Читать книгу Standing Guard - Valerie Hansen - Страница 12

THREE

Pearson Products was located next to the single-runway Serenity airport outside town. Lindy had passed the site often but other than the one time she had tried to apply for a job there, she’d never had reason to stop.

As Thad drove around to the rear of the largest metal building, she was struck by how isolated the manufacturing and shipping complex seemed. The hardwood trees on the surrounding hills were bare but would soon begin to bud, and by summer the open area would feel like a tiny island amid a sea of green leaves.

If there had not been other cars parked there, she might have been more uneasy. “I never realized how far out of town this place is. It’s really secluded.”

“It wasn’t always.” Thad pointed. “Rob and Ellen used to have a house attached to their office on the far end of this long building. You can still see the foundation. I made my office in the warehouse instead of rebuilding after the fire.”

“So, you don’t live out here like they did?”

“No. I have a little place off Old Sturkie Road. It isn’t fancy. I don’t spend a lot of time there.”

She chose to open her own door rather than wait for Thad to do it. Ben had always made a big deal of holding doors for her and otherwise treating her gallantly in public, though he’d abused her in private, so Lindy now insisted on fending for herself. It wasn’t that she objected to a man showing good manners, it simply seemed intrinsically necessary for her to demonstrate self-reliance as often as possible.

If Thad minded her behaving so independently he didn’t give any sign of it. Smiling, he directed her to the rear entrance to the warehouse and caught the heavyweight metal door behind her as she passed through. The area was open and airy like a barn, yet bore the chemical odor of new plastic. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell but it was a noticeable change from the crispness of the February air outdoors.

“This is our shipping department,” Thad said, pointing to rows of bins and shelves filled with brightly colored kitchen tools and several long tables. “You probably know most of these folks better than I do. That’s Margaret over there in the brown sweater doing the packing and Louise Williams pulling orders. Vernon Betts looks after the factory and Angela runs the mail room.”

Lindy raised a hand to wave when Louise looked up and smiled. “I do recognize a few faces. We moved to Serenity a couple years ago but I really haven’t gotten out much.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve been so tied up in trying to salvage this business I don’t have time to socialize, either. If it wasn’t for church, I’d probably be a hermit.”

She followed Thad as he led the way to a rudimentary office located at one end of the cavernous, rectangular building. That area was anything but posh. The floor was concrete, the walls unpainted plasterboard. There were bundles of assorted cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. The massive, oak desk was so messy it looked as if someone had upended a carton of trash in the middle of it, then stirred the pile of paper with the blade of a shovel.

Lindy had to smile. “I love your filing system. How’s that working out for you?”

“Poorly.” One corner of his mouth quirked and his dark eyes sparkled. “I know I need help. I just don’t want to hire and then have to lay off somebody. Orders are sporadic since Rob died and I can never be sure how the cash flow will hold up. Ellen used to process orders while her sister, Natalie, kept the books.” He grimaced. “You probably heard how that turned out.”

“The embezzlement? Yes. I’m sorry.” Lindy’s fingers itched to get a chance to sort through the messy piles of paperwork.

“Tell you what,” she said, eyeing his desktop. “While you try to figure out what happened to my credit, why don’t I start sorting this stuff into some semblance of order?”

“I don’t know...”

“Well, I do,” she said flatly. “You’re helping me and I’m going to return the favor.” She pushed up the left sleeve of her jacket to check her watch. “I can stay until just before three when I have to pick up Danny at school.”

Thad nodded. “It’s a deal. Let me know when it’s time and I’ll run you back into town.”

“If you do that, I’ll owe you even more hours of work here,” Lindy said.

She was delighted to see him grin and hear him say, “Uh-huh. That’s kind of what I’d figured.”

* * *

Thad was so engrossed in his computer search he let Lindy answer the business phone. He had to smile at how professional her “Pearson Products. How may I help you?” sounded. It was good to have an accomplished executive assistant, if only for one afternoon.

She made a face as she covered the mouthpiece and held out the receiver. “It’s the sheriff. They’ve taken my car into town and parked it behind the station. We can pick it up any time.”

“Okay. Tell them I’m going to call Seth Whitfield at the garage and have him check it over first. You shouldn’t drive it until we know it’s safe.” To his surprise, Lindy looked anything but pleased.

She put the phone back to her ear. “Thank you, Sheriff. Mr. Pearson has suggested that I have the car examined by a mechanic but I’ll take your word for it that it’s roadworthy. We’ll be there before three.”

As soon as she’d hung up he questioned her. “What was that?”

“That was me, taking care of myself and making my own decisions,” Lindy said firmly. “I decided to skip the expense of taking the car to a repairman. The sheriff assures me the damage is only cosmetic.”

