Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Tay blinked. “Ummm…”
I grinned.
By the time we got to the hospital with her food, it was to find her helping out a patient in the ER, very much busy, and unable to talk, let alone grab her food.
“Hey,” I said to the security guard who’d taken over for my brother. “When you see a gorgeous woman with brown hair, brown eyes, and about yay high,” I held my hand up. “With blue scrubs pushing one of those big X-ray machines—nametag reads ‘Hollis’—will you give her this?”
The security guard jerked his chin up before saying, “You got it, boss.”
Tay walked back out with me, glaring as he went. “What’s your problem?”
“I wanted to talk to her,” he pouted.
“She was working, Tayson,” I pointed out. “You can’t just expect her to drop everything to come listen to you apologize.”
He muttered something under his breath and had just gotten to my truck when he said, “My parents are divorcing.”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “And they’re being investigated for tax fraud.”
I blinked.
“Dad was stealing from the company, and they froze all of our assets,” he continued. “I…” He frowned. “I wanted to see if I could move in with her. They’re taking our house, too.”
I didn’t know what to say.
What I did know was that it was pretty shitty of him to think that he could come over here, lying about wanting to apologize for his and his family’s actions, and think that she would just allow him to move in because he asked.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said as I rounded the truck. “But I can’t make any promises.”
“Hey,” I said to my friend at the bureau. “I have a couple of questions for you.”
My friend, Easton, had been with the FBI for as long as I’d known him. We’d met on a case involving a murder that was connected to another case that he’d been working. From then on, we’d stayed in touch. We even saw each other once a year for a fishing trip in Montana.
“Shoot,” Easton said, sounding distracted.
“What are you doing right now?” I asked.
“Is that one of your questions?” he chuckled.
“Kind of,” I admitted. “I need you to look some shit up for me.”
“I’m at the house, but I can get on the computer, give me a few,” he said as he started moving through his house.
I could hear him talking, likely to his wife or his children, their replies muffled.
Then the noise abruptly shut off, and Easton said, “Okay, I’m away from the circus. What’s up?”
I gave him all the details I had.
“Give me a second,” he said as he started to type. “Found it. Whoa.”
“What?” I asked, wincing at the surprise evident in his ‘whoa.’
“Tax fraud,” he said. “Dael and Broddie Aue were in some pyramid scheme through Broddie’s investment banking firm. They froze all the parents’ accounts, took everything that was registered to the investment banking business…”
He pretty much laid out exactly what Tayson had shared with me an hour ago, ending with, “They’re looking at twenty-five years each. The firm that Broddie Aue worked with has fired him. All his 401Ks, bank accounts, cars, home, and a few other things were seized by the state of Texas pending a trial.”
I rubbed between my eyes. “What was the pyramid scheme?”
“According to about thirteen elder individuals, they conned them out of their money and wouldn’t give it back.” Easton sounded like he was reading from a report. “Looks like they’re accused of stealing upward of nineteen million dollars, funneling it through the company they were working for, and then starting their own accounts where that money went. There’s more but… you get the gist.”
Yeah, yeah I did.
“Shit,” I sighed.
“That sounded like a bad ‘shit,’” Easton murmured. “What’s up?”
“The girl I’m seeing has an awful relationship with her family,” I gave him a rundown on what I’d seen so far between them. “Then this morning, the brother came by and was all sad and shit, trying to make amends, he said. But in reality, he’s been kicked out of his house, doesn’t have anywhere to go, and wants to see if his sister will put him up.”
“I hope she doesn’t,” he admitted. “When do I get to meet her?”
A loud bang on the other end of the line, and then a little cherubic voice said, “Daddy! Mommy says that we can go outside as soon as you’re off the phone! Can we go now?”
Easton sighed.
“I’ll bring her to the fishing trip this summer,” I said. “You can meet her then.”
Easton chuckled as I heard him get up from his creaky desk chair. “I’ll look forward to it. Let me know if you need anything else.”
We both hung up on a shriek of excitement on his end.
I rubbed my chest, wondering what this feeling was, or the way a dark wave of envy rolled over me as I thought about Easton and his family.