“What’s our cover if we get caught? It’d be nice to keep our stories straight,” he says, turning his phone into a flashlight. Thankfully, there’s enough moonlight seeping in, so we’re not totally in the dark without it.
“Georgie Conner.” It comes out with an edge that clues him in on the fact I’m not all that pleased with her. “Not only do we have her to thank for our cover, but we can thank her for spreading the news of my frigidity so efficiently that even I almost believe it.”
“I believe it,” Jasper says, taking a seat behind the desk and opening up the top drawer.
“What?”
“Yup,” he says, pulling open the filing cabinet to his right. “And I’ll continue to believe it until you prove to me otherwise. Georgie Conner is a reputable woman. What she says goes.” He plucks a file out and begins to examine it.
“Lucky for us she’s reputable. And I think that translates to lucky for you.” I wiggle my way into his lap and peruse that file right along with him. “Hey, look! These are receipts of some kind.”
“Bogus receipts.” He points to the top where we see Caldwell Enterprises printed on the letterhead. “It’s an alibi file. If Bobbie ever got suspicious, he could whip these out and extinguish any suspicions she might have.”
“That is low. And an awful lot of work. But then, Bobbie is a smart woman. If she smelled trouble, he’d be sunk without these or it would be game over.”
“Exactly.” He fishes out a few more files, and it’s filled with statements from the Rose Glen City Bank. “Jackpot.”
“Ooh, I can’t wait to dig in.” And dig in we do, right up until we find a pattern. “Jasper, he was cashing the checks Bobbie gave him and trading them for cold-hard cash.”
“You can’t trace paper money.”
“Then why keep the receipts?”
“Good question. I’m betting he wasn’t the brightest bulb.”
Jasper and I dig through all of the drawers in sight and only come up with a couple more files. We each take one and thumb through them.
“Look at this,” I whisper. “It’s receipts from a management company.”
“Bingo. I bet this will lead straight to the mystery women he’s funding.”
“It says Morgan Capital Management. Each month there’s a receipt for twenty-seven hundred dollars for property number 1505 and next to that the word Barron.” I groan. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not getting the address out of this thing? It’s as if it’s encrypted. I bet the management company is run by cheats, for cheats.”
“Nothing would surprise me,” Jasper says, flicking his fingers my way. “Can I see your phone?”
I hand it to him, and he takes pictures of each and every sheet.
“Why my phone and not yours?”
“Because I don’t want to go to prison one day for doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.”
“You’re right. Besides, I’d probably fare better in prison than you would. Good thinking throwing me under the bus.”
A dark chuckle expels from him as he switches off the flashlight on his phone, and the room falls dark once again save for the moonlight.
I lean in and nuzzle my lips close to his ear. “And what would this part of the investigation be called?”
“The fun part.” His lips dot a string of kisses up my neck.
“Real quick, let’s recap our suspects.”
He pulls back and a breath expires from him. “I’m beginning to think the things Georgie says about you have a kernel of truth to them. Who’s on first?”
“Keegan Merritt,” I say. “Bobbie suspects her as Chip’s unofficial plus one. And when I talked to Keegan, she admitted that not only was she his personal secretary, but he utilized her services as a professional cuddler. I think she’s full of it. We both know what happens when a man and a woman cuddle for hours.”
“They fall asleep?”
I give his chest a quick shove. “They get creative in their cuddling endeavors. Chip was a man’s man, Keegan is beautiful. It seems unbelievable that he was paying her to hug him for hours on end and nothing more.”
“I agree. Who’s next?”
“Tiger Caldwell.” I shrug. “Chip owed him money. And Chip used him as a cover. I guess if Bobbie ever got suspicious and wondered what Chip was doing with all that cash, he could say he was funneling it to Tiger.”
“But why would Tiger want to kill him?”
“He did say he owed him big money and that he almost went bankrupt over it.”
“And there’s our motive.”
“Oh, and another thing we need to look into is the life insurance policy,” I say. “Lacey alluded to the fact Bobbie received a million dollars. And yet, Bobbie told Diane she wasn’t the recipient of the policy.”
He nods. “Okay. I’ll try to make headway with the Rose Glen City Bank. He had an account there. They might have info on the policy.”
“Then there’s Diane.” I lean back as I consider her. “Bobbie owes her a ton of money. And she knew about the insurance policy. Hey? What if Diane tried to frame Bobbie for shooting Chip—knowing that she’d survive and that she’d probably end up getting her money back once she cashed the policy?”
Jasper blows out a breath. “I suppose anything is possible, but wouldn’t her dog have told you as much?”
“Only if he heard her talk about it.” I relax against him. “Maybe I’ll talk to Gizmo one more time just to be sure I have the story straight.”
“He might have been distracted with bacon that night. Don’t forget, Georgie was on the loose,” he says, wrapping my arms around him. “Speaking of Georgie, I believe there are some rumors we need to dispel.”
“And an alibi to shore up.”
And we do just that.
But I have a feeling we’re not the first
