Smoky Mountain Setup. Paula Graves
was in her name, but he was on the account, as well, and as far as he knew, she’d never closed it out.
Maybe it had been as hard for her to let go as it had been for him.
Landry could tell from the color of the sky and the chill in the air that snow was coming, and he’d lived in eastern Tennessee long enough to know that snowstorms in the Smokies could rise up fast, like a rattlesnake, and strike with power and fury.
Just like the men he’d escaped.
* * *
OLIVIA SHARP POKED at the fire behind the grate and wrapped her sweater more tightly around her shoulders. Winter in the Smoky Mountains had so far proved to be a cold, damp affair, but tonight they were supposed to get the first snow of the season for the lower elevations.
Growing up on Sand Mountain in Alabama, she’d seen snow now and then, but rarely enough to blanket everything and shut a person in for more than a day or two. But the TV weathermen out of Knoxville were calling for as much as a foot and a half in the higher elevations, and the lower elevations could expect five or six inches by morning.
She was safe and snug, tucked in with about a week’s worth of background checks to read through. In a company like The Gates, which specialized in high-stakes security cases, everything lived or died on the quality of personnel who worked the cases and kept the company running at peak performance, and the CEO, Alexander Quinn, had put her in charge of profiling prospective hires.
She was lucky to still have a job at all, she knew. Her first big job at The Gates had been a spectacular failure. Tasked with finding a traitor in their midst, she’d failed to smoke him out until it was nearly too late. Quinn would have been well within his rights to terminate her employment on the spot, but he’d given her another chance.
She had no intention of screwing up again.
She had made it through three files and was starting a fourth when her cell phone rang. No information on the display, which usually meant her caller was Quinn or another agent who didn’t want his identity revealed. “Sharp,” she answered.
“Hey, Olivia, it’s me.” The distinctive mountain drawl on the other end of the line belonged to Anson Daughtry, the company’s IT director and one of the people who’d saved her bacon during the investigation into the mole at The Gates, mostly by putting his own ass on the line.
Of course, he’d had a good incentive—the pretty payroll accountant he’d fallen hard for had been right in the middle of the danger.
“I thought you were on your honeymoon.”
“I am.” She could almost hear him grinning. “Ginny says hi.”
“Hi, Ginny.” She couldn’t stop her own smile. She might like to play the role of a tough woman of action, but two good people crazy in love still had the capacity to make her go all squishy inside. “Seriously, Daughtry, why are you calling me on your honeymoon?”
“You remember that bank account you asked me to start monitoring for activity a few months ago?”
She sat up straighter, the muscles of her stomach tightening. “Of course.”
“I got an alert in my email. Someone accessed the account a little after one. Withdrew five thousand dollars.”
Olivia glanced at the clock over the mantel. About an hour ago. “Any idea what branch?”
“That’s the interesting thing,” Daughtry said. “It was the one in Barrowville.”
“Oh.” A cool tingle washed over Olivia’s body, sprinkling goose bumps along her arms and legs. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Is there anything else you need me to do?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I just needed the information.”
She could tell from Daughtry’s thick silence that he had questions about her request and what the information he’d just imparted to her meant. But she simply said, “Thanks. Go enjoy your honeymoon,” and hung up the phone before he could ask anything else.
She could be in Barrowville in fifteen minutes. Ten if she drove fast, although the first flurries had already begun to fall outside her cabin window.
No. He wouldn’t still be there an hour later. And the information she needed from whichever bank teller had handled the transaction, she could get over the phone.
She looked up the phone number for the bank and made the call, finally reaching the teller in question after a long wait. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Olivia Sharp. I have an account at your bank.” She rattled off the account number she’d memorized ages ago. “I just received an alert that some of the money has been accessed and you were the teller who handled the transaction.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the teller answered. She sounded young and worried.
“He gave his name as Cade Landry?”
“Yes, ma’am. He had the right identification and he knew the account number. He’s on the account.”
“I’m sure you handled things by the numbers. I just need to know if you remember what he looked like.”
The teller was silent for a moment, long enough for Olivia to fear the connection had been lost. But as she was opening her mouth to speak, the teller answered her question. “He was tall. Dark hair. Nice eyes. I don’t remember what color, just that they were nice. Friendly, you know?”
Olivia knew about Landry’s nice eyes. She knew their color, as well, a soft hue somewhere between hazel and green. “What about his build?”
“His build?”
“You know—heavy, slim—”
“Oh, right. It was...nice. You know, he looked good.” There was a nervous vibration in the teller’s voice. “Built nice.”
“Athletic?”
“Yes, definitely. He looked athletic.”
Olivia closed her eyes. “What about his voice? Low? Medium? Did he have an accent?”
“It was deep, I’m pretty sure. And he didn’t have an accent, exactly. I mean, he was from down here somewhere.”
“Down here” meaning the South, Olivia assumed. If it was really Cade Landry, he’d have spoken with a Georgia drawl. “I see.”
“Is there a problem? Our files show Mr. Landry is still authorized to withdraw funds from the account.” The teller was starting to sound worried. “Should I put the bank manager on the phone?”
“No,” Olivia said quickly. “Mr. Landry is authorized to withdraw funds. I just wasn’t aware he was planning to. Thank you for the information.” She hung up the phone and tugged her sweater more tightly around her, trying to control a sudden case of the shakes.
So, someone claiming to be Cade Landry, someone who fit his description and spoke with a Southern accent, had withdrawn $5,000 out of a savings account she’d set up almost two years ago, back when the relationship between her and her FBI partner had been going strong.
Before the disaster in Richmond.
But if it really was Landry who’d withdrawn the money from the account, where the hell had he been for the past year?
* * *
THE CHILL IN the air had grown bitter as the cold front rolled in, sending the temperature plunging. Overhead, clouds hung low and heavy, threatening snow.
The bank in Barrowville hadn’t given him any trouble with the withdrawal, so clearly Olivia hadn’t removed his name from the account.
Maybe that was a good sign.
He pedaled harder as the newly purchased thrift-store bike started uphill on Deception Lake Road. Getting her new address