Chad walked past Jennie’s desk at noon the first day back at work after Christmas. He paused and leaned down so that only Jennie would hear his words.
“Stay late tonight? We got the go ahead from Jack and Human Resources.”
She nodded at him and he kept walking.
She met Chad in his office at the end of the day, knocking once and opening the door to his answering grunt.
“Hey,” she said, tugging the door shut behind her. “Theresa just left. There are a few people left on the other side of the building but everyone over here has left for the day. If you keep watch while I go through her desk, we should be okay.”
Chad didn’t say anything. He just shut down his computer and stood up, waiting for Jennie to go back through the door to the outer offices.
She walked over to Theresa’s desk while Chad placed himself in a spot that let him see down the hallway to the rest of the offices but also allowed him to watch Jennie. She quickly began opening desk drawers.
“Did you get her computer password in case we need it?” Jennie asked quietly. Everyone had their computers password protected, but the tech department kept the passwords on file and all employees knew their computers could be accessed by the company without notice.
Chad grimaced. “TWESTON.”
It took Jennie a minute to process that. Ugh. Not good. That alone would probably be going into the file as part of their justification for letting her go.
The third drawer Jennie opened got them what they needed. A folder sat underneath the intra-company phone directory. Jennie opened it to scan the contents and gave Chad a nod.
She shut the drawer, file in hand, and both she and Chad slipped back into his office. She spread out the contents of the folder on his desk.
There were several printouts of email messages that supposedly showed communications from Jill to Kelly. The emails showed Jill bragging about getting Andrew to sign a prenuptial agreement, then detailed information about Andrew’s accounts and property he owned.
“This isn’t Kelly’s email address and I’m willing to bet this isn’t Jill’s either,” Jennie said.
Chad flipped through the pages of emails. There was an invoice from a private investigator. The invoice was written to Jill Walsh and charged $550 for investigative work regarding Andrew Weston’s personal financial records.
There were several newspaper clippings that mentioned or featured Andrew. They dated back as far as a year.
The last item in the folder was a prenuptial agreement between Jill and Andrew. Chad flipped through to the final page of the contract and read the signatures.
“This looks real. It’s Andrew’s signature, at least. He also told me about the prenup,” he said.
“Then she probably had just come out of Andrew’s office when I saw her that day. This other stuff all looks fake. She’s setting Jill up, I’d guess. Trying to make it look like Jill is after Andrew’s money?”
“I’ll see if Andrew and Jill can meet us over at Jack’s,” Chad said.
Jack and Kelly’s housekeeper, Mrs. Poole greeted Chad with a warm hug and then showed Jennie and Chad into the living room, where Jack, Kelly, Andrew, and Jill waited.
“I’ll have dinner ready in about thirty minutes,” Mrs. Poole said before leaving the room. She obviously loved to mother everyone whenever she had the chance.
Chad handed Andrew the folder Jennie had found and Andrew and Jill sat side by side flipping through the contents. Jill gasped when she saw the emails in the folder, but before she could speak, Andrew did.
“The emails are fakes,” Andrew said. “I’m guessing the invoice from the private investigator is fake, too. Jill didn’t hire him, but it’s possible Theresa posed as her and hired him. That or it’s just a forgery. It’d be easy enough to create a fake invoice. The newspaper articles and the prenuptial agreement are real. The prenup was filed in my office.”
Jill smiled up at him, warmth obvious in her gaze at the realization that he hadn’t questioned the veracity of the materials for even a second. There wasn’t a shred of doubt about her loyalty to him anywhere in his voice. There wasn’t a hint of question in his eyes when he leaned in and kissed her gently.
Jennie’s heart felt battered and bruised whenever she was near Jack and Kelly and now she could add Jill and Andrew to that list. She didn’t begrudge them their happiness at all, but it didn’t make her pain any less in the face of that kind of devotion.
“I called Jarrod and asked him to meet us here. He should be here soon,” Chad said as Andrew passed the folder over so Jack could look through.
Jarrod Harmon was a friend of Chad’s on the police force.
Chad went on. “This gives us all we need to fire Theresa, but I think this also goes farther. When we found this, I had to wonder if Theresa might have had something to do with Debbie’s mysterious mugging and Patty’s hit-and-run.”
“Oh, My God, do you really think she’d do that?” Jill asked.
“I’ve seen the way she watches Andrew,” Jennie said. “And I saw the way she looked at you at the holiday party. If given the chance, I think she would have torn you apart, Jill. It was scary.”
Before Jill could answer, Mrs. Poole showed Jarrod into the living room. The tall, lean man’s face looked grim and he didn’t stop for niceties.
“I ran a little check on Theresa Sawyer and her car matches the description of the car that hit your employee last month. I was also able to look a little further back in her record than your typical employee background check goes. It was a long time ago, but she does have some charges against her. There were a couple of trespassing charges and a breaking and entering charge. Those are often the kind of thing we see on the records of stalkers.”
Andrew handed Jarrod the folder with what they’d just uncovered and went through what was real and what was fake.
Jarrod flipped through the materials, scanning quickly. His eyebrows went up and he looked at Andrew. “You signed this?” Jarrod asked, indicating the prenup.
Andrew laughed and Jill’s cheeks flushed. Jarrod was looking at the page with the penalty clause.
“It was a tactical decision,” Andrew said with a squeeze of Jill’s hand.
“Remind me never to hire you to negotiate for me,” Jarrod said while the others laughed.
The group sobered as Jarrod shut the folder and brought them back around to the business at hand.
“Based on this, the make and model of Theresa’s car, and the connection of the victims to Andrew and Theresa, I’m going to see if I can get a warrant to search Theresa’s home. I’m not sure it will be enough, but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you guys as soon as I know anything,” Jarrod said.
Dinner was a little quieter than it normally was with so many friends at the table. Kelly and Jennie worked to keep up chatter about wedding dresses, cakes, and caterers but there was a layer of tension beneath the surface that everyone seemed to feel.
As they helped Mrs. Poole clear away the plates and cleanup, Chad’s phone rang. He left the room to talk for a few minutes, before returning to report to the group.
“Jarrod convinced a judge to give him a search warrant,” Chad reported. “Theresa wasn’t around when they executed it. They found a knife that might match the knife used on Debbie and it has some trace blood on it. It’ll take a long time to process through the lab, though. They’re hoping to find her car so they can test for blood on the bumper but so far, Theresa hasn’t turned up.”
“Anything else?” Andrew asked as he wrapped his arms around Jill in a protective shell.
“Uh. Yeah.” Chad looked uncomfortable as he glanced at Jill before continuing. “They found a lot of stuff about Andrew. Newspaper clippings. Pictures. Some from around the office and some taken around your condo. A few pictures of you at Nora’s house. There are pictures of Jill, too. A journal with a whole bunch of bizarre ramblings. Uh, stuff about you and Theresa being made for each other, signs you send to her to let her know you love her even though you have to be with Jill. Weird shit.”
Andrew was quiet for a minute.
“I think we should get out of here for the weekend,” he said. “We can go up to the cabin. If the police haven’t found Theresa by Monday, we can figure something else out, but let’s just get out of harm’s way for the weekend?”
“I’ll go up with you. Jack and Kelly, work for you guys?” Chad asked as he looked around the room to nods and murmurs of agreement.
After making plans to leave the following morning, Jill and Andrew returned to her house for a tense night that provided very little sleep.