My sincere thanks go to the following: Leslea, for not abandoning me to marry a Chinese man; Callie, for sharing her personal phobias of big fish and murky water; and Jo George, aka Mom, for taking me to China as your “paid companion.” To Mike, for your love and support and for understanding your wife’s wanderlust. Uncle Andy, for giving me a glimpse of what it’s like to work in China. As always, my agent, Karen Solem, who may well be the smartest woman on the planet, and Natashya Wilson, who’s definitely an editor prodigy. To the Wet Noodle Posse, may the publishing gods smile on each of you that you may sell bountiful books. And many thanks to my older brother, Dan George, who turned me on to great music at a very young age. Rock on, bro!

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Coming Next Month

Chapter 1

With the phone clutched in one hand and a mechanical pencil in the other, I stared at the sequence of numbers I’d just scribbled on an already crowded notepad. “This all looks to be in order, except for one thing. You say I have another checking account, at a bank in Kansas, with a balance of over two hundred thousand bucks.”

The nice lady at the mortgage company was getting less nice by the second. “It’s right here, on your report. Whitney Pearl, home address in Midland, Texas. You opened the account two weeks ago.”

“I’ve been in Washington, D.C., the past two weeks. How could I open an account in Kansas?” Why would I open an account in Kansas? I don’t even know anybody in Kansas.

“You can open an account on the Internet, or by mail.”

“There must be a mistake. They got the wrong social security number.”

“Could be, but I doubt it. I suggest you get this resolved. Anything not nailed down can be cause for the application to be rejected.”

Wondering why I’d been stupid enough to buy a house while I was on a consulting job over two thousand miles away from home, I told her I’d let her know, then hung up and dialed the Kansas bank. I got Shirley, in new accounts. Not sure, but based on the sound of her voice, I think Shirley started smoking at age twelve. I explained the situation, then listened while she pecked at the computer.

“Got it right here. Whitney Ann Pearl. Midland, Texas.” She asked for my social security number, verified it, then rattled off some other bona fides.

“How was the account opened?”

“Through the Internet.” She pecked some more. “Hang on and let me pull the signature card.”

I stared out my sixth-floor window of the Mills Building and watched the guards atop the White House, one block away. It had become a favorite pastime, ever since I started the engagement with CERF, the Chinese Earthquake Relief Fund. Thus far, I’d resisted buying a set of binoculars. Still, the tall one who worked the seven-to-three shift looked mighty fine, even from a block away.

“Here we are,” Shirley said. “Whitney A. Pearl.”

“And the balance is over two hundred thousand dollars?”

She pecked some more and I wondered what I was gonna have to do to get this straightened out.

“It’s $200,396.l4. There have been twelve deposits since opening, and four withdrawals.”

I’m a CPA. I know how these things work. Shirley was at a computer in a Kansas bank lobby, and there was no way she could give me any more information. “Thank you for your help,” I said as graciously as possible, in spite of being seriously annoyed. After all, it wasn’t Shirley’s fault. “I wonder if I could speak to someone in bookkeeping?”

“Hold, please.”

I watched the guards while listening to an elevator music version of Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” That was painful. Eventually, a woman named Courtney picked up. I asked for copies of the deposits, along with information about the withdrawals, and was pleasantly surprised when she said she’d fax me the information. Hmm. Maybe I really would open a bank account in Kansas. My bank in Midland would laugh me off the planet before they’d send me diddly squat.

Within thirty minutes, I had the copies.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Almost five hundred thousand dollars, and every single check came from CERF, the organization that had contracted me to act as accounting watchdog to ensure nobody stuck their fingers in the enormous amount of money the good people of the world donated to help the victims of the recent earthquake in China. I stared at the deposits in shock and total confusion. How had all that money ended up in a bank account with my name on it? Me, the CPA in charge of keeping an eye on the dough.

The checks were written to China Pearl, a Chinese company that manufactures generators and fuel pumps and other large equipment. I knew China Pearl was legitimate because I’d checked it out myself. Part of my job was to verify that invoices weren’t paid to phony companies.

The checks to China Pearl that were deposited into the Kansas bank account were endorsed “for deposit only” to the account number. China Pearl. Not so far from Whitney Pearl. My nickname is Pink and I occasionally get a check made out to Pink Pearl, which I deposit into my account named Whitney Pearl without any questions asked. Get that last name right and the tellers never blink.

