Ninja Soccer Moms (3 page)

“That happens to you a lot.”

Blaine snorted.

I turned to glare at my assistant, but he busied himself rearranging the clipboard interview sheets we used for new clients. Looking back at Gabe, I gave in and told him the whole story.

His gaze riveted on me while one hand rubbed a bare shoulder. “You want to do this, babe?”

“Yes.”

“All right. But you report to me, got it? If this guy really is embezzling, he could be dangerous. You be careful.”

That easy? It took my breath away how much Gabe believed in me. “Okay. But Gabe, I've known Chad for years. He's not dangerous.”

“You weren't looking for anything that might threaten him then, Sam. Now you are.”

Touché. “I see your point. Okay, I'll be careful.”

His mouth curved, and he lifted a hand off my shoulder to touch my hair. “So that's whipped cream in your hair, huh? Only you could make it look sexy.” He leaned down and kissed me. “Later.”

I stood there watching him walk out of Heart Mates and to his truck where his mother waited. Did his mother know that I was five years older than Gabe, and had two sons? What would she think of that? And worse, what the heck was a thirty-something professional woman doing worrying about what her boyfriend's mother thinks?

“Boss, you have a client waiting.”

I turned and looked at Blaine. “Right. I just have to make a quick call.” I ran into my office and picked up the phone. While dialing Janie's phone number, I searched the top of my desk and found Roxy's file.

“Hello?”

“Janie, it's good you're home. I went to Chad's office and got the disk. When would be a good time to take a look at it?”

“You did it? Okay, well, I have to run back to work now, but how about after school? I'll get Mark and Kelly to their practices, then come by your house at four-thirty. How's that?”

“Four-thirty at my house is fine. See you then.” I hung up and rushed back out to the reception room.

Blaine held out two filled coffee cups and a couple of packages of fake sweetener for Roxy. “What are you going to do about Roxanne?”

I took a sip of one of the coffees and pulled my thoughts together. Roxy was a full-sized beauty. A couple of years ago she got tired of the whole diet thing. She made herself over with regular workouts, a good haircut, nice makeup, and new clothes, then sent her portfolio into some agents. She now had a blossoming career as a model. But I was worried about her. Roxy was desperately seeking love. She was a successful, intelligent woman, as well as beautiful, but she was looking for something in a man that I couldn't pin down. It frustrated me.

Every date was a disaster that left her devastated. But her professional life was flawless.

I said, “I'll talk to her. She keeps picking pretty boys who want to date a model and show off.”

Since my hands were full of the coffee cups and Roxy's file, Blaine silently opened the door for me. I went in, determined to help Roxy see that she didn't have to prove anything to the town by dating good-looking shallow guys.

Roxy was bent over a photo album. She looked up, her eyes shining. “Sam! How about this guy? He's into sushi, designer clothes, and upscale restaurants.”

I set down the coffees and file, and looked at the still shot picture. A groan choked up my throat. Damn, another pretty boy. “Roxy,” I sat down and pushed her coffee and the sweeteners toward her. “Tell me what happened last night.”

She picked up the sweetener and tore it open. “At first it was fine. We had a nice dinner and went to play miniature golf. He kept looking around, but I didn't think too much of it until he practically jumped on me.”

I groaned.

She stirred the sugar in her coffee and wiped fresh tears away. “It turns out his friends bet him that he couldn't get a date with me. They were waiting at the end of the golf course for him to prove he could bag the fat model.”

“Dammit.” I concentrated on making notes on Roxy's file while fighting the raw anger rushing through me. The guy from last night was going to be removed from our list. I put down my pen and took Roxy's hand. “I'm so sorry, Roxy. You deserve better than that.” I took a breath. “You know, Roxy, finding a man isn't like finding your career.”

She smiled. “You mean I'm too aggressive?”

I shook my head. “God, no. I mean that you are a goal-oriented person, which works well in your professional life. But in love, it doesn't work that way. You can't just set a goal of finding a man who is compatible with you and expect it to happen on schedule. And you have to factor in your rising visibility from your modeling career.”

She looked up. “Sam, that's why I chose to come to your dating service. I don't want anything to do with the users that LA breeds. I want to find someone to share my life with. Someone who will stay with me for the long haul.”

“I know.” Roxy never knew who her father was—we both had that in common. Then her mom had died when she was ten and she came to Lake Elsinore to live with her Uncle Duncan. Duncan adored Roxy, but her childhood had left its mark. I couldn't grasp why she gravitated to the upscale pretty boys. What was it? I kept trying to lead her to the solid men that would give her the love and security she wanted. “Look Roxy, why don't you let Blaine and me run some profiles while you take a break from dating, okay?”

