Free The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) by Luanne Rice

she asked. “Is there something else?”
    “Before,” Joe said. “When I asked you about the loans, you said that Sean ‘couldn't' get away with them, because of an overseeing bank board. You didn't say he ‘wouldn't' do it . . . There's a difference.”
    Bay's lip trembled, but she refused to let him see. Her gaze traveled to the sink, the family's mugs lined up on a shelf between the windows.
    “The money orders and cash deposits,” Joe said, “were the tip-offs.”
    “To what?” Bay asked.
    “The fact that Sean was diverting money from his private banking clients. He started off small—a hundred dollars a day at first, then two hundred. He thought no one would notice, and why would they? These were good-sized accounts, with continuous dividends coming in. He'd take money from one account, park it in a trust. Later, he would write a money order or take out cash. He'd take a walk at lunch, head down to his boat, deposit his new money in an account he set up down at Anchor Trust.”
    “He'd never bank at Anchor. They were the competition,” Bay said, her eyes burning as she watched Joe slide some forms across the counter. She knew before she even looked that Sean's name was on the accounts . . . and his signature.
    “His clients trusted him one hundred percent,” Joe said. “First he'd funnel their funds into a trust at Shoreline, and from there, using the money orders, to an account at Anchor, where he had check-writing ability to spend it at will.”
    “No,” Bay said, shaking her head. Were her kids going to have to hear this? It couldn't be true; it would kill Annie. “He would never want to hurt people like that.”
    “Most people don't,” Joe said. “They don't even think of themselves as criminals. They have a need—right now. Something that they have an absolute need for.”
    “We have enough money,” Bay said. “We're comfortable.”
    “In his mind, he probably wasn't even stealing—at first. ‘I'll just help myself to a hundred dollars, and put it back Tuesday. Use it over the weekend.' ”
    “No . . . we have plenty . . .” Wasn't that always Sean's argument for Bay to stay home? The times she had wanted to go back to school, back to work? He would tell her they were comfortable . . . they had plenty . . . he didn't want the neighbors to think they needed money.
    “Then Tuesday would come, and no one questioned . . . so he just kept going. The amounts increased. A thousand, five thousand. Nine thousand nine hundred. See, he knew that any cash transaction over ten thousand requires a CTR—Cash Transaction Report. He tried to fly under the radar, but Fiona noticed. He chose high-asset clients to steal from; perhaps he thought they wouldn't miss it. They didn't. None of the clients even noticed. He had a need—it was just a need that kept him going.”
    “No!” Bay said. What kind of need? The mortgage, vacations, two cars, three kids, the boat . . . an affair? Why would he risk everything they had to steal from the bank?
    “It mounted up, over time,” Joe said.
    “Months?”
    “We're investigating that now. The amounts increased dramatically about eleven months ago.”
    A need. Just a need.
    “By law,” Joe said, “anyone who handles money in a financial institution—tellers, branch managers—has to take a two-consecutive-week vacation. Financial advisors and trust officers just handle paper, so they're exempt.”
    Bay understood the rationale. Sean had explained it to her. Any financial misdeeds would come to light within two weeks.
    “But these thirteen days since Sean's disappearance have revealed quite a bit. He didn't cover his tracks.”
    “Something terrible must have happened to him,” Bay whispered, her throat as dry as the stalks outside. She thought of the blood on the
Aldebaran
. The blackness of all that blood on the blanket. “A reason he can't come home. What if
he's . . .”
    “You're afraid he's dead,” Joe said.
    Bay held herself,