Page 55 of Dark Terror
“In those exact words?” Harry said.
“Yeah. Well, I couldn’t forget about it, not when it could come back to me if it was a phony invoice that had been paid after being in my possession.”
“Meredith, explain to us what you mean by phony invoice.” Gabe had a vague notion of how that worked, but wanted it explained.
“Say someone wants to steal money from a company, usually this is done by an employee. What they do is set up a dummy business and bill the company. With a company our size and the amount of invoices coming in daily, it’s easy to get away with. Anyway, I entered Ace Building Supplies into my computer, and sure enough, a new file had been created for them and the invoice paid. What I didn’t at all like was that my initials were next to ‘paid by.’”
Gabe glanced at Harry, seeing that, like him, she was gettingthe buzz. “Did you ask Sheri about that?”
“Oh, you bet I did. Her answer was to tell me that I’d been promoted to her assistant with a substantial pay raise. I understood I was to drop my questions if I wanted to keep my job. I mean, my choice was no job or one making even more money. I support my mother, who has diabetes and is on insulin. Along with the diabetes, she has some other medical problems. I know it was wrong to turn a blind eye, but when my mother’s life depends on costly doctor’s appointments and her medicines, it was an easy choice to make.”
Gabe wanted a name. “Do you—”
“There’s more. After talking to you guys, I started wondering if there were any other suspicious invoices, so today I went through the files, taking a look at any new accounts in the past year that appeared suspicious. I found eleven more, and together they add up to three hundred and fifty-one thousand in invoices. I didn’t have the time today, but I’m wondering now if I’d find more if I went back even further than the past year.”
“So Sheri was stealing from the company?” Gabe didn’t see how this would help. Since Sheri was dead, she wasn’t the one who had Cara.
“Possibly, but I don’t think so. I don’t think Sheri had the nerve to steal that kind of money. In a lot of ways she was paranoid. One of her biggest fears was losing her job if she ever screwed up. Whenever one of us made a mistake, she’d freak out, yelling that we were going to get her fired.”
Gabe’s buzz intensified. “If not Sheri, who do you think was submitting the fake invoices?” He needed a name, damn it. Someone to go after.
“I don’t want to lose my job.”
He wanted to reach through the phone and pull a name out of her mouth. Harry, apparently sensing he was fast losing his patience, put her hand on his arm.
“Meredith, all we’re doing right now is investigating,” Harry said. “If your suspicion doesn’t pan out, no one will ever know we talked. If it does, then that person will have more to worry about than how we learned who they were.”
“Okay. I think… Are you sure this stays between us?”
Gabe almost growled. Every minute that passed increased the chance of Cara being hurt or worse. Harry squeezed his arm harder.
“Yes. You have my word and Detective Calder’s. Please, we need a name.”
“I think maybe TJ.”
Gabe spun, and leaving Harry to finish the call, he carried Cricket to Connie. “You’re in charge of the dog. After Benjamin and his team finishes, you can put Cricket inside.” Not giving Connie time to protest, Gabe strode to the car. When he went for the driver’s side door, Harry stepped in front of him.
“You’re too hyped up to drive.” She held out her hand.
“Fine.” He dropped the keys onto her palm. “Just go.”
After pulling up Junior’s address, he put it in the GPS. Not surprisingly, the man wasn’t home. They needed to find out where he might have taken Cara, and Gabe prayed they were on the right track. The one person who might know was Troy Sherman Sr., and that was their next stop.
While Harry drove them to Senior’s house, Gabe got their captain on the phone, updating her on the situation and asked her to have SWAT standing by. After disconnecting, he stared out the window. He felt helpless, that he should be doing more to find her, and the thought that she might already be suffering at the hands of a killer was making him crazy.
“What’s going through your mind right now?” Harry said.
He looked at his partner. “That I’m falling in love with her.”
She nodded as if she’d already figured that out. “We’ll find her, Gabe.”
They would, but would they find her in time?
* * *
Cara’s arms hurt, her fingers tingling from the plastic ties binding her wrists together too tightly. The good news, the man hadn’t found the phone she’d stuffed down the back of her panties when he’d tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry to haul her to his car.
After he’d tied her up, he covered her mouth with duct tape and then disappeared. When headlights lit up the room a few minutes later, she realized he’d moved his car closer to Harry’s apartment. She guessed they’d been driving about an hour since he’d tossed her into the front seat with no more care than he would a sack of potatoes and fastened her seat belt. At least he’d ripped off the duct tape after they’d driven away from Harry’s. Her lips were still stinging from that.
