Michelle laughed.

“My parents both knew him in school. They said he was as uptight then as he is now. And probably bitter that he can’t afford to retire when all his friends are spending their days on the golf course.”

Michelle stopped laughing. “Your parents knew him in high school?”

“Don’t be surprised. There are a lot of people who live in this community going back three generations.”

“I had no idea.”

“I know it’s not a small town now, but it was for a long time.”

“Is there any bad blood between your parents and your boss?”

Grace shook her head. “What? No.”

“Your dad was a local police officer?”

“Yeah. He retired about the time I was graduating from college.”

“He never gave Richard a ticket or anything?”

Grace had to laugh. “I don’t know, but I’d think my dad would have told me if he remembered doing so. I’ve been complaining about Richard for years.”

Michelle scribbled a note.

“You really don’t think a traffic ticket could prompt this?”

“People run people down for cutting them off in line at the drive-through at McDonald’s. So yes, I do. You might ask your dad if he remembers anything of this nature.”

Grace thought it was stupid, but she would do it.

“Who knows about you and Dameon?”

“My family,” Grace said. “We’ve gone out a few times in town, so we could have been seen. But no one at work has said anything. And they’re not a shy group.”

“No one else?”

“We went out on New Year’s Eve. There was a function with some of the people he works with. It was obvious we were together. Dameon bid on this during a silent auction and gave it to me.” Grace pulled the necklace from under her shirt.

“It’s beautiful,” Michelle said, looking at it. “Expensive?”

“Yeah.”

Michelle put her head down to her notes.

“Is dating Dameon a problem? Carson seemed to think it wasn’t.”

She shrugged. “The question of ethics comes up. Have you single-handedly approved of anything?”

“No. The project is new for the city. We barely got started on it. I was considering telling Richard about our relationship when all of this happened. I was pushing hard for more hands on Dameon’s project.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too much work for one person. There are a lot of pieces to the project that would take me months doing alone. Dameon wants to break ground in the spring.”

“That seems fast.”

“It is. I’m guilty of wanting to help him do it. But I knew eventually our relationship would come out and someone, likely Richard, would try and find fault. That’s why I asked for more help from the team.”

“And did you get it?”

“No. Not yet. This all happened yesterday before I was put on leave.”

For the next half hour, Michelle asked about Grace’s finances. She wrote down bank names and account numbers. She said she wanted to see statements.

“Let’s talk about Sokolov.”

Grace told her everything. The early meetings when he ignored her to the last one when he wasted her time and tried to bribe her. “. . . so as I was walking to get into my car, he did this jump thing and startled me. I know I jumped and he knew he got to me. Even said something about me being on edge. I drove off. Halfway home I realized I’d left my cell phone on the hood of his car.”

“Did you go back to get it?”

“Later. With Dameon. It didn’t feel safe by myself.”

“But you didn’t find your phone?”

“No.”

“Do you think Mr. Sokolov took it?”

“Not sure why he would. It was password protected and I replaced it the next day. The old one would have been turned off.”

That’s all Michelle seemed to need. She put away her pen and stood. “It’s going to take me a few days to go over everything.” After giving Grace a to-do list, the woman told her she’d be in touch and left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“It’s been three days and I’m bored stiff.”

Grace sat on Parker’s front porch with the two of them taking turns tossing the ball for Scout to chase. The Labrador loved his tennis balls almost as much as he loved running after them.

“I would think you’d be catching up on all the things you can’t do when you’re at work.”

“I did that. My bills are paid, my place is clean. I even organized my closets and sock drawer. Who does that?”

“Someone who was told not to show up at the office,” Parker said.

Grace rolled her eyes. “I still can’t believe I’m in the middle of this bull.”

Scout placed his slobbery snout on Grace’s lap with ball clenched in mouth. His tail thumped on the wooden planks of the porch, and his eyes shifted back and forth. “Aren’t you getting tired?” Grace asked as she took the ball from his mouth and tossed it over the railing of the porch. Since Parker’s ranch house sat on top of a hill, the ball rolled down the driveway and into a large grassy portion of the property. Scout ran down the steps of the home in search of the ball that had already stopped moving.

“When I was let go last year, I realized I was in the wrong job. Not that I ever thought assisting in an elementary school was the end all, be all, but it helped push me to figure out the next phase.”

Parker’s next phase was to get married and go back to school. Which she had decided to do online.

“I’ve been unhappy at work for a while,” Grace confessed. “I like the work, but the long hours and lack of kudos make it hard to go in.”

“So maybe this is a sign to move on.”

“Perhaps. But if I’m fired under the cloud of fraud, who is going to hire me?” As much as she started to feel like she had the right team to help her get through the allegations against her, she worried this would follow her wherever she went next.

“If I were you, I’d think about what’s next. Get through all this, get your job back, and then leave.”

“Seems a waste of time to fight for a job I don’t want to keep.”

“It’s not the job, it’s your integrity you’re fighting for.”

“You’re not kidding.”

Scout had returned with the ball and a dirt-filled nose.

“How is Dameon doing with all this?”

Grace couldn’t help but smile when she heard Dameon’s name. “He’s a breath of fresh air. All the duds I’ve dated over the years . . . after Dameon, the others don’t compare. Like, why did I ever waste my time?”

“Because you were searching for Mr. Perfect. And that guy isn’t out there.”

Grace repeated the ball-throwing process for the dog. “I wasn’t looking at all when Dameon came along. I even tried hard not to date him. And he’s about as perfect as they come.”

“But he’s complicated by the fact that you work with him . . . or did. So he isn’t someone you would instantly try and date. You had to look past all that to start dating him.”