Dangerous Impostor Page 6

She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “I quit my job because I was romantically involved with my boss, and the relationship had gone sour.”

  Clearly, he hadn’t expected that answer. His head cocked to one side, perplexed lines creasing his brow. “A relationship? You mean, like an affair?”

  Heat erupted in her face. Calling it an affair made her feel cheap. She rubbed a damp palm on her slacks. “It hadn’t gone that far, but not because he didn’t want it to. He was—” Shame burned her cheeks. “—Applying pressure.”

  “Wasn’t that against the company’s policies?”

  “No, it wasn’t.” The next breath came easier. She might have acted stupidly, but at least she hadn’t broken any policies. “SofTech is a private, family-run business. The only human resource policies they have are ones that have developed over the years in response to legislation. They had a couple of husband-wife teams working together, and most of the Reynolds family is employed in one capacity or another.”

  Brent nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed. She could almost see the thoughts zipping through his brain.

  “So you just decided to end the relationship, and you quit. Why didn’t you give a two-week notice?”

  He’d been talking with someone at SofTech. What had they told him? “I should have given a notice,” she admitted. “It was unprofessional to leave as quickly as I did. I…didn’t feel comfortable there anymore.”

  “Your former boss says you are deceptive and dishonest.”

  The blood in her face heated again. David, you skunk. Obviously, he was still holding on to a huge grudge. She had promised him when she left that she would keep her mouth shut if he would. Looks like he’d broken his part of the bargain.

  She stiffened her spine. “I have never been dishonest, and the only time I was deceptive with David was during the last month of my employment, when I was looking for another job. I admit I told him I had a doctor’s appointment when I went for the interview at Sterling Foods, but I couldn’t tell him why for obvious reasons.” She placed a hand on the empty seat cushion beside her and leaned toward Brent so he could see the truth in her eyes. “I couldn’t keep working there for two reasons. First, because my relationship with David made me privileged to some…” She searched for a word. “Some questionable business practices. And second, because David was becoming possessive. He controlled every minute of my time, monitored my personal cell phone usage, even checked the mileage on my car. When I complained, he became physically rough.”

  Brent’s lips tightened. “He hit you?”

  “No, he never hit me. But he left fingerprint bruises on my arms a few times because he didn’t believe my explanations. If I spent too long at the grocery store, he accused me of sneaking off to see someone else. He even started pressuring me not to travel on the weekends with my father, unless he went along.” She straightened again. “So, frankly, I was afraid to stay even another day. In fact, the night before I quit, I packed a suitcase and moved in with my father and stepmother for a couple of weeks, until I could have all the locks and security codes changed at my town house.”

  His stare became even more searching as he studied her. She held her breath and returned his gaze without blinking. Let him see the truth in her face. If he needed something else to convince him, she would even detail the dishonest business practices, though she had told David she wouldn’t. He hadn’t kept his promise not to trash her reputation out of vindictiveness, had he?

  “You didn’t even take your last paycheck.” Brent’s words were slow, thoughtful.

  “I didn’t want anything else to do with David or his company. I didn’t need the money, and taking any more from him would have made me feel dirty.”

  An instant of understanding dawned on his face, replaced almost immediately by more suspicion. Though she’d been entirely truthful, he still didn’t believe her.

  “I can understand you not needing the money, especially when you have so much. In fact, just last week you must have gotten a bonus of some kind. Fifty thousand dollars worth.” His head turned as he looked purposefully at the box in the corner. When he faced her again, his lips were tight. “You have to admit, that looks pretty suspicious since we just found a box of cash addressed to you. Detective Gaines is going to want an explanation.”

  Her mouth felt stuffed with wool. How had he found out about that fifty-thousand-dollar deposit? He’d been checking her out pretty thoroughly, which meant he must suspect her of being involved with Frank. Indignant anger stiffened her spine—how dare he?

  But almost immediately, the anger dissolved. He was her boss, after all, and he’d flown all the way to Vegas to help her. The situation did look bad, even she could see that. First Brent found out she had a relationship with someone at work, which is exactly what that detective accused her and Frank of. Then the discovery of that box of money. And now the deposit.

  That stupid fifty thousand dollars! Why had she accepted it? If she didn’t do some fast explaining, that money was going to land her in jail for murder.

  EIGHT

  Brent saw Lauren wince, and disappointment stabbed through him. She was hiding something about that money.

  He completely accepted her explanation about the job at SofTech. As she talked, he’d watched her closely, on high alert for signs of deception. What he saw was a pair of clear green eyes, an open expression and a lovely, if slightly trembling, mouth. That jerk of an ex-boss had lied to Mason, either out of bitterness or to cover up any hint of his own shady business practices. By the sound of things, she got away from him just in time. The behavior she described was exactly how an abuser operated—he became gradually more controlling, more suspicious, more physical.

  But Brent’s mention of that fifty-thousand-dollar deposit made her uncomfortable. Was she involved in illegal activities?

