AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s not possible.” Jess swept her hand around the tiny cubicle. “Obviously.”
“Mr. Lloyd tried to call you several times, but he didn’t reach you.” She’d rehearsed this a thousand times in her head on the flight home, but the second Jess learned what she’d done, Savannah would be dealing with nuclear fallout.
“Thank goodness you agreed to go. Did it take much convincing for him to let Simon stay on?”
“He didn’t agree, Jess. I couldn’t reach you—Hez said you’d used up all your phone privileges and he couldn’t get an emergency call arranged without knowing why it was needed.”
Jess half stood. “You told Hez?”
“No. I took Simon to the hotel for the weekend like you’d arranged, but I had no choice but to bring him home with me.”
The color washed out of Jess’s face, and she shrank into her seat. “Y-you didn’t.” She leaned forward, and anger flared in her eyes. “That’s not possible. Tell me you couldn’t possibly be that stupid.”
Savannah held her sister’s angry gaze. “I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t know anyone in London, and I had no authority to enroll him in another school. Jess, he’s an amazing kid. I love him already. He wants so badly to be with you. This kind of thing can’t go on. He’s miserable.”
“Other kids grow up in boarding schools. It’s a common enough thing. You have to get him out of town before anyone sees him.” Realization dawned on her face. “Who has him now?”
“Hez is with him at my cottage. He seemed the safest person to tell since he’s your attorney.”
“Take him to New York,” Jess said. “His old nanny lives there. He loves her, and she’ll be happy to take him. Her name is Sarita Barnes. Her contact information is at my house. Don’t let anyone know Simon is here, Savannah. Erik can’t know about him! He just can’t.”
Savannah frowned. “Then when you get out of here, you need to move back to New York yourself and live with him. No child should have to be raised by other people. He doesn’t think you love him! You have to fix that.”
Jess was shaking her head before Savannah finished talking. “That’s not possible. I have to save Tupelo Grove.”
“And a pile of bricks is more important than your own child?” Savannah shot to her feet and wished there was no glass separating them. She’d shake some sense into Jess. “I’d give everything I own to have Ella back in my arms. Nothing is more important than your son. He’s your legacy, not that soulless conglomerate of buildings. Do you think anyone else here would sacrifice their child for the university? It’s not worth it.”
Jess pressed her lips together. “Just do what I say. We can talk about what happens next when I’m out of jail.”
“That’s going to be months away—if Hez can get you acquitted. Simon doesn’t want his nanny. He wants his family, his mother. Let me keep him, Jess.” Her voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “He reminds me of Ella in so many ways. He’s got her coloring and eyes. Until I saw him, I hadn’t realized how much she resembled you. He’s a wonderful boy and deserves to be with people who love him. We could say I’m his foster mother.”
“Sarita loves him. He’ll be fine with her.”
A guard opened the door. “Time’s up.”
Not now! Savannah wanted to beg for more time to convince Jess, but the stony expression on her sister’s face destroyed any hope of Savannah keeping Simon with her. The thought of sending him away broke her. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him his mother didn’t want him even now. He’d think Savannah had rejected him, too, and it wasn’t true. They’d bonded so well the past few days. She could see a future with Simon—years of laughter and fun with a child in the house again.
The guard led her sister back into the bowels of the jail. Savannah exited into the bright Alabama sunshine, but even the sun on her arms failed to chase away the chill in her heart. Maybe she wouldn’t tell Simon just yet. There was always a chance the nanny wouldn’t want him to come to her. Maybe Hez could get Jess to see reason. Wouldn’t the jury look at a single mom with a little more sympathy?
Chapter 31
“So now you know,” Jess said as Hez settled into his chair.
He dropped his notepad on the interview room table. “He’s a great kid, Jess. I wish you’d told me about him. If you had, you might be with him right now.”
She glared at him and folded her arms. “We already talked about that.”
“Yeah, and then you ducked my question about the burglar when we were waiting for the prelim to start. I’ll try again: Any idea what he was after?”
He saw a momentary hint of indecision in her eyes. She nodded. “I’m not sure, but it might have something to do with that ridiculous embezzlement charge.”
Good—that was the main thing he wanted to ask her about. “Tell me why it’s ridiculous. What’s really going on with those weird financial transactions? Did someone actually hack into TGU and your bank and plant fake financial data, or is there something I need to know?”
“This will take some explaining.” Little stress lines appeared around her eyes and mouth. “The basic problem is that TGU’s books are a mess. I knew there were problems when I took the CFO job, but the accounting system was much worse than I expected.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Actually, there was no system. The CFO’s office had one software program and the student aid office had another, and of course they weren’t compatible. The president’s office kept its own records. So did the law school and the business school. The history department actually kept its records in old-fashioned ledger books—when they kept records at all. I’m not even going to tell you what the English department did.”
Hez took notes as she talked. So far, her story rang true. He’d heard grumbling from law school staff about being forced to convert to a new accounting system and run everything through Jess’s office. “That’s all interesting—but I don’t see how that relates to the embezzlement charge.”
“I’m getting to that. When I finally got overall numbers that were more or less reliable, I got two unpleasant surprises. First, TGU’s finances are very . . . delicate. There’s no margin for error. If one bank decided to call even one loan, we’d be in trouble. I’m the only one who knows how bad things are. If word got out, all the banks could call their loans. We could lose our accreditation. It would be a disaster—we’d go into bankruptcy and probably never come out. You can see why I got a little defensive when you wanted to poke around in our books.”