“Okay. I can see you don’t want car advice.” He swiveled in his chair and gestured toward the computer screen. “However, I think you should look at what I’ve found online.”

“What?”

Thad allowed her to look over his shoulder while he brought up screen after screen. Then, he ended with her official credit rating and heard her gasp.

“I didn’t know they went that low,” she moaned.

“Neither did I until I saw yours. What’s going on? This shows that you maxed out your credit cards and failed to pay the minimum so they were all canceled.”

“No!” It was nearly a shout. “I don’t use any credit cards unless I absolutely have to. What about my debit card? Did you check that?”

“I’ll need your account number and password,” Thad said. He started to get up so she could take his place at the keyboard.

Instead, she merely recited a short sequence of numbers. He typed them in. He could sense Lindy’s closeness behind him and hear her rapid breathing. The woman was clearly agitated. He didn’t blame her.

The checking account balance blinked onto the screen, accompanied by Lindy’s sharp intake of breath. “That’s impossible. I just transferred money into that account from my savings.” She leaned closer. “Can you check that, too?”

“Sure.” He paged down and clicked on the listing.

Lindy’s squeal of astonishment was so loud and unexpected it made him jump. He felt her hand rest on his shoulder only long enough for her to say, “Sorry.”

“I take it you didn’t know you were broke.”

“I’m not.” She left him and slumped into the only other chair in the room after clearing it of bundles of product brochures. “I have money. At least I did. The investment company my husband worked for has been depositing a portion of his unused sick leave in my account every month and there was a life insurance settlement, too. I paid off my mortgage with that so I wouldn’t have a lot of big expenses.”

Thad leaned back and turned his desk chair to face her. “Okay. Suppose I believe you...”

“What do you mean, suppose? It’s the truth.”

“Poor choice of words. Sorry. What I should have said is, given your belief that you had sufficient funds in your accounts and plenty of room to charge more purchases on your credit and debit cards, what do you think happened to all the money?”

“How should I know?”

He watched her get to her feet and begin to pace what little space the office afforded. He had assumed that he could solve her problems with a few swift keystrokes after he located a simple glitch. This was far more complicated than that. If he believed her—and he did—then she had been hacked. Big time.

“Who would want to falsify records and ruin you?” Thad asked.

When Lindy whirled and gawked at him, he was certain he’d asked the right question. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. This is no computer mix-up. It’s deliberate. Somebody wants you broke and they’ve just about succeeded in making that happen. What I need to know is, why? Who’s that mad at you, Lindy?”

“Nobody.” She returned to the chair and perched on its edge, leaning her elbows on her knees and cupping her face in her hands.

“Okay,” he drawled, choosing his words carefully, “then who might still have it in for your late husband?”

Her head snapped up. Her jaw dropped. It took several long seconds for her to regain her composure and in that short space of time, Thad saw myriad conflicting emotions. The final one looked a lot like resignation.

“You don’t have to tell me a thing,” Thad said. “But you should confide in someone, preferably somebody in law enforcement. You do see that, don’t you?”

Standing again, she pulled her jacket tighter, folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Who says I’m afraid?”

“You do. It’s written all over you. And there’s no reason to feel that way when you have an alternative. Talk to the police. Let them help you.”

“I have nothing to say to them. I’ll phone the bank in Atlanta and the other credit card companies, explain the problem, and everything will be fine. You said so yourself.”

“That was before I saw the records.” Thad stood but didn’t try to approach her. He could tell how close she was to the breaking point and didn’t want to do anything that might push her too far. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to try to convince her to be sensible.

He found an empty place for his hip on the edge of the desk and struck a nonchalant pose by perching there. “Look, lady, you’re in big trouble. Somebody has hacked into your accounts and left you destitute. Unless you’re carrying a wad of cash in your purse, you can’t even buy yourself a hamburger right now. Understand?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“The way I see it, you have two choices. You can either report the theft and let the proper authorities step in or you can give up and let the bad guys walk off with your money—not to mention whatever they might also try to charge against your credit in the future.”

He could tell by the way her eyes misted that he had her full attention so he plunged ahead. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops for you.”

Lindy’s mouth opened. No words came. Thad didn’t need to hear any. The unbridled fear emanating from her reached him all the way across the office and raised the hair on the nape of his neck.

“They threatened you,” he said flatly. “I should have known. What did they say?”

Lindy pressed her lips tightly together, shook her head and averted her gaze.

Thad decided to take the chance of approaching, of gently grasping her shoulders so she’d have no choice but to look at him. When she didn’t jump at his touch or try to slap his face the way he was afraid she might, he took it as a positive sign.