  “Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.” He studied her face and saw another slight wince at a second mention of the money. “Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of asking about it.” He waved a hand toward the boxed computer in the corner. “These are not normal circumstances.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her shoulders rose with a deep breath. “It was a gift from my father.”

  Oh, come on, girl! You can do better than that.

  Skepticism must have shown on his face, because she nodded with vigor. “Really, it was. My birthday was last week, and Daddy wanted to give me a new car. He and my stepmother are spending the month at their villa in Italy, so he couldn’t give it to me in person. Instead he transferred the money into my account.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars for a car?” He squinted at her. “What kind of car are you getting?”

  A flush stained her cheeks, but she answered without hesitation. “A Mercedes-Benz C-class 300.”

  With an effort, he stopped his jaw from dropping. A twenty-four-year-old business analyst driving a Mercedes?

  “I know what you’re thinking.” She squirmed in her seat. “It’s true. I’m the spoiled daughter of a rich man.” Her body tilted forward as she looked him straight in the face. “I’m trying to become self-sufficient, I really am. I’m paying my own bills now, buying my own clothes. When Daddy told me he wanted to give me a car for my birthday, at first I said no. I can get a loan and buy my own car. But…a Mercedes?” Her shoulders gave an apologetic shrug. “Who can pass that up?”

  Okay, yeah, she had a point. If someone offered to give him a free luxury car, he’d have a hard time saying no himself. And the existence of an overly indulgent, wealthy father actually explained the fact that she’d walked away from her final paycheck at SofTech. What could it have been, a thousand dollars? Maybe fifteen hundred? Who needed that when Daddy was made of money?

  She reached toward him, as though to place her hand on his arm, but then stopped inches before she touched him. Her fingers hovered in the space between them for a moment, then her hand returned to her lap.

  “Please believe me, Brent. I don’
t know anything about that computer.” Her eyes moved as her gaze slid to the corner and then back to his. “Frank was obviously into something that wasn’t on the up-and-up, and he was trying to involve me. I have no idea why.”

  Tears sparkled in her eyes, and Brent had to steel himself against the urge to reach out and draw her into a comforting embrace. Instead, he propelled himself out of the chair and paced to the opposite end of the room. He couldn’t look at her and think at the same time.

  Lord, I believe her. But I need to keep a level head here, and I don’t trust myself. You know the truth. Could You help me out?

  The silence in the room drew out as Brent weighed Lauren’s explanations. She remained quiet behind him, but he felt tension radiate from her in nearly palpable waves. Gradually, his doubts eased and a sense of peace crept over him. His tight fists relaxed. He believed her. Call it divine guidance or gut instinct, but he felt good about his decision. Whatever it took to help her out of this mess, he was prepared to do it.

  He turned to face her. “All right. As soon as we get through with this workshop, we’ll start trying to discover what Frank was into, and why he wanted to involve you.”

  Her rigid posture relaxed visibly and she sagged against the back of the chair. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it and swallowed. Then she cleared her voice and tried again. “Thank you, Brent. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you believe me.”

  A tender wave flooded him. She looked so small sitting there on the front row of this huge room. So alone in the sea of empty chairs. She was in a highly vulnerable position. If Mason could dig up those two suspicious pieces of information in such a short time, it wouldn’t be long before Detective Gaines discovered the same.

  “We’ll figure it out.” His words were voiced as much to convince himself as to comfort her.

  “So as you can see, Sterling Foods had an urgent business need to update the order-entry system, and it had to be done quickly.” Lauren let her gaze sweep the tops of the heads of the audience. If she looked lower, at their faces, her shaky knees threatened to dump her on the floor.

  Almost every chair was taken for the session. That actually made it easier to get through her presentation, because she could let her eyes unfocus. The audience turned from nearly two hundred faces to a single vague whole, one person indistinguishable from the next. It was much easier to speak to an anonymous group than a whole bunch of individuals.

  With iron resolve, she allowed herself to turn her head and glance toward the corner behind her. The presence of that computer full of cash hovered like an unseen monster in the room. They needed to hand it over to the police as soon as possible, no matter what Brent said.

  She flipped the last page of her presentation document on the podium. “And now, I’m going to turn the floor over to Sterling Foods’ Vice President of Information Technology, Brent Emerson.”

  Brent rose from his chair in the front row and headed toward the table where they’d set up the server for the demo. Lauren left the podium to go to the smaller table where she would operate the notebooks. Brent gave her a huge smile.

  “Good work,” he whispered when they passed each other.

  His praise sent a thrill coursing through her. Not only was he her boss, but in the past few hours she’d started to feel her respect building for him as a man. She lifted her head higher and took her seat with confidence.

  He picked up the handheld microphone and strode confidently to the center of the room. “How many of you have a business need similar to Sterling Foods’? I’d like to hear from a few of you.” A number of hands shot up, and Brent made his way to a woman nearby. “Tell me a little about your project.”

  Lauren watched, impressed, as he worked the crowd. She hadn’t done too badly, but she’d stayed behind the podium, even had found herself clutching the wooden edge tightly a couple of times. Brent, on the other hand, engaged the crowd as he walked among them. His manner was so easygoing, so confident, that the energy level in the room rose considerably as he spoke.