Roxy looked back down at the photo album. “What about this Kevin? He looks smart, and he's a financial consultant.”

He looked like he should be on a billboard for Calvin Klein underwear. “Roxy, a financial consultant might have ulterior motives with you. You make a lot of money now. Besides, it says here that he drives limos, too. I don't think the financial consultant thing is working out.” I sure as hell wouldn't take financial advice from someone who drove limos.

Roxy's beautiful eyes sharpened. “Sam, you know better than that. I have an agent and financial advisors.”

True. Roxy was sharp in her career. She was professional and never broke down in tears while on a shoot. It was her personal life that cut her to the heart. I didn't think this was the man for her. In my opinion, Kevin was a nice guy who simply lacked enough success of his own and emotional maturity to handle Roxy's success.

“Can you just see if he's interested in a date, Sam? I only have a week before my next shoot.”

I sighed. “All right, I'll call him. When do you want to meet him?”

She smiled. “Tonight.”

 

 

Blaine and I closed up the office a little after four. We had snagged Roxy a date for drinks with Kevin tonight and worked at redesigning Roxy's profile to run a new set of matches.

I waved at Blaine and got in my car, hoping he wouldn't do anything stupid. I'd seen the dark look in his normally placid brown eyes when I'd told him of Roxy's experience with her date last night.

By the time I got home, I was tired. Pulling into the dirt road at exactly four-thirty, I saw Janie's car parked next to Grandpa's Jeep. I had hoped for a few minutes to change clothes and settle down.

I walked through the empty living room to the small dining room, which was nestled into the corner at a right angle to the long kitchen. Grandpa and Janie were at the table drinking iced tea. I put my purse down. “Hi, Janie, sorry I'm late.” I turned to Grandpa and kissed his balding head. “Hi, Grandpa. Where are the boys?”

He waved to the sliding glass window. “Playing with Ali.”

I looked out to the backyard to see the boys and our big German shepherd. TJ and Joel were playing keep-away with Ali's tennis ball on the big round trampoline. Ali apparently thought this was a terrific game.

Grandpa got up. “Want some iced tea, Sam?” He moved into the kitchen. “Janie was telling me that she's hired you.”

“I'd love some iced tea.” I pulled out a chair and sat down, then watched Grandpa get down a glass and open the fridge to pull out the tea. It didn't surprise me that he'd gotten Janie to tell him what she was doing. Grandpa was a retired magician, a pro at getting people to do or believe what he wished them to.

Since retiring, he'd turned into a big gossip and an Internet junkie. The boys and I adored him. We'd moved in with Grandpa after Trent died and we'd found out we were broke.

Janie got my attention. “Sam, weren't you wearing another shirt this morning?”

I looked down at my camisole. I'd been so busy today that I'd forgotten about it. “Yes, I had a little accident.” Standing up, I dug through my purse and found the disk. “Here's the disk of the SCOLE books. Let me go change and we'll take a look at it.” I put the disk down on the table and hurried to my bedroom.

I traded my skirt for a pair of jeans, added a black sweater over the camisole, and dragged a quick brush through my hair. Then I rushed back out to the dining room.

Grandpa was at his computer on the big rolltop desk right next to the dining room table. Janie had pulled up a chair next to him. They had already opened up the disk.

Leaning over Janie at the computer, I saw the same files I'd seen at Chad's office. “So? Are you finding anything?”

Janie pulled a calculator out of her purse and swiftly started adding up columns.

Finally, she sighed and sat back in the chair. Her shoulders slumped beneath her pink sweatshirt. “It's all there.”

Frowning, I stared at the computer over her shoulder. Disappointment warred with relief. I wanted to get this right. On the one hand, being involved in exposing the hero soccer coach as an embezzler was not going to make me the best-loved businesswoman in town. On the other hand, if Chad really was embezzling, he deserved to be exposed. But Janie had seemed so certain. And watching her work the numbers in the SCOLE files, I believed she knew what she was doing. “You sure? I mean, you seemed so certain Chad was embezzling.”

Janie looked over her shoulder at me. “I'm sure it's all correct in the books, but I don't know if the money that's supposed to be in the bank account actually is. Chad can write down anything he wants in the books. But is the money shown in the books really in the bank? No one ever questions Chad, you know.”

Two things struck me at once. First, she was right—the money could be missing from the actual account. I hadn't thought of that. But the last comment struck me deeper.
No one ever questions Chad.