“Look, if you keep their threats to yourself, they win,” Thad said. “Think about it. The only control they have over you is by intimidation. I know you’re a strong woman. You’d have to be to have weathered the trials I’ve heard about.” He paused, intending to censor his next statement, then let it continue unedited. “I’m going to help you whether you like it or not. I feel as if we were meant to meet so I could. Does that make sense?”

“No.” Lindy’s tone was weak, her voice tremulous.

Releasing her and distancing himself, Thad smiled. “It doesn’t to me, either, but that’s how I feel.”

“You don’t want to get mixed up in my troubles.”

“It’s already too late. I promised God a long time ago that if He’d let me live, I’d do all I could to help the helpless for the rest of my life.”

He immediately raised his hands, palms out, as if surrendering. “Don’t get mad. I’m not calling you helpless. I’m just telling you the story the way it happened. My unit was pinned down by sniper fire and I’d taken a bullet in the shoulder. I figure, since I’m standing here having this conversation with you, I need to remember that promise. That’s all.”

“A bullet in the shoulder?” Lindy sighed deeply and released the breath with a visible shudder. “We’ve got more in common than I thought.”

Thad didn’t realize what she’d meant until she took off her jacket, pushed up the softer sleeve of the sweater beneath and revealed a scar that cut a shallow groove across her upper arm.

Thad had seen lots of worse injuries, yet his gut knotted. Someone had hurt this sweet, innocent woman in the past and those same people might now be planning to do her further harm. He was going to see that they—or anyone else—didn’t get away with it.

“What happened?” His voice was gentle even though his fists were clenched.

“The shot that passed through my husband grazed my arm. We were both protecting Danny. Ben died trying to keep us safe.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Most people don’t know the whole story. They’re happy to blame Ben for everything and say he deserved whatever he got. It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“The men who killed your husband—are they still after you?”

Lindy slowly shook her head. “They can’t be. Two died in the same gunfight and a third was arrested later. The problem is, I didn’t know for sure whether or not there were others who might have it in for us—until last night.”

“Are you positive the men who messed with your credit are from the same gang?”

“No. But I can’t afford to take the chance that they were lying when they threatened me. They mentioned Ben. That was enough.”

“And I suppose they also told you to avoid the police?”

“Yes. They said they’d be back and hurt Danny and me if I reported the break-in. What could I do? I have no way to fight them. I don’t even know who they are.”

Deep in thought, Thad scowled. “Why pick on you? And why now, after so much time has passed? What could they want? Was there a lot of cash in your accounts?”

“A couple thousand, and maybe another four if you add up all the unused credit I thought I had on the cards. It still isn’t much, even with what they managed to steal in cash advances.”

“Right. It doesn’t make sense to go to that trouble.”

Lindy huffed. “Well, at least we agree on something.”

“I have an idea.”

“If it has anything to do with calling the police, forget it.”

“Actually, no,” Thad said. “I still maintain that you’re making a big mistake but I think I see a way for you to get by while we figure this out.”

“We, Kemosabe?”

He was glad to see her starting to smile. His own grin spread as the plan came together in his mind. “See, that’s your problem. You’re going about this like a lone ranger when you need friends. How would you like a job?”

“You can’t afford me.”

“I can’t guarantee long-term employment, but as you can see, I have a desperate need for someone who can organize this office.” His arm passed over the clutter she had barely had time to touch, let alone sort properly. “First, we’ll set up a new bank account for you and tell whoever has been sending monthly checks to deposit them locally instead of in Atlanta.”

Hope shone in her eyes and her smile broadened.

“It’s not the perfect solution but it will allow you to live fairly normally until something else happens.”

The grin waned. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want you to have any more trouble but if they do try anything else, we’ll be waiting. Sign up for online banking and I can imbed an automatic notification trigger in your new accounts so we’ll know the second someone else tries to access them. Maybe that way they’ll tip us off.”

“Okay, then what?”

He was going to say that then they could contact the police but kept that to himself. One day at a time, Thad thought. One day, one problem, one solution at a time. Arranged properly, those sensible steps could lead to the answers Lindy needed.

And if they didn’t? If they didn’t, he’d simply keep her employed and figure out a way to pay her, even if her wages had to come out of his own pocket.

That notion made him smile. Since his new executive assistant was about to start handling the company books, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He was positive she’d pitch a royal fit if she learned she was being subsidized.

Sobering, Thad admitted to himself that wages were the least of his worries. Unless he could figure out how to guard Lindy and her son when they were at home, no amount of money was going to be enough to keep her from further harm.

The way he saw it, the first thing he had to do was convince her to let him guard them.

He chuckled softly. It would probably be easier to hire a backhoe to dig a moat around her house and fill it with hungry alligators than it would be to talk her into letting anybody look after her the way he wanted to.