salons. So long as her hair was out of her face and reasonably neat, she was happy.
“That explains it,” Celeste murmured, pushing her purple glasses back onto the bridge of her nose.
Raleigh put a self-conscious hand up to her hair. Not that Celeste had a lot of room to criticize, with her wildly curly gray locks pointing every which way. But was Raleigh’s do that bad?
She was about to turn back toward the door when Beth McClelland, Project Justice’s physical evidence coordinator, rushed into the lobby, her platform shoes clattering noisily on the wood floor.
“Oh, Raleigh, I’m so glad I caught you.”
Celeste frowned her disapproval at Beth. “Ms. Shinn is officially signed out. You’ll have to wait until she gets back.”
Raleigh wasn’t about to ignore her best friend. “What is it, Beth?”
Beth shook a manila envelope triumphantly in the air. “I got the DNA results back on the Rhiner case,” she said in a singsong voice. “And I think you’re going to like the resu—”
“What part of signed out don’t you understand?” Celeste interrupted.
“Just leave it on my desk,” Raleigh said in a stage whisper to Beth. “My office door is open.”
Celeste tsked.
Beth looked puzzled. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good. I mean, normally you would be prying these DNA results out of my hands.”
Raleigh brought herself back to the here and now. Beth was right—she should be excited. “So Rhiner didn’t do it?”
“Not only that, but the FBI got a hit on their computer. New suspect. Next-door neighbor.”
“Girls!” Celeste objected. “You’re in a public place! You must discuss your sensitive information some where else.”
Beth looked around at the otherwise deserted lobby, then hid a smile. “Sorry.” She quickly signed out, then walked with Raleigh out the door.
“Where you off to?”
“Just the deli.”
“I’ll walk with you. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
Beth’s concern warmed Raleigh. She was the only real friend Raleigh had at work. Not that she didn’t admire and respect her colleagues, but she kept a deliberate distance from them.
Except for Beth. When Beth had gone through an ugly breakup last year, Raleigh had found her crying in the ladies’ room more than once, and her heart had gone out to the woman. She understood pain, and she had done what she could to make Beth feel better. Once Beth started confiding in Raleigh, Raleigh had naturally revealed more of herself.
Raleigh needed to tell someone of her current dilemma, but not in line at the deli counter.
“I’ll tell you—when we can have a more private conversation.”
“Uh-oh, this sounds bad.”
Raleigh said nothing until she had her turkey-and-low-fat-mozzerella on whole wheat and had found an out-of-the-way table tucked into a corner.
“It’s not a big deal,” she finally said. “It’s just that my bank made a mistake on my account, and it’s causing me some trouble. Plus, there’s a reporter who seems intent on publishing an unflattering story about me. I wouldn’t care so much, except I don’t want to make the foundation look bad.”
“Oh, Raleigh, that’s awful! About the reporter, I mean. Start with the bank, though. What did they do? Have they lost a deposit or something?”
“Just the opposite, actually.” She explained to Beth about the anomalous twenty grand suddenly appearing on her balance sheet.
“Wow, that is so weird. I wish someone would make that kind of mistake in my account.” Beth took a few sips of her banana smoothie. “Do you think it could be your in-laws? Maybe they’re feeling guilty over the way they’ve treated you. To deliberately cut you off like that, when they knew good and well Jason would have wanted you taken care of—it just burns me up every time I think about it.”
Raleigh had actually considered the possibility that her in-laws were involved somehow. Since they had most of Jason’s papers—they had hired someone to clean out his office while she was at the funeral—they could be privy to Raleigh’s financial information. But she hadn’t spoken to them in over a year.
“It’s unlikely they’re involved.” Raleigh took a deep breath and told her the rest—about Griffin Benedict, and the fact he had a copy of her bank statement.
Beth was predictably incensed. “That’s not just slimy, it’s illegal. You’re a lawyer, can’t you…get him arrested? Sue him?”
“I can’t. I don’t want to bring negative publicity to the foundation, and I don’t have time for a personal legal battle. I have too much work to do. Anyway, I don’t want any more attention focused on me until I figure out what that deposit is all about.”
“Why don’t you talk to Mitch?” Beth suggested brightly. “He knows everything about computer hacking and identity theft. Maybe he can tell you how it was done.”
Raleigh felt a ray of hope. “Beth, that’s an excellent suggestion.” Mitch Delacroix was Project Justice’s tech expert. He had a background in cyber crime, a field he had entered after getting arrested as a teenager for hacking into a city government computer system in an attempt to fix a speeding ticket.
After dodging a felony conviction, he had decided to use his skills on the right side of the law. But he could still hack into anything, anywhere. And though no one on the staff was allowed to ask him to do anything illegal, Raleigh knew he often tiptoed around places in secure cyberspace where he didn’t belong.
“We’ll go talk to him as soon as you’re done with lunch.”
“I’m done now.” She’d taken a few bites of the sandwich. That would be enough to keep her going. Beth led the way out of the deli, her brown corkscrew curls bouncing with every step of her wildly impractical pink platforms.
“I hate to use the foundation’s resources for my own personal problems,” Raleigh said.
“If you ask me, this is a Project Justice problem. If you get slammed with a negative story—and by Griffin Benedict, who has a kazillion readers—it’ll hurt the foundation.”
Maybe Beth was right.
Mitch could almost always be found in the bull pen. He had a private office on the second floor, two doors down from Raleigh’s. The large, open bull pen downstairs was for junior investigators, interns and temporary workers. But since Mitch spent most of his time alone in cyberspace, he preferred to have the noise and activity of people around him in the physical world.
“You actually met Griffin Benedict face-to-face?” Beth asked as they quickly signed in while Celeste watched them over the top of her purple glasses with eagle eyes.
“I did.”
