Chapter 23

Boston

Blake

Blake sat at his desk eating lunch. On the computer screen in front of him were a half-dozen Drake Isle real estate listings, each more rundown than the one before and all in worse condition than those he’d seen in person over the weekend. He rubbed his temples and went through his options again. Eastefire needed an office building on the harbor, a place move-in ready. The campus was ten years old, in need of updated infrastructure as well as software and a complete overhaul of its wireless network. The IT guys had told him as much this morning. It would be foolish to spend more money rehabbing an abandoned building miles from the bridge or the ferry.

He put Emmy’s face from his mind and started typing the first of three emails he needed to send. He couldn’t let this become personal. They weren’t dating. He didn’t owe her anything. He’d tried to find other options and they hadn’t worked out. She was a businesswoman herself now. She’d have to understand that. She’d called a truce, for God’s sake.

When it comes to this place, may the best man – or woman – win.

Blake focused on that and kept typing.

A few minutes later, his father rapped on the open office door and stuck his head inside. “Son? How’s it coming along?” He didn’t have to specify what ‘it’ meant. Blake knew.

“I’m in the process of contacting the Bay Bank to see if they’ve started loan default proceedings.” His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He waited, but his father didn’t say anything else. “Something else, Dad?”

“I have a girl I thought you might bring to the DeVeau Ball. Since you and Hailey aren’t together anymore.”

Blake’s fingers curled into his palms. “Who’s that?”

“Alexis Erickssen.”

“You’re kidding.” The platinum blonde actress from Iceland had just won a string of film awards. She graced every magazine cover on the rack, and you couldn’t turn around without seeing her face on TV or hearing her name in the gossip columns. She was beautiful, talented, and very, very young. How the hell had Warren met her, let alone convinced her to go to the ball with Blake?

“I met her the other night at a dinner,” Warren went on. “She’s single and very interested in meeting you. I thought the ball might be the perfect opportunity.”

“I don’t need a date.”

“Of course you do. Won’t look good to go alone.”

“I’m not going alone,” Blake lied.

“No?” Warren gave him a curious stare.

“Nope.” Blake started typing again. “Gotta get this done, Dad.”

“All right, then.” Warren left the office.

Terrific. Now he had to rustle up a date in less than a week. Either that or fake the stomach flu. He stopped typing. Who the hell could he ask? Maybe he’d see if Trey could set him up with someone. Didn’t really matter who it was, just a woman who looked good on his arm. He was supposed to be a cold, calculating Carter businessman, anyway, the way his father was, and his grandfather had been, and many of the other Carters before him.

Except Blake’s earliest relatives hadn’t started out that way. The Carters hadn’t become businessmen until the early twentieth century. Before that, they’d been fishers and farmers. Bricklayers and dreamers. One of them, the most famous of all, had lost naming rights to Drake Isle because he wagered everything on an archery contest and won the girl of his dreams. Somewhere in Blake’s bloodline there was romance. Somewhere hundreds of years ago William Carter had fought for love, not for land.

I wanted the grand gesture.

Her words came into his head without warning. Blake sat perfectly still for a long moment. He knew life wasn’t like the movies. He knew she’d probably say no. He didn’t care. Without overthinking it, he picked up the phone and called Emmy.

Drake Isle: Emmy

“Come on in, Em.” Andy McCabe stood in the open doorway of his office.

“Please tell me you have some good news.” She sank into the chair opposite his desk. “Did you find Bryan? Or someone who knows him? Or anyone in the band?” She’d barely slept the last two nights, thinking of her problems going away, of Bryan being found and forced to return the money, of her mortgage being settled up in full.

The police chief drummed his fingers on the desk and pursed his lips. He didn’t answer any of her questions. Instead he handed her a single sheet of paper, a printed copy of an email, Emmy could see when she turned it right side up.

“What is this?” She read it closely. The email had been sent from her home account to Bryan almost six months ago. She remembered typing it out on her phone while sitting in the waiting room of the cancer clinic on the mainland.

Can you please pay those bills I left out on the desk? I know you need some extra too this week so go ahead and take some...

