Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar (11 page)

He gave me a hard stare.
"That worked?"

He couldn
't have been more surprised than I was. "To an Englishman, I can sound Texan."

"
Did you use your real name at all?"

"
Of course, for my flight and the hotel," I said.

He nodded.

"They're looking for Lana Parker now, so ditch anything you have with that name on it. And they obviously figured out your real name."

"
But how?"

"
If I were heading their security team, I'd have asked the front desk clerk to identify you from a still from a surveillance video. That's not important right now. What matters is staying off their radar," Jake said. He tossed my report on the bedspread. "Why did you put together your case against Bill in a report like this? Seems like a lot of work to accuse someone of a crime."

"
Well, that's your area of expertise, not mine," I snapped. "I researched a series of financial transactions and summarized my findings in a report. That's what I used to do at Patterson Tinker."

It was a familiar task, and somehow compiling the evidence as if it were a year-end report on one of Patterson
's investment funds distanced me from the true object of the report—the fact that someone used my name to funnel a ton of money off Patterson's books and into their own pockets.

"
I don't know what you did or didn't do at that company," Jake said, standing. "But I'll help you."

I sat still in my uncomfortable chair, immediately suspicious.
"Why would you help me?"

And did I even want his help?

"Well, the U.S. Attorney tried to convict you without success. Do you know what the odds are of that?"

I did know—something like ninety-six percent of cases indicted in federal courts end in conviction. Of the very small fraction of cases that didn
't, only a handful were acquittals after a jury trial. Rob had made sure I understood that I was nearly guaranteeing my conviction by going to trial.

"
And I don't know if you're delusional. Maybe you're trying to recover the missing money for yourself. But I need to find Bill. And you're the only lead I have at this point."

He walked to the scarred white door leading to the closet and opened it, and pulled out a plastic bag and dumped an assortment of snack foods onto the bedspread.

My stomach growled at the sight of the food, and I realized that it had been a long time since my light breakfast at the Mandarin. Jake tossed me a bag of chips, which I ripped into without concern about the flavor indicated by the Chinese characters on the label. Turned out that salty potato chips are the same the world over, at least if you're hungry enough. The contents of the bag were gone in minutes. While I inhaled the chips, Jake paced and re-read the report I'd given him.

Finally, he paused and ran a hand through his hair and then rubbed his face. His expression was grave and exhausted. With a sigh, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at me.

"It sounds like we both need to find Bill," he said. "It will be easier for both of us if we work together."

"
I don't know how to find Bill," I said. "I only know where he works. I didn't have his home address, and I don't know where he hangs out."

"
I think you know more than you realize," he said, nodding toward the two external drives that were resting inside the gaping opening of my messenger bag.

The massive volume of information on those drives included a large number of Bill Macias
's emails, expense reports for several years, and his daily calendars. With enough time, I could probably learn a lot about the man. But I didn't have a lot of time. I figured I had no more than three weeks to travel before my credit cards either maxed out or the bills came due—and I wasn't sure I'd be able to cover the minimum payments yet.

Palling around with an FBI agent wasn
't part of my plan. There was no way I could tell him everything I knew about his brother-in-law and the bigger scheme, which I was only beginning to understand. And he certainly wasn't going to let me blackmail his family member.

"
If I let you search the hard-drives, will you help me get the money back to the Sahara Fund investors?" I asked.

He tilted his head and then nodded.
"I won't let you blackmail Bill. Or anyone else."

Of course not. But what he didn
't know…

"
Fine, let's look at the drives," I said.

He stood up and walked toward the bathroom.
"You get started," he said. "I'm going to grab a shower."

The bathroom door clicked shut, and I turned on my laptop and was happy to find an open Wi-Fi signal. I quickly opened my email program, and at the top was an email from Sarah, just hours earlier.

Hope you're having a good vacation. Hate to be a bummer, but call me when you can. Got some news.

She didn
't say it was good news, just news. That meant it was bad news. I looked at the closed bathroom door and heard the shower running. Then I took a deep breath and reached for my cell phone.

"
Hey,
chica
! How's the vacation going?"

It was so nice to hear Sarah
's voice over the phone that I almost wept with homesickness. It had only been a few days since I left California, but it felt like a lifetime ago. The Mandarin had all the comforts of home, and then some, so it didn't feel foreign. But this sparse motel room Jake Barnes was staying in felt a million miles away.

"
It's great, really nice to get away, you know," I said, trying to keep my tone casual despite the panic that I could feel within arm's reach. "What's up?"

Over the phone, I could hear her take a deep breath before answering, and I steeled myself for the news.

"I really hate to interrupt your holiday, but I thought you should know what's going on here," she said.

