was the star quarterback at Michigan State. Jim was very proud of both his boys, and Jeannie had been too.
It was a relief to Jim in some ways, once Jeannie died, that he only had sons, which was easier for him to manage and relate to than if he’d had girls. But now and then he wished that he had a daughter who looked like his late wife. She had been the most beautiful woman in the world, full of fire and life, always coming up with some new idea or project to keep them busy. She had been the light of his life, and then after two years of illness, remission, chemo, radiation, relapse, and a double mastectomy, it was all over, and she was gone. He still couldn’t believe it, five years later. But thank God he had his boys. At forty-eight, he had been alone for five years, and still had no interest in dating. Some of the guys he worked with had tried to introduce him to other women, usually friends of their wives, and he just didn’t care. He knew there was no one in the world like her, and no one could measure up. Jeannie had been enough for him for one lifetime. And now he could focus on his boys. Josh came home to visit often, and he and Bobby went to see him play in all his big games. He had already been offered a contract by the NFL when he turned twenty-one, but Jim wanted him to wait and finish college, and so far Josh had agreed, although the offers he’d had to play pro football were very tempting.
Jim’s cell phone rang as they were leaving the field, and he saw an unfamiliar number appear. He didn’t answer, and figured he could call them back later, whoever it was.
He took Bobby out for a hamburger after the game, he was starving, and then he dropped him off at a friend’s. He went to buy groceries and to pick up their dry cleaning, and then he went home to read some reports he’d brought from the office to work on over the weekend. He had a full caseload at the moment. He was dealing with mail fraud, credit card fraud, wire fraud, a bank robbery, and an embezzlement. It was more than enough to keep him busy. He checked his cell phone when he sat down at his desk, and then remembered the call he hadn’t answered and listened to the message. The name sounded familiar to him, but he couldn’t remember why. And then he checked the message before it, from Meg Simpson, and she explained that she had referred a client of hers called Tallie Jones, in a possible embezzlement case, and she’d appreciate it if he’d talk to her. Meg was an old friend, and before she left the Bureau they had worked together for two years. He had always liked her, and so had his wife.
He called Tallie’s number, and it rang a few times before she answered. She sounded as though she’d been sleeping, which struck him as odd at five o’clock in the afternoon. He wondered if she was sick, and she seemed a little groggy. When he told her who he was, she woke up and was more alert.
“Thank you for calling me back,” she said gratefully. Her voice was young, and she seemed a little scattered to him. “My accountant recently discovered that someone has been taking quite a bit of cash from me without my knowledge. I had Meg Simpson do an initial investigation. I didn’t know if my boyfriend or assistant did it. And it looks like it might be my assistant, but I’m not sure. I don’t know why she would, and she’s worked for me for seventeen years. So maybe it’s not her. This has never come up before. It’s all very confusing at the moment. And Meg thought I should check out my accountant too.” It was hard explaining it all to him as briefly as possible, without boring him with the details…
“How much money is involved?” he asked with interest. She gave him the impression that she was a little anxious. Meg had always referred good cases to him, and didn’t waste his time, although he thought Tallie sounded disoriented.
“About twenty-five thousand dollars a month for the past three years, maybe longer. I don’t really know.” It was a sizable amount. “Close to a million dollars.”
“And why the FBI instead of the police?”
“Because Meg said to call you. She thought there could be bank or wire fraud involved eventually, and she thought we should check it out, that is… if you think it’s appropriate… I don’t really know. This is all very new to me. I just found out and it’s never happened to me before.”
“How did you discover it?”
“My accountant found it, during an audit I had to do for my business.”
“And what business is that?”
“I’m a movie director,” she said simply. Obviously her name hadn’t rung a bell for him. But as soon as she told him what she did, he realized why it had been familiar, and he felt foolish for not having recognized it immediately. He just didn’t expect to have a major movie director calling him at home. But he should have known. Meg had some very fancy clients and had made a good name for herself. She had tried several times to get him to come in with her, but he still liked working for the FBI. It suited him and he liked the prestige that went with it. And eventually, the pension.
“Of course, I’m sorry,” Jim said, still feeling silly for not knowing who she was immediately.
“It’s fine.” She didn’t seem to care if he knew who she was or not.
“You suspect your assistant?” he confirmed. People usually had some idea of who it was, although often it was the person they suspected least and trusted most. That was common in embezzlements, and he saw it all the time. And Meg had done the initial groundwork.
“At first I thought it was my… the… uh… the man I was living with. He just moved out yesterday,” she said, and he wondered if that was why she seemed confused. “Or my assistant. I can’t even imagine that, though. She’s
