Hot as Hell (12 page)

Gray had the entire scenario all wrong. She really could not blame him, since she never shared the problem with him. She believed she could resolve it and present it to Gray as a done deal. That doing so might make it easier to accept his best friend’s criminal role.

“Only a guy could think something so lame could work,” she said.

Noah shrugged. “It did work.”

“It did not.” Taking on one of them was bad enough. Two was proving impossible, so she centered her attention on the idiot who was biologically related to her. “And why do you think I’m worrying?”

Noah and Gray shared a she’s-lost-her-mind-so-tread-carefully glance before Gray finally answered her. “Because you gave back the ring. If you’re not worried, what’s the problem?”

Noah rubbed his hands together. “Good question. Care to answer that, Lexy?”

“According to you, we still are getting married.”

A smile broke across Noah’s face. “Then we don’t have a problem. We’re in agreement and can set a date.”

“In your dreams.”

“Actually, yes.”

The firm tone of his voice stopped her for a second. Noah never doubted her or them. Despite the arguments, the differences in their backgrounds, and the baggage she dragged behind her into a relationship, he did not waver. He was rock solid in that respect. If he hadn’t been, she would have left the relationship long before she did.

Gray squeezed her hand. “Noah took off work, which is a miracle, and came here to find you. You’re sharing a room—one that could use a round or two of maid service, by the way—and you obviously still love him. What’s the problem?”

Obviously
? She would trade her soul for the ability to act aloof and feel nothing for Noah.

“We’re sleeping together. That’s it.”

Noah coughed over whatever he said next and Lexy did not ask for a repeat.

“I thought you were here on vacation,” Gray said.

“I was. Am…”

“No, she’s not. She’s snooping and hiding something. She brought my stolen papers along for a reason.”

“Stolen?” She let go of Gray’s hand. “It’s clear the sun has scorched Noah’s brain.”

“That’s possible, but I’m still right about this.” Noah got up and walked over to the open closet.

Gray watched with a blank look on his face. “What’s he doing?”

“Who knows?” But she had an idea. She saw the room safe earlier. Even tried to pry the thing open with one of those free resort pens after several tries at guessing at the combination failed.

Noah faced them with a fistful of papers. “Want to talk now?”

Lexy made a grab for the stack of papers she knew were hers, but Noah held them out of her reach. “Not gonna happen, sunshine.”

“What are those?” Gray asked.

“Private. Noah, hand them over.”

Gray threw his hands up in the air. “I’m lost.”

“Lexy came here on a project of her own. Something to do with Henderson.” Noah never broke eye contact with her. “Am I right?”

“Why ask me when you think you know everything?”

“She made some connection between our business and Henderson. She thinks there’s a connection with me as well.” Noah talked over her when she tried to object.

“There is no way you and Henderson being here at the same time is a coincidence.”

Gray’s eyebrow lifted in question. “Is that true?”

“Ask your best friend here. He’s the one with the papers.”

“I haven’t read them.” Noah glanced down at the papers. “But I do wonder what we’ll learn when we do.”

There was no ability to hide anymore. Henderson was dead and she was no closer to figuring out Noah’s role in the theft. And from the determined looks on Noah and Gray’s faces, she knew they were not going to let the subject drop.

“Alexa?”

“I came here to investigate Noah.”

Shock registered on Noah’s face. “Me?”

“You’re on the verge of being arrested.” She sat on the desk this time. “Or, should I say, arrested again?”

N
oah stood there, papers in hand, with his mind wiped clean of any rational comeback. He waited for Lexy’s comment to make sense. When that failed, he tried yelling. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do not speak to me like that.”

So that didn’t work
. Noah got the message. Hard not to, since the fury thrummed off her, and she was not making any attempt to hide it. Never did.

He inhaled, using all of his strength to grab on to his last strings of patience, and tried again. This time he aimed for a softer tone. One less likely to incur her wrath. “Tell me what you’re saying.”

“You’ve either done a very bad thing, or you’re being framed. A few days ago I thought it was the former.”

“Now?”

Her gaze darted around the room. Everywhere but at him. “I’m not so sure.”

Her sudden turn threw him off stride. The explanation raised more questions and did not provide a single answer.

Noah glanced at Gray. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“Is it because he has a near-perfect shot and a history of hitting his targets?” Gray asked. “If so, I’d think someone would have come looking for him years ago.”

“Can we get back to the subject?” Noah asked because he honestly did not know what else to say to usher in a moment of rational thinking.

Lexy rolled her eyes. “Noah’s big gun is not the issue.”

“Back up and explain why you think I have anything to do with Henderson’s murder,” Noah said.

She frowned. “I never said that.”

“You did.” Noah looked to Gray for confirmation. “Didn’t she? Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

Lexy answered before Gray could jump in. “This isn’t about Henderson.”

“Hell. Is someone else dead?” Gray shook his head.

“This isn’t about murder. This is about stolen information and a security system that failed when it shouldn’t have. I’ll show you.” She grabbed the papers out of Noah’s hand.

