“Can you tell me what day that was? Why were you there?”
She tells him about going into his office every three or four months to sign paperwork and that she had been early that day. She had been a little suspicious of the number of text messages between him and his secretary, but he assured her it was all work related. But what she says next makes me see red.
“He thought he was hiding it from me, but his eye was always wandering, and she was small and gorgeous. He was always telling me to lose weight, especially if I wanted to look good in a wedding dress.” She shakes her head and looks down at the counter while rubbing her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t know why I just told you that, it has nothing to do with why you’re here. I think I’m just nervous.”
Tightening my hand on her hip, I turn my head to her ear. “You’re fucking perfect the way you are.”
Her neck and face flush as her beautiful green eyes meet mine, affection flooding them. I nod my head to drive home what I said.
What kind of worthless fuck picks out a good, honest woman and uses her like that? He knew exactly what he was doing from the start. I’d bet my life that when they met he was looking for a scapegoat and he played on her every emotion and insecurity, not to mention her lack of family.
Continuing his questions, Rhys pulls her attention back to him. “It’s okay, I understand. But, you didn’t think it was odd that you needed to sign banking paperwork every few months?”
Her head dips a little in embarrassment as her gaze moves to the little ring she’s spinning on her finger. I glare at Rhys, but he purposely doesn’t look at me. She clears her throat. “I did atfirst, but he’s a lawyer, and a good one, so the way he explained it made sense.
“The first few times I signed, I scanned the documents,” she looks up to say, “my Grams always told me not to sign anything without reading it first, but they were the same every time and I guess I…” Her head tilts back and she looks at me, “I guess I just trusted him and got lazy.”
“Did you know about these accounts?” Rhys pulls out more pages and slides them across the counter to line them up in front of her. Papers with a lot of zeros on them.
Her eyes scan each one, and her hand slowly covers her mouth. “Oh, my God.” She leans over the counter and starts flipping the pages that are stapled together. “All of this is in my name?” Her glassy eyes flick up to Rhys.
He nods somberly.
“So this is what he had me signing all this time.” Her voice trails off, and her eyes lose focus as she thinks. “But, I read the documents at first. There was a lot of legal jargon, but they were for local bank accounts in our names, and there were some stocks that I signed for, but he told me he was just investing some of our money. Never would I have thought to ask him if what he was doing was illegal.”
She pushes the documents for the offshore accounts that were opened at the very beginning of their relationship toward him, her finger pointing to the name on the top of the page. “This is not the bank I was signing for.” She tells him the name of the bank on the paperwork she signed and that it was the same bank name each time when she would look at the documents before signing.
Rhys is watching her every move, he’s slipped into his FBI role, and I’m getting hot under the collar because I feel like he’s looking for a chink in her story, “I’ll look into that bank and see if accounts were ever opened.”
She’s quiet for a minute as she’s reading and rereading documents, and then she straightens. “How do I fight this? Can I fight this?”
He takes a deep breath and winces. “Your ex and his brother are already under investigation.” He pauses before he continues. “You as well. It would be in your best interest to stay here for the time being, not only for safety but also accessibility, and give your full cooperation.”
Nora crosses her arms over her chest while settling back into my side. “Of course, I want to do whatever I need to do to separate myself from this.” She clears her throat, and her next question almost comes out as a croak. “Is it possible that I could go to jail?”
Rhys flicks his eyes to me, and Nora turns to look up at me, questions in her eyes. “What? Why is he looking at you like that?”
Cupping the side of her head, I pull her close and lower my lips to her ear so the recording can’t pick it up and talk low. “You won’t go to jail, I’ll make sure of it, but as an agent, he can’t hear me say that, and it can’t be recorded or it causes more problems for you.”
Moving my head away just enough so that I can look in her eyes, I lift my eyebrows in question and nod once.
Her eyes volley between mine for a moment before she nods.
Rhys continues talking. “We’re going to do everything we can to avoid that. My first piece of advice would be to get a damn good attorney…”
I cut him off. “I’m already on that. My boss has a guy looking into it already.”
Nora and Rhys look my way simultaneously, Nora in surprise and Rhys in understanding. He nods. “I’ll need to get his name so we can have that for the file.”
“But wait.” Nora interjects, her eyes focused on me. “I can’t afford a lawyer, especially a good one.”
Wishing we were talking about this privately, I say, “We can talk about that later.”
For the next thirty minutes, Rhys talks about processes and asks her more questions. When he gets to the end of his questions, he says, “Can I find you here?”
Nora looks at me as she’s talking to Rhys. “I don’t want to impose.”
Keeping my eyes locked on hers, I respond to him. “She’ll be here with me.”
