Best Laid Plans(117)

Sean’s phone rang. “It’s Hooper,” he told Kane, then answered on speaker. “Dean, it’s Sean—Kane’s with me. You got the files?”

“Explain.”

“Exactly what I said—I was hired to do a forensic audit on a government contractor who’d been murdered, and my case collided with Lucy’s investigation, which collided with an undercover political corruption case. I can’t legally access those accounts, but my gut tells me Adeline Reyes-Worthington was laundering money by overpaying for properties she or her landholding group owned. Basically, buying from herself, but it doesn’t look that way on paper.”

“You’re right, but there’s more here than that. It’s going to take me a while to sift through the scam—this account is flagged, and it’s active right now.”

“You mean someone’s moving money?”

“Yes.”

“Let me have access, Dean. I need to find out where that person is physically located.”

Hooper hesitated.

“We don’t have time to go through channels,” Sean said. “I’m not bullshitting you, lives are at stake.”

Kane spoke. “Hooper, it’s Kane. This is connected to Tobias.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes. They took out one of my informants today and set a trap for me, but I got out.”

“You always do.” Dean paused a moment, typing on his computer. “Okay, Sean, you’re on, but you have to understand—once the money is gone, it’s going to be ten times harder to trace.”

“I don’t want to fund that bastard any more than you do.”

Sean pulled over and told Kane to drive. He ran around to the passenger side, pulled out his small laptop, and started a trace on one of the accounts. “The bastard already has over a million dollars. I can slow down his network, but I need to be on site to redirect the money without tipping anyone off.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m setting up another escrow account and when I get access to his actual network, I can make it look like he’s transferring money to the offshore account that I’m assuming Tobias controls, but it’ll actually be going to an escrow account that Dean Hooper controls.”

“How much is there total?” Kane asked.

“Twenty, give or take.”

“Twenty million?”

Sean nodded, typing rapidly. “I got him. Everett’s office.” Sean typed the address into his modified GPS system. “Floor it. I’ve slowed him down, but it’s not going to take him long. If it was me, I would already have all the money.”

*



Lucy was furious, and in a rare burst of anger she took it out on the cop who was supposed to be guarding Elise Hansen. “How did she just walk out?”

“I’m sorry, Agent Kincaid. She complained of chest pains and the doctor thought she might have internal injuries from the fall. He took her to get an MRI. I waited outside the room, and only just learned that no doctor had ordered an MRI.”

“Did you check his badge? Check his ID?”

“Lucy,” Brad said, and put his hand on her.

She brushed it off. “I should have figured it out earlier.”

“How?” Brad said. “We had no reason to think—”

Lucy cut him off. “It was that damn photo Tobias gave to Adeline. It wasn’t a sex shot—it was proof of the kill.” She involuntarily shivered, then locked down her emotions. She was too angry and too upset to be any good to anyone. She had to think like Elise.

“She’s cold, calculating. She’s a sixteen-year-old sociopath.”

“Okay, but—”

She barely heard Brad. “She’s so methodical that she lured in a grown man in physically good condition, killed him with a poison. Not just any poison, but one that would cause him intense pain as he died. She watched him die.”

“You don’t know that,” Brad said.

“She did. I’m certain of it. Then she took off his pants and made it appear as if they’d had oral sex.”

“You’re grossing me out, Lucy, and I don’t get easily grossed out.”

“She may have spit on him. It doesn’t matter. But she wanted her DNA on him.” Lucy paced. “Either she doesn’t understand forensics or she didn’t care what the final report would show, only that the initial report supported the scene she was setting. She left her DNA … Why?”

“She wanted to be found,” Brad suggested.

“Her prints weren’t in the system, the chances that her DNA would be are next to nothing.”

“I don’t know, but—”

Lucy snapped her fingers and stopped walking. “She wanted us to be looking for her. As soon as we started asking the right questions—when we found the phone and linked Everett to Mona Hill, she gave us Garza on a platter.”

“You mean she shot herself?”

“No—she must have a partner. Whoever drove her from the motel to the hotel. I thought it was Mona Hill. Maybe it is … It’s ballsy, because gunshots are unpredictable. The individual would have to be an outstanding sharpshooter. But I’ll bet she was standing still when she was shot—less chance of killing her accidentally.”