Lahat ng Kabanata ng Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Kabanata 51 - Kabanata 60

"Where?" I asked."A private airfield, forty minutes north." The investigator turned his phone so we could see the red dot. "A jet is fueled and cleared to leave in twenty-two minutes. One passenger.""Harold," Nathaniel said."Not under that name. The flight is booked by a company called Calder Ridge Holdings."Milo went stiff. He pulled the green folder from his bag and flipped pages until his finger stopped. "Calder Ridge. It's on Mr. Delaney's list. A shell company. Harold moved money through it into two other shells and out to a bank overseas.""Your father's notes gave us the whole chain," the investigator said to me. "Every company Harold owns through another company. When the booking came in, we ran the names against the folder. Calder Ridge matched in four minutes.""He built his escape out of the same maze he used to steal," I said."And your father drew the map. Without that folder, we would be looking at an empty runway." He pocketed the phone. "Team Two is already on the

"Box it all," I said. "The coat, the cup, the pens. Every drawer."The young assistant at the door gripped his tablet. "Ms. Delaney, do you want anything saved?""Anything with a signature goes to Milo. The rest goes to Gideon's lawyer." I looked at the leather chair behind the desk. It faced the window and the best view in the building. "And take that chair out.""The chair?""I won't sit in it."Milo raised an eyebrow from the sofa. "You plan to run a company from the hallway?""From the fourteenth floor. My father's office.""The CEO suite is up here.""Then it can stay empty until I find a better use for it." I walked to the door. "Gideon spent years keeping my father out of the one room that mattered. He never earned this one either."Pauline Marsh came in at nine the next morning with a coffee and a smile.The smile lasted until she saw Milo beside the desk and an HR officer holding a folder."Sit, Ms. Marsh," I said.She sat. "I assume this is about the audit.""Eleven wires,"

"No," I said. "I disagree."The conference room went quiet. Six department heads stared at their tablets. I had said it to Nathaniel, in front of all of them, about the plan he had spent a week building: close the Lakeside division and fold its staff into other teams.I braced for what came next. The sigh, the cold voice, the way Gideon used to say *Fine* so it sounded like a slammed door.Nathaniel set down his pen."Tell me why.""Because that's two hundred jobs, and the numbers say we can carry the loss for one more year.""The numbers say it's a risk.""It's mine to take."He studied me. "Then I'll build you a version that keeps Lakeside open and tells you the day it breaks. I think you're wrong about the timing, but it's your company.""You think I'm wrong, and you'll build it anyway?""I said I think you're wrong. I didn't say I'd stop you." One corner of his mouth lifted. "If I'm right, you'll see it in the first quarter. Then you can prove me right and fire me."A few people l

"Say that again," Nathaniel said."I want you to stay.""No. The other part.""I want you." My voice shook, and I let it. "Not need. Want."He didn't move. Rain ran down the glass behind him, and the security guard studied the ceiling with great interest."Elise." He let out a breath. "Be careful with that sentence.""I have been. For a week.""You've had a hard year. You lost your father, your marriage, and the life you thought you had. People grab for the nearest solid thing." His hands tightened on the strap of his bag. "I won't be a decision you make out of loneliness. I couldn't live with that.""Then don't take my word for it. Listen to the rest." I stepped closer, one pace, and stopped. "I sat on my office floor this afternoon and asked myself if I could stand in this building without you.""And?""I can. The company won't fall, and I won't either. I would be all right." I held his eyes. "And I want you anyway. That's the part I needed to find out."He said nothing for a long m

"Four things," Milo said through the car speaker. "You'll like three of them.""Start with the one I won't.""Gideon's lawyers asked for a meeting again. Third time. I told them no.""Good." I watched the road slide past the window. "And the three?""Harold was denied bail for the second time. The judge called him a flight risk, and he read out the airfield story in open court. Trial is set for spring."Nathaniel, in the driver's seat, glanced at me. I kept my eyes on the trees."Second," Milo said. "Prosecutors expect Gideon to testify against him. His attorneys are negotiating. He's no longer the man in the photographs, Elise. He's a witness with nothing left to trade.""And the third?""Naomi got a job. A small firm two hundred miles from here. She starts Monday." Milo's voice warmed. "She asked me to tell you she wrote her own résumé this time. Nobody helped."I smiled for the first time that day. "Tell her I said good.""One more. I lied. It's five.""You said four.""The fifth i