Holiday Illusion Read Online Free

he’ll do.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.” Missy stroked her son’s red hair. “As long as he’s willing to listen, my Andy will keep the conversation going.”
    â€œOkay guys,” Mark said from the door. “I’m off to check on other patients, but let me know if there’s anything else you need. I’ll be back this afternoon.”
    â€œThanks, Dr. Priestly,” Missy all but whispered, and sat on the bed beside her son who was fumbling with the remote.
    Lucas waved to Missy and stepped outside to speak privately with Mark. Anna turned to Missy. “We were just going down to grab a bite to eat. Would you like to join us?” Although she really needed to talk to Lucas alone, she felt sorry for the sad-eyed mom.
    â€œNo, we’re fine. I’ll stay here with Andy. Thanks, though.”
    â€œAnytime. I’m sure I’ll see you later.”
    Stepping from the room, she was just in time to watch Mark disappear around the corner at the end of the hall. Turning to Lucas, she said, “Ready now?”
    â€œReady.”
    Â 
    Anna took a bite of her chicken salad sandwich eyeing Lucas while she chewed. How much should she tell him? What would he think about her when he found out? She dropped her focus to her plate.
    Lucas set his cheeseburger aside and raised a red-tinged golden brow. “So?”
    â€œAll right, here goes. I’m an ex -FBI agent. I quit four years ago, signed my resignation and never looked back.” At least not any more than I could help.
    Shock seemed to hold Lucas captive. She went on before he could ask the questions she saw gathering on his lips. “A little over four years ago, I was working undercover as an au pair for a wealthy, big-name family here in Rocking Wave Beach. It was supposed to be a routine sting operation. I was there to get information about this guy who was involved in all kinds of bad stuff. It was a well-known fact that he worked from home, and our main target was his office computer. Anyway, I waited until my ‘employer’ left for a business meeting in India. I got on his computer and went to work.” Talking about Chastelain was hard for her.
    â€œI think you left a few details out of the many talks we had in Brazil.” He cleared his throat. “So what did you find?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œNothing terribly incriminating. Not for the big stuff we were after. There were a lot of e-mails containing numbers. Written almost in something like code.”
    â€œWhat did that mean?”
    â€œI wasn’t sure, but I had a gut feeling it had to do with money. I needed one of our analysts to go over them, so I forwarded them to her, then erased my ‘footprints.’ I just had to take the chance he wouldn’t realize someone had been on his computer. Later, we figured out the numbers were the ones entered into a set of books. Doctored books.”
    â€œAnd that’s how you guys were able to arrest him? For illegal books?”
    â€œYes, but I wanted more. I knew there was more. He was reportedly into all kinds of things. Thanks to another agent, we had pictures of de Chastelain meeting with a member of one of the top crime families in South Carolina. Anyway, I finally cracked his safe open and found the books. There were two sets. One was a record of income from the legitimate side of his import/export business, the second set of books held doctored numbers. That’s the income that was reported to the IRS. The other one kept up with what they really brought in. Anyway, by the end of the investigation, the only thing he was able to be charged with was tax evasion.” She shook her head, took a sip of her soda. “I had a small microphone planted in his office, but he never mentioned murder, gun running, or the transporting of illegal aliens from Mexico to Texas, then on to South Carolina—at least not in a way that we could pin a