Sins That Haunt (4 page)

B
y the time Noah reached the office he was able to once again rationalize his and the team's tactics. This rabid dog needed to be put down. This wasn't only about fraud; this was about stopping the money laundering of drug lords and, if they got lucky, doing some real damage to their operation. It was just seeing Shannon that had made his resolve slip.

She meant nothing to him—not anymore—but seeing her face-to-face, seeing the strong woman he'd always expected her to become, made him wonder about all the what ifs. But she'd left him. So he needed to stop thinking of her as the tenacious, feisty girl he'd given his heart to. She was, had to be, someone they needed to use to achieve their goal. His chief had put him in charge for a reason and he couldn't fuck this up.

Inside One Center Plaza, he headed to the meeting room and the team from various offices and departments gathered there. “Hello, everyone,” he said, closing the door behind him and taking a seat at the conference table. “What did I miss?”

The lights dimmed and the projector flicked on. All heads swiveled toward the image of a man, mid-fifties, sporting a beard and aviators that did nothing to hide his true identity: Alejandro Casales, head of an international drug-trafficking and money-laundering syndicate in Spain.

“Where was this taken?” Noah asked. The kingpin wasn't one to pose for pictures.

“Two days ago in Reno,” Damon said. “He flew in for a family wedding.”

He and Damon Fox had graduated college and the academy together, only he'd gone the organized crime route, while Noah did white collar. Now they were on the same task force, together again. “Why are we only hearing about this now?”

“Internal screwups. No one thought to make the connection to our case. The chief isn't happy. But what's done is done,” Damon said. “Let's focus on what we know.”

“Which is?” said a low-sounding, irate voice.

Noah cringed, wondering how much crap they were in if Chief Marsh had decided to join their meeting. Had he found out they'd gotten Shannon to cooperate? He turned to face the man. “Sir.”

“Don't
sir
me,” he said with a scowl meant to intimidate.

Raised by a pro football player, it would take more than that to intimidate Noah. Even so, he kept his mouth shut. He'd put in for a promotion and no way was he going to endanger it by saying the wrong thing.

“Any one of you,” the chief said, making sure to point a finger at each of the six assigned to the special task force. “Any of you,” he repeated “think to tell me Lewis was dead? Do you all know the money that has gone into this project? We don't get opportunities like this in New England. The syndicate tends to keep its activities farther south. We need to shut them down so they'll think twice about
expanding
their horizons.”

No one said anything. As team leader, Noah shouldered the responsibility, even though as a team they'd agreed they needed Shannon. He debated how much to tell his chief. While legal, he might not appreciate the way he'd coerced a respected civilian into helping. “We've handled it, sir. Someone is stepping into Lewis's spot.”

“Who? The pair who work with him can barely spell their names.”

“No, sir, it isn't the Keyeses.” He'd either get a pat on the back... or his ass handed to him.

“Then who?”

“His daughter, sir. She's agreed to help.”

“Explain.” He folded his arms across his barrel chest. “And unless she's as crooked as the old man or an officer of the law, you'd better have a good reason for dragging a civilian into a potentially dangerous operation . . . to screw it up.”

“No, sir; I mean yes, sir.” He removed the shank from his brain and figured he'd better speak quickly, before the chief's face got any redder. “She's not on the force. She's a civil attorney in the state of Nevada.”

“Better than nothing, I guess. Go on.”

“The Keyeses know her. They haven't seen her since she was sixteen, but they're aware her father had, in the last few months, been in contact with her. We're using that to our advantage. She's agreed to convince them she was working with Lewis.”

“And why would an attorney from Nevada agree to that? And, more importantly, why would those morons fall for it?”

Noah cleared his throat. He hadn't liked revealing what Shannon had done as kid, but when they'd discovered she'd been dropping money in JJ's account, he'd had no choice. They'd all assumed she was in on the scam, but he couldn't see her risking a career she'd clearly worked her ass off to get. Not with the money she was making and not with what he'd learned about her. Now he had to tell his chief. “She . . . when she was a kid, Lewis forced her to assist him in cons. Her mother was incapable of working and he'd threaten to cut them off. It wasn't until she was older that she understood what it was she and her father were doing.”

“I see. Sounds like you feel the need to be her champion. She was involved in criminal activity as a minor, plain and simple.”

“Yes and no, sir. She broke the law, but she didn't have much choice.”

“We all have choices, Monroe. Just like I have a choice to put your promotion through or not.”

“Yes, sir.” It was never a good idea to argue with Marsh, especially when the future of your career lay in his hands. “But when you don't have food on the table and child welfare's breathing down your neck . . .” He shrugged. “Lewis used his daughter from the time she could walk.”

Marsh nodded, he himself a survivor of foster care. “I'm not going to argue the morality of what she did. That's on her. And like you said, she was a minor.”

“Yes, sir. When Lewis was killed the team considered she might have had something to do with it. We think he was blackmailing her, threatening to involve himself in her life again. Her firm is lucrative. She has a reputation to protect. She cut her ties with him thirteen years ago and made sure he couldn't find her.” She'd made sure no one could find her. “She flew home to see him on the day he was shot.”

“Blackmail as a motive for murder. Makes sense.”

Noah explained the gun found and the outdated prints.

“But that's not admissible,” Marsh said.

“No, and everyone felt it was enough to clear her. If she shot him, it didn't make sense that she'd leave the gun behind.”

“Murder doesn't always make sense, Monroe.”

Damn, he hated when he used his name like that. Like he was incapable of understanding. He had a good rapport with the man, and his respect. It had been Marsh's idea for Noah to request the promotion, but he swore the man liked to push his buttons just because he could. “Yes, but as soon as time of death was determined, I contacted my buddy at ICU.”

