Page 22 of Justice Denied

“Have you heard from animal control about the yard?” He settled into one of the lawn lounges and set the plate of brownies on the small table between them.

“Got a text before you came over that someone would stop by first thing in the morning.” She put her mug of decaf coffee on the table and reached for a napkin and brownie. “These look yummy.”

He picked one up and consumed it in two bites. “It’s my secret recipe.”

She bit into the gooey chocolate and chewed. The flavors burst onto her tongue. “Wow, these are so good.” She closed her eyes as she took another nibble, trying to decipher the ingredients.

“Trying to guess what’s in them?”

Gazing straight into his eyes, she burst out laughing. “Yep.”

He polished off another brownie, then sat back with his arms crossed. “Give it your best shot.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?”

He moved one massive shoulder up and down. “Confident you’ll never guess all the ingredients.”

She started with the usual brownie ingredients. “Let’s see, flour, sugar, some sort of oil, vanilla. How am I doing so far?”

“So far, you’ve only said what’s in nearly every brownie recipe.” He sipped his water while she ate more of her square.

“I’m going with cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate for the chocolate part.”

“Go on.” His eyes twinkled, giving his face a delightfully roguish gleam that made her heart do a funny little flip inside her chest. A girl could get addicted to making Seth Whitman look at her like that, but she wasn’t that girl.

She returned her attention back to the brownie, but even after adding chocolate chips to the list, she couldn’t figure out the last ingredient. “Okay,” she admitted after another serving still didn’t give her a clue, “I give up. What am I missing?”

He leaned across the table and motioned her closer. “Zucchini.”

She frowned. “The green summer squash?”

“My secret ingredient in ‘Legit Brownies That Happen to Be Vegan and Contain Zucchini.’”

As the recipe title hit her, another chuckle burst from her. “That’s what you call these?”

“Yep. Fits, right?” He wolfed down another square. “I sometimes use vegan chocolate chips, but this time, Wegmans was out, so these are technically only ‘Legit Brownies That Contain Zucchini.’”

“Glad we cleared that up.” She firmed her lips but couldn’t corral the smile that spread across her face. Seth kept surprising her, his thoughts and actions running counter to everything she thought she knew about muscle-bound men. A gentleness underscored his entire being that warmed her to her toes. Time would tell if his actions reflected a genuine heart or if the façade she saw hide an ugly core.

* * *

Seth couldn’t remembera time when he’d been this comfortable with a member of the opposite sex. Too bad Jetta wanted to keep him at arm’s length, but he’d respect her wishes and pray God would change her mind. So while he was enjoying this relaxing time with her, he’d better redirect their attention before he started dreaming impossible dreams. “You said something about papers?”

“Right, the papers.” Before he could ask where they were, she leveraged herself out of the chair and went inside. She returned shortly with a brown mailing envelope in hand. “Here you go.” She handed him the package, then retook her seat next to him.

He extracted the papers, noting two separate accounts at two different Cayman Islands banks with account holders as New Horizons LLC and Jay Ainsley, each listing this Falls Church address. One account held $1.4 million while the other had $1.2 million. Deposits into each account ranged in increments of $50,000 to $100,000 over a six-month period, with daily and sometimes twice daily wire transfers. The other papers detailed a spreadsheet, showing similar payments to various vendors over the same time period. He reshuffled the papers, reading the letter that had accompanied them.

“I’m no financial expert, but it appears these show someone using fake vendor invoices to siphon off money from Topher Robotics into these Cayman bank accounts.” He rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he’d had since childhood when he was thinking through a problem—or embarrassed by his tendency to blush. “But the note mentions FinCEN, so maybe we should start there.”

Her shoulders sagged and disappointment flashed across her expressive face. He wished he could tell her the papers were indeed a smoking gun proclaiming her father’s innocence, but he didn’t have the expertise to solve this particular problem on his own.

“I keep forgetting to look up what exactly FinCEN is.”

“That I can answer. It’s the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.” His cheeks warmed as her jaw dropped opened, then she snapped it close. He’d obviously surprised her with this knowledge, so he hastened to explain. “Brogan wrote a story a few months ago about the director’s appearance at a local high school on educating teens about financial crimes. I snapped pics during the event.”

He plucked his phone from a back pocket and scrolled to find Leslie Updike’s contact info. “I have one of the agent’s numbers in case we needed to follow up. I’ll send her a text and see if she can lend us a hand with deciphering these. She might even remember your dad’s case.”

“Thanks.”

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