She’d gone with her mother for a checkup that morning and left Bryan behind at the apartment. He’d spent all his money on a new guitar the week before, but he liked doing the cooking and the grocery shopping and was good at both, so she gave him money to go to Wexmann’s. That morning hadn’t been any different than a dozen others, back when things were still good between them. Now she read the email from top to bottom, confused.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing. This is six months old. I already told you I let him pay my bills once in a while.”

Andy cracked his knuckles. “That email not only implies that he had access to your account, but that he had permission to take the money. And it’s not six months old, Em. It’s from earlier this month.”

“What? No, it’s not.” Emmy bent over the page again. Holy hell. Andy was right. The date at the top of the page was from the beginning of May, not the beginning of December. Her fingers tightened, and the paper creased in her hand. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Are you saying you didn’t send that email to Bryan on May second?”

“Of course not. I sent it on December second. Last year. Or sometime around there. I know because my mom was still alive.” She choked back sobs. “Obviously he hacked my email account. Or his own. He changed the timestamp. Or he changed the date on this copy before he sent it to you. Where did you get this?”

Andy turned his computer monitor to face her. The exact same email was open on the screen, with the exact same date at the top. “One of my tech guys accessed his email account. Bryan hasn’t had any rights to it since early this morning.”

She crumpled the paper in her fist. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This isn’t happening.” Bryan hadn’t been that clever when they were together. Had he actually had the presence of mind to set her up before leaving her?

She looked at the police chief through tears of rage. Andy said nothing. In fact, he wouldn’t even meet her gaze. “You don’t believe me.”

He didn’t answer.

“You think I would’ve told you Bryan stole money from me if I’d written this email less than a month ago?”

“Em, I can only make decisions and arrests based on the evidence I have in front of me.”

“Then find other evidence.” She scraped back her chair. Her hands shook as she picked up her purse. What else had Bryan doctored? Her phone records? Her social media accounts? Would she open her text message history to find a chain of evidence that made her the villain and him the victim?

She stumbled down the front steps of the station. Fat raindrops were beginning to fall, and the wind kicked up sand into her eyes. Just like that, all hopes of getting her money back, of saving her home and her business and staying on the island where her mother was buried, blew out, like wind extinguishing a flame in the blink of an eye.

“He set me up,” Emmy said a half-hour later. She and Liza sat in the Anchor and the Mermaid as a storm raged over Drake Isle. “Somehow he set this whole thing up and made it look like I gave him the money. Or at least gave him permission to take whatever he wanted.” She bent over her arms and rested her forehead on the bar. This nightmare was never going to end.

Liza rubbed her back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

Emmy didn’t either. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t had anything except coffee since getting up that morning. “What goes better with a broken heart, Crazy Jake?” she said, her voice muffled against her arms. “Lobster bisque or minestrone?” She lifted her chin a few inches.

Before he could answer or she could decide, her cell phone rang on the bar beside her. She glanced down but didn’t recognize the number. Boston area code, but that could have been anyone. She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to do anything except die. It rang again. Then a third time.

With a heavy hand, she dragged it off the bar and to her cheek. “Emerson Doyle, Inner Sanctum.”

“Hey, Em.”

“Blake?” Her palms grew slick and her throat dry. She’d meant to get a separate number for her personal line and her business, but she hadn’t gotten around to it. Why was he calling her? To make a lowball offer for her property? She couldn’t deal with this. Not now.

“I know this might be a little weird, but I have a proposition for you.”

Here it came. She closed her eyes. “What?”

“Remember how I found your ex-boyfriend’s band?”

“Yes.”

“They’re playing at a charity event I’m going to this weekend. The DeVeau Ball.”

“Seriously?” Bile rose into the back of her throat. Her life and business were ending, and Bryan’s was flourishing. Can this day get any worse?

“Did your police chief get anywhere with finding him?”

“Not that I know of,” she lied.

“So I was thinking...how about you go with me to the ball?”

Emmy pulled the phone away from her face and stared at it like it had grown legs.

“Hello? Are you still there?” His voice was tinny and far away.

What’s going on? Liza mouthed.

