Page 68 of Wicked and Ruthless

When they reached the floor of Benedict Land Development’s office, she inserted the key and let them in.

Surprisingly, the floor wasn’t totally dark. More than a few computers were rolling through their screen-saver sequences while ambient lights shone from the faux industrial ceiling. Neither of them bothered with more than a glance at her desk. Instead, they tiptoed down the hall, past the executive suites.

Mila’s door was closed and locked. Haisley wondered if she’d gone home to the man who had yelled at her or if she’d decided she’d had enough and found someplace else to spend her weekend. If Haisley knew the woman better, she would have reached out and offered her a spare bedroom as a kindness to someone going through a rough patch…but Mila might find that weird. Besides, her boss wouldn’t appreciate her trying to come between him and his wife.

At the end of the hall, she stopped and whispered, “You know I don’t have a key to the boss’s office, right?”

Nash nodded. “I would have been shocked if you did. But this door I can handle.”

He withdrew something from his pocket, stuck it in the lock, and started jimmying it. In less than thirty seconds, he was pushing the door wide open and, gun in hand, sweeping the office. “Clear. Come in.”

She did, carefully closing the door behind her. “Do we dare turn on the lights?”

Nash shook his head. “He doesn’t have cameras installed anywhere on this floor. I looked. But I don’t know if he has any other sensors, and I wouldn’t want to tip off the janitorial staff if they happen to see something. Hold this.”

When he handed her a flashlight, she took it with a scowl. “And do what?”

“Tell me where you think we should start looking.”

For the next ten minutes, they searched his desk drawers, his filing cabinet, and a credenza in which he kept various plaques and trophies he’d collected over the years. Nothing jumped out at Haisley as being suspicious. “It’s hard to find something when you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

Nash nodded. “There’s a reason his door is always closed, and he locks it the minute he leaves. It’s possible he’s merely private, but…”

“He could be hiding something, too. If he’s involved, what would he keep here?”

“If he was smart, nothing. But Benedict clearly thinks he’s better than everyone else, so it wouldn’t surprise me if his cockiness makes him sloppy. We’re looking for ledgers, receipts, notes…anything that would tie him to Yuslav beyond the employee-employer relationship.”

“I have an idea.” Haisley didn’t wait for Nash to follow her to the back of the room since she had the flashlight.

“Tell me.”

“When I tried to talk to Benedict earlier this afternoon, I knocked on his door and poked my head in. I noticed him fiddling with something on these bookshelves.” She gestured to the massive, wall-to-wall unit behind his desk. “Here on the right.”

She fished around and found a humidor. When she lifted it from the shelf and shined the light on it, she found it padlocked. “Damn it. He was either looking in or putting something into this… Everything happened so fast, but?—”

“Hand it to me.”

She did, watching as he set the fancy wooden box on her boss’s pretentiously large desk. “What are you going to do?”

He pulled another pick out of the little kit in his pocket. “It would be easier to just break the lock, but he’d know someone was onto him. So picking this sucker it is.”

“Won’t it take a while to— Okay, that was fast,” she murmured as he lifted the lid. When she flashed the light on the interior, she was surprised as hell. “That’s not a cigar.”

“Nope.” He lifted the Glock out of the humidor and checked it out. “Loaded. He’s ready for action.”

That terrified her. “Does he intend to defend himself or go postal on the office?”

“Or something else entirely. And what do we have here? His passport, valid and in his name, along with a wad of cash—at least ten grand in hundred dollar bills.”

“Is that, like, his go-stash?”

“Or a nefarious, hiding-shit-from-his-wife stash. Maybe this will give us the answer.” Nash pulled a phone from the box’s interior.

Haisley frowned. “That’s not his usual phone.”

“Your boss having a burner phone doesn’t automatically make him guilty…but it looks suspicious as fuck.” Nash tapped a button, and the screen flickered to life, prompting him for a passcode. “Damn it. Any ideas?”

“Mila’s birthday?” She rattled off the date.

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