“And nothing. That’s it.”
Harry shook his head. “It’s not enough. Some of these people have bodyguards. You were lucky to get away with taking the photos at Jasmine’s party.”
“No one knew what I was doing.”
“Are you sure?”
Ashley bit her bottom lip. “No one said anything.”
Harry crossed his arms. “You’re living in New York, not Bozeman. If you make false accusations about these people, you’ll be run out of town. They’re not going to let a reporter fromThe Daily Timesruin their lives.”
“Someone needs to investigate what’s happening.”
“All I’m saying is to be careful. Keep backups of everything on a cloud storage system. Don’t let your laptop out of your sight and be careful with your emails. Have you been working on this from home?”
Ashley nodded. “And work.”
Harry rubbed his forehead. “As soon as you arrive at your desk, remove anything to do with Jasmine’s story. Send it to a cloud account. I’ll delete the photos off my computer.”
She closed the folder and slipped it into her bag. “I’ll be more careful.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
It was just as well Harry didn’t know about the early breakfast she’d had at Jasmine’s favorite café.
“If something doesn’t feel right, call me straight away.”
“I will.” She gave Harry a quick hug before leaving. “Good luck with the job you’re doing today.”
“Thanks. Remember to be careful.”
Ashley ran down the stairs and out of the building. She needed to get to her desk as fast as possible. What Harry didn’t know was that Jasmine Alfredo hadn’t eaten breakfast on her own this morning. Congressman Welsh had been with her, and from what Ashley had seen, Jasmine didn’t seem happy.
Being careful could wait until tomorrow. Right now, she had a lot of missing money to find.
***
Ashley met Bonnie after work for dinner. In-between working on her next column and finding stories to add to the newspaper, she’d moved all of her files about Jasmine onto another drive. It had taken longer than she thought, but hopefully, it would make it harder for anyone to find the information.
Bonnie pushed her bowl of fries away. “You can’t be serious? Congressman Welsh wouldn’t become involved in anything illegal.”
“It cost more than a million dollars to run his mayoral campaign. He had to find that money from somewhere.”
“That doesn’t mean Jasmine used money from her nonprofit charity to pay for his campaign.”
The door to the diner opened and a group of teenagers walked inside.
“She wasn’t very happy this morning,” Ashley whispered. “What if the congressman took the money from The Foundation’s budget? The accounts have never been audited. Jasmine wouldn’t know until it was too late to do anything about it.”
Bonnie dropped her head into her hands. “Do you know how crazy you sound? Not only are you accusing a congressman of fraud, but you’re telling me that Jasmine is an accomplice.”
“I’ve got proof.”
Bonnie’s eyes widened. She slowly scanned the people sitting close to them. “I’ve watched enough episodes of CSI to know this isn’t a safe place to talk. Let’s go.”
Ashley grabbed her bag. “Where are we going?”
Bonnie pulled Ashley onto the street. “We’re going to your apartment. If we’re mugged or shot on our way there, I’m blaming you.”
