Chapter 30
Once we reached his apartment door, Malone held out an arm to shield me from any potential horrors inside.
Cute that he thought I couldn’t handle myself.
But also sweet.
I could feel that the apartment was already empty, though.
Well, almost empty. Lucius Malone sat in the recliner, staring at a television that wasn’t turned on.
“Grandpa?”
“Where have you been, Tiberius?” he asked as he rotated the recliner to face us. Before Malone could answer him, he caught sight of me. “Ah. I see where you’ve been, and what you’ve been up to. I hope it was worth it.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s in league with Blake’s wife,” he said, before adding under his breath, “Too bad. I liked her.”
“I’m right here, so you don’t have to talk about me in the third person,” I said. “And I’m not ‘in league’ with anyone.”
“Grandpa, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how it would be best if you turned yourself in. I know you were behind the money that’s missing.” The older man looked as though he’d aged ten years overnight.
“Turn myself in? I’ve been helping you find the money.”
The older man shook his head. “Blake showed me the reports. You may not have orchestrated that first cyberattack, but you’ve been profiting ever since, and you’ve tried to pin it all on him.”
Malone ran a hand through his hair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Blake’s the one who’s been siphoning thousands of dollars from Malone Construction through fraudulent invoices and shell companies. I have—”
He paused, and I could see the moment he remembered that Blake had taken most of his equipment and destroyed much of the hard work he’d put into his nerdy number mural. “I had the evidence.”
“You still do.” I tugged on his sleeve. “Remember Jarvis?”
“Oh, I could kiss you,” he said as he exhaled with relief. “My backups.”
“I’ll bring it to you,” I said as he turned to face his grandfather.
By the time I came back with the shoebox, he was showing his grandfather the walls in the second bedroom, how Blake had ruined his work.
“Well, at the very least, you’re repainting these walls,” Lucius said in a gruff voice.
“I will, I promise you, but I need you to believe me. I don’t know how he managed to manipulate the information as he did, but I have a feeling it was the SQL injection and—”
He lapsed into his forensic accountant jargon. Computer terminology wasn’t entirely foreign to me, but some of the business jargon was. Besides, I couldn’t be a help to him with any of that.
Think, Stella, think.
“How do I know you didn’t do this yourself to frame Blake?” Lucius asked, jarring me from my thoughts.
“Because . . .” Malone couldn’t find the words because he would never do such a thing, but that wasn’t necessarily a defense that Lucius would accept.
“I have video of Blake breaking into this apartment,” I said, producing my phone.
“Breaking in?” asked Lucius.
“Well, he had a key, but still. He wasn’t supposed to be here, and he was skulking about like he knew it,” I said as I powered on my phone. Texts and calls came flying at me from Trista. I frowned but swiped those notifications away to find the video I’d saved.
Lucius frowned as he watched. “How am I supposed to know that’s Blake instead of Ty here?”
“Well,” I said. “See the glint of the sun on the watch?”
“Yes?”
“Come on, Grandpa, you know I don’t wear a watch,” Malone said as he held up his arm.
“And you can see Blake is wearing his watch on his left wrist. Which wrist would you wear your watch on, Malone?”
“My right.”
Because my Malone was a leftie. Not that there was a tan line on either of his wrists to show he was in the habit of wearing a watch.
“Okay,” Lucius said, but it didn’t sound as though he believed me.
“Also, if you look at the length of the hair here”—I paused the video—“it’s longer than Malone’s and straighter. I mean, Blake’s hair is shorter now because he was getting a haircut when I served divorce papers on him, but—”
Lucius’s eyes bugged out. “You served him?”
“Sure did,” I said with a grin. “Bet he didn’t tell you that because then you’d know he had a reason to get back at both me and Trista.”
“Huh.” Lucius looked from Malone to me and back to Malone. “And you can show me how he made those reports? They look official to me.”
“I’ll need to go into the office to use the computer since he stole mine, but I can show you almost all of it,” Malone said.
“Blake managed to erase some of my work, but I make backups periodically and was in the process of restoring the original from the backups. I didn’t want to come to you until I had everything in order. ”
Lucius looked from him to me. “And I guess Ms. Stark here was helping you with that?”
Malone gave him a lopsided grin. “Come on, Grandpa, I was hanging with Stella because, well, look at her.”
I blushed. It was an unfamiliar sensation.
“Damn good at the foxtrot, too,” the older man said. “That’s not something you often see in a young woman.”
Young? Well, bless his heart.
“I, uh, if you have everything you need, Malone, then I’ll excuse myself,” I said.
“Thanks, Stark,” Malone said. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, but he shook the thoughts away, and I retreated.
I was fumbling with the key to my apartment when his door opened and then closed behind him. I turned to see what he wanted, and he drew me to him for a searing kiss.
“This is not how I anticipated this day would go.”
“Me neither,” I whispered. Somehow, resting forehead to forehead with him was almost as hot as the kiss had been.
“I’m going to be regrettably busy for the next few days, but I will be back. I will rent a hotel room again if that’s what it takes. How do you feel about living on room service?”
“I’d be willing to give it a whirl.”
He grinned before kissing me once more and then returning to what was, no doubt, going to be a lot of work.
I closed the door behind me, touching my fingers to my tingling lips.
Snap out of it, Stella. Malone may need your help again. Trista might, too.
Blake had been busy while we were, well, getting busy. But the very idea that Malone could be framed for Blake’s nefarious activities? My stomach roiled.
And speaking of Blake, it would probably be wise to see why Trista was calling me.
Technically, my work for her was over and done.
And if it weren’t for the petty business, we probably would’ve never met.
