fortysomething man wearing a navy jacket and khakis appeared. “Are you Keely Stafford?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Can I see some I.D.?”
With an increasing sense of unreality, she obeyed, getting out her wallet to show him the drivers’ license she seldom had use for. “Is anybody going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Come in and have a seat,” he said instead, inviting her into her own home.
Inside, the mess looked even worse. “My God, who did this? When did it happen? Everything was fine when I left here two hours ago.” Numbly, she moved toward the hall that led to her bedroom, where the contents of the linen closet lay in a pile on the floor. Thieves? She didn’t have much of value to steal, just her computer and her television, both of which were there. Vandals? But why?
“Miss, sit down. Please.”
“Sit down?” Her voice rose. “This my home.” She stalked over to the man on the couch, locking eyes with him. “If you or someone like you doesn’t tell me what’s going on in the next two seconds, I am going to pitch a fit the likes of which you’ve never seen before.” And she realized as she said it, that it was true. “What’s happened? Who broke in here?”
“We did.”
And her legs gave out and she sat. “‘We’? Who is we?”
“Federal agents. We’re investigating a Bradley Alexander and we have reason to believe that he may have left items here germane to our case.”
“Bradley?” she repeated incredulously.
The man flipped out a badge and a search warrant. “John Stockton, FBI. We have evidence that Bradley Alexander has not only been embezzling funds from Alexander Technologies, he’s been laundering the money through a matrix of limited liability corporations—LLCs,” he elaborated.
“I’m an accountant,” she said shortly. “I know what an LLC is.”
“I bet you do.” He watched her, eyes appraising.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you know anything about the operation, Ms. Stafford, it would be best if you cooperate with us. Mr. Alexander is facing criminal charges.”
Down the hall in the bedroom, something fell with a crash. Keely flinched. “Cooperate? Am I under suspicion?”
“Let’s just say you’re a person of interest. You’re his fiancée. You’re an accountant and he’s working a pretty complicated scheme. Even if all you did was give him advice, you need to tell us.”
“Give him advice? I don’t know a thing about any of this. And quite frankly, I find it hard to believe. Why would Bradley embezzle? He’s rich. His family, the stock, his salary… He’s chief operating officer of one of the biggest communications companies in the country. Why would he need to embezzle?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know,” she burst out.
“Funny, his bookie does. So do his poker buddies.”
“Poker? He plays in a home game, for fun.”
“With a ten-grand ante. Between that and the bookie and the high-roller game in Atlantic City, he’s lost millions over the past five years. Your fiancé’s in one hell of a financial hole.”
Her fiancé.
And immediately she was back in Bradley’s condo, staring at his bare back as the muscles flexed, as he made love with another. Betrayal of the most exquisite kind. Without thinking, she sought out her now bare ring finger. “Ex,” she said aloud.
“What?”
“Ex-fiancé.”
The gaze Stockton turned on her was flat, skeptical. “You’re due to be married next month. Tavern on the Green, according to my file.”
“Not anymore. We broke up this morning, you can ask Bradley.”
“We would if we could find him. Your…ex-fiancé has apparently skipped town.”
She’d seen them before on the television news, victims of disaster, people overwhelmed by a mounting series of calamities, unable to cope, their expressions vacant with shock. Keely knew how they felt. First Bradley, then the search, then the reality of what he’d really done.
Done and dropped in her lap.
She couldn’t say how long she’d been in the interview room, protesting over and over that she didn’t know anything. And feeling the web draw tight around her. She supposed she ought to get a lawyer, but getting a lawyer would be admitting that it was really happening and she hadn’t done anything.
But Bradley had.
He’d stolen tens of millions, they said. Alexander Technologies may have been family controlled, but it was still a public company. He hadn’t been stealing from himself. He’d been stealing from shareholders. He’d ported funds from Alexander to fake vendors, LLCs he’d set up himself, to pay fraudulent charges for services that had never taken place, goods that didn’t exist. That was just the start, though. Once the money was there, it had been funneled through a tangled web of corporations.
Corporations that listed her name on their boards of directors.
“I’m telling you I don’t know anything about it,” she’d protested.
“It’s in your own best interest to work with us, Ms. Stafford,” they’d said.
“I am.” After hours of questioning, frustration had taken hold.
“How did he get your personal information?”
“He was my fiancé, for God’s sake. He was in my apartment all the time. I didn’t watch him every minute.” And sometime when her back had been turned, when she’d been in the shower or kitchen, he’d found her social-security number and used it to link her to an embezzling and money-laundering scheme that might land them both in jail for a good long time.
Her saving grace was that they couldn’t show she had any of the money. Mostly because she didn’t. She’d known nothing about it, been no part of it, but the only person who could tell them that was Bradley, and sometime between the moment she’d stepped out of his door and the instant they’d simultaneously broken into her apartment and his, he’d disappeared. She’d been walking across town in that time. Bradley? Maybe some sixth sense had warned him. Maybe her walking in and finding him had gotten him out on the street sooner than he otherwise would have been.
She’d saved him from arrest. And in return, he’d slapped her in the face with betrayal. Then again, cheating on her was nothing compared with the scheme he’d embroiled her in. And now here she was, under investigation, her home invaded and ransacked, her life upended, her very freedom in jeopardy.
The door opened, startling her. It was
