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Lia placed the statements on the desk, accepting she wasn’t going to learn anything from them. There were no unexplained deposits, no large influxes of cash, nothing beyond her monthly paycheck.
“Which means she must be using two separate checking accounts.” She shook her head. “Risky.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Regulators start to wonder why you need your money spread around to multiple places. Especially if you have funds coming from shell companies based overseas. That’s how drug lords launder their money, and foreign countries pay off spies. Add in the fact that she works for a government agency and it wouldn’t take much to trigger an investigation.”
“How could she hide the money?”
A good question. Unfortunately, Lia’s expertise was in assessing the financial viability of a prospective company, not hiding bribe money. She did suspect, however, that it wouldn’t be easy.
“It’s possible she had an accomplice,” she suggested.
Kaden stiffened, his brows snapping together. “Not my brother.”
She reached out to lay her hand on his arm. She hadn’t known Darren, but she knew Kaden. No matter how much he loved his brother, he wouldn’t ignore his faults. He didn’t believe for a second that Darren had any knowledge of his fiancée’s blackmail scheme.
“Or she set up a fake identity,” Lia hastily suggested. “You don’t have her tax returns, do you?”
Kaden glanced toward the boxes stacked in the closet. “I don’t think so.”
“We need to find out where she hid the money and what happened to it.” Lia considered their limited options. “I’ll do some snooping when we get back to Pike. Vanna must have left some kind of trail.”
Without warning, Kaden stepped close, wrapping her in the heat of his body. Like a warm blanket.
“How?”
Lia tilted back her head, her heart lurching as she watched his eyes soften to a silver mist.
“How did she leave a trail?”
“How do you have the skills to trace a fifteen-year-old account? Most people wouldn’t know where to start.”
She knew what he was asking. He wanted to know what she did in the privacy of her office. She found herself instinctively trying to deflect his question. “I’m not making any promises—”
“Lia,” he interrupted, tracing the line of her jaw with the tips of his fingers. “There’s no pressure. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not that. . . .” She allowed her words to trail away with a sigh. “I suppose I am a little uncomfortable. I never talk about my real career.”
“You’re not a superhero in disguise, are you?”
Her lips twitched at his teasing. “I wish. I’m just an investor.”
His brows arched at her revelation, but he didn’t look particularly surprised. “Like a day trader?”
“No, I invest directly in businesses, not the stock market.”
“You’re a bank?”
“In a way,” she conceded. She’d created her business with nothing more than gut instinct and a good head for numbers. Certainly, there was nothing traditional about it. “I loan money to start-up companies or help existing ones expand.”
“And they pay you back with interest?”
“Most of the time. Once in a while I remain a silent partner because I have a personal connection to the business. Either because I know the owners or I’m interested in what they create.”
A mysterious smile curved his lips. “I assume you’ve done well?”
“Yes,” she admitted without false modesty.
