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So, he followed Tenley out into the garden where Kay said she’d gone to make a phone call.
She glanced up when she saw him approaching and motioned him over. Her willingness to let him listen in on her call did his heart good.
“Ren’s been doing some research for me,” she said when he reached her. “I don’t want to put him on speaker, so just lean in so you can hear him.”
He’d literally take any excuse to lean in close to Tenley. He had to stoop down nearly in half, but that was fine with him.
“Are you sure you want him to hear this?” Ren asked over the line.
Tenley smiled up at him. “Yep. I’m not keeping any secrets from him, Ren.”
Knox barely resisted the urge to kiss the hell out of her. This woman agreeing to not keep secrets from him was the equivalent of a love declaration on a billboard in Times Square from any other woman.
“Sounds like a toxic relationship to me,” Ren muttered.
She snorted. “It would to you.”
“Rude,” he said dispassionately. “But…touché.”
“So, what’d you find?”
“There was no paper trail connecting Thadeus to your boy.”
Knox couldn’t say he was surprised by this news. Thadeus was an arrogant, self-important doucheturd, but he wasn’t dumb. If he had framed Knox for embezzlement, he wouldn’t have left a trail.
“Damn.” Tenley sighed. “I was sure he was the one to frame him.”
“I said there was no paper trail connecting them.”
The look on Tenley’s face was terrifying. “Burying the lead, Ren? Really? That’s the direction you want to go with me?”
Ren let out a rusty-sounding laugh. “Oh, chill out. I’m just having fun. Trying to, anyway. But, long-story-short, there was an electronic trail that couldn’t be scrubbed as easily as the paper trail. Took a little digging to uncover because of all the shell companies and overseas banks the money went through, but right before Knox went down for embezzlement, Thadeus paid Waylin Foster a huge amount of money outside of his usual salary and bonus structure. And the way that money bounced around looks a lot like the way the so-called embezzlement funds ended up in Knox’s name.”
Knox blinked. “So…you’re saying Thadeus paid Waylin to frame me for embezzlement.”
“Sounds like you picked a winner, Tenley,” Ren said. “Pretty and smart.”
He was really getting sick of being told how pretty he was. “Why would Waylin do something like that? I never had any problem with him.”
“Thadeus doesn’t have the skills,” Ren answered. “His systems took me all of three minutes to hack. Waylin’s way more sophisticated.”
“But why would he go along with it?”
“I can answer that one,” Tenley said. “According to Natty, Thadeus knew Waylin was fucking Vanessa. If I had to guess, I’d say Thadeus blackmailed him into helping. And he’s a spineless little toad, so he probably went along with it without putting up any fight at all.”
Knox frowned. “I would’ve sworn Waylin was fucking Tiffany.”
“You’re not wrong. Vanessa ended things a while ago. That’s when he started up the affair with Tiffany.”
He wanted to ask why not one but two attractive women would want anything to do with a greasy little turd like Waylin, but he imagined that was a question for their therapists, not Tenley, so he let it go. “None of that changes anything since I already did the time. I’m guessing we can’t prove what they did legally?”
Ren snorted. “Legally? No fucking way.”
Knox shoved a hand through his hair. “Then it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“We can’t just let him get away with it,” Tenley argued. “He has to pay.”
“I can’t get those five years back, and we can’t put him in prison.” Knox shrugged. “The whole ‘eye for an eye’ thing isn’t going to work out this time.”
