Читать книгу The Coltons: Nick, Clay & Jericho - Marie Ferrarella, Beth Cornelison - Страница 14

Chapter 7

“That’s her,” Collins said eagerly, needlessly pointing to the screen at the only bank customer on the monitor. There was relief in his voice as he added, “I told you she was here.”

Nick ignored the man. He was too busy watching the woman, who was a dead ringer for Georgie, move up to the teller’s window and place a briefcase on the counter between them.

“Keep going,” he told Abby when she glanced up at him.

The teller on the tape disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he had an index card with him. The signature card, Nick assumed. Within moments of signing the card, the transaction was completed. The woman on the screen took back her briefcase, now filled with what he assumed were the proceeds from her account, and then hurriedly moved away. Nick watched the scene intently.

“Rewind,” he instructed. When Abby did as he asked, he had her stop at the same place as before and watched the scene again. And then a third time.

Puzzled, Collins looked at him. “What is it you’re looking for?”

Nick blew out a breath, still looking at the screen. “An explanation.”

This time it was the teller who glanced up at him and asked a question. “For?”

“For starters, why ‘Georgie’ kept her head turned away from the camera the whole time.” Was it just a coincidence, or was there a reason the woman on the screen had done that?

Something wasn’t quite right and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Yet. He told Abby to play the tape one more time.

“Most people don’t even realize that there’s a camera there,” Collins told him, trying to be helpful. “Ms. Grady was probably lost in thought and just in a hurry to do whatever it was she wanted to do with all that money she withdrew.”

“I know what I’d do,” Abby commented. The smile on her lips was seductive as she gazed up at the tall, dark Secret Service Agent at her side.

“Uh-huh,” Nick answered, lost in thought. It wasn’t clear who the response was directed toward. “Play it again,” he instructed.

Maybe he was making too much of this, Nick thought, watching the scene for the fifth time. Maybe he was looking for a zebra when there was a bucking horse right in front of him. After all, the bank manager was certain that the woman on the video tape was Georgie Grady and that did, after all, support his initial theory that the woman had been here all along, sending those threatening e-mails to the Senator that she’d denied having anything to do with it.

Here it was, all neatly gift wrapped for him with a bow on top and he was pushing it away, Nick upbraided himself.

All that was left to do was to arrest the woman and bring her back with him for prosecution.

So why was he hesitating?

Because his gut told him something wasn’t right? Or because something a bit lower than his gut was muddying up his thinking?

No, damn it, he wasn’t the type to let his personal feelings—when he even had them—to get in the way of his judgment. There was something wrong with what he was watching on the tape and he thought he finally had a bead on what it was.

A noise directly behind him had Nick quickly turning around, one hand on the hilt of the weapon he wore.

Georgie was in the doorway, her face ashen. Not because of the firearm. The woman had probably grown up around guns all of her life. No, there was a different reason for the lack of color in her face. One hand on the doorjamb, she looked as if she was struggling to stand up.

“You’re on the surveillance tape,” he told her, watching her reaction.

She didn’t seem to hear him. Or, if she heard, the words apparently didn’t penetrate. She made no response to his statement one way or the other.

“There are charges on my credit cards,” she told him. The words sounded as if she was being strangled.

“That’s what they’re for, to charge things with,” he replied.

Some of the color returned to her cheeks. She continued to hold on to the doorjamb for support.

“Charges I didn’t make,” she snapped.

It was official. The unthinkable had happened. Something she had never dreamed of ever happening, not to her. She’d read about this in the newspaper. But now she was the victim.

Her identity had been stolen.

Her identity, her money and her life.

Both of their lives, she amended, looking down at her little girl.

“Somebody’s stolen my identity.” Every single card she owned had been taken and used, even the two she kept as emergency backups, the two she never used except for once a year just to keep them active.

The simple sentence got her all of Nick’s attention. “Are you sure?”