  He really is an aberration. Technical, intelligent and dynamic in front of a crowd. And heart-stutteringly handsome, too.

  The thought came so suddenly it startled her. She picked up a pen from the table and rolled it between her fingers, only half listening to Brent’s conversation with the conference attendees. Just because she admired him professionally did not mean she could allow herself to think of him as handsome. In fact, she’d been battling a sense of guilt since he agreed to help her. Did that mean her resolve to stand on her own had weakened? But surely taking care of herself didn’t mean she could never accept help from anyone, ever again.

  To distract herself, she scanned the crowd seated before her. Since their attention was focused on Brent, who still stood among them but had begun to detail the technical aspects of Sterling Foods project, she felt no anxiety studying their faces.

  Actually, many of them had a similar look. These days computer professionals came in all shapes and sizes, but there were still a fair number of nerdy-looking young men with oversize glasses, pasty white complexions and ties that looked more like nooses knotted around their long necks. Most of them carried laptops or smart phones, and tapped feverishly as they listened to Brent talk.

  One slender young man in an aisle seat in the center of the room took no notes. He did not wear the intently fascinated expression that many of the other attendees did, but sat with his hands folded calmly in his lap. Something about him looked vaguely familiar, but Lauren couldn’t place his face. Had she seen him in the hallway earlier? On the other hand, his features were unremarkable, almost nondescript. He probably just had one of those common faces that looked like those of a dozen other people.

  His head turned, and his gaze met hers. His lips lifted in a slight smile, a stranger’s acknowledgment, before he looked back at Brent. Feeling as though she’d been caught staring, Lauren looked away.

  Her eyes were drawn to a face in the back row, where her gaze locked onto someone staring directly at her. Shock coursed down her spine. This face she knew, all too well.

  David.

  What is he doing here?

  The intensity darkening his eyes smacked her from across the room. Her heartbeat pounded as though struggling against a sudden crushing weight. Even from this distance, she saw the square set of his jaw, the tight lips. He looked as though he hated her.

  It was all Lauren could do not to leap up from the table and run from the room.

  NINE

  “During the test phase of the project, we uncovered a couple of bugs that gave us some serious problems.” As Brent spoke, he headed toward the table where he’d set up the computer to emulate a server. “Those problems did cause an unanticipated delay, which didn’t go over well with the steering committee.” He flashed a wide grin around the room. “But you all know how stuffy those executives can be.” The crowd laughed at his self-deprecation.

  He slid the microphone into the stand on the table and angled it toward his face so he could use both hands on the keyboard. The screen overhead was black, waiting for him to pull up the server and press the keys that would display his computer and Lauren’s.

  “What I’d like to do now is walk you through the application, so you can see both the technical side and the user interface.”

  He glanced across the room to see if Lauren was ready on her end. She wasn’t looking at him, or even at her notebook screen. Instead, she stared out into the audience, her eyes wide and her lips pinched. The muscles in her neck corded with tension. Brent gazed out into the crowd but couldn’t see anything that might have alarmed her.

  He directed his voice toward her. “Just give me a minute to pull up the database-monitoring software, and Ms. Bradley will enter a sample transaction.”

  At the mention of her name, her head jerked toward him. Round eyes above hollow cheeks locked on to his face. What had come over her? Was that fear he saw in her face? He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.r />
  Her lips tightened, and her head tilted sideways. Whatever message she was trying to send remained a mystery. Brent lifted his shoulders in an almost-shrug and shook his head. With a jerky nod and a sigh, she seemed to get control of herself. Her fingers began tapping on the keyboard.

  He grabbed his mouse and clicked a series of icons to display the set of files Frank had labeled Vegas. Just before he double-clicked the program for his demo, a file snagged his gaze.

  Wait a minute. What was this? A file he hadn’t seen before lay at the top of the list. The file detail reflected a date modified of today and a time of about ten minutes ago. But how could that be? This computer hadn’t been out of his sight in over an hour, and he hadn’t touched that file. He moved the mouse pointer to hover over the entry. The author of the file was listed as Labetti.

  Lauren’s voice cut through his thoughts. “I’m ready when you are.”

  With an effort, Brent forced himself to open the workshop program and continue with their session. But as soon as they got through this demo, he intended to check out that file.

  Throughout the demonstration part of their workshop, David’s glowering stare remained fixed on Lauren. She felt the heat radiating toward her as though she were standing near a fireplace. After the initial shock, the reason for his presence at an international technology conference became obvious. He owned a software-development company. Part of the business’ success required that he and his staff stay on top of developing trends in the industry. But that didn’t explain why he would attend her workshop. His reason couldn’t be interest in the subject, because his business wasn’t in an industry that would use an order-entry system like this one. Which meant he came here for one reason—to intimidate her.

  She did her best to ignore his glare and limited her selection of hands-on volunteers to other areas of the large conference room. Whenever she turned her back in his direction, she felt as though daggers were being thrown at her. Tense knots in her stomach grew tighter with every minute that passed.