brother’s office. She wished she’d taken the receipts the first time around, but with Eric snooping around, she hadn’t wanted to make him suspicious. She began going through Adam’s drawers. Finding the folder from before, she took out some of the receipts.
Going from oldest to newest, she noticed two things for a vendor supplying their produce: one, that certain food items had increased in price since January and two, that the invoices were all addressed to Jaime.
She frowned. Starting in March, items like apples and flour started increasing in price, going up incrementally each month. By the time she’d gotten to the last invoice, she saw that there’d been an increase of almost twenty-five percent overall. She knew that produce varied in price due to the season, but why would something as basic as flour and sugar be more expensive in August than it would’ve been in February? That made no sense.
She placed that folder on the corner of the desk. She then saw a folder of checks on Adam’s desk and started going through them. She couldn’t find anything amiss there, though, but something niggled in the back of her brain. Going to the copy machine, she made copies of everything before putting it all back where she’d found it. About to log onto his computer, she was sitting at his desk when she heard footsteps.
Immediately, she got up and turned off the light in Adam’s office. She waited and listened, clutching her bag. The footsteps continued and seemed to go past the front desk into the kitchen. Slowly opening the door, Grace looked around. She’d locked the backdoor, so whoever was here must have their own key. Maybe it was Jaime? She kept listening, but she heard nothing more.
She walked toward the exit, making as little noise as possible. When she reached the backdoor, she saw it was unlocked. She turned the knob, and it creaked so loudly on its hinges she swore underneath her breath. But she stepped out and into the cold outside, almost running to her car.
She stopped in her tracks, though, when she saw the car parked next to hers. She’d know that red car anywhere. Eric. Why is Eric here again?
“Funny how we keep running into each other here.”
She whirled. Eric stood in front of her, his head cocked to the side.
Grace tipped her chin up. “I just had to pick something up. What are you doing here?”
“Same thing as you.” He stepped closer. “Although I have a feeling you might have been looking for things that are none of your business.”
Her heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. Don’t get involved where you don’t belong.” He looked up to the sky, then shrugged with a smile on his face. “I can’t guarantee what’ll happen otherwise.”
She watched as Eric got into his car and drove off. She stood there, frozen, her hands shaking. She knew who’d set Jaime up. She’d suspected since the beginning, but this had made it clearer than day. Eric. It was Eric. She didn’t know if she had enough proof, though.
As she drove away, she pulled out her phone and called the one person she knew who could help her get that evidence.
“Kat? Hey, can I come over? I need to talk to you about something.”
Chapter Fourteen
After leaving Grace and returning back to his house, Jaime showered and tried to put things away from the search warrant. Despite the cloud of doom hanging over his head due to this entire investigation, he couldn’t feel completely hopeless, either. As he put away clothes in his drawer, he thought about everything that had happened last night.
Grace, kissing him. Grace, trembling in his arms. Grace, so lovely and wet and tight and amazing. He’d never slept with a virgin, except when he’d been a virgin himself, and he hadn’t known what to expect. He’d been afraid that she’d have a change of heart or even cried, but he should’ve known better. She’d known what she’d wanted and had only faltered for one moment, before she insisted they continue what they had started.
He laughed a little at himself. If anyone had been afraid, it had been him. He’d been afraid he’d hurt her unintentionally. What did he know about women and their first times beyond that it was supposed to be painful and there was blood involved? But in the morning, there had been no bloody sheets or anything that macabre. Simply Grace, sleeping