Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the stack of boxes, ripping the lid off the one I was looking for before good sense could catch up with me. From between folders stuffed with papers, I pulled out the two external hard drives, their cords trailing behind them. Between them, they contained every page of evidence from that government warehouse. I stuffed them in my messenger bag and resealed the box. I turned off the computer and slid it into the bag, too, along with the cords and a binder that I had compiled months earlier as a directory of the volumes of evidence.
    The bag weighed heavily on my shoulder as I composed a quick note to Rob, agreeing to work on the financial fraud case and letting him know that I had taken the laptop home to review the software before I started using it again. Then I turned off the light in the War Room and shut the door behind me.
    I left the note on Rob 's desk, locked the office, and turned on the alarm, flooded with an unfamiliar energy. Something I hadn't felt in nearly two months.
    It was a sense of purpose. I finally had a plan.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    I heard the sound of Sarah's motorcycle as she turned down the alley behind my apartment and I closed the laptop, sliding it into a backpack and under my lounge chair. A moment later, her hand reached over the fence and unlatched the gate.
    " I hope you have enough beer to share," she said, trotting toward the pool.
    I kicked the lid off the cooler near my feet to expose the five remaining beers submerged in ice.
    "Oooh, good stuff," Sarah said, tossing her helmet onto a chair and dropping her backpack onto the grass. She grabbed a bottle and raised an eyebrow at the craft beer's label. "Russian River Brewing? Are we celebrating something?"
    " Isn't everyday a celebration, really?"
    She laughed and caught the bottle opener I tossed her. When she drank the icy brew, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh of contentedness. "That is good IPA."
    " Make yourself comfortable," I said.
    She stripped off the black jacket and then unzipped her padded pants and pulled her long-sleeved T-shirt off, revealing a red-and-white striped bikini underneath. From her backpack, she pulled a bottle of sunscreen and applied the goo liberally to her skin.
    " To what do I owe the honor of your presence?" I asked, opening my second bottle of the Blind Pig IPA.
    Sarah had called that morning and wanted to stop by after work. It was my day off from the bakery, so I told her she 'd find me by the pool. It was a perk of living over Aunt Marie's garage—I got to share the backyard swimming pool.
    " Nothing really, I just wanted to catch up. Oh, and I brought your last invoice from Rob. There's nothing due, but there's also nothing left in the trust from your retainer."
    I suspected as much and wasn 't expecting that there would be a balance. Rob had probably paid for some of the last expenses out of his own pocket before the trial was over.
    " Rob says you're going to come back and work on the new case," Sarah said, settling into the padded lounge next to mine. Her chair was in the sun. Mine was shaded because I'd been working on the computer. Also because I'm a fair-haired girl of Nordic descent who burns at the first glimpse of sun.
    I nodded and took a drink. "It's been hard finding a job."
    Rob had probably already told Sarah the whole story. The office was small, and news traveled fast. That 's how Sarah and I became friends, working in close proximity and on the same case for months on end. Plus, we're the same age and had a lot of the same interests. Except that she's a bad ass and I'm scared to death of motorcycles. Officially, Sarah was Rob's paralegal, but her duties often went beyond researching and drafting documents. She was the office fixer—able to find information from public records, deep social media searches, or even a little undercover work. And when Burton had trouble serving subpoenas on reluctant witnesses, he often turned the job over to Sarah.
    Sarah leaned forward, brushed