Page 75 of Live a Little!

Out tumbled her wallet, breath mints, makeup bag, keys, an old nail file, an open package of tissues and, finally, clattering to the scratched Formica tabletop like a dirty secret, the thumbdrive.

Neville shot her an evil look “Well?” hedemanded.

When Jake was around, danger acted like an aphrodisiac, but right now she didn’t feel turned on at all. She felt angry. These men had taken a good company and turned it into a shameful thing. What would happen to George and Agnes and Marilyn and all the other decent people who workedhere?

She wasn’t going down without afight.

They’d find out what was on the drive soon enough. All she could do was stall as long as possible and wait for an opportunity to escape. She shrugged. “Just some month-end files. I wanted to work on them athome.”

“Go get a laptop,” Neville ordered Ormond, who put the gun down on the table, massaged his right biceps and headed off without aword.

She exhaled slowly. Without the gun pointing at her, she could think better. Now there were only two of them against her, so the odds were one-third better, but there remained the sticky problem of her being handcuffed to the damnedpipe.

“Please, could I use the bathroom?” She directed her question at Eddie, who she figured was her best shot at any sympathy. But even as Eddie blushed and harrumphed, Neville said, “No.”

Time ticked by and Neville took the opportunity to rummage through her makeup bag. As she watched him paw through her cosmetics, she couldn’t believe she’d once thought him gentlemanly. Her arm was starting to lose all feeling. She began to clench and unclench her fingers to keep the bloodflowing.

“Was Harrison your boyfriend?” Neville asked while twisting open herlipstick.

“No. I already told you, I never knew him.” Was he really dead? Had these awful men killed anaccountant?

“Let me guess. He was supposed to call from Hong Kong, and when he didn’t, you figured he’d double-crossed you and you decided to come in here and helpyourself.”

“No. That’s not right at all.” In the back of her mind, she was at least grateful they hadn’t a clue as to what she was really doing here. She was determined to protect Jake and the operation. “I took the job because I wanted a change. While I was doing the month-end books, I found this file that didn’t seem to match the one on my computer. That’s what you saw on my screen. I’m a very conscientiousemployee.”

“A bit too conscientious, I’mafraid.”

“But I don’t understand. What did Harrisondo?”

Neville gazed at her for a moment, then shrugged. “As I’m certain you already know, Harrison began to sample the merchandise we were bringing in from Colombia, more and more as his cocaine habit grewworse.”

“He was a drugaddict?”

“It’s an expensive habit. Then he tried to set up his own operation on the side. He must have figured out we were on to him, because he stole a large sum of money and left the country.” Nevilleshrugged.

If he’d tried to set up his own operation, Harrison couldn’t have been alone. Things started to fall into place. “Was that what happened to Dominic Torreo, the murdered drug dealer? Did he cross you,too?”

Doug, returning with a laptop, was in time tohear.

“Well, well. She is a clever little girl, isn’t she, Doug? Yes. Dominic was working with Harrison. Now they’re both out of business. I just can’t work out what your role was, and if anybody else is going to come crawling out of thewoodwork.”

“Of course I wasn’t working with them. I don’t know them. I really don’t know anything,” she said, kicking herself for revealing that she’d caught the connection between Harrison and the murdered drug dealer. Her brain didn’t seem to be working as sharply asusual.

Neville booted up the computer and inserted the thumb drive. Why hadn’t she put her own password on it? What a fool she’s been. Or even better, why hadn’t she left work with Agnes and told Jake what she’d found. She’d wanted to impress him, that’s why, wanted a really good reason to see him again, a reason so good that he’d have to listen to her. And once she’d shown him the files, she’d tell him she loved him. But, instead she’d been caught red-handed. In less than a minute, the incriminating pension file stared at her from the laptopscreen.

“I didn’t know he’d kept a set of everything for himself,” Neville mumbled, scrolling through the numbers, then glancing sharply at Cynthia. “Maybe it wasn’t drugs you were after. What was it, Cynthia?Blackmail?”

“No. I stumbled on the file and wondered what it was, that’sall.”

“Right. And you were taking the file home because…?” He gazed at her with phonyinquiry.

“I wanted to look it over at home. I didn’t want to make any rash accusations against mypredecessor.”

“Well, aren’t you the Girl Scout. You weren’t going to ask for a sizable contribution to yourownretirement fund to encourage you to keep quiet about ouroperation?”

“What operation? All I know is the pension plan seems inefficient. I have some ideas for improvingit.”

“Hey, man,” Eddie said. “Maybe she doesn’t knowanything—”

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