Chapter 12
Luke
For the next several days, I practically lock myself in my office, only coming out when I absolutely need to. I know it’s not the answer, but every time I fucking hear her name or see her stunning blue eyes, they remind me of Em. It’s something I know I need to get past, but I have no fucking idea how. I spent the weekend doing everything possible to rid myself of the memories of that time in my life, but when I arrived this morning and found her already here, they came rushing back.
“Luke?” Emily appears at my door.
“Yes?”
“Are we meeting in here or in the conference room?”
“Oh, in the conference room.”
I had lost track of time and completely forgot about our call with Alec. I quickly follow her to the room where we first met a few days ago. She takes the same seat she did as that day, whereas I sit in the one I originally offered her. It isn’t until she looks up that I realize my mistake. By sitting across from her, she’s in my line of sight. Before I can think of a reason to move, she’s dialing the conference line number on the phone between us.
“Is everyone there?” Alec’s voice comes through the speaker before either of us can say hello.
“Yes, Ms. Telford and I are here.”
“Emily, are you settling in okay?” he asks.
“Yes, thank you. Jose showed me the ropes and left me very detailed notes on all the cases you’re currently working on.”
“Good.”
“Have you heard anything more on the Thompson case?” I ask.
“Mrs. Thompson hasn’t received any ransom calls or communication from her husband,” Alec replies. “The police haven’t found any new leads either.”
“I think we need to look into their financials further, something isn’t sitting right about them,” I suggest.
“I agree,” Emily adds. “I’ve just started to dig into them, but I’ve pulled their tax returns for the last few years and various credit statements I could find online. It’s going to take at least several days to go through everything, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something.”
“Anything stand out?” Alec asks.
“No. Everything is just too perfect. It’s just a feeling at this point, and it’ll take some time to get through everything—”
“I can help.” I cringe even as the words spill out on their own accord.
“Really? That would be great! With two of us working on it, I’m sure we could get through the records much faster.”
“Perfect,” Alec agrees. “I’m going to continue tracking down a few college friends and old acquaintances that Mrs. Thompson provided the names of, and hopefully one of them will turn out.”
“I have a program searching off shore accounts for anything in his name as well,” Emily adds. “It should be finished in the next couple of hours as it’s been going all weekend.”
“What countries is it searching?” Alec asks.
“All of them,” she answers.
“All of them?” Alec asks just as surprised as I am.
Off-shore accounts are notorious for not cooperating with inquiries; the whole reason they exist is to hide money, so why would they cooperate? Some countries are slightly better than others, but the issue still remains that they don’t like sharing information.
“Yes, the program has been running since Friday. The only downfall is that it won’t spit out information as it receives it, instead it waits until the search is complete.”
“You’ve used this program before?” I ask.
“Yes, a few times.”
“Impressive,” Alec says.
“Let’s see if it gives us any useful information before we say that.” She laughs.
“Okay, I’m going to leave the two of you to sort through the financials,” he chimes in.
“How’s Mrs. Thompson holding up?” Emily asks.
“As you would expect.” He sighs. “She’s fearful of what he’ll do; she’s convinced this is retaliation against her now that the divorce was just finalized.”
“Almost three months ago,” I point out.
“Meaning what?” Alec asks.
“Why now? According to her statement, he cancelled multiple scheduled visits with the kids before he finally took them two weeks ago. Why did he wait? If he really was angry over the divorce, why not do it right afterward?”
“Maybe it took that long to put a plan together?” he suggests.
“I don’t know.”
“What if it’s not about the divorce?” Emily offers.
“Meaning?”
“What if Mrs. Thompson is right that this is in retaliation to something she did, but not that? Maybe something else happened that she hasn’t told us about?”
“That’s a possibility,” Alec agrees. “Let’s get a more thorough background check on Mrs. Thompson completed. Jose did our basic one when we first took the case on, but let’s dive into the last few months, including both before and after the divorce was finalized.”
“I’ll start on that today,” she agrees.
“Let me know what you guys find,” Alec says before disconnecting the call.
For all my time avoiding her, I’m now stuck working with Emily for at least the next several hours if not longer, as I doubt we’ll get through all of this today.
“Did you want me to bring everything in here or to your office?”
“No, in here is probably best… there’s more room.”
My table in my office is too small; we would practically be on top of one another. Fuck…and now, as she walks out of the conference room, that’s what I’m thinking…being on top of her. Every day she wears these fitted dress pants that hug her ass perfectly. The entire outfit is professional, but still incredibly sexy at the same time. I quickly shake my head, needing to get that image out of my head before she comes back. I pull out my phone and start reading through email reports from some of our staff. What started out as a small company with only me and Alec providing security protection has now grown to over one hundred field based contractors. While our home base is in Virginia, we have clients up and down the entire east coast.
“So this is everything.” Emily walks back in carrying a large box. I immediately jump from my seat and grab the box, offering the help I should have when she said she was going to bring everything in here. I swear I can’t think straight when she’s around.
“Thanks.” She returns to her seat across from me.
For the next couple of hours, we work in relative silence as we sort through the mounds of documents that she printed out. I have no idea how she managed to get her hands on half of these, since I’m pretty sure they’re not readily available to just anyone, but I don’t question any of it. If it helps to find these kids and bring them home safely, that’s all that matters.
“Mr. Simpson, Ms. Telford.” Margaret startles us causing Emily to nearly jump out of her skin. While I’m sure I jumped a little, for the briefest moment I swear I saw fear in her eyes.
“Yes?” I ask without taking my eyes off of Emily.
“Would either of you like me to order dinner for you before I leave for the night?”
“Shit, I hadn’t realized how late it was. Do you have somewhere you need to be?” I ask Emily even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“No, I’m fine,” she says in a tone so soft I can barely hear her. “But if you need to go, I can finish this up—”
“Margaret, if you don’t mind can you order us something and have it delivered? I’ll take care of it when they get here.”
“Thank you, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
“Are you okay?” I ask as soon as Margaret is out of ear-shot.
“Yeah, she just…startled me. I was so into these damn spreadsheets, I hadn’t heard her open the door.” She looks past me, at the door that I also didn’t hear open. There’s something in her eyes, something about the way she’s looking at it that makes me wonder what is really going through her head right now. I don’t know how I know, but I know she’s hiding something.
“Margaret has a way of doing her job without interrupting people.” I make an excuse, trying to lessen whatever is bothering her. “I swear she has snuck up on me and Alec so many times, we used to joke she should wear a bell so we knew where she was.”
“Alec used to work here?” she doesn’t hide her surprise. I wasn’t sure how much Alec had told her, but judging by her reaction, I’m guessing he didn’t tell her anything. “Did he move away?”
“No,” I answer.
“Oh. I just assumed he handled things from a distance.”
“He does, but he only lives a few miles from here.”
“Then, why doesn’t he…I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“Once you started working on these cases with us, it became your business,” I correct her. “Alec and I founded this company after we served together in the Army. We worked side by side and even lived here for the first year while we got the company off the ground. Up until six months ago, he was here day in and day out.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“He was in a horrible accident… his wife was killed—”
“Oh!”
“He was badly injured. He was in the hospital and then a rehab center for months afterward. He hasn’t…he’s ready to work, obviously, but not yet ready to return…here.”
“He never mentioned any of it. He listened to me talk about my dad and everything else for so long, but he never mentioned anything he was going through. I feel like shit now for complaining about my problems.”
“Don’t. I’ve known Alec for more than eight years and in that time I’ve learned that he prefers to keep his mind off of his own problems, so he dives into other things. Talking with you probably helped him forget, for a little while at least, everything that was going on.”