Thirteen
Patrick
“Can they legally dothat?”Julie asked as we sat on the couch at the inn, filling her and Gage in on what was happening.
“We looked it up, and online it says that they can enter the house without our permission if they have a search warrant, which he said they did,” Poppy answered.
“Are they going to find anything incriminating against you in the house?”Gage asked, studying Poppy with a look I wanted to smack off his face.She’d been through a lot already; she didn’t need his judgmental attitude on top of everything else.
“No.I don’t think so,” Poppy answered.“I mean, it’s public record that I did time for embezzlement.They’re going to find that out the second they pull up my information.But I left that life behind when I moved to Coyote Creek to start over.There shouldn’t be anything in the house that could make me look bad, unless Dale had something to do with it.”
“Setting up an offshore account with you as the sole beneficiary definitely doesn’t look good,” Gage replied, his attitude softening some.
“I know.Unfortunately, I have no idea what that account is for or why he listed me as the beneficiary.I’ve spent the majority of my time trying to figure out how to divorce him, not get to know him.It wasn’t like we were madly in love, and he wanted to make sure I was taken care of if anything ever happened to him.”
“This whole thing sounds fishy,” Julie said, scrunching her nose.
“I agree.But, this could work in our favor,” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.
“How so?”Gage asked.
“Maybe it wasn’t coincidental that you guys met in Vegas.What if he searched you out?Not only that, but he’s apparently involved in something illegal with that offshore account.Who’s to say that they’ll even suspect Poppy of murdering him?If he was in with the wrong people, his death could be considered an act of retaliation for messing something up.”
“I guess there’s nothing we can do right now other than wait and see what happens,” Poppy said, looking defeated and scared.
I leaned back and wrapped my arm around her shoulders as I pulled her into my side and kissed her temple.It took a split second for me to realize what I had just done in front of her cousin.I felt Poppy relax in my arms, but that was quickly replaced when her body went rigid the moment Gage spoke.
“I fucking knew it,” he muttered, shaking his head as he stared at us.“It hasn’t even been aweek,and you couldn’t keep your dick in your fucking pants.”
