Once Upon a Friendship

HE COULDN’T JUST get on with life. Even if he’d been enough like his old man to turn his back on family, Liam still would have had to find out what was going on. He’d worked at Connelly until recently, had been the heir to the entire corporation and for the past several years had been a top-floor executive. The FBI had been looking at him. He had to protect himself. Clear his name.

Liam pondered long into that night. He didn’t go out. Didn’t look for a game of chance, a woman or a drink. He didn’t run to his confessors. He spent the night investigating, researching, taking care of his own business to the best of his ability.

With the personal list he’d kept of every account he’d worked with during his years at Connelly, and his privately kept contact list—composed of pretty much anyone he’d ever met long enough to exchange contact information—he made more lists. People he could contact. Those he trusted more than others. People he knew trusted his father. People with more money than they knew what to do with. Those who watched their investments more closely. Anyone he knew who was associated with the Grayson development on any level, from tile-laying contractors to investors.

And in the morning, dressed in his best dark suit and a red silk tie and holding a briefcase carrying only a blank note pad and pen, he showed up at Connelly Investments. Fully prepared to be turned away at the door, he was surprised to find himself able to get to the top floor without delay—helped by the fact that the security guard accompanied him.

All the way to George’s office.

And back down again, too, twenty minutes later, with an earful from the man he’d once trusted with his life. He’d been told he wasn’t welcome. Warned not to return.

He hadn’t been given a chance to ask questions. Or express opinions.

He’d never even opened his briefcase.

* * *

WITH PURPOSE FIRMLY in mind, Liam drove the BMW he now cherished more than any other possession he’d ever owned—because it was paid in full—away from the upscale part of town that had always been his neighborhood and back to the historic downtown area. He didn’t go home, though. After his unproductive meeting with George, he was now working under the dictates of plan B.

A plan that had solidified during the long night.

He didn’t call ahead. Didn’t want Gabrielle to get any ideas that he was coming to her as a friend needing a shoulder to cry on.

Liam’s days of crying on anyone’s shoulder were over.

Cataloging every word of the cryptic conversation he’d had with George, telling a story in his mind in an attempt to find clarity, Liam occupied every one of the twenty-two minutes he had to wait for Gabi to finish with her client—a shabby-looking man who looked as if he’d pulled his too-big, ragged jacket out of a trash bin.

“Thank you, Miss Gabi,” her client said as she walked with him through the crowded waiting room of the legal aid office.

She’d yet to see Liam sitting there on one of the hard plastic chairs. He watched her, liking the fact that he could observe this Gabi he’d never seen before.

“You’re welcome, Jim. You’re going to be just fine now, and I want you to come to me anytime, call me anytime, if you need help again.”

“I will.” The man smiled.

Liam expected the grin to be toothless. And was surprised by the row of even white teeth he saw there.

Those weren’t the teeth of somebody who’d lost everything due to drug or alcohol abuse. They made Liam think that at one point in the not too distant past, the man had lived a better life.

Like he himself had?

Was that where he was headed? This time next year, would he be wearing thrift-store clothes?

Gabi and the gentleman were out in the hallway now, out of Liam’s earshot.

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He stood, ready to approach her when she came back in. He already knew that she was on her last scheduled appointment of the morning—he’d asked at the front desk. She could have an internal meeting, though. With one of her fellow lawyers. Or a prosecutor or judge or...

Hands in his pockets, he left his briefcase on the floor next to his chair and moseyed toward the door, peeking out to see that she was still there.

In her black pants and red blazer, she was garnering attention from a couple of suited gentlemen who’d entered the building. She didn’t seem to notice.

But as her client exited, she turned...and noticed him. He started toward her. With composure and confidence. He hoped.

“Liam? What are you doing here?” Pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket, she glanced at the screen. “I don’t have any missed calls from you,” she said as she reached him.

“I want to speak with you.”