Page 106 of So Steady

Noah ignored her. “How do you know it was Gil?” he asked Scott.

Scott pulled a piece of paper from his suit pocket and handed it to him. It was a bank statement with many of the dates and amounts highlighted. “What am I looking at?”

“Silver Daughters’ cash deposits from eighteen months ago.” Scott pointed to a deposit of two thousand dollars. “Here. This is when the totals drop. The week before it was two thousand, five hundred. We think that’s when he started skimming the till.”

Noah’s heart sank. “That’s not evidence.”

“What if I told you that was the week Gil joined his new gym.” It wasn’t Tabby or Scott who spoke, but the tall kid, Toby. Noah stared at him, taking in the cookie cutter blue shirt and neatly combed hair.

“How’d you know that?”

“He called the gym and found out,” Tabby said. “And he got the owner to tell him that Gil’s been paying in cash.”

Noah stared at him. “Seriously?”

The kid hunched his shoulders. “Yeah, I guessed he wasn’t depositing the money because if he was, he could get in trouble with the tax office, so I narrowed down the places where he might be spending it. I got lucky.”

Tabby flicked his shoulder. “It wasn’t lucky, it was fucking genius.”

Toby flushed scarlet.

“Do we know anyone else who might have a record of Gil spending cash with them?” Noah asked.

“I called a couple of big brand shops in the CBD,” Scott said. “Places Sam and Tabby could remember Gil mentioning. An assistant at Incu knew who Gil was, but he said he hasn’t been in for a while.”

No, he wouldn’t have been. He looked at Scott. “Has the skimming slowed down since Nikki got here?”

“Stopped as far as we can tell.”

Noah nodded, furious but trying to keep it at bay. He needed to think. “So, it adds up, but we’ve got no proof?”

“Pretty much.”

He screwed up his face. “What about the gym? Do they have any of Gil’s money on hand?”

“No, the guy who runs the place didn’t want us poking around his finances.”

Tabby gave Toby a glowing look. “He didn’t even want to talk to us, but Toby freaked him out. Told him that if he was helping Gil launder the cash, he could be culpable when we went to the police. That got him to talk.”

Noah grinned at the kid. “You’d make a good lawyer.”

“Or a pilot,” Tabby said cheerfully. “Or a doctor. Or an engineer.”

“But he’s my assistant,” Scott said. “No poaching.”

Toby ducked his head, clearly uncomfortable with the flattery. “Guys…”

Noah leaned against his kitchen wall, trying to see the bigger picture. “Okay, Gil’s been robbing SDI blind. What now?”

Everyone’s smiles faded.

Scott tugged at the collar of his shirt. “That’s why we came. We need to think of something fast. Gil called Sam last night and told her he’s got a job offer in Sydney. He’s quitting.”

“No.” He hadn’t meant it to come out so hard, but Tabby and Toby took a step backward.

Scott spread his fingers. “It’s okay. Nicole told him he has to give two weeks’ notice, or he’ll be in breach of his contract. He’s still here; he’s coming in on Monday.”

He inhaled, expanding his deflated lungs. Nikki had saved them, found a feather-light way to buy them more time. Of course she had. He kept breathing, kept thinking. So Gil had stolen from Sam and made Nicole work a million hours trying to figure out why their family business was failing. Gil had robbed them blind and he was going to leave, lumping Edgar’s daughters with the mess he’d made. Why hadn’t he guessed this? Stopped this?

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