Free The Hostage Bride by Janet Dailey Page A

planning to stop over here this afternoon?” Adam queried.
    “Yes,” Bick admitted without actually stating that the purpose of his visit was to see Tamara. “Is something wrong?”
    “I’ll talk to you about it when you get here.” Adam stalled again. “What time do you think it will be?”
    Bick frowned and glanced at his slim gold watch. “I shouldn’t be any later than three thirty.”
    “Okay. I’ll be waiting for you in Stein’s office.”
    “Stein’s office? You are making this all sound very mysterious, Adam,” he accused with hesitant amusement.
    “I don’t mean to, but it isn’t something I want to talk about on the phone. It’s something you definitely need to know about.”
    “Does it have anything to do with Ta … Miss James’s transfer here?” Bick searched for a reason for his accountant’s peculiar secretive-ness. “Did you mention it to her?” Had she refused it? He’d wring her neck if she had. MyGod, he couldn’t keep commuting back and forth between his office and hers. He wanted her close so he could have a glimpse of her once in a while, just to reassure himself she existed and wasn’t some figment of his imagination.
    “No. No, I haven’t gotten around to mentioning it to her yet,” Adam replied as if he had forgotten all about it.
    Bick released a breath of relief. “All right. I’ll see you at three thirty … in Stein’s office.”
    “Right.”
    But it was closer to fifteen till four before Bick walked through the main entrance. He had hoped to be a few minutes early so he could let Tamara know he was in the building, but not by any stretch of the imagination did her office lie on the direct route to that of the former owner’s. With an impatient grimace, he continued toward Stein’s private office, where Adam was waiting. He nodded curtly to the white-haired secretary sitting at the desk in the outer office.
    “Mr. Slater is inside. He’s expecting you,” she informed him unnecessarily.
    “Thank you.” Bick opened the door without knocking and walked in. Adam was standing at the window, his back to the door. He turned when Bick entered, a rather drawn and concerned expression on his face. “What’s this all about, Adam?” Bick came straight to the point.
    Adam hesitated, then did likewise. “There’s a discrepancy in the books.” He walked from the window to the large desk, where two sets of ledgers were lying open. “There is roughly twenty thousand dollars that can’t be accounted for.”
    “What?” It was a wary, one-word question that didn’t really ask for the explanation to be repeated. Bick walked to the desk to study the opened ledgers for himself.
    “Now you understand why I didn’t want to talk to you about this over the telephone.” Adam thrust a hand in his slacks pocket, a certain grimness pulling down the corners of his mouth as he watched Bick. “I had a devil of a time proving to myself it was missing. It’s been very skillfully hidden.”
    There was an icy coldness in the pit of his stomach as Bick followed the penciled notes Adam had made in the columnar margins, tracing the flow of the funds in question. “Who knows about this?” he demanded, fighting the growing feeling of dread.
    “Just you and me. Nobody else … except the person who knows where the twenty thousand dollars is.” Adam qualified his answer.
    “There must be a mistake,” Bick stated, groping desperately for an explanation.
    “That’s what I thought … at first. But there it is—in black and white.” Adam gestured toward the account books. “Look for yourself. You can see—”
    “Yes! I can see it!” Bick slammed the books shut with sudden violence and turned his back on them. “I can see it but I don’t want to believe it!” His hand curled into a tight fist, but there was nothing to strike at. “Maybe there’s an explanation,” he hoped aloud.
    “Do you want me to get Stein in here?” Adam suggested. “Maybe he could clear it