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I headed straight over to say hello to the sales team.

I didn’t watch to see what Bente did next. I continued to circulate for another five minutes. When I started for the men’s room, I spared at glance at Brigid’s table and saw that her seat was empty.

I didn’t look at Malcolm, but I could feel his gaze pinned on me. The fact that he still hadn’t left for home said a lot. I sauntered down the hall toward the bathrooms, kept walking, jogged all the way down to the emergency exit, and dived out the door.

Brigid’s blue Honda Civic sat idling a few feet away, exhaust drifting up into the cold night air.

Chapter Eleven

We drove to Pete’s Roadhouse, which has always been a dive and the last place anyone would look for us—or at least Brigid—and I had the worst lemon drop martini of my life.

That was only partly due to the whip cream the bartender added to my drink—did they mistake a martini for liquified lemon meringue pie?—but mostly the nausea came after I heard all Brigid had to say.

“I wasn’t sure if Astrid had a chance to talk to you before…” She shook her head.

I’d known Brigid most of my life. She’d started at Bredahl as an accounting clerk the same week our father made Astrid his vice president. Back then, Brigid was a cheerful, chubby girl with bright red hair and freckles. The freckles had faded and she had slimmed down, but she was still cheerful and very good at her job. Astrid had trusted her implicitly.

“No. I didn’t realize anything was seriously wrong until tonight.”

“It’s been wrong for a long time. Tom was the first one who suspected there was a problem. Of course, being Tom, he insisted he would handle the situation himself; so, after he died, it took me nearly a year to figure out what was actually going on.”

“Whatisactually going on?” I asked.

“Over the past nine years, almost twenty million dollars have vanished.”

I choked on my lemon drop.

Brigid said grimly, “I know. It’s alotof money.”

I nodded, still coughing and spluttering, and the bar door opened. Raleigh walked in.

I’d called him on the drive over to Pete’s, but he’d sounded so terse and distant that I wasn’t sure if he was going to come or not. I was relieved to see him, but couldn’t help thinking he still looked grim, even a little gray in the sallow light. He scanned the bar, spotted us in the far booth, and walked over, sliding in beside me. I noticed there was a tightly folded newspaper sticking out of his jacket pocket.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

He regarded me unsmilingly. Nodded.

Okay. I didn’t expect him to fall all over me, but…

A tired-looking waitress stopped at our booth. “Last call. Anybody want anything?”

We all declined. I glanced at my watch and then glanced again. It was already after one.

I introduced Raleigh to Brigid and told him, “Brigid just told me that someone has embezzled twenty million dollars from the bakery over the past nine years.”

He stared at me, stared at Brigid. “Jesus.”

“She hasn’t come right out and suggested Malcolm was involved, but I think that’s the inevitable conclusion.” I looked at Brigid. “Am I right?”

Her expression was uncomfortable and sad. “I don’t want to think so. But.”

“How does twenty million go missing and no one notices?” Raleigh inquiring.

I shook my head. “Astrid used to tease him about padding his expense account, but people would have noticed twenty million dollars’ worth of padding.”

“Yes. They would,” Brigid said. “No, the money was siphoned away slowly but surely in relatively small increments.”

An all but forgotten memory unexpectedly returned to me. I said slowly, “The invoices submitted to the customer didn’t match the purchase orders submitted to accounting.”