Including Janie? Was Janie scared? Is that why she had come to me? Was Janie telling me the whole truth? Gabe had told me once that clients tended to only tell us what they think we needed to know. I'd learned the hard way that secrets can be dangerous. I sure didn't know anything about getting bank records. “Uh, Janie do you know if anyone else is on the account? Maybe someone we can trust?”

She shook her head, her gaze on the computer screen. “No, I think it's just Chad.”

“But that's—”

She turned her head, looking over her shoulder at me. “No one questions him, Sam. He's the hero coach.”

Jeez. “Okay, let me talk to Gabe. He might know a way to find out how much money is in the bank account.” I didn't know what else to do. And Gabe had warned me to report to him. I wasn't about to try messing with a bank.

Grandpa broke in, “I could find out for you.”

“No!” I said immediately. Grandpa belonged to a group called the Multinational Magic Makers, or the Triple M for short. They were a worldwide network of magicians, and through them, Grandpa often got access to inaccessible places.

Bent over the keys, he typed with amazing speed. Years of magic had kept his fingers limber. “I bet I can get in there within a few minutes.”

“Grandpa! That's probably like a federal offense! The Secret Service once raided a school for making counterfeit money! Do you want to go to prison?”

He laughed. “No prison could hold me, Sammy! I can escape from anywhere.”

God, Gabe would kill me. I was supposed to be conducting this investigation under his direction. Not breaking into bank records via the Internet.

“Got it!” Grandpa said. “All I need now is the account number.”

Janie pointed to the account number she'd written down on the pad of paper and Grandpa typed it in.

We all waited, leaning forward to watch the screen. The account popped open.

“Well lookie here,” Grandpa said.

We all stared at the balance for the SCOLE account.

Janie grabbed the calculator and did the math. Then she looked up at me. “There's sixteen thousand dollars missing!”

D
ang, I was getting pretty good at this PI stuff. “Janie, I think we have him.” We had proof that sixteen thousand dollars was missing from the SCOLE account, and Chad was the only one with access to that account.

Janie kept staring at the computer. She shook her head. “He was sure no one would check. Sure that he'd get away with it.”

I looked down at her. Janie had reason to be bitter. While we had both been soccer moms, the difference between us was that Janie truly liked what she was doing. She enjoyed the organizing behind the scenes.

I hid there from a bad marriage. Somehow I thought I could make up to my sons for a dad that was never around by being a supermom.

Once I faced up to reality, I had fled the soccer-mom life without a look back. But for Janie, having that life ripped away from her had really hurt her. I knew how much of the real work Janie did behind the scenes, and when she was thrown out of soccer, Chad had simply found others to do the work and still make him look good. Then he stole money. And no one knew, or if they knew, they didn't care just as long as he kept bringing home the championships.

“Sam,” Grandpa broke in, “you can't exactly walk into the police station with your stolen disk and hacked-in bank account.”

“We could take it to the newspapers,” Janie suggested.

We wouldn't have to tell them where we got the information. Still, I made a face at the idea of going to the papers. So far, my experience with the press hadn't been real encouraging. But I did know a certain cop I could probably take this to. He would get the right people on it. “I have an idea.”

Grandpa picked the papers he had printed out of the tray and looked at me. “Vance?”

I smiled. Detective Logan Vance and I had a past. We tangled over another murder in town, but once I discovered Vance's secret life, which he didn't want any of his fellow cops to know about, I managed to get more cooperation from him. Vance didn't exactly like me, but he would listen.

Or shoot me.

But I was betting I could get him to listen and get an investigation started on Chad. “I'll stop by the station tomorrow morning and talk to him. I'll tell him that a client of mine has information that Chad Tuggle is embezzling from SCOLE.”

“Really?” Janie brushed her hair off her face, her hazel eyes brightening with hope.

Nodding, I said, “I'll call Gabe and clear it with him tonight. Then after I see Vance in the morning, I'll call you, Janie. All right?”

“Thank you, Sam. Thank you for believing me.” Janie stood, her face shifting into seriousness. “And Sam, be careful. Stay away from Chad, all right?”

A warning tickled the back of my throat and skittered down my spine. Gabe had warned me to be careful, too. But I knew Chad. I looked out the sliding glass door to where the boys were playing with Ali, then back to Janie. “Do you think Chad's dangerous?”

She took a breath. “Probably not. But he's just so sure he can do anything and get away with it.”

Fair enough. I nodded and walked Janie to her car. When I came back inside, the kids were coming in the sliding glass door from the backyard.

“Mom, what was Janie doing here?” Joel bounced in with the gawky energy of twelve-year-olds who were all arms and legs.

