Holding the Dream Page 0,85

through it, and took out the thick, leather-bound book. "For backup," she said, opening the book. "Backup's the first rule. Here." She located the page, nearly laughed. "My life in numbers."

Kusack scratched his chin. "You keep that with you."

"I just said it's my life. That's literally true. It's always in my bag."

"Where do you keep your bag - say, during office hours?"

"In my office."

"And you'd carry it around with you. I know my wife never takes two steps without her pocketbook."

"Only if I was leaving the building. Josh." She clutched his hand. "Only if I was leaving the building. Anybody in the firm could have taken the code. Christ, anybody at all." She squeezed her eyes tight. "I should have thought of it before. I just wasn't thinking at all."

"That's still your signature on the forms, Ms. Powell," Kusack reminded her.

"It's a forgery," she snapped and rose to her feet. "You listen to me. Do you think I'd risk everything I worked for, everything I was given, for a lousy seventy-five K? If money was what was important to me, I could have picked up the phone, called my aunt and uncle, called Josh, and they would have given me twice that without a single question. I'm not a thief, and if I were, I sure as hell would cover my tracks better than this. What idiot would use her own code, her own name, leave such a pathetically obvious paper trail?"

"You know, Ms. Powell" - Kusack folded his hands on the table again - "I asked myself that same question. I'll tell you what my take is. The person had to be one of three things: stupid, desperate, or very, very smart."

"I'm very smart."

"That you are, Ms. Powell," Kusack said with a slow nod. "That you are. You're smart enough to know that seventy-five large isn't peanuts. Smart enough to be able to hide it where it couldn't easily be found."

"Detective, my client denies any knowledge of the money in question. The evidence is not just circumstantial but highly questionable. We both know you can't make a case with this, and you've taken up enough of our time."

"I appreciate your cooperation." Kusack tidied the papers and put them back in his file. "Ms. Powell," he continued, as

Josh led her to the door, "one more thing. How'd you break your nose?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your nose," he said with an easy smile. "How'd you break it?"

Baffled, she lifted a hand and rubbed it, felt the familiar angle. "Bottom of the ninth, stretching a double into a three-bagger in a bad imitation of Pete Rose. I cracked it against the fielder's knee."

His teeth flashed. "Safe or out?"

"Safe."

He watched her go, then flipped the file open again and studied the signatures on the forms. Stupid, desperate, or very, very smart, he thought.

Chapter Fourteen

"He doesn't believe me." Reaction set in the minute the door closed behind her. All the anger and righteousness jittered away into fear.

"I'm not so sure of that," Josh murmured and navigated her out of the interviewing area. He could feel her body vibrate through the hand he held to her back. "But what matters is they don't have a case. There isn't enough to take to the DA, and Kusack knows it."

"It does matter." She pressed a hand to her churning stomach. Not the ulcer this time, she hoped. But that was little comfort when the alternative diagnosis was shame and fear. "It matters what he thinks, what Bittle thinks, what everyone thinks. However much I don't want it to, it matters."

"Listen to me." He turned her in the corridor to face him, kept his hands on her shoulders. "You did fine in there. Better than fine. It might not have been the exact route I would have recommended as your attorney, but it was effective. The records in your Filofax open up a whole new area of investigation. Now consider who led you to that."

"You did." When he shook his head, she drew her brows together. Because Josh expected it, she ordered herself to think clearly. "He did. Kusack did. He wanted me to tell him I had the code written down somewhere."

"Somewhere where it could be accessed." Josh's hands gentled on her shoulders. "Now I want you to put this aside. I mean it, Kate," he continued even as she opened her mouth to protest. "Let Kusack do his job, let me do mine. You have people behind you. That's something I don't want you to forget again."

"I'm scared."