Usually, Attorney Lawless kept her clients from speaking to me if I was serving papers on a spouse. Legal technicalities and all that.
But performing acts of pettiness was far from normal, and I was beginning to really like Trista, so it would be nice to make sure she was doing okay.
Since her voicemail was full of noise and hysterics, and her texts were riddled with typos, I opted to call rather than try to figure out her message.
Trista didn’t greet me with a hello. Instead, I got a “You!”
“Trista, are you okay?” I asked.
“No, I am not okay. There are a bunch of FBI agents tearing up my house looking for computer equipment, and they’ve made the kids and me sit in the front parlor while they do it.”
I wasn’t sure what this had to do with me, but I had a feeling it had something to do with Blake. Lucius Malone’s words still rang in my ears: “She’s in league with Blake’s wife.”
“Okay, calm down.” Even as I said the words, I knew better. Never in the history of ever had anyone calmed down just because someone told them to do so.
“Calm down? Calm down?”
“Poor choice of words.” Now my own heart hammered against my rib cage. “Have you called your lawyer?”
“I’ve called every lawyer I know.”
In the background, feet stomped, and men murmured. Doors and cabinets opened and closed.
“Did they give you a copy of the search warrant?”
“Yes. It describes my house, which is unsettling, but not as unsettling as how it sounds like people are taking everything that isn’t nailed down. I don’t understand. He is the one who took the money.”
“Trista,” I said in my most soothing voice, “it’s probably best to say nothing. Probably even better if we stop talking, because Blake told Lucius that you and I are working against him.”
“What?” She shrieked the question.
“Blake has been backed into a corner, and I’d be willing to bet you that he set all of this in motion as a distraction.”
She groaned. “He’s going to disappear again, isn’t he?”
“Probably, but he has been served. Ma—his cousin has the information the company needs. You sit tight.”
“Hey, don’t touch that!”
A scuffle on the other end of the line. A dog barked. A child began to cry.
“Trista, listen to me. I can’t give you advice, but I’m going to mention, unrelated to anything, that you can google all sorts of wonderful things, from ‘What is the capital of Estonia?’ to ‘What do I do if someone executes a search warrant in my house?’ Some posts might mention, I don’t know, taking pictures of everything after the fact . . . things like that.”
“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.” Her voice came out as a ragged whisper, which suggested she was close to tears.
“You know, the other day, Malone, Ty Malone, that is, was telling me about his favorite amendment.”
“Oh, what does that matter?” she snapped at the same time I continued.
“He really loves that Fifth Amendment, let me tell you.”
“Ah,” she said, pausing. “That is a great amendment.”
“I mean, I like the right to assemble and the promise of a speedy trial as much as the next gal, but—”
“I gotta go. An agent has asked me if I have any questions.”
She hung up on me. This was just as well because I didn’t want her to remember the fourth amendment about no unreasonable searches or seizures. While a court of law had to have decided that it would be reasonable to search Trista’s house, I had a feeling she wouldn’t agree.
I collapsed on the love seat, and only then did I realize my apartment was entirely too quiet.
Where was my kitten?
Adrenaline surged once again, followed by the guilt of leaving her alone. I’d hastily texted Addie when it became clear Malone had plans for me, but had Addie forgotten? Accidentally let Brené Brown out?
All the interior doors were open. Had the kitten gotten into something she shouldn’t have? Surely Addie hadn’t taken her upstairs.
“Brené Brown, where are you?”
No answer.
I took in a deep breath and checked my phone for any texts from Addie. Relief whooshed through me. She had taken care of the cat.
But she’d also suggested I shorten my kitten’s name to initials. Surely the creature wouldn’t have adapted to initials in one evening.
“BB?”
She meowed and trotted into the living room.
“Are you being serious with me right now?” I asked the kitten. “I gave you a perfectly good name, and you and the girl upstairs have decided on something else?”
She paused to clean her face, not even making eye contact with me. If ever there were a poster kitten for the concept of “unbothered,” it was my tiny calico.
“BB?”
She looked up and meowed, doing the cat shuffle where she readjusted her feet and tail but didn’t actually move any closer toward me.
“Fine. You can be BB. It was a really long and serious name for a less-than-serious cat.”
She met my eyes and gave me a slow blink before ambling in my direction.
“Oh, are you going to bless me with your presence now?”
She jumped up beside me, making a tiny mew-ish grunt as she landed.
I leaned back against the love seat, hand on my purring kitten. I was exhausted. Malone had kept me very busy the night before, but there’d also been the adrenaline rushes from Lucius Malone’s accusations, then Trista’s situation, and then the fear I’d lost my cat.
And that was all before I took into consideration the acute disappointment that my dining room table’s main function would remain dining.
As for my pesky emotions, I’d successfully locked those back up while in crisis mode, and I had no interest in unpacking them.
I did have some assignments due for my online classes, but my body refused to move.
I’d get there eventually. Maybe even go to Finnegan’s to do my work with a glass of Malbec.
I couldn’t help but worry about Malone, but I also knew he could handle himself.
Oh, how that man could handle himself.
As if summoned by my thoughts, my phone buzzed, and I looked down to see a text from him:
No clue when I can get this straightened out. Police involved.
Just remember your favorite amendment
This is a mess, Stark
I know
I regret nothing
Me neither
I’ll come by when I can
My table is counting on it
Yeah. There were questions about my pocket square
Sorry not sorry?
Speaking of . . . remember to tell Addie that any rumor
that I don’t like Taylor Swift is all a . . . Hoax
I Hate It Here
Champagne Problems, Stark
I’m going, I’m going. And
I Bet You Think About Me
I always do, Stark. I always do