Free Leave It to Cleavage by Wendy Wax Page B

flashed over the banker’s features again. Miranda smiled and mentally crossed her fingers. For a moment she was back on a pageant stage waiting to hear the emcee call her name for the final five. When she thought she might pass out from holding her breath, the banker’s face cleared and he smiled back at her.
    “Actually,” he said. “You’ve just made my life easier.” He lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “One of our largest borrowers is experiencing a severe financial crisis, and I need to send a full team of auditors to deal with it. Perhaps now that we’ve clarified your position, I can postpone your audit until their situation is resolved.”
    Miranda smiled and uncrossed, happy to see someone else receiving the bank’s full attention.
    “Why don’t I get the paperwork started on the pledging of those assets?” Anderson asked. “Then I’ll be in touch again when we’re ready to reschedule.”
    “Yes.” Miranda stood and smiled again, barely managing to restrain her relief. “That would be fine.”
    She wanted to pump a fist into the air and do a victory dance on John Anderson’s desk. Instead, she extended her hand in parting and made a graceful exit, being especially careful not to kick up her heels on the way out the door.
     
    Miranda’s euphoria was brief and didn’t survive her meeting with Dana Houseman, Attorney-at-Law.
    Somewhere in her mid-fifties, Ms. Houseman wore a conservative gray suit and sensible black shoes. Her makeup was minimal and she had a calm, understated manner. But her brown eyes gleamed with intelligence and her voice rang with authority as she gave Miranda a quick education on the way the world worked.
    “I’ll need ten thousand now and another ten thousand if we go to trial. And I’d like to put Harrison Maples on—he’s our best PI—to track down your husband. That’ll probably take another five thousand to start. The total will depend on whether your husband actually left the country or not. And how seriously he’s hiding.”
    The attorney jotted notes on her legal pad and sat forward in her desk chair. “The law
does
provide means to obtain a divorce whether your husband is ever seen again or not, but what we really want is to find him, serve him with papers, and haul his rear end into court so that we can watch him try to explain his actions to a judge.”
    Miranda definitely wanted to see Tom suffer, but she didn’t necessarily want him surfacing until she’d gotten things under control at Ballantyne. What if she were in the middle of turning things around and he just showed up?
    Dana Houseman speared her with a look that made her glad they were on the same side. “You need to understand that as long as he’s running around out there he can show up and lay claim to half your business. Or do more damage to it. Or incur debt that you could be held responsible for. And if, as you’ve indicated, he’s committed fraud in your company’s name, you want to make sure he’s the one who’s punished for it.”
    Miranda looked over at Dana Houseman and sensed the attorney was just warming up.
    “And
that’s
assuming he’s alive, Mrs. Smith. If he isn’t, you could be looking at a whole other can of worms . . .”
    “Yes, well.” Miranda swallowed. “I can see why finding him would be a good idea.” She smiled, but could feel the lack of wattage. The thought of actually seeing and speaking to Tom again felt completely alien and unimaginable. She’d been picturing him sunning on some Caribbean beach, but he could in fact be anywhere. Or nowhere.
    Standing, Miranda slung her purse over her shoulder and leaned over to shake hands with the attorney. “I’ll have a check out to you as soon as possible,” she promised.
    Just as soon as she figured out where to find the money.
     
    In the rental car on the way back to Truro, Miranda compiled a mental list of things she needed to accomplish. All she had to do was convince the department heads she