Free Unraveled by Jennifer Estep Page B

Deirdre’s will assured me that it was and put me in touch with the resort manager.”
    â€œAnd?”
    Finn hesitated. “And fishy or not, I thought that we could go down there this weekend and check it out for ourselves. The resort manager wants to meet me, the new owner, and make sure that I’m happy with how things are being run.”
    â€œYou mean the manager wants to suck up and kiss your ass so he can keep his cushy job.”
    â€œActually, it’s a she, but something like that.” Finn flashed me a faint smile, a rare occurrence these days. “But, hey, I’m not one to turn down a little free, enthusiastic ass-kissing.”
    â€œThose words sound so wrong coming out of your mouth.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Gin? Don’t like double entendres?”
    I huffed. “Those are not double entendres, and you certainly are no James Bond.”
    Finn straightened his tie. “Of course not. I’m much better looking than that limey bloke.”
    â€œYou certainly have a much bigger ego.”
    He winked at me. “That’s not the only thing that’s bigger on me.”
    I groaned and shook my head. “It always amazes me how the ego of Finnegan Lane cannot be contained by a mere mortal like myself. It just oozes everywhere, infecting everything it touches.”
    â€œInfecting it with awesomeness ,” he shot right back at me.
    My eyes narrowed, but Finn grinned even wider, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the table, knowing that he’d won our verbal sparring match. In that moment, he seemed more like his old self than he had in weeks, since everything with Deirdre had gone down. I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble with more suspicions and worries right now, so I looked at the hotel brochure again.
    â€œYou really want to drive down there this weekend?” I asked. “Don’t you need to stay here and help Mosley? I thought you guys still had some more safety-deposit boxes to sort through and make sure that the contents were returned to their rightful owners.”
    â€œWe finished up with the last of the boxes a few nights ago.” Finn paused. “Mosley’s gone through all of them and double-checked everything. Apparently, he has a master list of every single item in every single box, right down to the last uncut diamond and gold coin.”
    â€œAnd how did he manage that? I thought the safety-deposit boxes and their contents were supposed to be completely confidential.”
    Finn shrugged. “I didn’t ask, and frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m just glad that everything’s back in its proper place. All Mosley is doing now is hiring and vetting new guards and poring over new security procedures and protocols. Believe me, he’s briefed me on those quite thoroughly.”
    Finn muttered the last few words, and his cheery expression vanished. This time, I winced for him. Anyone would have fallen for Deirdre’s deceptive charm and gotten ensnared in her elaborate plan to rob First Trust. But like it or not, Finn was the one who’d given Deirdre, Rodrigo Santos, and their crew of thieves access to the bank, even if it had been at gunpoint, and several of the bank’s guards had died as a result.
    Naturally, Stuart Mosley had come down hard on Finn. Oh, the dwarf didn’t yell or scream or threaten him. Mosley didn’t even say a single word about firing him. He just made sure that Finn was involved in every single aspect of getting the bank back up and running again, from reviewing the new security procedures, to assuring customers that their valuables were still safe, to attending the funerals of all the guards who’d died.
    Finn would have done all of those things anyway, but that last one had been particularly hard on him, since he’d worked at the bank for years and had been friendly with all the people who’d been killed. He