Lisa Gardner - Touch & Go

We’d return home, except instead of finding solace, we’d have to confront the wreckage of our lives.

And still my eyes welled up. I gazed at my husband. A man who’d hurt me. A man I’d lied to in return. And I found myself crying. For the home we used to have. For the marriage I’d thought we’d built together. For the future I’d always hoped to give my daughter.

Justin got off his bunk. He put his arms around me, and though I was stinky and smelly and awful, he tucked me against his chest.

“Shhh,” he murmured. “I’m going to fix this, Libby. Trust me, just trust me. Tomorrow I’ll make everything all right.”

I let my husband hold me. I focused on the reassuring strength of his arms, the sound of his heartbeat. Then I pressed my head into the curve of his shoulder because, once upon a time, I had loved this man so much and I knew, one way or another, I’d never get to feel that way again.

Three P.M. Monday.

Dead family walking.

Chapter 33

TESSA AND WYATT FOUND RUTH CHAN in the baggage claim of Terminal E. The petite CFO sported large sunglasses, a dark tan and a bad case of nerves. When she spotted Wyatt, approaching in his sheriff’s uniform, she visibly flinched.

Then, she squared her shoulders, adjusted her grip on her lone suitcase and marched toward them.

“Any word on Justin or his family?” she asked.

Tessa pegged the woman at late forties, early fifties. Obviously Asian in descent, but something else as well. An exotic woman, beautiful even in simple black yoga pants and a cream-colored wrap top. Though oversize sunglasses covered half her face, it was obvious she’d been crying. Tear tracks stained her cheeks, while a hoarse rasp thickened her voice.

“We have some questions,” Tessa began.

“I don’t want to go to the office,” the CFO stated immediately. “Someplace neutral, that would be best.”

Ruth had yet to eat. They settled on Legal Sea Foods, even though it meant switching terminals, as the restaurant had booths suitable for a private place to talk. Wyatt offered to carry the woman’s suitcase, but Ruth declined, marching resiliently forward, as if keeping moving was the secret to keeping composed.

Fifteen minutes later, they were ensconced in a back booth of the dimly lit restaurant. Ruth had parked her suitcase after removing a slender laptop, which she was now firing to life.

She had yet to speak to them, appearing to be on a mission. For now, Tessa and Wyatt were content to wait. They ordered clam chowder. Ruth ordered grilled salmon and a glass of white wine.

Then, the CFO took a deep breath and finally faced them. She had removed her sunglasses. Up close, she was a wreck. Wan skin, bruised eyes, haggard expression. A woman who’d either had the world’s worst vacation, or was taking the news of her boss’s disappearance very hard.

Ruth spoke first: “Anita said they were taken Friday night.”

“Justin Denbe and his family have been missing since Friday night,” Tessa supplied.

“Any word? Contact? Leads?”

“We have received a ransom demand. Nine million dollars, due tomorrow, three P.M.”

Ruth flinched. “Denbe Construction doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“Justin contacted the life insurance company. He’s invoking the risk-of-imminent-death clause.”

“Of course,” Ruth murmured. “Half the life insurance, plus the kidnapping insurance…that makes sense. Will the company pay it?”

“Not our call.”

“They’ll pay it,” Ruth said, almost as if speaking to herself. “They have to pay it. If something happened to Justin…the public fallout, let alone potential legal liability… They’ll pay it.”

Tessa and Wyatt didn’t say anything, just continued to study her.

“So.” The CFO released a pent-up breath, her shoulders coming down. “This is really a kidnapping-for-ransom case. Justin is an obviously wealthy man. Unfortunately, that made him and his family a target.”

Again, Tessa and Wyatt didn’t say anything, just continued to study her.

“It’s just… When I first heard the news, when Anita called… I thought for sure… I mean.” Ruth took another deep breath, then, when that wasn’t enough, a fortifying sip of wine. “I was so scared something worse had happened. That Justin…that maybe, someone had felt a need to hurt him. And I worried… I worried it was my fault.”

The food arrived. A cup of chowder for Tessa, a bowl of chowder for Wyatt, the salmon for Ruth.

Wyatt dug into his chowder. Ruth attempted her own meal, but when she picked up her knife and fork, her hands were shaking too badly. She returned to her glass of wine.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Tessa suggested. “Tell us everything. If you want to help Justin, that would be best.”

“I wasn’t in the Bahamas on vacation,” Ruth stated. “I was there on business. Justin sent me. Someone has been embezzling money from Denbe Construction. I’ve been following the money trail.”

Tessa got out her phone, set up the record app and they got down to business.

In August, Ruth had noticed a minor billing mistake. Numbers on an invoice had been inverted, and instead of paying the vendor twenty-one thousand dollars, accounts payable had cut a check for twelve. Obviously Denbe Construction owed an additional nine thousand dollars; unfortunately, by the time the mistake was discovered, there wasn’t time to release the additional funds before payment deadline.

Ruth had decided to call, personally apologize for the error and assure the vendor that the appropriate check would be placed immediately in the mail. Except when she called the number, it was disconnected. She had then Googled the company’s name for additional information, only to discover that no such company seemed to exist.

To be sure, she’d followed up on the physical address of the listed company, a street address in New Jersey. Further investigation revealed the street address belonged to a UPS store, while the suite number corresponded to a PO box.

Which had told her enough. The address was fake. The phone number fake. The vendor fake. Denbe Construction was being scammed.

Immediately, Ruth had dug deeper. She’d determined that the vendor, DDA, LLC, had sent a total of sixteen bills over the past three years for a total of nearly four hundred thousand dollars. The contractor was attached to a major senior care facility with a total build cost of seventy-five million. Four hundred thousand dollars, spread out over sixteen payments, was relatively small potatoes. The invoices listed miscellaneous finish materials plus installation costs, nothing out of the ordinary for such a project.

Meaning, at first glance, the invoices were logical enough, and the amounts due small enough, not to attract notice or arouse suspicion. But where had DDA, LLC, come from?

Given the number of ongoing construction projects, not to mention the widespread use of subcontractors, new vendors were regularly added into Denbe’s system. Authorized bills arrived with a code in the memo section that attached them to the appropriate build project; generally Chris Lopez, as head of the build team, or even Justin himself, provided the vendor with the code, a stamp of approval. DDA, LLC’s invoices all had the appropriate bill code in the memo section, meaning there was no reason for Ruth or her staff to question the bills.

Now, once a month, Ruth issued a report to both Chris and Justin itemizing all income and expenses associated with the various projects for their review. On the one hand, this should have been an opportunity for one of them to spot the name DDA, LLC, and question it. Then again, the monthly reports often ran half an inch thick, an endless blur of vendor names and subcontractor expenses, starting with checks in the tens of millions of dollars and ending with personal reimbursement requests in the tens of dollars.