"Because I didn't want to take anything else from them. I wanted to go out on my own. They respected my decision."
"And the door remained open," Josh put in. "Anytime Kate wanted to walk through. Detective, I don't see what this line of questioning has to do with the matter at hand."
"Just laying a foundation." Despite the recorder, he continued to make little notations in his tattered notebook. "Ms. Powell, what was your salary at Bittle at the time of your termination?"
"A base of fifty-two-five, plus bonus."
"Fifty-two thousand." Nodding, he flipped through his book as if checking facts. "That's quite a come-down for someone who had the run of a place like Templeton House."
"I earned it, and it was enough for my needs." She felt a line of cold sweat drip down her back. "I know how to make money from money. And in an average year, I would add twenty thousand to that base in bonuses."
"Last year you opened a business."
"With my sisters. With Margo and Laura Templeton," Kate qualified.
"It's risky, starting a business." Those bland eyes stayed on hers. "And expensive."
"I can give you all the statistics, all the figures."
"You like to gamble, Ms. Powell."
"No, I don't. Not in the standard sense of Vegas or the track. The odds always favor the house. But I appreciate an intelligent, and cautious, investment risk. And I consider Pretenses to be just that."
"Some businesses need to be fed a lot. Something like this shop of yours, keeping stock, all that overhead."
"My books are clean. You can—"
"Kate." Josh put a hand on her arm in warning.
"No." Furious now, she shook it off. "He's implying that I would take the easy way, because my father did. That I embezzled from Bittle to keep Pretenses afloat, and I'm not having it. We've worked too hard to make the shop run. Especially Margo. I'm not having it, Josh. He's not going to say that the shop's involved." She seared Kusack with one hot glare. "You pick up the books at the shop anytime. You go over them line by line."
"I appreciate the offer, Ms. Powell," Kusack said mildly. He opened a folder, slid papers out. "Do you recognize these forms?"
"Of course. That's the 1040 I completed for Sid Sun, and that other one is the altered duplicate."
"That's your signature?"
"Yes, on both copies. And no, I can't explain it."
"And these printouts for computer-generated withdrawals from Bittle's escrow accounts?"
"It's my name, my code."
"Who had access to your office computer?"
"Everyone."
"And to your security code?"
"No one but me, as far as I know."
"You gave it to no one?"
"No."
"You kept it in your head."
"Of course."