TJ strolled in with Ali. “I told you, Mom's on a case.” At fourteen, TJ pretty much knew everything. Then his handsome face tightened. “Ugh, Janie wasn't here for your dating service, was she?”

“Dating services are for losers,” Joel announced. “Being a PI is much better. Gabe is mega cool.”

Speaking of Gabe, I headed for the phone to call him about Janie's case. “TJ, what makes you think I'm on a case?”

TJ leaned his tall, slender frame back against the counter. “ 'Cause you were all huddled with Grandpa on the computer.”

I smiled at my smart son. “Pretty observant, TJ.” Picking up the phone to call Gabe, I spotted Ali with her slim German shepherd nose pressed into the seam of the refrigerator.

“Some guard dog you are, you big lush.” Gabe had brought Ali to us when we were being threatened a while back. Turns out she'd been tossed out of the police dog program for stealing beer. She'd also saved my life more than once. We all adored her.

Ali barked.

“Later, Ali.” I dialed Gabe's number while trying to think up something resembling dinner in my mind. “How about grilled cheese for dinner?”

Joel looked up from the bag of potato chips he had his hand in. “With fried potatoes? The kind Grandpa makes?”

Grandpa shut down his computer. “Joel, you wash the potatoes and I'll slice them.”

Gabe's phone rang four times in my ear, and then the answering machine picked up. I wondered where he was. “Hey, it's me,” I said into his machine. Then I did a quick outline of finding the money missing from the soccer account and told him I was going to see Vance in the morning to get an investigation started. Hanging up, I stared at the phone for a minute. Had he taken his mother somewhere?

And what did his mother think of me?

 

 

The morning brought rain. Fat drops beat down on the windshield of my T-bird as I headed to the sheriff's station on my way to work. Gabe hadn't called me back last night, which probably meant he was okay with what I was doing.

At least, that was the theory I was going with this morning.

To the beat of the rain, I planned what I'd say to Detective Vance. Something like,
I have a client with direct knowledge of Chad Tuggle embezzling from SCOLE.
Yeah, that sounded . . . I snapped my head around to look through the rain at the doughnut shop on the edge of the Stater Bros. shopping center.

There was a green Ford Taurus covered in antennas. Detective Vance's car.

I pulled the T-bird into the double-yellow center divider and put my left blinker on. Vance was at the doughnut shop. This would be so much easier than trying to get him at the sheriff's station. When the traffic cleared, I turned in and parked my car next to the green Taurus.

I got out, pulled the hood of my long black raincoat up, and dashed for the door. Inside the doughnut shop was warm and yeasty.

Vance sat at the four-topped table made with twin rectangles hooked together and four chairs set into the unit. He had his little red notebook in front of him and a tired frown on his face.

When he looked up and saw me, his frown deepened. “Shaw. Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse.”

Not exactly the opening I was hoping for. “Morning, Vance. What are you doing here?” He had a large coffee but no doughnuts.

“It's a doughnut shop, I'm a cop. Where else would I be?”

Slipping off my raincoat, I made a face at him. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed, Vance?” Without an invitation, I tossed my coat on the chair closest to the window overlooking the street and sat down across from him. The smell of all those lovely doughnuts made my mouth water. I detected the scent of chocolate swirling above the yeast smell. What could one little chocolate buttermilk doughnut hurt? I looked down. I had on low-cut jeans and a tight red top with gathers at the bust line. One doughnut and I'd have a roll over the top of my jeans. Damn.

Vance snapped his notebook shut, picked up his coffee, and leaned back in the seat to study me.

I tried not to squirm and studied Vance right back. His sun-god looks were a little wilted. His close-cut sandy blond hair lay flat. No dimples decorated his square face, and his swimmer shoulders were slumped as if he were tired. I thought about asking him if he were all right, then decided to just get it over with. “I have something to ask you.”

“Really?” He pulled the lid off his coffee and drank a good quarter of the large cup.

“I have this client.”

His gaze met mine over the rim of his cup. “A dating service client?”

“Not exactly,” I said, eyeing his coffee and thinking I should get some. “Anyway, she has information on her ex-husband. We know it's true, but we don't have any evidence. I need you to start an investigation.”

“You working for the sheriff's office now? Giving orders?”

Lord, he was in a bad mood. “Look, Vance, this is serious. This guy has been embezzling money from the Soccer Club of Lake Elsinore. It's called SCOLE for short. That means he's stealing money from all the parents who pay fees for their kids to play. It's not right.”

Vance snapped forward in his chair and thumped his coffee down. “That right? And who is this client of yours?”

“Uh, that's confidential. Will you look into this for me?”