“I don't want to hear it,” Marsh warned.

Monty was the best hacker Noah knew. And while ICU, the private investigation agency he worked for, was on the up and up, not everything they did was clear cut legal, even if government sanctioned. ICU boss Ryan Sheppard and company often worked below the radar and got intel in ways the government couldn't—not within the law. Christian Beck, Maggie's new husband, had left the FBI, choosing to take a job offer from Sheppard. It was at Christian's going away party that Noah met Monty. The world really was a small place.

“Let's just say we have her at the airport at the time of Lewis's death.” What had taken Monty an hour to do would have taken days of red tape for the FBI. And Shannon wouldn't be too happy if she found out he'd known that before he'd slapped the cuffs on her.

“So she didn't kill her father. Good to know. Keep talking.”

He filled Marsh in on their plan.

“And she's agreed to all this?”

“She's not in any danger,” he said, avoiding the question. “We don't believe the Keyeses would hurt her, plus we've got them under surveillance. She'll make the call. If they suspect anything, they won't agree to meet with her . . . or us.”

“And our case is blown.” He seemed to be considering their options, or lack of. “Are you certain we have her full cooperation?”

At least he wasn't asking how he'd gotten her to cooperate. “Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. By tomorrow we say good-bye to Ms. Lewis, and I mean tomorrow. Good job, Monroe.”

He didn't bother correcting the chief on her real name as the man turned and left the meeting room.

“Well, that was close. You nearly got your ass handed to you.” Jeff Dickie, the king of understatements, smirked at Noah.

“Me? You think if I go down I'm not taking the DEA with me?” It was an empty threat. This had been a group effort, but as leader he was responsible.

“So you're not going to take one for the team?”

“I suggested we
ask
the lady. It was all of you who said to scare her with the bogus arrest.”

Rick Howards leaned back in his chair, wearing a serious expression. “
Scare
is the wrong word. It was for her own good, so she could see the benefits in helping us.”

“Wow, Howards, you should try politics when you're done with Homeland Security. That was good bullshit.” Spin it any way they wanted, he'd coerced her into helping them with a not so veiled threat.

“Someone having second thoughts?” Damon asked. He glanced at his watch. “If your plane landed on time, she's still on the road. Call her back.”

“What the hell.” Howards sat up. “We need that little girl.”

“
That
little girl,” Damon said “isn't a pawn for us to use. So if Noah is second-guessing her involvement—”

“No, it's fine.” It wasn't fine, but the decision had been made.

He'd been feeling like shit about his part in all this since he'd handed her the keys to her car. So much so, he'd left her standing there, too tied up in knots to watch her drive away, driving toward a life, a town she never wanted to see again. Yeah, sure, she'd destroyed him, but he'd gotten over it. At least he thought he had until he saw her. But what was done was done, and the only reason he was having regrets was because it was Shannon. They'd used willing civilians before, and he'd like to think if she'd strongly objected to helping, he'd have allowed her to return to Vegas.

“Let's get on with the meeting.” He pointed to the wall that displayed Casales's picture. “Do we have a man on him?”

“Two, but he's not making an effort to hide the fact he's here,” Damon said.

“He's technically not wanted for anything. Last year's indictments in California went to the Sinaloa Cartel. His hands weren't clean, but they weren't able to prove his involvement in anything.” And Jeff didn't look happy about it. “One of the biggest takedowns in LA and he walks away.”

Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers had seized close to one hundred million dollars in cash, arresting nine and closing down dozens of businesses in the fashion district that had laundered money for the drug cartels. The three indictments—narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and kidnapping—had been aimed at the Sinaloa Cartel. Try as they might, they couldn't get anything to stick to Casales or his men, even though everyone was certain he was involved.

“We'll nail him.” And with Shannon's help, they were going to do it from the inside.

The companies JJ had set up not only made them appear legit but allowed the cartel to funnel money through their purchases, which they later resold, giving them a genuine bankroll. JJ himself hadn't been aware of who he was working for until they'd told him. He was small time compared to the cartel, and Noah had to admit he'd enjoyed freaking him out just as much as he'd taken great pleasure in slapping cuffs on the prick. He'd left him to rot in the interrogation room with no break for hours. If not for his team, he'd have made him squirm all night.

But JJ's ignorance about who his employer was had left them with a dilemma. Did they tell Shannon? The team had debated whether they were risking the operation if they opted for full disclosure, but that wasn't why Noah had agreed not to tell her. While it made sense that if JJ hadn't known, Shannon wouldn't know, Noah just wanted to keep her safe.

“So there's no direct link to Casales?” Jeff asked.

“They did a good job at layering companies. Not to worry; the IRS is on it. They've already dissected two belonging to family members of the cartel operating out of Miami, one directly to Casales himself, a second cousin I believe.” Noah had been pleased to hear that bit of good news.

“So let me see if I got their scheme right.” Lieutenant Peter Murphy, Boston PD, was a new addition to the task force and had only been on board a couple of days. “They set up all these phony companies, then added drug money into the mix. They created bullshit invoices with the occasional legitimate one and paid themselves off. Then on paper—or sometimes in reality—they bought property, boats, and stuff like that and sold for a higher profit. Am I getting this right?”

“You nailed it,” Noah said. “They also give drug money to foreign businesses on their payroll to buy goods, which are then sold in different countries, turning dollars into the foreign currency, avoiding smuggling large sums of cash across the border. That's where we come in. Step one, we offer our plant in the UK.” The company manufactured computer consoles for cars and had been facing a financial crisis until the US government stepped in and offered assistance in return for a favor. “In the bust in California the Sinaloa Cartel was funneling money to Mexican businesses and turning profits into pesos.”