Fuck.

I kicked the doorframe as Darcy drove off in some shitty little car for a four-dollar ride to god knows where. Home? Hopefully. Maybe the cottage, or Ginger’s, or Maraea’s. Never had anything gone to hell so fast as this evening.

The pain pouring off her as she walked through that door just about did me in. All I wanted was to grab her and stop her, but that sort of shit is only one step away from being the person I vowed I’d never be.

I’m not the grabby asshole, I’m the guy who talks. I needed to get in front of her and talk this out, but the best news I could give her, to calm her down, would be to tell her the money was safe, that she’d done nothing wrong, that there was nothing to worry about. Then we could deal with the other things that troubled her.

I also had to get back to Luther because it had taken a lot of time and persuasive talk to get a hold of someone high enough up in bank security to take a look at our problem.

Back in the office, the first piece of information that came through was that the money had been funneled through a bank account of Darcy’s in Australia.

I was shocked. Luther wasn’t remotely fazed.

“That means nothing,” he said. “We need forensics to go over her laptop. Has Darcy made payments to creditors from the laptop?”

“Sure. A few times.”

“And you were the other authorization on those payments?”

I nodded.

“And, did you authorize on your computer, or on Darcy’s? Even once?”

“More than once. Darcy often worked on admin stuff at home at night. She’d set the payments up in advance to go out when they were due.”

“This, Oliver, is why we don’t have staff use their home computers for work. We have systems in place to protect our computers, but who knows what sort of shit is on Darcy’s? There are hundreds of ways this could have been done without her knowing. Once they had two sets of login details for the account, they could easily start moving things.”

“But, there are daily limits on the accounts, and those limits are small. Whoever did this moved a large sum bloody fast.”

“It’s been well done, but they’ll be caught. I’m taking Darcy’s laptop and I’ll get forensics on it in the morning. Hope you guys don’t have any home movies on there.”

“Lame as it was, I’m surprised you can even think of making a joke right now.”

Luther stood and gathered his papers together. “You know me, Oli. I’m having the time of my life. I thrive on this shit.”

“I know you do, but I’m getting tired of being the person providing all the entertainment.” I followed him out of the building.

Luther paused before opening his car. “Bullshit, Sackville. Life was becoming boring around here until Darcy came along. We’ve got a lot to thank her for.”

I was starting to agree with Darcy. Luther needed a girlfriend.

The drive home seemed to take forever, which was ridiculous because there was no traffic, and the distance was short. I slowed down past Darcy’s cottage, checking to see if any lights were on, but the place was in darkness which gave me a small sense of relief.

I found her in the sitting room. One lamp on. Music playing softly. She looked beautiful, sitting cross-legged on the floor, folding laundry. I took a moment to admire her easy suppleness and grace as she bent at the waist to reach for a sock to pair, then straightened again, twisting this way and that, putting things into piles.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’m still annoyed.”

“I know you are.” She was still beautiful, too.

“Do you have my laptop?”

“It’s gone to forensics.”

She paused folding a T-shirt. “So you think I’ve stolen the money?”

“Look at me, Darcy.” Her mouth was tight, and she looked tired. “We don’t for a minute think you stole the money. But the money was funneled through a bank account of yours in Australia. It’s not there anymore, either.”

“Jesus.” She dropped her head into her hands.

I got down on the floor beside her, and took her in my arms. “It’s okay. We’ll find out what’s going on, and we’ll get the money back. My priority is you. Not the money.”

“Rob,” she said. “I bet it’s Rob. He was always boasting about simple programs installed on a computer that could record keystrokes and stuff, to find out passwords. Or ways to remotely connect to a computer and run stuff in the background that most users would never be aware of.”

“There are a lot of ways to do this sort of thing.”

Darcy took a long breath. “You remember that night when you came to the cottage and Rob was there? Well, he was waiting for me inside the house when I came back from a walk. My laptop was open, and it was on. I recall thinking how odd that was because I hadn’t used it for more than an hour, but I wondered if we’d just bumped the table or something, and that had woken it. But, when I think about that now, it would still have needed the password…Rob must have hacked the password.”

“It’s okay. Luther’s a terrier, and he has terrier friends. They’ll track it down.”

She pushed to her feet and started gathering up piles of clothes. “I’m sorry, Oliver. If I’d used the Mac you gave me instead of my laptop, this would never have happened.”

“You’re not to blame. The way it sounds, if it was Rob, he would have found a way in no matter what device you used.”

“I don’t know how you can be so understanding.”

“Because I love you.”

She shook her head as if she didn’t believe me, and left the room.

I followed her and stood in the doorway of her dressing room watching her organize her clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going back to the cottage. I expect I have to stay in Waitapu until this situation with the missing money is figured out, and I’ll do that.”

“I want you to stay.”

“Are you crazy? After every piece of shit I’ve dragged into your life, you want me to stay? I’m trying to do the right thing here, Oliver. I’m being sued for a sum of money I’m going to be paying off for the rest of my life. You know this. I overheard Luther tell you. Not only that, I kept it a secret because…” She threw her hands in the air. “Look at me. Everything about me is sordid. Don’t get involved with me, Oliver. Please, don’t love me. It just makes it harder to go.”

I reached for her, but she stepped away, one hand over her mouth, the other outstretched to back me off.

“I can’t stop loving you. You, Darcy.

“You will. If not today, then next month when I’m still dealing with some new chaos from my life with Rob, because I don’t think I’m ever going to be free from that.”

“We can figure this out together—”

She dropped her hands. “It’s not your responsibility. If there’s one thing I can do right, that is deal with the consequences of every decision I’ve made. I decided to stay with Rob, and as a result, there’s all of this shit going down.”

“It’s a blip. It’ll be handled and over in no time.”

“Two million dollars is not a blip. And, here, wait let me show you this.”