I stared at those deposits and wanted to hurl. Somebody had opened an account in my name, then deposited the China Pearl checks into it.

Reaching for the withdrawal copies, I saw that all four of them were transfers into the account of Valikov Interiors. Bells started ringing and, honest to God, my skin crawled so bad it’s a wonder I didn’t become an instant skeleton. I grabbed the phone and called my mother’s cell, praying she was still in the airport, that she hadn’t boarded the plane yet. She had a one o’clock flight to Washington, on her way to accompany me to a birthday dinner for Steve Santorelli, a senator from California who’s a good friend of mine.

She answered on the fourth ring, breathless. “It doesn’t matter what else you forgot, Pink. I don’t have time to get it. They’re boarding the plane.”

“Just answer me a question. Yesterday, when you went over to my apartment to get my wool coat, remember the package you found on the doorstep that had an antique Chinese spider cage inside?”

“If you want me to go get it—”

“No. I just wondered if you remember where it came from.”

“I thought you decided it was a gift from Santorelli.”

“He told me this morning that it wasn’t, so I assumed it was just a mistake. Now I’m pretty sure it’s not a mistake. But I have to know who shipped it.”

Mom was quiet for a moment and I could hear the airport lady on the loudspeaker, calling the remaining passengers. “The company was in San Francisco, and the name was something Russian, like Vladivostok. ”

“Was it Valikov?”

“Yes, that’s it. What’s this about, Pink?”

Her Mom radar was kicking into gear, and I didn’t want to alarm her, so I said easily, “I was telling someone about it and they were curious who sells antique Chinese spider cages.”

“I’m about to miss the plane for this? Seriously?”

“Okay, so I have a reason. I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.”

“No way. I’ll call you from my layover in Dallas.”

She ended the call and I slowly replaced the receiver, my gaze frozen on those withdrawals. More than three hundred grand had been transferred out of an account with my name on it to the account of Valikov Interiors. And I’d received a package from Valikov.

I’m pretty much a linear thinker. Point A goes to Point B, to Point C, and so forth. Somebody set up an account in Kansas with my name and social security number. That person somehow got their hands on the China Pearl checks and deposited them into the Kansas account. They transferred money out of the Kansas account and into Valikov Interiors’ account. They sent a package to me from Valikov so it would appear I bought something from them. Whoever was behind it was very clever, except for one thing. Who the hell would believe I’d pay over three hundred Gs for a Chinese spider cage? Even an antique one.

To say I was pissed off would be like saying there’s a little bit of wheat in Kansas. I was so mad, my teeth hurt.

Gathering up the copies, I left my office and went down the hall toward the executive director’s. I rapped on his door frame to get his attention. He looked up from some papers on his desk and grinned at me, but as I walked in his office, his grin faded.

“Pink? What’s wrong?”

Parker Davis could easily be in the movies, he’s that good-looking. He’d always get the part of the backup guy for Gene Hackman, the faithful, handsome, blond, blue-eyed assistant who blindly trusts Hackman’s sneaky, evil character. Maybe I think so because Parker is married to a senator, and he’s totally devoted to her. Not that Madeline Davis is anything like a Gene Hackman character. But Parker’s unfailing support and willingness to take a backseat to his wife’s career always make me think of those trusting souls in political thrillers.

“I just found out that I’m an embezzler.” I tossed the papers onto his desk and briefly explained.

Looking like a diver whose equipment just failed, Parker leaned back in his chair and read through the papers. His face paled in spite of his golfer’s tan. While he fiddled with his watch, a nervous habit I’d seen a hundred times, he mumbled “Oh, my God” over and over.

“We have to get to the bottom of this, immediately,” I said. “Not only because CERF is getting ripped off, but because I don’t wanna spend my childbearing years locked up with hundreds of other ovaries for something I didn’t do.”

He picked up the phone and punched in three numbers. “Taylor, I need to see you, right away.”

Oh, man. Things were about to get infinitely more complicated. And aggravating.

Within a minute, Taylor Bunch sailed into Parker’s office on a wave of too-strong perfume and in a lime green suit. I noted that she’d put her pale blond hair up in a snazzy little twist. Maybe I would have liked her, if I hadn’t disliked her so much. I just don’t feel the love for people who are mean, nasty and sneaky. If they made a movie about Taylor, they’d make her a man and get Gene Hackman to play the part.

