Forged of Steele Bundle (Books 1-4) - Brenda Jackson [141]
Noreen Telfair.
The woman’s name suddenly made him recall the accounting issue and why he needed to talk to Reese. The one thing he’d noticed about the attractive woman was that she appeared to be a good worker who didn’t have much to say. He knew that she was in her late forties, a divorcée with a teenage daughter, and that she had moved to town three or four years ago from Atlanta. He’d discovered that bit of info from reading her employee records, which was something he had taken the time to do on everyone who worked at Mason’s.
“The guys said you were looking for me.”
Bas glanced up when Reese walked into what used to be Jim’s office. Bas took one look at Reese, saw his tense expression and immediately knew something was bothering him. “Hey, man, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, closing the door behind him and crossing the room to sit in a leather chair. “Today’s been a rough one.”
Bas chuckled. “Tell me about it.” He was pretty good at reading people, and although Reese had said things were fine, Bas knew that something wasn’t. But he was a person who made it a point not to get involved in anyone else’s business unless he was asked.
He leaned forward, remembering why he needed to see Reese. “I was going through the accounting records and found several discrepancies. Kilgore delivered a letter to me a couple of days ago that Jim left. In it were instructions that I talk to you first if I found problems with the books.”
Reese sat up straighter in his chair as a confused expression covered his face. “Jim said that?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder why. As far as I know I’m not privy to any information regarding Mason Construction’s accounting records. What’s the discrepancy?”
“Several deposits of large amounts were placed in an account for Noreen. The last one was a couple of months before Jim died. I verified the signature and he signed off on all of them, but he doesn’t note in the records what they were for.”
“Oh,” Reese said and then sat back and smoothed his hands along the arms of the chair. “I don’t know exactly what they were for, but I have an idea.”
“All right,” Bas said, sensing Reese’s hesitancy in discussing the matter. “Was it a loan? Blackmail? Help me to understand, Reese. We’re talking about a total of over a hundred thousand dollars here.”
Reese shifted nervously in his chair and met the intensity in Bas’s gaze. “No one was supposed to know and I only found out by accident.”
Bas lifted a brow. “You found out what by accident?”
Reese shifted in his chair again and lowered his eyes when he spoke. “That Jim and Noreen were lovers.”
Bas didn’t so much as blink since that had been one of his suspicions. “Why did they keep it a secret? Jim was a widower and Noreen is divorced.”
Reese shrugged and met Bas’s eyes. “Yes, but there’s the issue of the difference in their ages. We’re talking about fifteen years. And besides that, this is a small town that sometimes feeds on gossip, and Noreen has a teenage daughter they wanted to protect. They were very discreet and most of the time they planned out-of-town trips. They had been together a couple of years before I found out. I happened to be visiting a cousin in Atlanta when I ran into the two of them in a hotel there. Needless to say, it was a very uncomfortable moment because it was the last thing I’d suspected.”
Bas nodded. “Did Jocelyn know?”
“I doubt it. At least Jim and Noreen assumed she didn’t know. I really don’t think she would have had a problem with it had she known. But like I said, Jim was uncomfortable about the difference in their ages. Noreen didn’t have a problem with it.”
“And they were lovers until he died?”
“Yes, and I really thought things would come out then, but Jim made Noreen promise not to say or do anything to give them away.