Georgie felt a wave of hysteria rising. Last night, she’d been flush, sitting on top of three hundred thousand dollars. This morning she was all but broke and fiercely in debt. And about to be arrested. How could everything have gone so wrong so fast?

“Of course I’m sure,” she retorted angrily. Did he think this was a game? Why would she do that? What would she gain by pretending that her identity had been stolen?

Georgie unfolded the piece of paper she’d used while speaking to the customer service representatives at the four different credit card companies.

“There’s a whole list of charges from stores on the damned Internet. Stiletto heels, fancy clothes, fancier undergarments.” She pointed to the name of an exclusive shop that had only recently launched online sales. “CDs by people I wouldn’t listen to, DVDs of movies I wouldn’t be caught dead watching—”

The mention of stiletto heels and Maid of Paradise bras and microscopic panties had Nick’s mind booking passage on a ship he couldn’t allow to leave the harbor. Still, for one unguarded moment, he couldn’t help imagining what she would have looked like, wearing only those items.

“Planning on doing some entertaining?” he quipped.

Her eyes blazed at the question and even more when she thought of the unknown person who had done all this to her.

“Planning on a murder if I ever get my hands on the person who’s responsible for all this,” she retorted.

He looked at her for a long moment, playing the devil’s advocate. “You still say it’s not you.”

Georgie squared her shoulders, as if that could somehow help her get the point across more forcefully. “With my dying breath,” she told him fiercely. “Not that you believe me.” The last sentence fairly sizzled with her anger.

That was just the problem, Nick thought. He was starting to believe her.

He glanced at the bank manager who still stood at the desk. The man was obviously taking in every word and trying—without success—to look as if he wasn’t.

“Make me a copy of that section of the tape,” Nick instructed.

Clearly feeling that he was off the hook, Collins snapped to attention, more than happy to comply. “Right away,” he promised.

Nick heard the bank manager murmuring to Abby, telling her to make the copy because she was the one running the tape.

That taken care of, Nick took hold of Georgie’s elbow and led her out of the small, dark room. Emmie hurried to follow.

“Let’s just say,” he told Georgie evenly, “for now, that I’m not a hundred percent convinced that that’s you on the surveillance tape.”

“Of course, it’s not me. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.” She shrugged out of his hold. Wanting to remain aloof, curiosity got the better of her. “What makes you think it isn’t me?”

“You walk differently.” That was what had bothered him while he was initially watching the tape.

Georgie stared at him. She wasn’t aware of there being anything unique about her gait. “What?”

Nick elaborated. “The woman on the tape was in a hurry, but she still walked like she knew everyone was watching her. She minced and put a little wiggle in her step. You walk like you’ve got somewhere else to be and you cut through that distance like a ranch hand. There’s nothing feminine about the way you move.” Other than her body, he added silently. But that was neither here nor there and certainly not something he was about to admit to her.

She wasn’t sure if she was clear about what was going on here. “Are you insulting me or finally coming to my rescue?”

He didn’t view it as either and he didn’t care for the tone she was using. “I’m making an observation. You want my help or not?”

In a perfect world, Georgie thought, she would have lifted her chin, told him what he could do with his help. She could handle the situation by herself. But this wasn’t a perfect world and without doing a single thing to bring about this awful chain of events, she knew she was in way over her head. Like it or not, she had no recourse but to accept his offer.

Still, the words had a bitter taste in her mouth and burned her tongue as she said them. “I want it.”

Nick felt something suddenly clutch his leg. Startled, he looked down to see that the woman’s daughter had all but wrapped herself around him.

Emmie smiled up at him gleefully. “I knew you weren’t as bad as you looked.”

He kept forgetting that she was there, a pint-sized recorder with ears, taking in everything and absorbing it rather than letting it go over her head like the average four-year-old.

“You sure she’s only four?” he asked Georgie.