Easy to do since he was stuck in a comatose state. Nothing she said made any sense. Stolen information. A dead guy. He knew the definitions of all of those words, but he could not make any of them fit together in a logical way.

“Look, here.” She pointed at an e-mail message. “Our client, Scanlon Industries, was a victim of a break-in. A physical one, followed by a cyber one. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing.”

Noah knew the name without being told. Scanlon was not just
a
client. It was one of the firm’s biggest clients. Lots of money. Lots of prestige. All sorts of government contracts for mechanical parts needed by the military with security provided by Noah and his team.

“What does any of this have to do with Noah?” Gray asked.

Noah did not need a road map. He saw the answer right in front of him. “Someone set me up as the thief.”

Lexy threw him a satisfied smile. “Or you are the thief.”

“Why would I hurt a company of which I already own a substantial percentage?”

“Happens all the time in business,” Gray said.

“Do me a favor and don’t help.”

“I have no idea why you do anything, Noah.” She hesitated for a second. “Maybe if I knew more about your past I could answer that.”

Her lack of faith stabbed at him. Jabbed him right in the dead center of his chest until he felt as if one of his lungs had deflated. “You think I’m a convicted felon now.”

She waved him off. “I know you’re not.”

Of course not. She knew because she’d checked. His disappointment morphed into fury. “So you were the one who investigated my past. You lied to me.”

Gray scowled. “What the hell is up with that, Alexa?”

“The recent check. The cursory one.”

“Is that supposed to make it better?” Noah asked.

“I was trying to figure out if you were the one behind the stealing. It’s serious business. I didn’t have a choice.”

She acted as if that made her behavior better. “But I’m the only one in the company you bothered to investigate.”

“Getting past the intricate security system at Scanlon and into the building was nearly impossible. But someone did and then got a look at private financial paperwork and started moving funds around.”

“What happened when the building’s alarm went off?” Gray asked.

“It didn’t,” she said.

Noah experienced the first
ah-ha
moment of his life. Someone broke into his system, to one he took months to install, got around it, and the suspicion now fell on him. If he owned Scanlon, he’d place the blame on the security expert as well.

“I don’t get any of this.” Gray stood up and paced to the window. “Someone is blaming Noah for a break-in?”

Lexy slowly shook her head. “Noah is the most likely culprit. The system is one we insisted was impenetrable when we sold it. It’s personally designed.”

“By me,” Noah said.

“Exactly.”

Gray slammed his hand against the window ledge. “Blaming Noah is a fucking insult. He would never do something like this.”

Noah appreciated the support. Good to know someone in the Stuart clan believed in him. Noah just always expected that person would be Lexy.

Despite the force of that emotional hit, he knew another one was coming. Her story felt unfinished. The police never contacted him. No one at Scanlon complained. Something deeper and more complex was at work here.

Lexy knew what was going on. Noah planned to know before the next all-green meal hit the dining hall table.

“And?” Noah heard his voice waver from the anger running through it.

“There’s more?” Gray’s voice raised a decibel.

“There’s more,” Lexy added in a soft tone.

This was one time Noah hated to be right. “You’ve gone this far. Don’t stop now.”

She shuffled through her papers until she came upon a computer printout. She held it out to him as if seeing the document explained everything. It didn’t. Noah stared at the lines and lines of babble. He was computer savvy, but hardly an expert. He depended on Dex for help with that part of the systems.

“What exactly am I looking at?”

“The cyber footprint leads back to you. If that’s not bad enough, one of the accounts into which the stolen funds were deposited is registered in your name. Well, in a bunch of fake names that eventually go back to you.” She held the papers closer to his face. “See?”

Gray peeked over his sister’s shoulder. Whatever he saw on the documents made his face tense with anger. “You can’t possibly think Noah stole money.”

Lexy tugged the papers back when Gray tried to take them. “Some proprietary information is missing as well. The Scanlon execs are most worried about that development. Since Scanlon deals in military components, the long-term implications are huge.”

Noah understood how it all unfolded. Lexy’s role remained unclear. “You didn’t say whether or not you thought I did all of this.”

“Of course she doesn’t.” Gray looked at both of them. “Right?”

“I did. This fell right as I learned about Karen.” She turned to Noah. “When you refused to talk about anything.”

Noah felt the emotional hit down to his feet. “So you decided that I hid something far worse than an ex-wife.”

“Yes.”

“You took it upon yourself to bring me down. It explains the access and document issues. You were pushing me out while you gathered the evidence.” The words scraped against his throat. “Was the plan to hold a board meeting and present your findings? Make some big scene to get your female revenge for Karen?”

He could see it in her eyes. He got a few parts wrong, but he nailed most of it. She wanted to expose him. Ruin him.

She took a step toward him. “This was never about your wife.”

“Ex,” he said without thinking.

“And you didn’t let me finish what I was saying.”

He rubbed his temples in the hope of ending the knocking sound echoing in his brain. “I’m not sure how much more I can take.”

“I did believe it because I was hurt and frustrated.”

“Welcome to the fucking club,” he muttered under his breath.