In my other life, which ended last summer, I was a senior manager at a Big Important worldwide CPA firm in Dallas. That career, and that life, were over after I blew the whistle on one of our largest clients. Turned out the partners at my firm were all in on the cover-up to hoodwink investors—and that was the end of Big Important.

Taylor Bunch was promoted to my job the day I got fired for blowing the whistle. Regrettably for Taylor, she only got to crow about it for a few short weeks. After that, she was beating the streets for a job, and just like me and all the other CPAs who’d been in management at Big Important, she couldn’t find anyone who trusted her enough to hire her. I ended up moving back to my hometown of Midland, Texas, and taking a mercy job as a forensic accountant at my mom’s CPA firm. I’d gotten my watchdog stint at CERF through a contract with Mom’s firm.

As for Taylor, she eventually found a job in the Texas state welfare system, churning out financial data for bureaucrats. That was how she met Parker Davis. He was the director of a children’s advocacy group and came to speak at one of those lunch things that no one would go to except for the free lunch and an extra hour off work. When Parker was tapped to head up the relief fund after the China earthquake, he called Taylor and asked her to step in as treasurer. Soon after, Parker hired me to keep an eye on things, unaware of the animosity between Taylor and me.

I can only describe the expression on Taylor’s semipretty face as joyful as she looked over the copies I’d brought to Parker. She couldn’t have seemed more happy if she’d won the lottery, had a proposal from Brad Pitt and earned the Nobel Prize, all in one day. Yeah, I hated her guts.

She looked at me and raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Why should we believe you didn’t do this?”

I ignored her and said to Parker, “I want your authorization to investigate and find out who’s behind this.”

Taylor stepped into my line of vision and said smugly, “Parker didn’t get where he’s at by being stupid. Why would he allow you to look into it when your name’s on the account?”

Looking genuinely confused and freaked out, twisting his watch round and round, Parker glanced from me to Taylor and back to me. “She’s got a point. I’m sure you’re not behind this, Pink, but whatever comes to light, it will look mighty weird if you’re the one who finds it.”

Still ignoring Taylor, I stepped away from her. “Maybe so, but if you put Taylor in charge of investigating, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. She hates the ground I walk on.” It was the first time I’d openly acknowledged the bad blood between me and Taylor. If only I hadn’t squealed, she figured, she’d still be in a peachy position at Big Important. She never quite got that if I hadn’t blown the whistle, I wouldn’t have been fired, and she wouldn’t have had the position. All she could see was that she’d lost her job, and it was all my fault. Never mind that thousands of people lost their life savings and retirement funds. It was all about Taylor.

“Are you saying I’d fail in my responsibility, all because of some personal vendetta?” Taylor sounded righteously offended.

“Gimme a break.” I looked straight at her. “After I got promoted, you told everyone that you saw me going into the Crescent Hotel with the managing partner, effectively making my success a sexual exclamation point. You took pictures of me at Laura’s bachelorette party, while I was modeling lingerie and dancing with a male stripper, then made sure those pictures showed up at the office, where they were passed around to everyone, including the managing partner. And let’s not forget how the Bellington audit files disappeared from my office and turned up at the coffeehouse down the street. That made me look like a complete moron and could have gotten me fired, except that I happened to have gone to the emergency room that day because a friend was in a car wreck.”

I folded my arms across my chest and stared her down. I was on a roll. “You despise me, which isn’t my problem—unless you’re the only thing standing between me and prison.” Looking back at Parker, I said emphatically, “I am not going to prison.”

Clearly at a loss, he focused on Taylor. “If you dislike Pink so much, how can you look into this with any kind of objectivity?”

Taylor glared at me as she spoke. “Obviously, someone is stealing from this organization. My concern isn’t for Pink, but for all those unfortunate people in China who need this money to rebuild their lives. I can be objective because of them, because it’s important to stop whoever’s doing this.”

She said the magic words. Parker is one of those people whose goal in life is to save the world, to alleviate suffering, to make certain that truth and justice prevail. And he’s incapable of believing the worst in anybody. He practically beamed at Taylor. I knew I was toast.

“Pink,” he said patiently, “I believe Taylor is up to the task, and I’m certain she’ll leave no stone unturned to find out who’s behind this. In the meantime, let’s carry on as usual and keep this between the three of us. If the media get wind of this, CERF will be a distant memory. No one will send any more contributions, and even though we’ve got a lot to work with, we need a lot more.”

