She didn’t have to say who she was to the front desk this time. One of the workers recognized her from a previous visit and picked up the phone.
Eli showed up five minutes later and Adele went running over to him. “Hi, Eli. Daddy said you’re going to finish our tour.”
“I am,” Eli said, giving her a high five. She’d never thought of her cousin as being so good around kids before but supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. He was the oldest of three boys. “Let me get your father and Ava set up to go see Griffin first.”
Seth and she followed Eli down the hall, got in the elevator and then into Griffin’s place. He’d left the door open for them.
“You have no idea how hard it’s been to pay attention on my job today,” she said. “Thankfully I didn’t have any surgeries planned this afternoon.”
She’d had one earlier in the morning and was just seeing patients this afternoon.
“You didn’t have to call me right back,” Griffin said. “I said no rush.”
“Please,” Seth said. “You had to know she’d rush if she thought you knew who did this.”
“True,” Griffin said, grinning at them. “So let me explain first. After we analyzed all the charges, there were a lot of gift card purchases at the grocery store and the big box stores. I happened to get in contact with the grocery store where many of the purchases had been made. We got card numbers, but those for restaurants and other stores are hard to track without their cooperation.”
“And most aren’t going to get in the middle of this, right?” Seth asked. “It’s not worth their time?”
“Right,” Griffin said. “Every gift card was purchased in either fifty- or a hundred-dollar increments. Not enough to stand out. Even if they were around a thousand dollars with each set of cards.”
“So being smart to use later on?” Ava asked, realizing her mind wouldn’t work that way. She’d always been an honest person.
“I’m sure that was it,” Griffin said. “Anyway, the grocery store gift cards that were purchased were flagged as fraudulent. They were willing to cooperate at all their locations and put the information in at their corporate level. The fact that so many of the purchases were made at their store with a stolen credit card didn’t sit well with them.”
“So when the person tried to use them, you’d get notified?”
“Yes,” Griffin said. “Right here on the island no less. Yesterday afternoon there were attempts to use two cards and both were flagged as inactive. The person was forced to pay with cash so we didn’t get a name, but we got a face.”
Ice seemed to be flowing through her now. “The person is on the island?”
“We aren’t sure yet. We aren’t going to assume anything at this point. Do you know who this person is?” Griffin asked and pulled the screen up.
“Oh God. That’s Colleen Crowder. She’s a nurse that works with me.”
“Didn’t she just transfer here to the island?” Seth asked. “Could she be following you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I’ve always gotten along with her. I never thought for a minute she could do something like this or why she would.”
“You said her husband lost his job though, right?” Seth asked.
She remembered now that Colleen had told her all about it. The debt and the struggle to find a job. But she still didn’t know what to think. “It makes me feel ill that I’m that bad of a judge of character.”
“We are going to have to bring the State Police in on this,” Griffin said. “It’s a felony and purchases were made outside of Amore Island.”
“Can you call Jarrett?” she asked. “I’d rather try to keep this with family if I could.”
Griffin nodded. “Let me see if he’s working and can bring her in. I’ll try to see where she is living.”
“Her husband works at Atlantic Rise,” Ava said. “They are staying there until they can get into their apartment. I just saw her at work. I’ve been working with her for weeks. I can’t believe she could have done this to me and I had no idea.”
Seth pulled her into his arms. “Relax. We’ll get the answers. Hopefully soon and can put this all behind us.”
Griffin was making another call to Atlantic Rise and spoke with Penelope. She was happy this was staying within the family and Griffin explained the situation, but she took the phone away from Griffin and he lifted his eyebrow at her at her nerve to do that.
“Penelope, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to believe this of her. Can you do this discreetly?”
“Of course,” Penelope said. “Have whoever is going to come get her for questioning call me and we’ll get her down in the lobby and to my office. We’d prefer to not have anything stand out too.”
She handed the phone back to Griffin and turned to Seth. “What a mess this is. I don’t want this to affect Emily and Penelope’s business either.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, running his hand up and down her back.
“I know, but it feels like I’m ruining someone’s life.”
He snorted. “She tried to ruin yours.”
“I just can’t believe this,” she said. “I want to know what she has to say.”
Griffin hung the phone up. “Jarrett is working and is calling Penelope now. They will get Colleen in the room and question her on it.”
“I want to go there,” she said. “I need to.”
“I’ll be there,” Griffin said. “If it’s not her, I need to know what she knows and how she got the cards.”
The three of them left, Adele still in good hands with Eli, but Ava texted to let him know what was going on.
By the time they got to Atlantic Rise, they were being shown into Penelope’s office. Colleen was in there with another man, she was assuming
