Read Online Accessory: The Scarab Beetle Series: #4 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone - Free Book Online

like company, but I wasn’t even told about it. I lowered my eyes to stare blankly at the grey sweater he wore, wondering what other things the boys hadn’t told me. It hurt. I wanted an explanation and to rationalize it away, but could there be any excuse as to why they hadn’t at least talked to me about what was going on?
    “I think we should focus on what we’re here for,” I said quietly.
    Blake sucked in a huge breath, held it for a minute and then bowed his head to let it go. “If you need something to convince them to stay, I should tell you about Michelle.”
    “Who’s that?” I asked.
    He lifted his head and I noticed a change in his expression: the sly fox had shifted into something softer, gentle, and troubled. “Michelle runs a children’s foster home, one meant for teenagers. She raises a few rescued animals, too—cats and dogs—and she has the teenagers help her out. She owns an estate out in the middle of nowhere just off of John’s Island.”
    “Okay?” I said, unsure where this was going.
    “She started a lawsuit last year against Ethan’s company for failure to fulfill promised donations. There’s paperwork that said she got money from the company, but she never did, and the government was looking in on it and accusing her of lying on her tax statements. She also said that since she had been promised money, she had relied on it, and had spent her time with the kids instead of pursuing other avenues of income. By the time she realized the money wasn’t coming, she was in a lot of financial trouble. She was using her last pennies to file and take them to court.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Could hers be one of the accounts in the file?”
    “We can’t match up her numbers with what’s in that file. So either hers was lumped in with others or something else happened along the way. That is if this even connected at all to those secret accounts.”
    “Can we track where her money went at least?”
    “Maybe,” he said. “Ethan’s going through the accounting himself. Michelle was looking at foreclosure, and almost had to give up the teenagers to other foster homes. Teenagers are hard to place anywhere.”
    I could imagine. “We should do something,” I said.
    He lifted a hand in a stop motion. “I already have,” he said. “I gave her the money for her home last week, paid outright so it’s hers to keep. I asked her to drop the lawsuit, with the promise I’d get to the bottom of it and she’d get back-payment for every dollar promised to her. Ethan agreed, and is making arrangements. I’ve got her covered for now, at least until we straighten it out and so people connected to this doesn’t suspect Ethan might be on to them.” He motioned with his hand toward the tablet still sitting near the settee. “I’ll bet you a nickel that she’s a key to figuring out at least one of those accounts. Ethan’s still working out which one.”
    “Should we talk to her?”
    “I have,” he said. “I’ve got what I think we need.” He pulled from his back pocket a photo of a strawberry blond young woman, standing beside an old farm house, with a pug at her side. “Maybe you can use her as a reason to convince the others to stay. There’s probably more out there like her that haven’t come forward.”
    I took the picture in my hands, looking at the photo. “That might do,” I said quietly. It was one thing to talk about taking down evil rich guys. It was another to know how those bad guys affected innocent people. How could they say no to this now?
    “She was promised the money from Nightingale: a nonprofit division within Murdock’s enterprise. A couple of the board members will be joining us on this cruise for the next few days, along with CEOs from other companies who make contributions. Someone somewhere will know what’s going on. Doyle’s working on the numbers Ethan could get from that company and trying to establish where the money goes. He’s also trying to gather