I didn’t have much of a choice but to accept his decision. The only alternative was to call the cops, and that was definitely not in my best interest.

With conflicting emotions that ranged from fear to fury, I made my way back to my office and did my best to concentrate on work. Thirty minutes later, Mom called from DFW airport and demanded to know what was going on. I told her.

And she wigged out. Mom is something of a pessimist, although she claims only to be a realist. She went off on me about prison, that Taylor would sell me down the river, that whoever was behind it had clearly set it up for me to be the scapegoat. “You have to look into this yourself, Pink. I’ll help.”

“It’s out of my hands, Mom.”

“That’s a load of BS. Somebody framed you. For all we know, it could be Taylor, and there’s no way we’re leaving this up to her. If Parker Davis wants to argue about it, we’ll sic Ed on him. And speaking of Ed, have you called him?”

“Ed can’t do anything, Mom. Why freak him out?”

“He’s your attorney, Pink. And you like him.” She was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Have you talked to Ed since you’ve been in Washington?”

“Once.”

“You’ve been gone over two weeks. What’s up? Is this about that stupid billboard thing?”

No use lying. It would only prolong the misery. “I was so certain it was Ed who bought the billboard. After Steve Santorelli gave me a Mercedes, Ed made it sound like a contest, like he had to one-up Steve. A few days later, I see a Midland billboard that says Marry Me, Pink. Who wouldn’t think it was Ed?”

“You should have found out for sure before you went over to Ed’s and said no.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom.”

“No need to be sarcastic.”

I sighed and broke a pencil in half. “I’m sorry. Just thinking about that day makes me queasy.” It didn’t help that my first reaction was elation. Ed wanted me to marry him, and how awesomely romantic to ask on a billboard. I remembered feeling euphoric, my mind skipping ahead to what life as Mrs. Ed Ravenaldt would be like. We’d live in Ed’s quaint fixer-upper on the east side of old Midland. We’d get a cat. We’d meet at home during lunch and make crazy, passionate love to each other.

Then, less than twenty-four hours after seeing the billboard, reality set in. Bad memories from my disastrous first marriage moved in on all those squishy, happy thoughts and ruined everything. My ex-husband was a flaming philanderer. Ask any woman who’s been involved with a cheater and she’ll verify, it’s next to impossible to trust another man. I knew I couldn’t take it, the wondering every time Ed was out of pocket. I could hang out with Ed, sleep with him, spend entire weekends with him. But I couldn’t marry him. So I went over there and told him. When he said he wasn’t the one who bought the billboard, it was way beyond awkward.

Ed was pretty pissed, and who could blame him? I mean, what a bummer to get turned down before the question is asked. He was also pretty unhappy that Steve Santorelli was wowing me with romantic billboards. I had only myself to blame for that. Before I said no to Ed, I went on and on about how the billboard was awesome, how much it meant, and how clever. Blah, blah, blah. After that, Ed said he needed some space, that maybe it would be better if we didn’t see each other for a while.

It wasn’t just the billboard, and I knew that. As much as Ed and I are a perfect fit, our relationship from day one, when I hired him as my attorney during the whistle-blower thing, has been one of extremes. We’re either completely in tune with each other, or metaphorically facing each other over pistols at dawn.

Three days after the billboard fiasco, a catastrophic earthquake hit China, killing over two hundred thousand people, with thousands more injured or missing. Mom’s sister, Frederica, had spent nine years in China and still has a lot of friends there. Within twenty-four hours of the quake, she’d talked me into going with her to China, to help the survivors. After two weeks of horrors I’d never believe if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes, I came back to the States. I’d scarcely unpacked before I got a call from Parker, asking me to come to Washington and help out at CERF.

Within the week, I was living in a small furnished loft in Washington, D.C., working for CERF, feeling like I was following my destiny. After what I saw in China, I was as passionate as Parker. Maybe more so.

“Call Ed,” Mom said now. “You’re in a bad spot, Pink, and he can help you. Whatever personal problems you have with Ed are irrelevant.”

She had a point. “He may tell me to go to hell.”

“No, he won’t.” She cleared her throat. “I need to go. I still don’t know why I let you talk me into this. The whole thing is making me antsy.”

