“You have access to files like this?”
“Yes. He hanged himself and his wife, Grace, found him.” Eli set the computer back on Chelsea’s lap, put his arms behind his head, and leaned against the headboard.
“Out with it,” she said. “I can see the wheels in your brain working. What did you and your dad talk about?”
“Besides you? He’s going to have some people look into the finances of the two furniture stores.”
“And the other businesses?”
He looked at her.
“You’re not the only one who can use a computer. Longacre Furniture is a subsidiary of a larger corporation. They own several businesses around Virginia. A car wash, a couple of motels that look pretty sleazy, six liquor stores, and a few other things. And poor Orin and his dying wife—you know, the babe in the blue blouse—own an apartment in New York on Central Park South and a house in the Caymans.
As she spoke, Eli’s eyes grew wider. “You didn’t find this on Google.”
Chelsea shrugged. “I have contacts too. So what are we going to do about this?”
“Nothing. Dad will take care of it through legal channels. It’s not for you and me.”
“Okay,” she said as she put the laptop on the bed, and started to get off it.
Eli caught her arm but Chelsea didn’t look at him. “I thought maybe we might go back to Edilean and see if we could help Grace and Abby.”
“By doing what?”
“I don’t know, but maybe Robin and Marian could figure out how to get a dress for Abby. You have any idea what teenage girls wear to a prom?”
Chelsea turned halfway toward him. “What about Grace?”
“I bet we could find her a better job than whatever she has now.”
“Maybe when Pilar quits, Grace could take over.”
“That would take a year or more of security clearance. And if her husband committed suicide because he was involved in something illegal, and his business partner is a criminal, that’s going to take even longer.”
Chelsea had turned all the way around and was glaring at him. “Do you have any romance in you at all? Or have you become some muscle-bound, soulless machine?”
Eli didn’t reply to that, but slowly sat up straight, then reached out and pulled her down to the bed. Before she could reply, he put his lips on hers.
He’d meant it to be a sort of demonstration kiss, but the moment his lips touched hers, he knew this was what he’d been waiting for. This woman was the reason he’d paid little attention to other women.
Her mouth opened under his, her arms went around his neck and pulled him closer. Their tongues met. Years of longing, of understanding, of memories, flowed through them.
It was Chelsea who broke away, turning her head to one side. “Go,” she whispered. “Leave me.”
Eli rolled off the bed and got in the shower—a cold one.
The next morning, by the time they’d had breakfast and packed—and Chelsea had taken a second shower and blow-dried her hair—it was late when they got to the furniture store. Frank had texted one word, RICHMOND, and that’s where they went.
They had to park at the back of the big lot because the rest of it was full of vehicles with FBI and IRS painted on the side. Men and women in lettered jackets were carrying file boxes and computers out of the furniture store.
“I think we should go,” Eli said. “We don’t want to get mixed up in this.”
“Your dad certainly knows the right people. Do you think they arrested Orin?”
“They can’t until they find some evidence against him.”
She looked at Eli. “Did you tell your dad that we have proof of what he’s been doing? There’s the old house and the beat-up old car and how he took three hundred dollars from his former business partner’s wife.”