"
Lay it on me," I said, closing my eyes and running a hand through my damp hair.

"
Well, the lawsuit was filed yesterday."

Okay, I knew that was coming. Rob had warned me that could happen at any time.

"Is that it?"

"
No," she said. I could tell she was reluctant to tell me the rest. "They're also trying to get a court order to freeze all of your assets, so you can't dispose of anything you own before the lawsuit is resolved. Since you don't really have any assets in your own name that means it was served on Marie, since you and she are joint owners of the house and the bakery building. Rob accepted service on your behalf."

My eye started to twitch. Rob had warned of this, too. Didn
't make it any easier to think of Aunt Marie getting served legal papers because of me.

"
Is there anything Rob can do about that?" I asked.

"
He's fighting it," she said. "There's something else, too."

"
Is Aunt Marie all right?"

"
Oh, yes, she's fine," Sarah said quickly. "Rob isn't going to let anything happen to your aunt."

Again I had that feeling that Rob
's interest in my aunt was growing more than friendly. Or maybe it had always been that intimate, and I was just oblivious to the attraction before. Or maybe I just wanted there to be someone like Rob keeping an eye on Aunt Marie's well-being.

"
No, this is about Ralph Tinker," Sarah said.

"
What about Ralph?"

"
He died. Yesterday. In prison."

"
What?"

I sat up in the chair, and my hand flew to my mouth. During the long months leading up to the trial, my feelings toward Ralph Tinker had swung dramatically—from disbelief that he could have defrauded his clients, to shock and disgust when I learned he pleaded guilty to doing just that. Then when he testified against me, I hated him. I knew he was lying. His prison sentence would depend on how well he cooperated with the prosecutor, which would be measured by whether I was convicted.

But after Rob told me that Ralph had been sentenced to prison and I tried to think of the older, white-haired man in orange prison garb, my feelings softened to something closer to pity. I hadn't forgiven him—not remotely. I hadn't really thought of him much since he was sentenced to prison. But when I did, it was as a sad old man whose family was paying for his greed.

And now he was dead. A small chill ran down my spine.

"How did he die?" I asked, conscious of the sudden lack of sound from the bathroom. I hoped that Jake hadn't heard my question.

"
He, uh, killed himself," Sarah said.

The breath escaped my lungs, and I didn
't know what to say.

"
Oh."

"
Yeah, it was kind of a shock to everyone," she said. "He had only been at the federal camp for a couple days and wasn't on suicide watch."

"
I just—damn."

"
I know." She took a deep breath. "I'm really sorry to be such a bummer while you're trying to escape reality. Rob thought you should know what was going on."

"
Of course," I said. "Don't worry about it."

"
Well, at least tell me something good, Miranda," Sarah said with a forced laugh. "Tell me you're on a beach somewhere, drinking girly cocktails. Tell me you've met some handsome stranger and are having acrobatic,
but
safe
, sex all over some exotic country."

The bathroom door opened, and Jake Barnes emerged wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his lower half. His wet hair was tousled, and drops of water dotted his nicely muscled chest. It should be illegal for a man built like that to walk around in a towel. No telling what riots he
'd cause. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of me using a cell phone but then continued to the open suitcase in the closet. I swallowed hard as he turned and leaned over the suitcase to get his clothes, the damp towel leaving little to my quickly overheating imagination.

"
Hello, Miranda?" Sarah said. "Did I lose you?"

I turned away quickly and stared at the closed drapes, focusing on the faded yellow fabric.
"No, nothing like that," I said. "I should go. This is probably costing a fortune. I'll call you in a couple days, okay?"

We said goodbye, and I disconnected the call. Jake had stepped back into the bathroom, and I was alone again. I closed my eyes and leaned back, trying to make sense of the news from home.

"Who died?"

His quiet question jolted me out of my thoughts.

"Ralph Tinker," I said, opening my eyes. He was wearing clothes, thank God, but his hair was still damp and sticking up at odd angles. I could imagine how the short wet strands would feel between my fingers. I tried to stop that train of thought.

"
Were you close to him?" Jake looked puzzled now.

"
No, not at all."

He nodded and sat in the other chair.

"Who was on the phone?"

"
My friend Sarah."

"
Does she know where you are?"

I shook my head.

"Feel like going out?"

"
Out where?" I asked, wary of another walk. The last one was a little too long and dangerous for my tastes.

"
I want to go back to Bill's apartment. I went before, but it had been tossed, and I didn't have much time there. Maybe with your help, I can find something that will help us."

"
What are you looking for?"

He frowned.
"I'm not sure. An address book, something that would indicate who he trusts. He and my sister, Molly, have been divorced for a year. Maybe he's dating someone who knows where he's hiding out."