His light brown eyes sharpened, ripping away the tired look. “What's the name of this ex-husband?”

Suddenly I had a bad feeling. A really bad feeling. My stomach got a hot pain, like a stone from a fire pit fell in there. Sweat prickled my back and underarms. Vance wasn't reacting like I expected. He was a robbery /homicide detective. I'd thought for sure he'd tell me to file a report or something. I hadn't even used my knowledge of his secret life to pressure him. “Vance, what's going on?”

“Shaw, what's the name of the ex-husband embezzling money?”

I knew I'd stepped in it. Somehow, I was in over my head. “Uh, it's Chad Tuggle. He's the head coach for SCOLE. He's sort of a hero in town.” I stopped talking. Vance's face hardened.

“Well, now he's sort of dead.”

“Dead?” The hot stone rolled in my gut, churning the cup of coffee and yogurt I'd had for breakfast. “But he can't be dead, I just . . .”
Shut up!
I screamed in my head.

“You just what?” He lowered his voice to a seductively smooth coaxing tone.

I'd just walked into a disaster, that's what I'd done. Damn. “Uh, look, you're obviously having a bad morning. Look at you,” I stood up, “you're tired. Probably you were up all night with this—” My words froze when Vance grabbed my wrist.

“Sit. Down.”

I sat. My brain wasn't working properly, so obeying was easier than arguing.

“I want to know everything. I've already talked to Dara, and she told me all about your spat with Chad. Were you and Chad dating?”

“What? You know better than that. I'm dating Gabe.”

“Then why were you in Chad's office yesterday morning?” Vance pulled out a Bic pen and flipped open his notebook. “Start from the beginning.”

I couldn't even grasp Chad being dead. Blinking, I tried to think. Dead. And Vance is a homicide cop. “Chad was murdered? Where?” Suddenly, the doughnut shop heated, and I had trouble taking a full breath. Tiny black spots danced in front of my eyes. Chad's office was a diagonal line across the parking lot. Vance was here. “Oh, Lord.” I leaned forward, putting my hands flat on the cool, smooth surface of the table. “Was he murdered in his office?”

“Hmm, you seem to have a lot of knowledge for not even knowing he was dead.” He wrote in the notebook.

“Stop it!” The words echoed in the shop. There were no other customers, but the little TV the owners watched in the back went silent. Great, my trauma was better than what was on TV.

And what about Chad? Yeah, sure, he wasn't a shining example of manhood, but dead? He didn't deserve to be dead.

“So Janie Tuggle came to you about her ex-husband. Why? She had evidence that Chad was stealing from SCOLE? Or just suspicions? Is that why you went to his office yesterday?”

God, what did I do? “I, uh, have you told Janie yet?”

“She's next.” For a second, Vance's eyes lost focus and drifted out the window.

The dutiful, factual Vance was stalling. Any other time, I'd call him on it. But not for this. I couldn't blame him for not wanting to tell Janie her ex-husband was dead. And the kids! Mark and Kelly would be devastated. “Wait,” I had another thought. “You said Dara already told you I saw Chad yesterday. So you notified his girlfriend, but not his ex-wife and kids?”

Vance pulled his lips thin. “She found him, Shaw. Last night around ten. He wasn't at home, so Dara went by work and found him.” His whole face grimaced. “It wasn't pretty.”

I closed my eyes. “How?”

“Looks like he had his head bashed in with something heavy.”

I couldn't answer. Instead I concentrated on breathing and trying to still the nausea. “I'll go with you to tell Janie.”

“First, you tell me what you were doing in Chad's office yesterday. I want all of it.”

The way this worked, whenever I did a little investigation, it was under Gabe's license, so technically, Janie was a client of Pulizzi's Security and Investigations. There were rules and confidentiality stuff. “Tell you what, let me follow you to Janie's and I'll explain it there.” Which would give me a chance to call Gabe on my cell from the car.

“No. Now.” He stared at me.

With no way out, I told him part of the truth. I could fill in the rest later. “I went there to talk about insurance and we got to talking about bookkeeping software. Chad showed me his software for his insurance agency.”

“Go on.” He lifted his gaze from his notebook and waved his hand at me.

“That's it, really.”

“Not what Dara says, Shaw.”

The vision of Dara walking in right after I'd been caught in the paper shredder, then zapped Chad with the whipped cream, slammed into my head. This was not a good thing. “My blouse got caught in Chad's paper shredder while Chad was in the little kitchen making me hot chocolate. He ran out holding the whipped cream. He helped me get out of the machine and he got the impression that I was . . .
available.
I sprayed him with whipped cream.”