What the hell had his two brothers been doing on that shoreline? And why had that shit not come up in conversation?

Because they had something to hide. Duh.

After Detective Merrimack and Pete the Geek had finally left the business center, Lane had had the impulse to drive out to the Red & Black, but he wasn’t sure whether Team CMP was going to head that way themselves. After all, Edward rarely answered that phone for anybody, and the detective had the focus and follow-through of a bloodhound on a scent.

The last thing Lane wanted was to appear confrontational in front of a peanut gallery of police—and he was sure as hell ready to do some hot stepping all over both of his brothers.

In the end, he and Lizzie had stayed on the estate, making love in the pool house again and then upstairs in the tub … and in the bed.

Great stress relief. Even if it didn’t change what was going on.

Pulling into the bank’s parking lot, he found an empty space and realized he’d picked the same one he’d used before when he’d first found out there were problems.

He almost backed up to leave the car somewhere else.

Recognizing that magical thinking wasn’t going to help, he got out and left the top down even though the sky was heavy with rain not yet fallen and the weatherman was calling for a tornado watch. That was the thing with Kentucky. There was no seasonal weather: You could start the morning off in shorts and a T-shirt, need your torrential rain gear at noon, and end the afternoon with a parka and snow boots.

As his phone rang, he took it out of the pocket of the linen jacket he’d worn the day before. When he saw who it was, he almost let it go into voice mail.

With a curse, he accepted the call and said, “I’m getting you the money.”

Even though he had no clue how.

Ricardo Monteverdi’s panties were back in a wad, the ten-million-dollar cash injection thanks to Sutton having bought fewer days of peace than Lane remembered bargaining for. The man was once again pulling the whole we’re-out-of-time, save-my-ass-before-I-ruin-your-family thing, and as he droned on, Lane measured the sky once more.

Lenghe’s jet was due to arrive in forty-five minutes—and if it wasn’t on time, it was going to get delayed for hours and hours.

“Gotta go,” Lane said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Hanging up, he waited for an SUV to pass and then strode over to the double doors. The local branch of PNC was your standard-issue glass-fronted, single-story box, and as he walked in, that attractive blond manager came forward to greet him.

“Mr. Baldwine, how nice to see you again.”

He shook her hand and smiled. “Mind if we talk for a minute?”

“But of course. Come inside.”

He went into her office and sat down in the chair for customers. “So my father has died.”

“I know,” she said as she took a seat on the other side of her desk. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not going to mess around with—thank you, thank you for that. Anyway, I’m not going to mess around with trying to shift signatories on the household account. I want to open a new one, and I’m going to wire three hundred thousand dollars into it ASAP. We’re going to have to transfer the automatic payments for all Easterly employees over to the new account effective immediately, and I need a list of anyone whose salaries pinged the old one and bounced. It’s a big mess, but I want to take care of everything today, even if the funds aren’t live until Monday.”

Lizzie was going to work with Greta to get a handle on the staffing this morning, and hopefully they could sort everything out and get people transitioning off the payroll immediately. The faster they could cut employees, the fewer expenses they were going to need to cover.

“But of course, Mr. Baldwine.” The manager began typing on her keyboard. “I’ll need some identification, and tell me, where are the funds coming from?”

From out of nowhere, he heard Jeff’s voice in his head: I’m investing in your little bourbon company.

Hell, if his friend could write a check, so could he. And there were more funds he could pull from his trust if he had to, but he was going to have to start selling stock after this. The key was making sure he kept Easterly’s roof over his mother’s head, the skeleton crew they were going to retain on the estate paid, food in the pantry, and the electricity and the running water on. Oh, and Sutton Smythe’s mortgage payments needed to be covered, too.

After that? Everything was nonessential until they got this all worked out.

As he handed over his driver’s license and his account number at J. P. Morgan, she smiled. “Very well, Mr. Baldwine. I’ll be happy to take care of this for you right away.”

Lane left the bank about twenty minutes later. He’d signed everything he had to, initiated the transfer, and called Lizzie to give her the update. Sorting through the direct deposits was going to be a thing, and Lizzie was going to let the bank manager know who was staying on and who was getting let go—

Lane stopped in the middle of the parking lot.

Standing right next to his car, with a mountain bike by his side and a way-too-old look on his face … was Rosalinda Freeland’s son.

Lizzie ended her call with Lane and took a seat in the first chair in the controller’s office that caught her eye. It wasn’t until she put her hands on the padded arms and leaned back … that she realized it was the armchair Rosalinda Freeland had been found dead in.

Bursting back up to her feet, she brushed at the seat of her pants even though the slipcover had been removed and the pillows cleaned.

“So what do you think?” she asked Greta.

The German looked up from the laptop on Rosalinda’s old desk. Like the rest of the office, which was as cheerful and light-filled as a gopher hole, the desk was free of non-functionals, nothing but a lamp, a pen holder full of blue Bics, and an in-box on the blotter.

Likewise, there had been no personal effects to remove after the passing. And not because the woman had emptied the place of them prior to the tragedy.

“She kept very good records, ja.” Behind a set of bright pink, round-as-bubbles reading glasses, pale blue eyes were alert and focused. “Come see. Iz all the goods.”

Lizzie went around and peered over her partner’s shoulder. There was a chart on the laptop screen of names, contact information, hourly rates, and bonuses. Scrolling to the left, Greta was able to show everything that had been paid out to anyone for the previous five years, month by month.