Nobody's Angel by Patricia Rice

started out. I would have noticed if something was wrong.”
    “You kept the books and never noticed Sandra on the side,” he pointed out.
    Score one for the lawyer. “You actually signed the transfers,” she countered.
    “Heaping blame won't help us now.” He slowed down and shoved his thick ponytail behind him. “I knew he was up to something, but I ignored it. Tony offered me a job when no one else would, and he paid me well to buckle my mouth. I had an ethical responsibility to know what the firm was doing, and I failed miserably, but I've paid my debt. I want to at least try to have my license reinstated, but I can't if Tony spent all the money on Sandra.”
    “The legal fund paid the people who were cheated. If there's any proof that you weren't involved, why wouldn't they give you your license back?”
    His laugh was cold. “Because that fund is paid for by lawyers, and their insurance bill skyrockets every time the payoff is large. If it hurts their pockets, they'll make me pay.”
    “Then this is an exercise in futility, isn't it?”
    “Probably,” he admitted. “When I thought you had the money, I had some purpose. If you really don't have it …”
    “I really don't have it.” She said it quietly, but forcefully. She wanted him to turn the car around and go back. She didn't want to rake through cold ashes in a town she'd left behind. She didn't believe in looking back.
    “Some of the money or the books could still be in the safe deposit boxes,” he insisted.
    Did that mean he believed her, or was this some sort of test? What did it matter? He didn't turn around. He'd made up his mind to keep going because he didn't know what else to do. She understood that sort of desperation. She just didn't understand forcing other people to go along.
    “Don't you think Tony would have emptied the boxes first chance he had?” she asked. “He left town after the trial. I'd cleaned him out. He had nothing but his law practice, and no one wanted to buy it after the scandal. He would have cleaned out every dime he'd hoarded.”
    “The D.A. impounded everything in the office. If Tony had safe deposit keys there, the D.A. would have found them. I don't think Tony would have left something so dangerous in Sandra's hands. She's a loose cannon. You're the one he trusted. He would have left those keys in the house, and you sold everything before he could get to them.”
    She was the one Tony trusted. A few years ago that would have been sweet music to her ears. Now, it hit her as bitter and cold. Tony trusted her to be a safe dimwit who would ask him polite questions he could avert with ease. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the seat. “Then they're gone. I emptied his safe and his desk and there weren't any keys there. I hauled all my personal stuff to storage and haven't seen it since I left, but there's nothing in there that Tony would have touched.”
    “Then we'll start by questioning the banks. I'll be your lawyer, you'll be the widow who's just learned your husband left his valuables in a box you didn't know existed. We'll need a death certificate.”
    “I don't have a death certificate,” she said wearily, eyes still closed. She didn't want to remember any of this. She just wanted her secure, quiet life back.
    “You don't have a death certificate? Why not? You were still married when he died, weren't you? How did you collect his life insurance?”
    The sound that emerged from her throat was too brittle for laughter. “He died in South America. They don't just automatically ship out death certificates. When I thought I could use his life insurance for the trust fund, I knew I'd have to find out how to obtain one. But after I located the policy, it had Sandra's name on it, so I mailed it to her and let her handle the death certificate business.”
    “Sandra never mentioned that to me,” he muttered suspiciously.
    “Sandra's the loose cannon, remember? Why don't you kidnap her?”
    He