“What? Why would I do that? Why would I go with you?”

“Well, I need a date. And you need to talk to this guy, if the police can’t or won’t find him. I thought maybe we could help each other out.”

Emmy’s mouth opened and closed. No. Absolutely not. She couldn’t go anywhere as Blake’s date. But then again, if he was granting her access to an exclusive event where Bryan was playing, maybe she could. Especially now that she knew Andy and the Drake Isle police had pretty much abandoned her case.

Liza grabbed Emmy’s arm. “What is going on?” she hissed.

“Blake just asked me to go to the DeVeau Ball with him,” Emmy whispered.

Liza’s mouth dropped open. “Tell him you’ll call him back.”

“What? Why?”

Liza pointed at the phone. “Just do it.”

“Fine.” Emmy put the phone back to her ear. “Can I call you back in a few minutes? My psychotic friend needs to talk to me.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sure.”

Emmy hung up.

“The DeVeau Ball? Liza said. “Of course you’re going. You can’t get a ticket to that event unless you’re a millionaire, a movie star, or offer up a limb in sacrifice.”

“It’s super fancy, right?” Emmy had seen pictures in magazines before. It looked like the Oscars or the Emmys, a red-carpet event with loads of famous and beautiful people.

“More than super fancy. It’s the event of the year in Boston.”

None of that mattered to Emmy. There would be only one reason for her to go, and it didn’t have anything to do with Blake or the ball’s star-studded guest list. “Bryan’s band is playing at it.”

Liza’s eyes widened. “No shit. How did Mr. Grunge Guitarist get a gig at the DeVeau Ball?”

“I have no idea. He probably knows someone. Or paid someone off with my five thousand dollars.”

“This is perfect. You go to the ball, bust some knuckles, break some legs, and get your money back.”

“You know, I’m a little concerned about where this whole Mafia-Godfather-breaking-legs attitude has come from.”

“I grew up outside of Philly with three older brothers. They taught me how to take care of myself.”

“Well, as helpful as that might be, I’m not sure that’s me. The breaking legs thing, I mean.”

“Hang on. Isn’t this a little suspicious?” Liza said. “Blake helping you find Bryan? Since he’s also trying to buy you out?”

“Yes. That’s why I don’t know what to say. What if it’s some kind of trick? What if he’s just asking me to butter me up so I’ll give in and sell to him?”

“You think he would do that?”

The Blake of ten years ago? No. But Emmy wasn’t sure when it came to the Blake of today. “I guess if I stick to my guns, it might work. He said he needed a date, and I need a way to get to Bryan. I just can’t let him manipulate me.” She’d made it clear the other night that they were just friends. They’d shook hands and everything.

“Do you think he really needs a date?”

“Well, no,” Emmy admitted. “He’s the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He could get anyone in the city to go with him.” She picked up her phone again. “But maybe he’s trying to do the right thing. Blake was always a decent guy, and he hated people who cheated their way to anything. He knows Bryan robbed me. How bad would his company look if they took advantage of a poor small business owner in those circumstances?”

Lisa arched a brow. “Blake might be a decent guy. But do you think a corporation like Eastefire cares about poor small business owners in any kind of circumstances?”

“I’m not going to answer that.” Again she saw Andy’s face across the desk. He wasn’t going to follow this investigation any further. At best, he’d file it away and never speak of it again. At worst, he’d tell Liza he was concerned that Emmy was losing her mind. She was out of options.

Silver linings are everywhere, her mother’s voice echoed.

Yes, they are, Mom, she answered silently. And I’m about to take full advantage of this one.

“I can’t worry about the reason Blake asked me,” she said as she pressed redial on her phone. “If there’s even a chance that Bryan will be there, I’m using this invitation to get in the door. I can put on makeup and heels and pretend to be Blake’s date for one night.”

“That’s my girl.”

Emmy tried to picture it: her in a fancy dress. Blake in a tuxedo. A ballroom, music, multi-millionaire guests. Years of awkward memories between them. Oh, and an ex-boyfriend who’d stolen thousands from her, that she planned to track down and confront. It would never work. It would be a total disaster.

But what other choice did she have?