“Noah, I’m sure she didn’t mean—”

“But I don’t anymore,” she whispered the last piece of information.

The invisible hammer pounding into the top of his head and nailing him in place eased up. “No?”

“No.”

His raw nerves kept snapping. “Why the change?”

“You have a lot of issues—loads of them—” She snorted as if she thought her comment needed emphasis. “But stealing for the sake of the thrill of it is not one of them.”

Not the most flattering defense, but it was something. “Okay.”

But Lexy was not done. She kept talking as if she was realizing the truth of her statements as she said them. “After all, you have money. You’re known in the community.”

He did not want to hear anything else. He doubted her reasoning would make him very happy. “I said, okay.”

For some reason, the subject made her chatty gene take over. “If you wanted to steal or needed to, you would be smart enough not to get caught and risk everything you’ve accomplished.”

“You’ve made your point.” She made it several minutes ago, but for some reason kept right on going.

“You certainly would not steal from a company and leave a direct line right back to your doorstep. You’re not
that
dumb.”

Even Gray was staring at her now.

“Feel free to stop defending me.” Much more of this and Detective Sommerville would have more than a murder charge on her mind.

Lexy’s mouth clamped shut…but only for a second. “I was being supportive.”

“You were engaging in a case of overkill,” Gray said. “I’m guessing that was guilt talking.”

Noah was grateful that his friend stepped in. Lexy did not look as if she was in the mood for a lecture from a fiancé she pretended was an ex. And they had much more material to cover before he could let this subject drop. “How did you get involved in all of this?”

What Noah really wanted to know was why no one bothered to confront him with all of these suspicions. He dealt directly with Scanlon on the security project. He had the relationship. If someone there had a problem, he should have gone to the source and not crawled behind his back to his girl.

“The Scanlon VP, Frank Wallace, and I are friends,” she said.

Jealous jumped up and bit Noah. He knew Frank. The guy was fifty-ish, savvy, and
married
. “What does that mean?”

Gray chuckled. “Down boy.”

“Simple. It means we’ve known each other for years.” She held up a hand. “Because of our history—and not that kind of history, so back off—he contacted me with the banking info and the tracing Scanlon’s internal tech folks did.”

“I still don’t—”

“He knows our family and has been with the firm for years. Basically, he was looking for a reasonable explanation for what happened. At first, he hoped the whole thing was a fake security test.”

Noah still did not like how the entire scenario unfolded. “So he contacted you and not me.”

“Think with your head. Why would he call up the guy he thinks stole from him?” Gray asked.

Lexy nodded. “Right, and he asked me to investigate on my end and see if I could dig up anything. He was also concerned that I had hooked up with a professional con man.”

A red-hot flush ripped through Noah’s body. No one ever questioned his integrity. He never expected it, certainly not from the woman he intended to marry.

“So you investigated me.”

“The only thing I looked into was your whereabouts at the time of the incident, some financial stuff to see if the money showed up anywhere, and all of our records on the Scanlon job. Nothing about your work history or background prior to coming to work for us. I had everyone else investigated on a lesser level as well.”

“Everyone?” Noah stared at Gray when he asked the question.

“I think he’s asking if you’re including me in that pile of people.” Gray smiled at the idea. Clearly he thought he was immune to suspicion.

Lexy smacked her lips together then answered. “Everyone.”

Gray was not laughing now. “What?”

“Employees, trainees, and everyone working on any project, no matter how tangentially related. I looked into all of it, tracked down everyone’s potential motives and actual locations.”

The risk she took ticked Noah off. “Since when are you a member of the police?”

She was no more in the mood to back down now than she was at the beginning of the conversation. The ways her voice rose and cheeks puffed out proved that. “I had a fiduciary responsibility to the company.”

But not to him. That was the unspoken fact zipping around the room.

Noah now understood why she did not have the time to work on the firm’s PR project. Lexy had been a very busy lady. Unfortunately all of those projects put her close to danger.

“I would have thought at some point you would have confided in me. I think you owed me that.” She owed him more than that. Apparently loyalty and trust meant nothing to her.

“Frank confided in me. Keeping you in the dark was part of the deal. Since we were no longer together—”

“You would be wise not to bring up that topic again.”

“I was the perfect person to look into this.”

Gray continued to glance back and forth between them like a guy watching a tennis match. “And?”

“And when I traced back all of the people involved with the firm or who had access to firm resources during that time, Henderson’s name popped up.”

“In what way?” Noah asked.

“He was at the firm for training. He stayed on to do some computer work and analysis with us. I came here to find him.”

“I never saw him,” Gray said.

“Me, either,” Noah answered at the same time.

“What were you going to do when you came face-to-face with him? Knock him down and nag him until he confessed?” Gray asked with as much sarcasm in his voice as Noah had ever heard.

Good question
. She acted as if she believed she was safe from violence. Finding a dead guy on her floor should have clued her in to the reality. Apparently not.

Lexy clenched the papers to her chest. “I planned to follow him, maybe check his room, and eventually confront him.”