“I’m almost five,” Emmie announced proudly as her mother gently removed her from the Secret Service agent’s leg and then protectively kept her hand on her shoulder. “Mama said we had to come back because Uncle Clay wants to help celebrate my birthday.”

“Uncle Clay,” Nick repeated, raising his eyes from the child to look at Georgie. “Is that what you have her call your boyfriends?” he asked mildly, giving no indication that her answer, one way or the other, meant anything to him. “‘Uncle?’”

“No, that’s what I have her call my older brother.” Overwrought, and stressed near to the breaking point, not to mention that she hadn’t had any sleep because she’d spent the night verbally sparring with Sheffield, she glared at him. “Don’t you pay attention? I said I didn’t have a boyfriend.”

As he looked at her, Nick found it hard to believe she was single. She was far more than passably pretty. Then again Georgie Grady could also slice any man to bloody ribbons with that sharp tongue of hers and he was fairly certain, given half a chance, that she would run over anyone who got in her way.

“Got that tape for you,” Collins called out, coming up behind Nick. He held the tape aloft as if it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Georgie shifted uncomfortably. Sheffield had said that he thought the woman in the tape was an impostor, disguised to make people think it was her. What if he was only putting her on? What if he was just saying that to make her put down her guard?

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked Sheffield. “Use it at my trial?”

He’d never believed in putting all his cards on the table until the game was over. This was far from over. “Maybe, maybe not. Right now, I’m going to have it expressed back to Prosperino in California and have my tech support see if he can clean up the picture and magnify the image.”

The image. She noted that he didn’t refer to the person in question as her. Georgie supposed that it was a start. “Okay.”

He was going to need a padded envelope and postage. “This place have a post office?” He tossed out the question to both Collins and Georgie.

“A post office, two banks, a city hall and a sheriff’s department. Some people even think we’re close to civilized,” Georgie answered with a trace of resentment at the way he’d dismissed Esperanza. It was all right for her to feel hemmed in by the town once in a while because she lived here and for the most part, she loved it. But he had no right to look down his nose at it. Or her.

About to comment on her quip, he decided to keep it to himself. He hadn’t actually meant what he’d said as an insult, just that Esperanza felt so damn rural to him. He was accustomed to places like Los Angeles and New York where you could find whatever it was you needed within a very small radius.

“Show me” was all he said.

“Fine, I will.” Still numb and shaken, Georgie turned on her heel to lead the way out of the bank.

“We will, Mama. I know where the post office is, too,” Emmie reminded her.

The one bright spot in her life, Georgie thought, taking Emmie’s hand in hers. “Sorry,” she apologized. “We will,” she said, correcting herself. Emmie’s smile was positively beatific.

“Can we do anything else for you?” Collins called out after Nick.

“I’ll let you know,” Nick tossed over his shoulder without slowing his pace.

“Who are you calling?” he asked Georgie some twenty-five minutes later.

They’d gone to the post office and he’d gotten the tape off, sending it by overnight express. Once it was on its way, he’d called his tech to alert him to its arrival. Georgie had been unusually quiet through it all and he’d begun to think that maybe the events of the last day had her in a state of shock.

But now, sitting in the passenger seat in the dark sedan he’d rented, Georgie pressed a single button on her cell phone before placing it against her ear. Instead of answering him, she held up her finger, indicating that he’d have to wait his turn. It didn’t exactly make him very happy.

“Hi, it’s me,” she said as someone on the other end apparently picked up. Nick listened, trying to put things together from only half a conversation. “Last night. Look, can you come on up to the house? Something’s happened. No, not to Emmie, she’s fine.” He saw her turn and look over her shoulder at the little girl in the car seat as if to reassure herself. “No, I’m not hurt. Why do you always have to think the worst? Okay, okay, maybe I was a trifle melodramatic, but I really do need to see you.” She paused to listen to the person on the other end, then said, “Good.’ Bye.” She closed her phone again and slipped it into her front pocket.

“Who were you talking to?” Nick asked again.

