Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(8)

Penelope had disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms, and Reid considered whether he should follow or wait there. Playing it safe—he didn’t want to cause more strife than his presence already did—he took a seat on the couch next to the folded clothes.

When Pen returned with a fat manila folder in her hand, he stood again and held out his hand for the file. “Is Nicholas asleep?”

She shrugged and replied curtly, “Don’t know. He’s not here.” She jabbed the folder toward him, scowling.

Taking the file, Reid frowned his confusion. “Where is he?”

“Mother’s Day Out.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”

She rolled her eyes as she sat, smoothing the seat of her yoga pants with her hand as if they were fine linen pants. She perched on the edge of the nearest wingback chair, sitting primly, with her back straight and her ankles crossed, as if she were at etiquette class instead of in her own home. Apparently the social training from her youth kicked in when she was stressed. Or else she was purposely refusing to let herself relax around Reid, a choice wholly contradictory to her yoga pants, oversize sweatshirt, sock feet and sloppy ponytail. “He’s at Mother’s Day Out, a program the Methodist church down the road offers three times a week,” she explained. “They watch young children from ten o’clock to three so that mothers can run errands or do...whatever. I needed time without Nicholas clinging to my leg to get Andrew’s office sorted out.”

Reid balanced the folder on his lap. “Oh.” He nodded as he opened the folder cover. “Okay.”

As he glanced over the top sheet in the file, he realized another oddity. No dog had barked when he came in, and no beagle was sniffing around him asking for a head scratch even now. He glanced toward Pen. “And where’s Allie?”

A shadow crossed her face and he regretted the question instantly. After all, the dog had been quite old and suffering from arthritis when he’d last visited the Clarks’ house eighteen-plus months ago.

“Never mind. I can guess,” he hurried to say as her eyes brightened with tears. He made no comment on the fact that there didn’t seem to be foster animals around at present. Clearly that was a scab that needed to be left alone.

Schooling her face, she shifted on the seat and flicked a hand toward the file. “So...what do you think?”

Returning to his reading, he gave her a wry grin. “I think I’m still on the first page and need a minute to see what’s here.”

She rubbed her forehead and snorted. “Sorry. Of course. I’m just...”

“Antsy. I understand.” Reid dropped his gaze to the first document again and tried to focus his attention on what he was reading—which was difficult with Pen watching him. For the next several minutes, he paged through the folder. He gave each document a cursory look at first, then went back to study the information more closely once he had an impression of what Andrew might have been trying to establish with his file. Finally a pattern emerged, though Andrew had marked spots with sticky notes where there were gaps in the data.

Reid drew a slow, deep breath, clenching his teeth in anger and disgust as he lifted his gaze to Penelope.

“Well?” she asked, perched on the edge of her seat. “What do you make of it?”

“I think what we have here—” he held up the file and tapped it with his index finger “—is not enough to make a case.”

“But?” She turned up both palms. “You see something incriminating there. Don’t you? I can see it in your face.”

“If these records are real, not fabricated, then yes. They point to a long history of theft and deceit. There are two sets of records for every client, including my family. I see evidence of overbilling, falsified records, probable tax evasion—”

“Now, wait just a minute!” Penelope shot to her feet and glared at him, hands balled at her sides.

Reid set the file aside, prepared to defend his conclusions. He’d known she wouldn’t like what he had to say—implicating her father in felony crimes—but she’d asked his honest opinion and—

“What do you mean, ‘if these records are real’? You think Andrew made up those documents? Some of what’s there is on my father’s official office stationery! If you think I’m going to let you use this as an excuse to deride Andrew—”

“Penelope.”

“—and throw more mud on his good name—”

“Penelope!” Reid stood and moved around the coffee table toward her.

“—then you can get the hell out of my house, right now! I only asked your opinion because—”

“Pen!” He had to raise his volume to match hers, but he kept his tone nonconfrontational.

Taking her by the shoulders, he gave her a quick, interrupting shake. Beneath his hands, Pen felt fragile. Her willowy limbs were surprisingly thin under his large hands, and he felt the tremor that raced through her. “Time out!”

She blinked at him, her expression wounded, offended, then shrugged roughly from his grasp. “That’s what you said. ‘If these records are real, not fabricated.’ As if you think Andrew was trying to frame my father for something!”

“Yes. If. I said all that about fabrication as a qualifier of my assessment, not as an accusation against Andrew.” He stepped back and wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans. “The fact of the matter is, I believe Andrew was onto something. I think...” He hesitated, not wanting to set her off again and not finding any way to soften the blow for her. He respected Pen too much to sugarcoat what he suspected. “Pen, it looks like your father was stealing from his clients. Is stealing from his clients. He’s hiding income from the government. Falsifying records. God knows what else, but...”