The Bourbon Kings

“I’m sorry about Rosalinda,” she whispered. “What a shock.”

“Hmm.”

“Who found her?”

“I did.”

Lizzie closed her eyes and hugged the laptop to her chest. “Oh, God.”

Abruptly, he put his hand into the front pocket of his slacks and took something out. “Will you stay with me while I open this?”

“What is it?”

“Something she left behind.” He showed her a black USB drive. “I found it on her desk.”

“Is it a … suicide note?”

“I don’t think so.” He sat down on the bed and nodded at her laptop. “Do you mind if I …?”

“Oh, yes.” She joined him, flipping open the Lenovo and hitting the power button. “I have Microsoft Office so … yeah. Word documents are no problem.”

“I don’t think that’s what it is.”

Signing in, she passed the computer over to him. “Here.”

He pushed the drive in and waited. When the screen flashed a variety of options, he hit “open files.”

There was only one on the drive, and it was marked “William-Baldwine.”

Lizzie rubbed her eyebrow with her thumb. “Are you sure you want me to see this?”

“I’m sure I can’t look at it without you here.”

Lizzie found herself reaching up and resting her hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to leave you.”

For some reason, she thought of that peach lingerie she’d found behind his father’s bed. Hardly something that Rosalinda would wear—a lighter tone of gray was the closest the controller had ever come to whoopin’ it up on the wardrobe front. Then again, who knew what the woman had underneath all those proper skirts and jackets?

Lane clicked on the file and Lizzie was aware of her heart pounding like she’d run a full-tilt mile.

And he was right. It wasn’t some kind of love letter or a suicide note. It was a spreadsheet full of columns of numbers and dates and short descriptions that Lizzie was too far away from the screen to read.

“What is all that?” she asked.

“Fifty-three million dollars,” he muttered, scrolling down. “I’ll bet it’s fifty-three million dollars.”

“What do you mean? Wait … are you saying she stole that?”

“No, but I think she helped my father to.”

“What.”

He glanced over at her. “I think my father finally has blood on his hands. Or at least … blood we can see.”

TWENTY-ONE

Refocusing on the computer in his lap, Lane scrolled down the Excel spreadsheet, tracing the entries, trying to add up a rough total. But he needn’t have bothered. Rosalinda provided the sum to him at the very end, in a bolded box offset at the far right of all the columns.

It was not, in fact, fifty-three million dollars.

Nope, it was sixty-eight million, four hundred eighty-nine thousand, two hundred forty-two dollars and sixty-five cents.

$68,489,242.65.

The explanations on the withdrawals ranged from Cartier and Tiffany to Bradford Aviation, LLC, which was the corporation that ran all the company’s planes and pilots, and Bradford Human Resources Payroll—which most likely took care of the household staff’s paychecks. But there was a repeating entry that he didn’t recognize: WWB Holdings.

William Wyatt Baldwine Holdings.

Had to be.

But what was that?

The lion’s share had gone into it.

“I think my father …” He glanced over at Lizzie. “I don’t know, the trust company says he’s put himself—or the family, I guess—into huge debt. For what, though? Even with all this spending, there should be plenty of cash coming in through Bradford Bourbon Company distributions to shareholders, of which we are the largest group.”

“The rental company …” Lizzie murmured.

“What?”

“The rental company didn’t get paid—their accounts payable called Rosalinda last week and she never got back to them.”

“Who else do we owe, I wonder?”

“How can I help?”

He stared over at her, his brain churning, churning. “Letting me get into this file is a good start.”

“What else?”

God, her eyes were blue, he thought. And her lips, those naturally red lips of hers were so perfectly shaped.

She was talking to him, but he couldn’t hear her. It was as if a muffling had come down around him, making him unaware of any sounds around him. And then the computer in his lap and all of its secrets revealed disappeared, too, so that neither the glow of the screen nor the pattern of the columns nor the numbers and letters registered, either.

“Lizzie,” he said, cutting her off.

“Yes?”

“I need you,” he heard himself say hoarsely.

“Of course, what can I—”

He leaned in and put his lips to hers, brushing quick—

She gasped and pulled away.

Lane waited for her to get up. Tell him off. Maybe go eighties romance and slap him with an open palm.

Instead, she brought her fingertips up and touched her mouth. Then she closed her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

Fuck. “I’m sorry.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m not in my right head.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Perfect, he thought. His life was on fire on too many fronts to count, so why shouldn’t he drop another load of flames somewhere else. You know, just to help the inferno along.