Cripes. For at least the fortieth time, I wished I hadn’t convinced Mom to accept the invitation to the birthday dinner Steve’s dad was hosting. She was driving me nuts about it.

Mom grew up on a dirt farm in a family of ten kids, poor as Job’s turkey. She married right out of high school, had me, and became the ultimate hausfrau. When I was in college, she got up from her doormat position and told my dad to stick his autocratic belligerence where the sun don’t shine. She divorced him, went to college, and became a CPA. She’s a pretty woman. She’s a barracuda in business. But deep inside, she’s still a poor kid from the sticks, only one step away from her white-trash roots. Or so she thinks. On top of that, she has real issues with men. Now the thought of a romantic relationship flips her out, I guess because she’s afraid she’ll go back into doormat position. She avoids serious romance as diligently as she avoids IRS audits for her clients.

The birthday dinner posed a double threat. There would be senators, diplomats and Washington bigwigs there, and even though Mom can be as polished as the best of them, that kind of company scares her to death.

The other threat came from Steve’s dad. Despite my assurances that she was invited to the party as a courtesy, her romance antennae had gone haywire because Lou Santorelli called her to offer the invitation long before the invitations were mailed.

Okay, the truth is, Lou did ask Mom because he’s got a thing for her. But Mom couldn’t possibly know that. As far as she knew, she’d never met the man.

A few weeks earlier, Lou was in Midland, working undercover for an antiterrorist group, looking for terrorist financiers. He happened to meet Mom, who had no clue who he was, or even that he was male, because he was disguised as a very large woman. Lou’s pretty wacky. He was a POW in Vietnam, and like so many of those guys, it did something to him. Rules? Who needs ’em? He got it bad for Mom and asked her to the dinner via telephone, I think so he could talk to her as himself. It’s kinda cute, in a weird way. And I was dying to see how they hit it off.

“Mom, you’re a kick-ass CPA, and you can hold your own with überconservative businessmen. This is no different. Just be yourself.”

“Don’t you get it? Being myself is the bad part. I cuss like a sailor, have a tendency to bite heads off, and I’m way too opinionated. Besides, when I get flustered, this damn hick accent comes out so strong, people think I just fell off the cotton truck.”

“You just don’t get it, do you, Mom? All of that is what makes you so remarkable. You’re unique, interesting and funny.”

“And neurotic. Don’t forget neurotic.”

“So? Everybody’s a little neurotic. Just go to the party and relax. If nothing else, look at it like you and I will have a chance to catch up.”

“That’s true.” She sighed into the phone. “Promise me you’ll call Ed.”

“Fine! I promise.”

Around five o’clock, Taylor came into my office and closed the door. She looked positively radiant. Tossing a stack of invoices toward me with check copies attached, she said smugly, “I called China Pearl and they say all of their invoices have been paid. Then I called Robert Wang at the CERF office in Beijing, and he checked these invoices against the copies he keeps before he mails the originals to us. He doesn’t have any of these invoices. Which means they were generated by someone outside the invoicing department at China Pearl.”

I eyed the invoices. “They’re identical to the ones from China Pearl. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get these printed. I wonder if they have fingerprints on them?”

Taylor looked like she wanted to cheer. “Yours, Pink. Your fingerprints are all over them. You’re the one who approves all invoices for payment. Remember?” She glanced at my printer. “Did you know every printer has a unique imprint, that printer companies make them that way, so they can trace which printer was used to generate documents?” Her green gaze went to my computer. “And did you know computers have a unique identity, that the cops can trace any Internet transaction?”

My violent tendencies were coming to the fore. I guess we’re not so far from our caveman ancestors. If I’d had a club, I’d have conked her on the head. “Did you know I leave this office every day a little after five and the printer and computer are alone until nine o’clock the next morning?” I leaned toward her and crossed my arms on my desk. “Give this some thought, Taylor. As much as you resent me, would you really feel good about me going to prison if I’m not guilty?”

She glared at me with open hostility. “I’d throw a party, and invite some of the staff from the old firm. You don’t have a clue how many of us hated you, Pink. Always ordering everyone around, demanding we work unholy hours, giving us bad performance reviews for stupid things like wearing the wrong clothes and cussing in front of clients.”

“So I deserve to rot in prison because I insisted the staff present a professional image? Because I took my job seriously and expected others to do the same?”

“You were such a bitch about it all.”

“It was always all about the job, and making sure I did the best

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