Golden in Death(97)

Academically, there hadn’t been so much as a blip with his transfer. Probability of that, she mused, dead low. She believed him when he’d told her he’d been pissed, upset, argumentative.

Added to it, he’d bullied and cheated his way, apparently with Grange’s blessing, at Gold. So, logical assumption? She’d smoothed over that period.

Family legacy and money would have helped get him into Northwestern, but he’d needed the grades, too. And he’d needed to maintain them once he didn’t have Grange running interference.

Not stupid, though. Highly intelligent. And savvy enough to know he had to buckle down enough if he wanted that big corner office.

He liked money—playing with it was a game to some. Didn’t she know it, she thought with a glance toward Roarke’s office.

Money was power, and power was the goal. Power and prestige and lifestyle.

She scanned through articles. Society pages, financial pages, gossip pages. Oh yeah, he was an up-and-comer, a young gun. Lots of fancy dos with him with a woman on his arm. Never the same more than twice, she noted, and wasn’t it interesting how many of them bore at least a surface resemblance to Hayward?

She hung you up, didn’t she, Steve? The one who got away.

She kept digging.

She barely glanced up when Roarke came in, when he eased around her to use her command center’s AutoChef.

“I’ve got more on Grange. One way or another she’s going down. If it comes to it, I might be able to leverage her against Whitt. Or use them against each other. Plus, he’s still hung up on Hayward, so…”

She caught the scent before he set the little plate on the counter. Cookie. Big, fat, chunky cookie.

She picked it up—still warm—and shifted when he sat at her auxiliary. “Either you got something that meant cookie reward, or you bombed out and wanted the cookie consolation.”

“The first.” He bit into his own. “You’ll want to run Lucas Sanchez, aka Loco, though I already did. He’s dead, killed about a month ago in what appeared to be an illegals deal gone south. Stabbed multiple times in an alley in Alphabet City. Jenkinson and Reineke caught it.”

“It’s still open.” She pulled the bullpen’s board into her head. “Open and going cold.” She had to push back, pull reports and quick conversations back into her head. “An illegals cook, an addict.”

“That’s correct. If one goes back about a decade, it appears young Lucas had one semester, on a science scholarship, at Gold Academy before that scholarship was rescinded when he was arrested for possession.”

“Son of a bitch! In a really good way,” Eve added.

“I thought you’d see it that way. Some of the possession was already inside his system when he attempted to mug a couple of tourists in Times Square. Females. One of whom kicked him in the balls while the other called the police.”

“He knew Cosner and Whitt.”

“Almost assuredly. I also believe he qualifies as Peabody’s mad sci entist. He showed flashes of brilliance with chemistry, earned that scholarship.”

She shoved up. “They bullied scholarship students—not one of them. But he’d have had a leg up if he could cook illegals, supply them. Cosner, another addict—The Facilitator, according to Hayward. Loco might’ve been his supplier, and that may have led to using him to cook up the agent.”

She turned back to Roarke. “How’d you get that out of the financial search?”

“Roundabout. Cosner isn’t so clever as Whitt. They both use casual gambling, purchases to cover payments.”

Eve felt another happy dance coming on. “What payments?”

“I’ll get to it. Cosner, however, slipped twice, and has a transfer of ten thousand to Lucas Sanchez. As Whitt ostensibly had gambling losses of the same amount at the same time, I thought it expedient to look at Sanchez.”

“I know it insults you for me to say you think like a cop, so I won’t say it.”

“Appreciated. There are other similar losses or outlays—such as Whitt listing a painting he claims he bought from a street artist in Paris for twenty thousand—cash—which remains uninsured. There are various and classic laundering schemes, and the outlay was regular, twenty thousand between them, twice a month from last September until January. In January until near the end of March, it doubled to twenty apiece, then nothing. Late March coordinates with Loco’s sudden and violent demise.”

“They had what they needed from him. Enough of the agent, or the formula. Doubled the initial payments—maybe he demanded still more. He got greedy or mouthy, or they just didn’t want to risk keeping an addict in the loop.”

“Agreed.”

She buzzed up more coffee for both of them to go with the cookie. “Hold on, let me tag Jenkinson, see if he can add anything.”

“I’ve more myself, but I’ll just finish my cookie while you do that.”

She tagged Jenkinson, who answered with a distracted, “Loo?”

She could hear chatter in the background, and somebody said, “That’s a full-of-shit bluff.”

Feeney?

“I’ll see that full-of-shit bluff and raise it ten.”

Definitely Feeney.

“Is Reineke in the game?” she asked.