To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1)(80)

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Seth finished grimly.

“I don’t believe so, no. This man needed money in a hurry, your sister has money, and Garrett played her rather perfectly. Also, I looked into some of the more expensive gifts he bought her. The jewelry, the lavish dinners, the designer accessories . . . it appears that they were all charged to one of Ms. Tyler’s credit cards.”

“Wait, Maya paid for her own gifts?”

“I suspect she’s unaware. The card hadn’t been used for several months prior to her meeting Neil. My guess, he swiped it from her wallet, her dresser, maybe an old handbag.”

Seth dragged a hand over his face. He’d known this was coming. In his gut, he’d known. But damn, he would have been happy to be wrong.

“He’s planning to use her money to settle his debt.”

“Yes, and there is one more bit of bad news.”

Seth gave a mirthless laugh. Of course there was. “Hit me.”

“Those dates you sent me, with Garrett’s travel for work.”

“Yeah.”

“Definitely not traveling for work. He’s bought tickets to every location he’s claimed, trying to create some credibility, but he’s bought tickets to Vegas for those exact same dates, every time. Guess which flight he got on. Every time.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

There were several moments of silence as Franklin seemed to sense his client needed a chance for everything to sink in.

“Anything you’d like me to dig further into?” Franklin asked. “I haven’t seen any signs of other women, if that’s a consolation.”

“It’s not,” Seth replied flatly.

The PI snorted. “Thought as much.”

“This is good stuff,” Seth said quietly. “Not what I wanted to hear, but . . . thank you.”

“Just doing my job,” Franklin said matter-of-factly.

“I don’t suppose part of your job might include telling my sister all these bits of good news?”

Franklin gave a polite courtesy laugh. “Trust me, you’re not the first person to ask. I suspect I could make a killing delivering other people’s bad news.”

“No doubt,” Seth said, his head pounding even harder as he tried to figure out how the hell to break this kind of news to his sister.

“Ready to hear about the other job?” Franklin asked.

The other . . .?

Ah, f*ck.

Seth was so busy reeling from news about Garrett—no, Alonzo—that he’d nearly forgotten that he’d also hired Franklin to check into Clay Battaglia’s whereabouts.

“Sure,” he managed.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get as much on this one. There’s plenty on his arrest and crimes, of course, but the details of his plea bargain are locked up pretty tight, courtesy of the feds. What I could figure out was that he’s on house arrest for the next six months, which means he’s not going to be making his way out to New York anytime soon. He’s got probation a year after that. All of his phone calls are monitored, as are his texts, his tweets, and pretty much any time he takes a shit is recorded.”

“Doesn’t sound that different from prison,” Seth muttered.

“I have no way of knowing for sure whether he’ll get in touch with Ms. Baldwin,” Franklin continued, “but I’m inclined to think no.”

“Why’s that?” Seth asked, grateful that the man was passing along at least one piece of semi-good news.

“Because he’s engaged.”

Seth’s head snapped up. “Say that again?”

“A jail bunny named Julia Sharna. Visited him in jail every day. He proposed the day he was granted the plea bargain. Incredibly, the press hasn’t gotten ahold of it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. She’s got a fat rock on her finger, and she’s been seen coming and going between her apartment and his place with moving boxes.”

Seth sat back in his chair with a slump. The pulsing in his head had receded just slightly, courtesy of the pills Etta had given him, but he had a whole other kind of pain now.

For his sister.

For Brooke.

And right on the heels of the hurt was anger at these two shitheaded men that had messed with women he lov—

Cared about, he mentally corrected. He couldn’t love Brooke.

Could he?

Right now, the semantics didn’t matter. What mattered was, instead of feeling relieved that her ex would be keeping his distance, there was no way that news of his whiplash engagement to another woman wouldn’t hurt her.

He definitely wouldn’t have minded being off base in this case. Seth said a curt good-bye to the private investigator, promising him the final payment installment and thanking him for his work.

He’d barely dropped the phone on the desk, trying to get a grip on his next move, when there was a knock at the door.

Seth propped his elbows on the desk, his head in his hands as he hollered for his assistant to come in. At least he hoped it was Etta. If it was that pipsqueak Jared . . .

“Bad time?”

Seth’s head snapped up. It was neither Etta nor Jared.

It was Brooke.

“Hey,” he said, wincing when he realized his voice sounded slightly hoarse.