“How did you—”
He shook his head, a knowing glint in his eyes. “I might be a few years younger than you, but I can see nevertheless when a woman cries because of a guy.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “And if you want me to beat him up, say the word.”
“That won’t be necessary. He’s in enough trouble already.”
“Well, then good night, sis.”
“Good night, Steve.”
23
Several members of the Eternal Bachelors Club were assembled at Xavier’s brownstone in Gramercy Park in the evening.
“And you had no idea that the antique desk had a false bottom?” Wade asked after Zach had told his friends what had happened at his house in the Hamptons.
“I’ve never looked at it that closely.”
Zach shook his head and gazed at his friends. Besides Xavier and Wade, Hunter and Michael had come. Neither Paul nor Daniel had been able to tear themselves away from what they were doing on such short notice, but both listened in via the speakerphone Xavier had placed on the coffee table. They’d even managed to patch in Jay via a satellite phone on his yacht.
“But the person who placed the bank statements there obviously knew,” Wade said.
“Yes,” Hunter added, “and that person gave the SEC an anonymous tip. Really odd that this person told them exactly where they could find that so-called evidence. Who knew about the desk anyway?”
Zach was about to shrug, when he froze in mid-movement. There was one person who not only knew that he’d purchased the desk at an auction, but also that the desk was in his house in the Hamptons and not his penthouse in Manhattan.
“Emily.”
“Emily Grover?” Jay’s voice came through the speaker phone.
“She wanted to bid on the desk, too, but I beat her to it,” Zach confirmed.
“Wasn’t she at your party in Bridgehampton, after you built the new dock? She could have seen the desk then,” Jay suggested.
“Yes, together with about a hundred other guests,” Hunter confirmed dryly.
Xavier cleared his throat. “But the other hundred guests have no motive to pin something like this on Zach.”
“How about Leech?” Wade asked. “Was he at the party? Or Davenport? They’re on the list of suspects, too. And as I reported, Zach, Leech has money trouble.”
“Neither of the two was at the party.” Zach remembered it well enough. “And I only invited Emily because she found out from somebody who was invited and then claimed that she was gonna be in the Hamptons that weekend anyway. I couldn’t come up with an excuse not to invite her when she cornered me.”
“Then it has to be Emily. She had opportunity,” Jay said.
“Are you trying to tell me she planted those bank statements three months ago?” Zach couldn’t believe that. Emily didn’t have the patience to wait that long for her work to come to fruition. “Even though… only this week she told me she heard rumors that the SEC is investigating me. How would she know that if she wasn’t the one who’s behind it?”
“Exactly,” Jay answered. “Though I don’t think that she planted the fake evidence during that party. She did that later. It’s not like it’s that difficult to break into your house.”
“But the alarm…”
“You’ve got personnel from the village. They know the code and are in your house regularly when you’re not there to clean and do repairs. Emily could have just waited for an opportunity and snuck into the house while the housekeeper was upstairs. All she needed was thirty seconds to put the account statements in the desk. Nobody would have noticed her.”
“Shit!” Zach cursed. “But how are we gonna prove that? I’m sure she didn’t leave fingerprints.”
“We won’t need them,” Xavier said, full of confidence.
Zach lifted an eyebrow. “You have an idea?”
Xavier nodded. “We have to find the person who opened the account at the Inter Commerce and Trade Bank.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“But we already know that. It was some guy named John Miller. Do you know how many John Millers there are in New York alone? And for sure the bank isn’t gonna give us any information about him. Besides, most likely he opened the account using a false ID.”
Xavier grinned. “Well, let’s see then.” He dialed a number on his cell and pressed it to his ear. “Did you know that I helped Chip Fenton out of a predicament once?”