He couldn’t believe how she had duped them, all of them, but most of all him. He had been falling for her act. She had to have been in on it. All the evidence and paperwork pointed to her. How else could her signature have gotten on those checks? There was no way that much money passed through her hands without her knowing what was going on. No one was that naïve.
She tore her arm away from R.J. and pushed away from him. Shoving Mel and Hal out of her way, she ran back to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She ran in the closet and grabbed the first thing she could find to throw on. She’d go stay with Trina if they didn’t want to believe her.
“You know she’s right, Mel. She had no idea any of this was going on before we met her. Hell, she didn’t even know someone was after her. As bad as all this looks, there has to be an explanation for it. We just have to dig deeper,” Hal said, running his hand through his hair. He knew that in spite of all the evidence to the contrary there was no way Lena could have been involved to the extent of two million dollars. Mel’s contact with the FBI had to be wrong. He grabbed his phone.
“I’m calling John. There has to be something they missed somewhere. I’m having him send everything to the office. We’ll meet him and his team there. Then we will all sit and go over everything,” Mel said, thinking about what Hal said. They needed to look into this deeper and be sure. Something had to be wrong somewhere.
“What about Lena? If we’re all at the office working, who will be here with her?” Hal asked, finally pulling his head out of his ass and realizing just what they had done.
“We’ll take her over to the safe house Lance and his brothers are watching Trina at. She can stay there until we figure this out,?
? Mel said and started gathering the paperwork they had spread out all over the table and putting it in his briefcase.
“R.J., go get her packed up for a few days and I’ll call the Lewis brothers and give them a heads-up,” Hal said, helping Mel gather the paperwork.
R.J. nodded and headed for Lena’s room. They were going to figure this out. Even if Lena had made a mistake, they would help her get it fixed. They would do whatever it took to get her out of this mess.
He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he told her they were still willing to help her and that everything would be okay. She might have to serve a little time on probation, but that would be okay. Everyone had a past and made mistakes. This could still be fixed. He would have to punish her for her deception of course, but everything could be corrected.
Even though all the evidence pointed to her guilt, R.J. knew deep down that the woman who had stolen his heart couldn’t have done what they accused her of knowingly. There had to be something, some way to get her out of this, and he was going to find it.
He marched down the hall and tried to push the door open. It was locked. “Lena, let me in,” he said, knocking gently on the door. Nothing. He knocked again harder and called again for her to let him in, thinking maybe she was in the shower.
Hal and Mel heard him pounding on the door and demanding that she let him in or he was going to break it down. Hal grabbed the key from the kitchen and met Mel in the hall where he was trying to keep R.J. from breaking down the door.
“Here, move. I have the key,” Hal said, shouldering R.J. out of the way and opening the door. “Lena, we need to talk.”
He walked over to the bathroom, opening the door. Empty. Mel was already looking in the closet. She was gone.
“Did you hear her leave?” Mel asked. R.J. and Hal both shook their heads and went off to search the other rooms to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere.
“She’s not here. How did she get out without us hearing her?” Mel asked, pacing up and down the hall.
“She went down the emergency exit stairs in my room. I showed her the morning you two were acting like the assholes we all are and fighting in the living room. I didn’t want her to see you two beating the shit out of each other and took her down the stairs to the elevator,” Hal said, holding his head in his hands.
“Okay, where do you think she would go?” R.J. asked.
“She talked about a cousin. Maybe Trina knows more. She might head there, too. Have one of the Lewis brothers go to Trina’s house in case she shows up there,” Mel said, grabbing his keys and throwing Hal’s to him. “R.J., you take Thurston and the car and start driving around in case she decided to go walk off her anger, but I think she ran.”
“Got it. What are you two going to do?” R.J. asked, grabbing his phone to call Thurston and get the car.
“I’m going to the office. If she goes there I’ll be waiting. Hal’s heading to the safe house to talk to Trina and see what he can find out about this cousin and see if she knows of anywhere else Lena might go.”
The three men separated to go hunt their woman.
* * * *
Lena grabbed her purse, wishing she knew what the men had done with her phone but didn’t dare take the time to look. She could call her mother and get the numbers she needed. If she couldn’t stay with Jenna, Jenna would know of a place she could go.
When she was able to reach Jenna by phone and explain what was going on, Kyle, Jenna’s husband, insisted that one of his men pick her up and take her somewhere safe until they could figure out what was going on. It was a better plan than the one Lena had, which so far had consisted of roaming the streets alternately crying and laughing out loud at her predicament. She was surprised the men in the little white coats hadn’t come after her already.
A black SUV pulled up in front of the doorway she was standing in and a tall man with black hair jumped out and walked up to her. “Are you Lena? I’m Jarrod, Kyle sent me. Come on. I’m to take you to his house and we’ll talk there. On the ride you can tell me what’s going on.”
Lena told Jarrod her story as they drove. “Oh, I know those three. They are members of the club and Kyle works with them occasionally,” he told her as they pulled in front of a huge house.
Jenna ran out and greeted her, pulling her in the house and up the stairs. “Come on, I have the kids busy playing for now. We called the sitter to help for a while so you and I can talk then we will meet with Kyle and make a plan. I swear the man is not happy unless he has a plan.”
Jenna had some clothes Lena could wear and they got her set up in the spare room until they could decide what their next move would be. “I can’t stay here forever. I need to find a job and a place to live. I guess I need to start over.” Lena’s voice broke as she said that last part, realizing what all she was giving up. In one hour she’d lost her job, place she lived, and the three men she loved most in her life. She didn’t even know where they had stashed her car. She had nothing.