I bit my lip. Jake
's words triggered a faint memory. I'd been studying Bill's email traffic, but it was mostly work-related. Anything social was related to Patterson's clients. But there was something that tickled the back of my brain.

"
No one uses address books anymore. But I think I might be able to help you," I said. "And we won't even have to put on shoes."

I reached for my laptop and plugged in one of the hard-drives, looking for the emails.

"Bill's phone synced with his email program. His contacts will be here," I said. "But that's not going to help you unless you know who you're looking for. He's got thousands of contacts."

"
Doesn't sound particularly helpful."

It wasn
't the contacts I was searching for. There had been a certain tone in some of Bill's emails to a coworker—a female coworker. I quickly scrolled through the dates until I found what I was looking for.

"
Here it is," I said, taking the laptop with me to sit on the edge of the bed, so Jake could see the screen. "His emails with Cecily Ho seem friendlier than with others in his office. I think he's been involved with her for a while."

As I said it, I wondered how long Bill had been separated from Jake
's sister. I knew several of Patterson Tinker's executives who transferred overseas didn't bring their families, at least not right away. And as you'd expect, this often led to marital problems.

"
That wouldn't surprise me. Molly said Bill had started dating as soon as they'd separated, but I think she suspected maybe he started sooner."

He scooted near me and leaned in to peer at the laptop, and my stomach flipped at the nearness. The memory of him wearing only that towel flashed through my mind, and I felt myself blushing. Quickly, I scrolled through the list of emails that I
'd sorted.

"
See, here, he asks a casual question about whether she's around to assist him on the weekend, and she replies that she is," I said, trying to focus on the research.

"
Why does that mean they're sleeping together?"

"
It might not. But his assistant is Philip who works on weekends all the time for Bill."

"
Seems a little thin," he said.

"
There are more emails like this. Many more. She was always available to work on weekends, but there's never ever mention of what they're working on or emails to other people about what they did," I said.

Jake nodded and read the emails.
"Can you find out where Cecily Ho lives?"

I nodded.
"There's an employee directory, but it's a couple years old. I might be able to track it down."

"
How long will it take to find it?"

I shrugged.
"There's a lot of stuff on these drives, but I've got it pretty well organized. Maybe an hour or so."

He sat on the edge of the bed and put his shoes on.
"I'm going out to get us something to eat. Something that's not junk food," he said, watching me carefully. "Are you okay staying here alone?"

"
Yeah, sure."

"
I'm not going far."

"
I'll be fine."

He stood and walked to the door, then turned back.
"You'll be here when I return?"

"
Where would I go?" I asked, frustrated.

He didn
't answer, just opened the door and left.

I turned my attention back to the computer. As I expected, it took me ten minutes to find Cecily Ho
's personnel information. Provided she hadn't moved I had her home address and phone number. I jotted the information down on a hotel notepad and then listened for any sound outside the door. Hearing nothing, I pulled the flash drive from my pocket and slipped it into the port. It was time to find out what Bill Macias was hiding under his desk.

The 32-gigabyte drive was nearly full, and contained a backup of a laptop and multiple folders, each one holding hundreds of files. I tried to find some logic to the organization, sorting everything by date and started with the newest dates. Most of the files were encrypted, but the most recent ones were spreadsheets that I was able to open without passwords.

The names scrolled by while I looked at the account numbers and the figures representing money flowing in and out of those accounts. Some of the accounts were numbered, and some were in the name of various corporations that all had suspiciously vague names. As I reached the bottom of the list, names started popping up associated with accounts. I had some experience with the various types of bank accounts. The numbered account could be used by anyone who could present that number and a pass code, usually more numbers. The pass codes were all listed, cross-referenced in the complex spreadsheets.

The named accounts, though, could be accessed by the person on the account or others given permission by the account owner or through electronic access with the correct pass
codes. I had no idea who else had access to this information, but there must have been a reason Bill had it hidden under his desk.

I studied the dollar amounts and the dates, flipping between spreadsheets, trying to trace the transactions. I understood what I was looking at, but it didn
't make sense. Funds were being transferred between accounts, ledgers kept showing incoming money and the percentage being skimmed off to "overhead"—presumably Patterson's bottom line—and then funneled into other accounts.

Why would a respected multinational financial institution like Patterson be engaging in large-scale money laundering? Why would the bank risk its reputation and criminal prosecution?

On the other hand, a small division of rogue employees could operate this scheme and bury it in the many millions of transactions and various accounts. It could go unnoticed for years. For about ten years, if these spreadsheets were correct.

The rattle of the doorknob sent my heart into overdrive, and I quickly ejected the flash drive while Jake set the bags of food and water down on the dresser.