Straight Flushed (Hot Pursuit #1)(83)

Charlie raised his hand and shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. It’s over. I’m nothing. I have nothing. I should have never involved him.” He stroked Stephen’s hair and looked down at his face. “He reminded me so much of myself. So smart. So determined. I should have never…” His voice dropped lower, and he shook his head. Grief wrapped its hand around his throat. “All those years over there I was swarmed by beautiful women, living in the biggest houses, eating the finest foods. I never thought I could be so lonely. I thought involving Stephen would bring us together and together we could find a way out. Now look what I’ve done. I’m as good as dead. Jesus…” he trailed off.

Vance stood next to him and patted him down. He took a gun that had been strapped to Charlie’s ankle. “Don’t move.”

“I won’t,” Charlie responded.

“Is Cavanaugh alive?” I asked.

“Yeah, they shot him in the chest, but he was wearing a vest. He was just stunned but managed to call an ambulance. He’s going to have a hell of a bruise tomorrow.”

I sighed, “Thank God.”

Avery walked over next to Stephen’s body. “I want my information back.” Charlie looked up at him, confused. Avery squatted down and reached into Stephen’s pants to reclaim his flash drive.

“Let me take that,” I said.

Avery shook his head. “Miss Cain, I couldn’t. This information has taken too many lives already. I couldn’t put you at risk again.”

“Please,” I said. “I owe you.”

“You owe me?” His brows pinched together.

“I led him straight to you.”

“Diana.” His voice softened. “This is not your fault.”

I knew he couldn’t understand how I felt. He could never understand it. I needed to take the information to prove my worth to myself. I would get it into the right hands come hell or high water. “Please. Let me take it. I have to, sir.”

He took a moment to decide before he accepted my offer. He nodded. “There is no one I trust more. It needs to get to the FBI. You think you can do that?”

“Yes, I know I can.” If I had to die trying. He placed the flash drive, still holding the warmth from Stephen’s body, into my palm. I glanced down at the soft gray plastic. “What’s on here anyway?”

“All that remains of what they’ve done.” He sat back down on the bench and sighed. “I’m glad I had enough foresight to back it up, even if it did lead to this.”

“What exactly did he do?” I asked. I needed to understand, in detail, why Stephen and these men had done what they’d done.

“Do you remember the conversation we had back in my kitchen, when I said I suspected someone was getting their hands dirty at the bank?”

“Yes.” I vividly remembered the conversation we’d had over slices of chocolate cake. After that night, my whole life had changed in the blink of an eye.

“Well, two months ago, I uncovered some inconsistencies.” He became silent and shook his head as if reliving months’ worth of events over again in a single moment. “There were a number of transactions flowing through my bank for small share purchases of several of our larger energy clients. As individual lines they looked perfectly normal and legal but they shared similar characteristics.”

“You must have a really keen eye for detail to have caught it. I bet you look at lines and lines of data all day long.”

“Well, I’m prone to see things a little bit differently and can identify trends. These transactions weren’t normal and they raised some flags,” he said, lifting a brow. “I contacted Stephen and asked for his help. His computer skills, as well as his job at the SEC, made him the perfect person to go to, not to mention our long family history. I thought I could trust him.” He snorted. “I was na?ve. But, how could I have known he was involved in structuring the very activity I was asking him to investigate?”

“You couldn’t have.” I shook my head.

He shrugged. “I can only assume at this point that Stephen has had enough opportunity to cover his tracks and remove any ties to him, Charlie, and to whomever they were working.” He reached out and clutched my hand. “This flash drive represents the last known backup of my original inquiry. The ghost buyers, the filtered source funding… it’s all there. It’s amazing how much has transpired over this one piece of plastic.”

I looked down at my hand. “That’s incredible.”

“Miss Cain?”

“Yes?” I glanced back at him.

“I owe you an apology along with my gratitude. Thank you for everything. Our safety and the future safety of our country are in your hands.”

I nodded and the gravity of everything hit me at once, rising like a boulder in my throat. I swallowed it down and stood with my shoulders back.

“Di, you need some help?” Vance asked. He’d secured Charlie’s hands behind his back with a zip tie and sat him down on the opposite end of the bench next to Avery. The police had to be moments away.

“I’ll be fine.” Sirens whirred outside. “I’m just going to go get checked out real quick.” I smiled back to Avery. “Rest assured that this is taken care of.”