Page 54 of The Cinderella Secret
“It will when you get to the center.”
He crunched the ball of candy between his teeth. “Oh. Yeah. There it is. Crickety.” He swallowed.
She put her hand up to her mouth, hiding a smile as her eyes danced. “Would you like some water?” She was standing too close to him and her body sort of curved in his direction. He wondered what it would be like to slide his arms around her waist and kiss along her throat as his fingers traced the swell of her breast under the silk robe.
“Maybe a little,” he said. He cleared his throat, reminding himself that her grandmother was sitting less than fifteen feet away. He felt like he had bungled the entire conversation so far. He was supposed to be polite and formal. None of his behavior had been remotely in the ballpark of formal. Why was he so bad at this?
She went to a buffet table by the wall and poured him a glass of water from a pitcher on a tray. Her robe made a soft slithering noise against the carpet as she walked. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked, handing him the glass.
“It’s case related,” he said, swallowing quickly. “I’m not sure…” He glanced at her grandmother, still watching them and the TV from the other side of the room.
“She’s fairly deaf and doesn’t speak much English,” said Ella taking a step away from him. He felt like he’d missed some sort of moment, but he wasn’t sure how or why.
“I’m relying on your judgement in this,” he said.
“You can,” she said, going back to the table with the sculpture.
“Actually, I’m not really sure…” He suddenly had doubts about this entire enterprise. He thought she was honest. Her team, he wasn’t sure about. But Ella… He wanted to trust her.
She was watching him, with a questioning expression. “Did the police say when we could get access to the DevEntier files at the bank?”
“No,” he shook his head, momentarily diverted from his mission, “they’re locked down for the next couple of weeks while they process the scene. We’ll have to wait.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “Then what is it?”
“Um… OK, I was going over the evidence you submitted last court session.”
She nodded. Her expression remained unchanged.
“It was the DevEntier financial information from 2006.”
She nodded again.
“It contained a Berdahl-Copeland report.”
“Yes? To be expected.”
There were no nervous ticks, no hedging. She really had no idea where he was leading.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I would expect to see it in a quarterly report generated today. But the date was 2006. And,” he took a deep breath, “I thought you might want to retract it before court on Monday.”
She frowned at him, clearly puzzled. “Why would I do that?”
“2006,” he repeated.
“Yes, I checked all of the reports,” she said. “They were all generated around the eleventh of June 2006.”
“Including the Berdahl-Copeland report,” he said.
She stared at him as if trying to fathom what he was talking about. “Yes. Berdahl-Copelands are mandated reports from any corporation with defense contracts. They certify which employees have been vetted for DOD work. They’ve been required since…”
She trailed off, going pale.
“2011,” he finished for her.
She stared at him and her hands lifted up slowly and she began to touch each finger to her thumb in rapid succession as if counting. Her expression became intensely focused, but not on him. He waited for her to speak, but instead, she walked slowly around the room, her fingers still moving rapidly.
“It’s obviously a forgery,” she said.
