Her Christmas Surprise

“The feds can.” Burton’s expression was grim. “They’ve got enough evidence to consider you involved. That means all of your possessions and holdings are subject to seizure.”

“All of it?” She paled. “Everything?”

Lex leaned forward. “But she didn’t keep the money.”

“Not at that step. They don’t know where it eventually wound up, though. She could still have it somewhere.”

“And on those grounds they can take her house?”

“They can take it all,” Burton assured him. “Not right away, of course. First, they’ve got to get to the bottom of the whole scheme, and it’s tangled enough that it could take a year or more. Quite frankly, that’s the reason they’re sure his fiancée is involved.”

His fiancée? Keely? Lex frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She’s an accountant, didn’t you know? Worked for Briarson Financial. It’s unlikely someone like Bradley would have known enough to carry off this kind of scheme on his own and get past his internal auditors. With someone of her background helping him cook the books, though, it would be a cakewalk.”

“She’s an accountant?” Lex had assumed she’d majored in something like English literature or art history, one of those degrees for the ladies who lunched. Clearly, he’d been mistaken. “So they think she had something to do with it?”

“They’re almost certain of it. Mind you, they haven’t got any evidence yet, but they will. Trust me, they will.”

“If she’s involved, she’s in a position to clear my mother’s name, right?” Lex asked. Forget about vulnerable mouths and shadowed eyes. If she had the answers, he’d worm them out of her.

“Any testimony you can get from someone who’s involved would certainly help Olivia’s case,” Burton answered. “What we really need is to find your brother but he seems to have gone into the wind.”

Keely, though, Keely was right here.

“We should talk to the fiancée,” Burton said.

Lex felt a slow-burning anger awake. “Leave it to me.” And this time he’d get some straight answers, before his mother lost everything she had.

Olivia took a breath and straightened her posture in a move Lex recognized. No tears, no weakness here. “What happens next, Frank?”

“Nothing immediately. They’ll keep investigating until they’ve got it all worked out, put their case together. Then it’ll go to trial. With or without Bradley.”

“So we have time,” Lex said.

“Some. The sooner you can get the fiancée to come clean, the better off your mother will be.”

And the sooner he could go back to his life, escape the morass that was already beginning to suck him in.

Abruptly, he rose. “Then I guess I’d better get on it,” he said, holding his hand out to Burton.

“You hear from Bradley, you let me know immediately,” the lawyer said as he walked them out.

“You know it.”

The carpet in the hallway outside Burton’s downtown Stamford offices was thick and plush underfoot, the color of the brandy Pierce had favored. Ahead, light streamed through the glass walls that surrounded the ten-floor atrium lobby.

“I just can’t believe it was Bradley,” Olivia said as they waited for the elevator. “She must have pushed him into it.”

She might have been involved, but Lex had a pretty good idea nobody pushed Bradley anywhere. There was one trait they’d both inherited from their father, his stubborn single-mindedness. It had fueled Lex’s rise to the top of a difficult and dangerous field. It had also helped Bradley take a controlling position in Alexander Technologies, the position that had let him get away with his crimes.

For a while.

“Mom,” Lex said gently, “no one made Bradley run.”

But if Keely Stafford had helped him, then she knew how to untangle this rat’s nest. And she damned well needed to start talking.

“Bradley doesn’t know what to do with the mess she’s gotten him into,” Olivia maintained, but her voice was uncertain.

“Have you ever, in your entire life, seen Bradley do anything he didn’t want to do?”

“He couldn’t have done this on his own. I won’t believe it.”

Translation: she didn’t want to.

She had to face it, though, or she’d never get past it. “No one made him gamble, Mom.” Lex kept his voice gentle. “You saw the statements from the pit bosses. Brad got in trouble, he wanted out, and he wasn’t too concerned about how.”

Abruptly, the starch went out of Olivia’s posture and for just a moment she sagged against the railing that looked down over the lobby. “What am I going to do?” she whispered. “They’re going to take it all. How could he do this? How could he leave me with nothing?”

And now she did cry. All he could do was gather her against him and stand there, helplessly patting her back. No. Not helpless, never helpless. There was a way to fix this and he would find it.

Starting with Keely Stafford.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right here tonight?” Jeannie stood behind the counter at the flower shop, buttoning her coat.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve got Lydia coming in later to help.”

“The mistletoe for the novelty hangers is on the table.”

“I know. I was the one who put it there, remember? Now git.” Keely draped her mother’s scarf around her neck. “You’ve got a party to primp for. How else are you going to get to dissect the centerpieces if you’re not there?”

“What would make you think I’d do such a thing?” Jeannie asked.

Keely grinned. “I know you too well. Have a great time.” She kissed her mother’s cheek.

“Thank you again. And don’t spend the whole night working. Go out and watch the tree lighting. You should have some fun.”

“Out,” Keely ordered, pointing at the door.

“I’m going,” Jeannie said hastily.

Keely watched the door close behind her. In a while, Lydia would show up and their gab fest would begin. For now, Keely had the shop to herself. She breathed in air scented with roses, carnations, hyacinths, and remembered.

The shop had defined her life in so many ways. One minute, the Staffords had had money, country club memberships, prestige. The next, she’d found herself pitching in to help pay the bills, filling out reams of scholarship and loan applications to cover college. The long, hot, lazy summers she’d grown up with had been replaced by cool days in the shop, wearing the tailored black shirt and trousers that were the uniform at Jeannie’s.

Then Bradley had come through the door to buy a bouquet for his mother. And Keely had fallen as deeply into infatuation with him as she had at fourteen, when he’d been the star of the country-club tennis court and she’d prayed for him to ask her to play doubles with him.

Now, five years later, she was back at the florist shop, tying a ribbon on an arrangement of mums. All those years of study, the internships, the work at Briarson, blown apart by Bradley. She struggled to push down the surge of anger as she carried the vase into the glass-fronted, walk-in refrigerator that held orchids, roses, daylilies and the other exotics.