Holding the Dream by Nora Roberts Page A

clients?” She felt the blood drain out of her face, couldn’t stop it.
    â€œIt’s the same pattern.” Calvin Meyers spoke for the first time, tugging on his bright red tie. “Two copies of the 1040s, small adjustments on various forms, to total excess on the client’s copy in amounts ranging from twelve hundred to thirty-one hundred dollars.” He puffed out his cheeks. “We might not have caught it, but I golf with Sid Sun. He’s a whiner about taxes and kept after me to look over his form and be certain there was nothing else he could use to cut his payment.”
    Embezzlement. Were they accusing her of embezzlement? Was this some awful nightmare? They knew about her father and thought . . . no, no, that was impossible. While her hand flexed nervously in her lap, she kept her voice even.
    â€œYou examined one of my accounts?”
    Calvin lifted an eyebrow. The last thing he’d expected from steady-as-she-goes Kate Powell was blank-eyed panic. “I did so to get him off my back, and in examining his copy, I found several small errors. I thought it best to look further and pulled out our file copy of his latest return.”
    She couldn’t feel anything. Even her fingertips had gone numb. “You think I stole seventy-five thousand dollars from my clients. From this firm.”
    â€œKate, if you could just explain how you think this might have happened,” Marty began. “We’re all here to listen.”
    No, her father had stolen from clients. Her father. Not her. “How could you think it?” Her voice shook, shamed her.
    â€œWe haven’t come to any firm conclusion,” Amanda countered. “The facts, the numbers, however, are here, in black and white.”
    Black and white, she thought as the print blurred, as it overlapped with visions of newspaper articles from twenty years past. “No, I—” She had to lift a hand, rub her eyes to clear them. “It’s not. I didn’t.”
    Amanda tapped one scarlet nail on the tabletop. She’d expected outrage, had counted on the outrage of the innocent. Instead, what she saw was the trembling of the guilty.
    â€œIf Marty hadn’t gone to bat for you, if he hadn’t insisted we search for some rational explanation, even incompetence on your part, we would have had this meeting days ago.”
    â€œAmanda,” Bittle said quietly, but she shook her head.
    â€œLarry, this is embezzlement, and over and above the legal ramifications, client trust and confidence have to be considered. We need to clear this matter up quickly.”
    â€œI’ve never taken a penny, not a penny from any client.” Though terrified that her legs would buckle, Kate shot to her feet. She would not be sick, she told herself, though herstomach was heaving into her throat. “I couldn’t.” It seemed to be all she could say. “I couldn’t.”
    Lawrence frowned at his hands. “Ms. Powell, money is easily hidden, laundered, spent. You’ve assisted a number of clients in investments, accounts in the Caymans, in Switzerland.”
    Investments. Bad investments. She pressed a hand to her throbbing temple. No, that had been her father. “That’s my job. I do my job.”
    â€œYou recently opened a business,” Calvin pointed out.
    â€œI’m a one-third partner in a secondhand boutique.” Grief and fear and nausea swirled inside her, made her hands shake. She had to be coherent, she ordered herself. Shaking and weeping only made her look guilty. “It took almost all my savings to do it.”
    She drew in a breath that burned, stared straight into Bittle’s eyes. “Mr. Bittle—” But her voice broke, and she had to begin again. “Mr. Bittle, I’ve worked for you for five years. You hired me a week out of graduate school. I’ve never given this firm anything but my complete loyalty and dedication, and