Stolen (28 page)

“I don’t have time.”

“Make time. We have a dead federal agent in a civilian’s apartment, someone she claimed shot at her yesterday. He’s planning to put the APB back on Sean, and I held him off until you talked to him, but—”

He put his hand up. “I understand. What about Gannon?”

“He’s at headquarters.”

“First, we stop at Brighton’s apartment.” Noah looked at her. “You
do
have her address, correct?”

Suzanne nodded.

“Let’s go.”

Noah called Rick Stockton on his way out and told him everything they knew. Rick said, “Shut it all down. Bring Sean in.”

“I can’t reach him. He’s gone dark.”

“If you have to go to Thayer’s house and arrest them all, do it. We need to consider that Duke has been kidnapped.”

“I have another idea. I’d like to bring in Senator Paxton.”

Rick didn’t say anything for a minute. “Are you sure? You only have one shot at him.”

“I’m sure. But first, I want to follow up on a theory. If it pans out, I’m going to have the two agents tracking Paxton bring him to headquarters.”

“I’ll tell the team to keep eyes on him.”

“Any information about Kurt LeGrand?”

“Not much, but we’re working on it. Check in every thirty minutes, Agent Armstrong. Find out what the hell is going on.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lucy could find next to nothing on Kurt LeGrand, which was suspicious in itself. He seemed to have a clean slate, hardly what would be expected of someone involved with a hacktivist group like Colton Thayer’s.

She put together a time line on the whiteboard because she was visual—she preferred to see everything at once.

She found no connections whatsoever between Paxton and LeGrand. She had LeGrand’s work history, residence, and schooling—everything looked normal. The most interesting thing about him was that he’d worked for a financial services company that had been investigated for mortgage fraud. This wasn’t unusual, especially now. Many companies had shut down because they had been built on fraud or one of their employees had played fast and loose with the rules.

Lucy didn’t know a lot about white-collar crime, so she carefully read over the FBI file on Avery & Block.

The case was pretty standard for mortgage fraud. The company had padded mortgages with fees, kickbacks, and a private mortgage insurance scam that cost banks and homeowners millions of dollars—money that all went directly to the company owners. Two principals had gone to prison for the scheme, even though the bulk of the money hadn’t been recovered. The FBI found no evidence to support their suspicion that the funds had been sent to one or more offshore accounts.

The file referred to a whistle-blower, but didn’t identify him by name. Lucy flipped through hundreds of documents before she found the whistle-blower’s identity:

Kurt LeGrand

She didn’t know how this information was important, but since he was somehow involved with Colton Thayer and possibly Senator Paxton, it was at least interesting.

Lucy called the U.S. attorney who had prosecuted the case, but no one was available to talk to her. She left a message and looked at her time line for LeGrand.

College, employment, residence.

He’d graduated from Boston College sixteen years ago, at the age of twenty-two. He’d then worked as an accountant in a major firm in Boston for four years. But there was a two-year gap between when he left that company and when he moved to Manhattan, where he worked for the stock exchange for four years, before taking the position with Avery & Block.

She circled the gap on the whiteboard.

What did he do during those two years?

She went back to her notes on Colton Thayer. There was no connection between Thayer and LeGrand other than the fact that they’d both been born in Boston. They were five years apart, never went to the same schools, the same college, or worked for the same employers. Thayer had never done freelance work for LeGrand or LeGrand’s employers, either. LeGrand moved to Manhattan the year Thayer graduated with his master’s from MIT and Sean graduated with his bachelor of science.

Something tickled at the back of her memory. Something Sean had told her last night, or maybe it was something Noah had said when she talked to him. About why Sean left MIT.

She left her cubicle and walked briskly down to Rick’s office. His secretary wasn’t out front, and Lucy hesitated. She didn’t want to bother him, but her gut told her there was something odd in LeGrand’s career path. She knocked on the door.

“Come in!” Stockton called.

Lucy stepped in and approached his desk. Though she had known the AD for a year and they had mutual friends, she was still a little intimidated. He exuded authority.

He asked, “Find something?”

“It might be nothing.”

“You wouldn’t be in my office if it was nothing.”

“It’s more what I didn’t find. There’s a two-year gap in LeGrand’s employment history. This might not be unusual, except that according to his credit reports, he maintained the same lifestyle he had during his four years working as an accountant. There’s no inheritance that I could find.

“The other interesting thing that I found was that he was a whistle-blower for a case that was investigated by our Manhattan office. A mortgage fraud case. Two people were prosecuted and pled out. They’re in prison for ten-to-twenty years.”

“And this guy”—Stockton tapped the photo—“turned them in?”

“Yes. I wanted to talk to the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, but because it was in New York I didn’t think I should make the call. I left a message for the prosecutor on the case.”

“What do you need?”

“I’d like a list of employees with Avery and Block, plus they should have a background on LeGrand as part of the case file. Especially if he gave testimony and was vetted by counsel.”

Rick nodded. “I’ll make a couple calls. What else?”

“The FBI accountants indicate that there is anywhere from six to ten million still unaccounted for.”

“And you think LeGrand has the money?”

“If he does, he’s not spending it. He lives within his means. He was paid well by Avery, but wasn’t on the board and made no major decisions for the company.”

“Dig as deep as you need. Use my name if you have to. Find out everything about this guy. Did you find any connection to Senator Paxton?”

