The Cottage Next Door by Georgia Bockoven Read Free Book Online Page A

time to see three whales breeching together and laughed in excitement. “I never, not in a million years, dreamed I would see something this special. Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
    It was impossible not to get caught up in her energy. “What else have you seen since you’ve been here?”
    She looked at him. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
    “Otters? Dolphins? Pelicans?”
    She shook her head. “I haven’t seen anything, unless surfers count.”
    Michael glanced at his watch a second time and frowned.
    “Your meeting—­I forgot.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it more than he would have believed before he’d met her. “It’s something I can’t get out of.”
    She took one last look, as if snapping a mental photograph, then maneuvered herself into position to climb downstairs. “Thank you,” she said again when they were back in the main part of the gallery.
    “All part of the new employee package.” He cringed. Could he sound more inane? Michael set the alarm and locked the back door. He paused to watch her cross to the car before he stepped off the porch and followed, recognizing the hole in the sand he’d dug with what he’d told her that day, and knowing the deeper it went, the more disastrous it would be when the sides caved in.

 
    Chapter Six
    “I DON’T WANT to lose Diana,” Peter said. “There has to be a way we can handle this without involving her.”
    “I’m listening,” Michael said. He didn’t want to lose her either, and not just for the obvious reasons.
    “I don’t want you to listen, I want you to figure it out.” Frustration, as alien to his personality as pessimism, permeated Peter’s words.
    Michael shifted the phone to his other ear as he crossed the living room. In the lengthy process of becoming more friends than relatives, he and Peter had reached the point that they never minced words with each other. “We’re in over our heads, Peter. We don’t have a clue what we’re doing.”
    “Tell me again what happened that made you suspicious.”
    “How many times—­”
    “Indulge me. This is how I work things out.”
    Michael tolerated Peter’s request because he understood where it was coming from. Peter no more wanted to believe Hester had been stealing from the business than Michael did. Maybe there was something they’d failed to see, something that could provide another explanation for all that missing money.
    “When the owner of West Bay Images called last week, he said he couldn’t get Hester to return his calls or answer his emails. He told me they hadn’t been paid in three months, and that they wouldn’t ship the new prints we’d ordered until we made a good-­faith payment on the current bill.”
    Peter let out a barely audible groan. “He must think we’re on the verge of bankruptcy. Jesus, that kind of rumor could destroy both me and the business.”
    “Do you want me to finish, or have you heard enough?” Michael asked.
    “What I really want is for you to tell me how the hell I could have missed something so obvious.”
    “You didn’t see it because you didn’t want to.” He could have added, and probably should have, that Peter was not only too trusting, he was a lousy businessman. Michael would bet six months salary that Peter hadn’t looked at the books in months, if not years. He signed whatever Hester put in front of him, no questions asked.
    “I can’t stop thinking about Hester taking the money. Why would she do something like that? Why didn’t she just come to me if she needed something?”
    “Maybe she was afraid you would try to talk her out of paying for all those treatments for David.”
    “That doesn’t make sense. She had insurance. Everyone who works at the galleries has top-­notch insurance—­the best my broker could find for them.”
    “Doesn’t matter. No insurance company will cover treatment at a non-­accredited facility.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I did some