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Her sister hadn’t intended to go anywhere without Savannah and Simon close to her heart.
***
Hez forced himself through the end of his mandatory—and overdue—online HR training. With a sigh of relief, he took a swig from the mug of lukewarm coffee on his office desk. As a lawyer he understood why institutions required this sort of thing, but that didn’t make it any less painful.
Now he could finally make the call he’d been itching to make all morning. He picked up his phone and dialed Hope’s number. She answered on the first ring. “Hi, Hez. I was just about to call you.”
“Do you have news?”
“Some. Thanks for telling us what you found at Jess Legare’s house. We sent in evidence techs, and they processed her home with a focus on her office.”
Hez nodded. “Makes sense. Have they found a safe yet?”
“A safe?” Hope’s voice sharpened. “No. Did she have one?”
“I’m guessing she did. Her house was burglarized at least once while she was in jail last year.”
“True, but wouldn’t that have been the place for those fake passports and other items you found in her desk?”
“Yes—unless she didn’t think she’d have time to go to a safe and open it if she needed to run.”
Hope was silent for a moment. “That couldn’t have been an easy way to live, especially with her son.”
“No.” Hez took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Jess had made her own choices, but he still pitied her. And he especially pitied Simon. Would the poor kid ever really recoverfrom being orphaned at ten? What would happen when he eventually learned the full truth about his mother?
Hez pushed those unanswerable questions aside and focused on the topic at hand. “Did your techs find anything interesting so far?”
“I hate to say it, but we have pretty clear evidence that she was involved in the artifact-smuggling ring. Her laptop contained images of looted items and PDFs of forged provenance documents. We also found TGU history department letterhead in her printer. Since she’s not in the history department, there was only one reason for her to have that.”
“She was forging provenance documents.” Hez stared out his office window, barely registering the sweeping view of the campus. “So her appearance at the meeting with Savannah wasn’t a coincidence. That’s not a shock—I’ve suspected it since I heard she walked into that restaurant in New York, and any doubt vanished after we learned about her other activities. Still, it’s not great news. Do you think Jess’s murder was tied to the smuggling?”
“It’s possible, assuming she was the target. She had relatives in the smuggling ring, but this wouldn’t be the first time one family member killed another over a criminal enterprise. Maybe they had a dispute about money. Or maybe they suspected Jess was working with us.”
Hez replayed the memory of his last conversation with Jess. Had she been on the brink of switching sides? If so, had her criminal cohorts found out in time to plant a bomb in Hez’s Audi? “That’s an interesting thought. I—” He heard a noise behind him and turned. Savannah stood in his doorway, face white. She clutched a document in her hand. “I have to go.”
As soon as he ended the call, Savannah held out the document to him. Her hand shook. “It’s a certified letter from Hornbrook. They’re demanding full payment within twenty-four hours.”
He took the letter from her and read it, which only took a few seconds. “I’m disgusted, but not surprised. Now that Jess is dead, there’s no reason to wait.”
Savannah’s eyes widened. “Do you think Hornbrook killed her?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea—and neither does Hope. I was just talking to her when you walked in.” He decided to hold off on telling her about the new evidence of Jess’s involvement in the smuggling. They had more immediate problems. “I’m sure she and her team will get to the bottom of it.” He held up the letter. “In the meantime, we need to deal with this.”
“How can we?”
“We really only have one option: bankruptcy.”
She gasped. “Won’t that destroy the university?”
“It might. But it’s also the only way to save it. I know that might sound a little crazy.”
A little color returned to her cheeks, and she gave him a faint smile. “Maybe a little, but I trust you.”
“Thanks. So you authorize me to file a bankruptcy petition on the university’s behalf?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Chapter 33