“None. I even searched Paxton’s campaign contributor reports. LeGrand has never donated to his campaign. He’s made no reportable political donations at all. I checked the files on Paxton’s favorite charities, including Women and Children First, and LeGrand isn’t a donor. I don’t think they know each other.”

Lucy continued, “I’m running the people LeGrand could have met with at Thayer’s house—Hunter Nash, Skylar Jansen, Evan Weller, and Carol Hattori—to see if there’s a connection to any of them.”

“Don’t forget Colton Thayer.”

“I ran him first. Nothing. They’re both from Boston, but no overlap in any area.”

“Dig into the others and call if you find anything—I’m leaving.”

“Is it that late?” She looked at her watch. It was only three in the afternoon.

“I’m going to New York.”

“Sir, could I come with you?” she asked spontaneously.

He raised an eyebrow. “You have to report back to Quantico tomorrow morning.”

“I know, but—”

“Lucy, sit down.”

She swallowed uneasily and sat.

“I know this is hard on you, with Sean undercover and not being able to get involved. That’s why I let you work here today. But I can’t give you another pass. Noah and Sean know what they’re doing. I’ll keep you informed. Stay with your brother tonight; I told Chief O’Neal you’d be back by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Lucy knew she had asked for special treatment, something she’d never wanted to do. And only last month she’d had to face the Office of Professional Responsibility because she uncovered a drug operation while camping in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t finding the drug operation that put her on the hot seat—it was shooting a drug dealer. She was on thin ice, and it didn’t matter how high she was ranked within her class or how well she scored on her tests, there were too many people watching her, waiting for her to screw up so they could kick her out.

“I’ll be there,” she said. “Can I stay here for the rest of the day? I still have files to go through, and your analyst, Dorothy, is meeting with me at four.”

“Be my guest. Dorothy is the best analyst in my office. She retires next year and I’m going to miss her. I’ll make sure Noah updates you. But just because Sean went dark doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. The nature of criminals is that they don’t trust anyone.”

“Sean’s not a criminal.”

“But he’s working for one.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Noah walked through Deanna Brighton’s apartment, increasingly horrified by her evident obsession with Sean Rogan.

The small, two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey had a view of the New York skyline and would have been considered typical for a single, female, fifteen-year veteran of the FBI. Tasteful, uncluttered, and feminine.

Except for her office.

Deanna slept in the closet-sized bedroom and the larger master bedroom was her office. One wall was covered with corkboard pinned with newspaper articles about RCK, specifically Sean Rogan. She had sticky notes on each one with questions like, “Who paid him?” and “How did he get security clearance?” Stacks of files lined another wall. She had information about RCK, their employees, Sean’s assignments.

One section was devoted to everything related to Sean’s case at Stanford. She had a tape of the symposium where he’d hacked in and exposed his professor. Half her documents related to her failed project.

A day planner on her desk highlighted when and where she’d tracked Sean since he’d been in New York. Noah flipped to early October, when he and Sean first arrived. Two days
before
they moved to SoHo, she had a notation:

SR working with Thayer again.

No one knew about that outside of Sean, Rick, Noah, and Colton Thayer’s group. Unless Thayer had told Paxton, and Deanna was Paxton’s mole.

Deanna seemed far too volatile to be the mole, but if she was set on arresting Sean she might work with Paxton to make it happen. It would also make sense that Paxton wouldn’t want Sean involved in stealing from Joyce Bonner’s pharmaceutical company, because Paxton knew Sean didn’t trust him.

Noah rubbed his face. The theory was too convoluted, but there was some truth to it—if Paxton had Sean arrested, then he wouldn’t be a factor in the PBM theft. Except why would Paxton kill Deanna and kidnap Duke Rogan? Paxton was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cop killer.

“Noah, you need to see this.”

Suzanne walked over to where Noah sat at Deanna’s desk and slipped a file in front of him. “This doesn’t look like her handwriting.”

Noah opened the file. It was a copy of handwritten notes that appeared to have been taken at Lucy’s FBI panel. There were things in here that weren’t in her permanent file and some that were hand-copied from her file.

Noah knew about Lucy’s past—ten months ago, when she was a murder suspect, he’d had access to even her sealed file. She’d be horrified that the information about her abduction and rape seven years ago had not only been written down by members of her panel but also given to someone else.

“‘Mentally unstable’? ‘Dangerous’?” Suzanne turned away. “I don’t want to see any more.” Then she said, “I didn’t know about the kidnapping.”

“I did,” Noah said. He wasn’t reading the notes so much as trying to figure out who wrote them. By the end he ascertained that it had to have been Juan Martinez, because the note-taker referenced things that the other two panel members had said.

That’s why Deanna went to talk to Lucy—she thought Lucy was the weak link. Deanna had threatened Lucy, but Noah didn’t realize with what until now.

“She has surveillance photos of Sean, mostly with his pal Colton Thayer. And a blonde.”

Noah glanced over. “That’s Skylar Jansen, part of Colton’s crew. Sean’s ex-girlfriend.”

“What was Brighton doing?”

“Trying to catch him in the act.”

Noah looked at Deanna’s planner. She hadn’t written anything down for today, but there was a notepad next to her desk. He lightly rubbed a pencil over it and brought out Sean’s address.

“Someone called her and gave her Sean’s address.”

“We can’t track her phone. The battery is out; it’s the only explanation.”

“Did she have a personal phone?”

“We can’t find that, either, and the carrier has no signal. There’s no landline into the house, but that’s not unusual. I don’t have a landline either.”