Had she called for reinforcements? Was he making a mistake after all, giving her the benefit of the doubt about this? At the very least, he didn’t relish the fact that someone else would be nosing around at her house while he was there.

“My brother. One of my brothers,” Georgie amended.

These days, she tended to forget about Ryder. She didn’t like to dwell on her other brother because then she’d have to think about how Ryder was faring in prison and she didn’t like doing that. It made her worry about him despite the fact that he’d been found guilty by a jury of his peers and he had committed the offense that had landed him there. She couldn’t help it. He was still, after all, her brother and she could remember him in better days. Remember him with a great deal of affection. Ryder wasn’t bad, just misguided. Like her, he missed their mother. And, unlike her, he’d resented their older brother when Clay had taken over as the head of the family.

Nick spared her a look. “You’ve got more than one?”

He was going to make another call to Steve when he got the chance. He wanted to find out as much as he could about this woman.

“Two,” she told him. “Clay and Ryder. Both older.” And they both had the tendency to treat her like a child. At times, Clay still did, but then, he was the oldest and saw himself as more of a patriarch than a brother. “I was talking to Clay.”

“Where’s Ryder?”

She shrugged, deliberately looking out the window. “He’s not around right now.”

Nick picked up on the odd note in her voice. “Where is he?”

“Not here” was all she said.

It was bad enough that the people in town knew that her brother was in prison. She didn’t want Sheffield knowing it as well. He’d probably think of them as being white trash or something equally demeaning. For that matter, she didn’t want him to know anything about her family. Someone like Sheffield, with his black suit and his dark aviator sunglasses, would look down on the fact that her mother, a former rodeo star herself, had had an affair with a married man. And that he was a Colton.

In an act of self-defense, she leaned forward and turned up the radio a shade. He’d fiddled with the dials on the way over until he’d located an oldies station. She had nothing against old rock and roll songs, but when she was tense—and she was now and would remain so until everything was squared away again—nothing calmed her down like the familiar. In this case, that meant country and western songs.

She switched the dial over to one of several country and western stations broadcasted in the area. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sheffield’s shoulders stiffen. Georgie smiled to herself.

Deal with it, she ordered him silently.

Because the woman apparently didn’t seem to want to talk about her other brother, he let the subject drop. If he needed to know the whereabouts of this Ryder, he would. For now, he blocked out the tale of a brokenhearted cowboy, singing his tale of woe to the only dependable force in his life, his horse.

Nick sighed. Damn but he hated country music.

A tall, dark-haired, rangy-looking man sat on the front steps of the ranch house. The moment they pulled up in the yard, the man stood up, dusting off his jeans. Nick judged him to be in his mid-twenties. The set-in tan testified to his earning a living by working outdoors.

There was something self-assured about the cowboy. This was a man who led, not followed. Nick was on his guard instantly.

“Uncle Clay,” Emmie cried, squirming out of the car seat and leaping from the car. She sailed gleefully into the man’s arms as the latter squatted down, arms spread, just as she reached him.

“Man but I’ve missed you. You must’ve grown a foot since I last saw you. How’s my favorite girl?” he asked, rising and swinging her around.

“I’m fine,” Emmie declared. “But Mama’s got troubles,” she added solemnly.

Holding his niece to him, Clay turned to look at the stranger with his sister as they both got out of Nick’s sedan.

The man wasn’t her type, Clay judged. Georgie didn’t like men in suits and sunglasses. Too soft. As for him, he didn’t trust a man whose eyes he couldn’t see when he was talking to him.

“Is that the trouble right there?” he asked Emmie, nodded his head toward the stranger.

Emmie twisted around to see who her uncle was referring to. She giggled and shook her head. It was obvious to Georgie, who came to reclaim her, that her daughter had changed her mind about the man. “No, that’s Nick.”

Clay looked at the stranger grimly, his deep espresso-colored eyes growing hard. “What’s a Nick?” he asked.