Dobey and I walk through the front door and I yell, “Honey, I’m home!”

Zoe comes bounding down the stairs and claps her hands. “I’ve got something to show you.”

She grabs my wrist and starts dragging me through the house and out the back door. She’s as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Zoe pulls me all the way to the guest house and dramatically flings the door open. I walk inside and I’m amazed how much she has gotten accomplished. All the walls are covered with visqueen, and there are rows of tables with pots full of soil on them. I look up and see a new sprinkler system and grow lights positioned over the tables.

I look at my best friend who is glowing. “Zoe, this is amazing. You are amazing.”

She jumps up and down squealing. “I know, right?! The next step is to crossbreed the seeds and figure out which hybrid will produce the best profit at the fastest rate. I should be able to do the crossbreeding within a week. Then, once we have sprouts, which should take a couple more weeks, I can start experimenting with them.”

“Really? That fast?” I ask her.

Zoe shrugs her shoulders. “Yep. With the proper equipment, I can make marijuana miracles happen.”

She look so serious that I can’t help but giggle. “You my friend, are a genius. We need to celebrate tonight. How about dinner?”

Zoe blushes and looks down. “Can I get a raincheck? Remember, I have a date tonight.”

I’m staring at her with my mouth hanging open when she reaches over and touches my chin to shut it. “Damn girl, you move fast. How the hell did you manage to do all this and still find time to ask someone out?”

“Our contractor, Ben asked me out to dinner. He is one hunk of a man.” She fans her face with her hand.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Well, I’m meeting him first. I won’t let you go out with just anyone.”

Zoe checks her phone. “Sure thing. He’ll be here in an hour so I need to go get ready.”

An hour later the doorbell rings, and I answer it with Dobey standing next to me. We’re both trying to look very intimidating as I open the door and motion for him to enter. Ben Erickson is about six feet tall with broad shoulders. He has red hair that is buzzed fairly short and freckles across the bridge of his nose. I would consider him ruggedly handsome.

“You must be Alice. I’ve heard so much about you,” Ben says as he shakes my hand.

I like him already. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ben. I would like to know what your intentions are with my best friend. The best friend that I would kill for, if you get my drift.”

His eyes go wide and then a blush spreads over his cheeks. “Ma’am, my intentions are to wine and dine that beautiful woman.”

I’m just about to tell him that I approve when Zoe clears her throat behind me. Busted.

“Alice, if you’re done with the interrogation, we would like to be on our way now.” Zoe links her arm in Ben’s and then gives me a wink before walking out the door.

I look around and realize, for the first time in a while, I have absolutely nothing to do. Dobey and I share a look. “Netflix and popcorn?”

Dobey barks once and I take that as a yes. We hurry to the living room, sprawl out on the couch and enjoy an evening of nothing.

The next week speeds by quickly. I haven’t heard from any of the brothers since last weekend, except for a few texts here and there. Zoe has been holed up in her lab working, and I’ve been pouring over reports from the last few years for Du-Kane, Inc. My phone rings, breaking my concentration on the payroll report I’m attempting to understand.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Alice, it’s Oren.”

“Oren, how are you?”

“I’m great. Look, I found something you need to see. Can I come by today?”

I sit up straight. This can’t be good. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be here all day, so come on over whenever you can.”

“I’ll be there in about twenty.”

I hang up the phone and stare at the wall for a moment. I wonder what Oren found that he needs to show me so badly?

When I hear Oren knocking, I open the door. “Come on in.”

I close the door after him and lead Oren into the living room. All the papers I have been looking over are in here, so I have to move some out of the way for him to have a place to set his laptop.

I watch him log in, then proceed to pull up the bank account from the Cayman Islands he showed me a few weeks ago.

“Look at this line right here,” he points to an amount on the screen. “Now, look over here at this.” I follow his finger to another window he has open. I notice right away that the amounts match. He must see my confusion because he continues on without me having to ask. “This account, is your Uncle Richie’s. It took some time to hunt it down because this bank is in New Orleans.”

“New Orleans, Louisiana?”

Oren nods his head. “Yep. He has a checking and savings with the Memphis Bank, but nothing was matching. I dug around, and finally got a hit at the Louisiana Trust Bank in New Orleans.”

I can’t speak. I just sit there and stare at the two amounts that match up perfectly.

“There’s more, Alice. There’s about $8,750,000 of your missing funds that match up to deposits in this account.”

Son of a bitch.

I see a hand wave in front of my face and it finally snaps me out of the deadly thoughts running through my mind. I look over to see a very worried Oren. “I’m sorry. I guess I zoned out for a moment.” I take a deep breath and lay back onto the couch. “What am I going to do, Oren? Is there enough concrete evidence for me to call the police?”

“That’s the problem, Alice. What I did wasn’t exactly legal. You need to hire a private investigator that can legally look into these things. We can show him what I found and he can do his thing. Once he has found everything, the right way, then we can take it all to the police.”

I lay my head on Oren’s shoulder, “I can’t believe he would do this. Why steal from your own company?”

Oren wraps his arm around me. “I just don’t know, Alice. At least we were able to find where he was transferring everything to. We have a paper trail now. I promise you, we’ll get him. He’ll pay for what he has done.”

I lean over and kiss Oren on the cheek, then snuggle back into him. I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve become comfortable with Oren.