Page 79 of Bling

“I’ll stay,” Isabelle said quietly. She knew Garrett wouldn’t be happy with her, but he lowered himself back into his chair.

“Your sister has more patience than I do.”

“Izzy always has been the saint of the family.”

“Isabelle,” he said, putting emphasis on her name, “is a wonderful person who loves your children very much. You should be grateful she’s there for them.”

Carmen’s face fell. “I am,” she murmured. “I love my girls. That’s why I can’t talk about what happened. I got fired for something I didn’t do, and it led to some unfortunate circumstances. I have a lot of regrets.”

Isabelle’s heart twisted for her sister and she wished Carmen would open up. She’d already been tried and convicted, but if it turned out there were extenuating circumstances, maybe they could get her released early.

The attorney leaned in and said, “I understand if you don’t want to give names, but if you pointed us somewhere, it would help our investigation. Mr. Gunn has been embezzling funds from Mr. Oliver’s company for a long time now, but we don’t have all the evidence we need. If you can help us, I can go to a judge and work out a deal to shave some time off your sentence.”

“I want to help. But if I say anything, they could come after my girls.”

Garrett leaned forward and picked up Carmen’s hand. “Listen to me. Isabelle means a great deal to me and that means her family is important to me. I can assure you I’m doing everything in my power to keep them safe. They’re all living in a safe house and I have security watching them twenty-four seven.”

Carmen glanced back and forth between Garrett and Isabelle. “Dang, Izzy. I never expected you to fall for a rich boy’s bling. Dad must be pissed.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes. “He’s coping.” She didn’t want to correct her sister in front of Garrett. They hadn’t fallen for each other… had they?

Carmen opened a Danish and bit into it. “You really think you can keep my girls safe?” she asked, eyeing Garrett with concern in her eyes.

He nodded, his expression grim. “I promise you, Carmen. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Tell that to Helen Peters,” she murmured.

“Who is Helen Peters?” Isabelle asked.

“Someone else who took the fall for stealing money at the warehouse. She’s dead now.”

Isabelle’s stomach lurched and she clutched at her abdomen.

“What do you mean, she’s dead?”

Garrett reached for her hand. “I just found out about her myself. It’s one thing I’m going to have Jax look into.”

“Fuck,” Isabelle whispered.

“Tell me how you were fired,” Garrett said, still holding Isabelle’s hand.

Carmen looked down at her lap. “I actually stumbled into a conversation I shouldn’t have. I think that’s why I became his fall guy. I was training to work in the office when I walked in on Mr. Gunn having some kind of phone conversation. I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the call, but they were discussing what to do about red flags in the books. The mystery voice told him to find someone else to fire. Darren said he’d already done that once and didn’t know if he could get away with it again. I remember Helen Peters getting fired unexpectedly, so I started asking about her. That’s when I found out she died. But before she died, she was facing criminal charges that would have put her in prison.”

“Like you,” Isabelle murmured.

Beside her, she could sense Garrett’s anger. If what her sister was saying were true, Darren wasn’t running things. He was simply a puppet for someone else.

“So how does any of this put the girls in danger?” Isabelle asked.

“That’s not something I’m ready to talk about. You come in here and just expect me to spill my guts to two strangers. That’s hardly fair, Izzy.”

They had kind of ambushed her.

“I will say one more thing. When Uncle Henry told me you and some of the other family got fired, I really thought it was someone sending me a message that they can still hurt my family.”

“OK, Carmen. We’ll let it rest for now. You’ve given me some things to look into. We would like to come back, though, and see about having a longer conversation,” Garrett said.

“Fine.” She popped the top on a can of soda and opened a bag of chips, the last of her snacks.

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