“So just how much am I going to make on this job?” Liam asked.

“We’re working for a bank,” Sean replied. “Management found a quarter million missing. They think a pair of employees embezzled it, then took off. After tracking one of them to Boston, they called me. If we find the money, we get ten percent.”

Liam blinked in surprise. Split in two, that was over twelve thousand dollars! He barely made that in a year as a stringer. Twelve thousand would buy a lot of film and lab time. “Why don’t they just call the police?”

“Bad P.R. for the bank. They brag about security on all their television commercials. It would look bad to admit the money is missing.”

“All right. I’m in. What am I looking for?”

Sean stepped up to the window and pulled the moth-eaten curtains back. “She lives there,” he said, pointing to a window across the street.

“She?” Sean handed Liam a photo and he held it up to the light from a streetlamp outside. It revealed a rather plain-looking woman wearing glasses. Her hair was pulled back from her face and she wore a starched shirt with a scarf artfully tied at the neck. “She looks like my third-grade teacher, Miss Pruitt. We used to call her Miss Prunes.”

“Eleanor Thorpe, twenty-six, graduated summa from Harvard business school. Took a job as an accountant at Intertel Bank in Manhattan right after graduation. Considered a stellar employee. Six weeks ago she quit without giving any reasons and showed up here in Boston. She’s looking for another job in banking. She went back to Intertel for references.”

“Isn’t that a little odd for an embezzler to ask for references?” Liam questioned.

“It diverts suspicion.