“Africa?”
“Yep.” He held up another paper. “Patent documents and clinical trial information. This is all about the formula.”
She pulled a torn piece of notebook paper with light cursive scribbled over it. It was paper clipped to a bank statement.
She frowned. “Two million, X, three years.”
“Times. That X means times.”
Her eyes widened. “Two million, over three years.”
“Six million dollars total.”
She looked up at him. “Someone was bidding on the drug… someone was trying to buy the formula from him.” She looked at the bank statement. “This shows a deposit made into Leland’s account for ten thousand dollars.” Just below the deposit information was a date and time. "And that someone was paying him just to meet with them, thirty-seven years ago."
Weston blew out a breath.
“But who? That’s a lot of damn money.”
He cocked his head. “Yeah, but Roxy, Leland’s formula was a potential cure for Marburg and Ebola, not just a treatment. That’s worth millions. Hell, these days hundreds of millions.”
She shook her head. “Money. It’s always about damn money.”
“Money is a powerful thing, Roxy. More valuable than human life, to some people.”
She flipped over the piece of paper—
SALL
“SALL? What the hell is that?”
He took it from her hands. “SALL?”
She grabbed her cell phone and took pictures of the papers. After placing them back into the folder, she opened her text message.
Ace, sending you pictures now. First is a bank statement with a transaction number. Need to know who deposited that money. Next, phone numbers, who do they belong to. Need this immediately, ASAP. Look for the name Sebastian Wells, specifically. And need to know what SALL is?
She sent the message and not five seconds later received a response.
Hang on…
She waited, staring at the phone. Finally—
SALL is an acronym for a lot of things, but this stuck out—South African Liberation Leaders. Militia group. Bad dudes. Give me some time on the other things.
Her eyes bugged as she looked up at Weston.
He shook his head. “Leland had gotten himself into some shit.”
“Is that who he was selling it to? A militia group? Why would they want it?”
“A militia group... what would they want? Money, of course...” Weston began pacing, in deep thought. “Maybe they would hold the formula hostage for a ridiculous amount of money from the government—in their country, where the virus is most prevalent. That’s why they’d want it. Hell, they might even purposely spread the virus first.”
“Certainly fits with everything we know so far.” She glanced at Adam, forgetting for a moment that half his face had been blown away. Her stomach curdled and she tore her eyes away. “Why would Adam have this paperwork? How the hell is he involved? And Sebastian Wells?”
“Adam said he didn’t know Wells, but we know that’s not true because he gets money from him…”
“Right. Adam and Sebastian are in on this together. They have to be.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Could Sebastian be the person who bidded on this formula, almost forty years ago? Could Sebastian be working with SALL? Did he kill Leland and his wife?”
His eyebrows tipped up. “Interesting theory, Roxy. That’s what we need to find out.”
She exhaled. “Okay, let’s call the cops.” She looked at Weston who was gazing down at the folder.
“How much you wanna bet that the meeting time on that piece of paper is the day and time Leland and his wife were murdered?”
She nodded and looked at the blood splatters on the floor. “But who killed Adam?”
After waiting for the police to arrive and giving their statement to Zander, Roxy and Weston jogged through the rain and jumped into his truck.
She grabbed her cell phone as he pulled onto the road.
“Graves Laboratory, Max speaking.”
“Max, it’s Roxy. You have a quick second?”
“You bet. What’s up?”
“How much progress has Dr. Prescott made on those bones?”
“He’s been knee deep in them all day. What’s going on?”
“Will he be able to tell the day of death?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure, Roxy… I know he’ll be able to give a time range, but as for an exact day, I really don’t know. I’ll most certainly ask him.”
“Thank you. One more thing. Did April work today?”
“She did.”
“Is she still there?”
“No, I believe she left a few hours ago. Another hot date, I guess. Her words, not mine.”
“Okay, thanks, Max. Let me know on those bones.”
“Will do.”
Click.
She squinted, staring out the windshield, her thoughts reeling.
“What’s going on?”
She turned to Weston. “You mentioned earlier that Jimmy was still at that house fire, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I’m pretty sure April, the receptionist at Graves, mentioned she had a date with him the other day...”
“Okay…” He glanced at her, confused. “Care to fill me in here?”
“April had a blueprint of the layout of our office on her desk. A printout, like, from an engineering firm or something.”
His eyes rounded. “What? Why the hell would she have that?”
Her heart started to race. “I have absolutely no idea…” She paused. “Take me to the office, please. I need to get with Ace. We need to lay out everything we know.” She looked at Weston who was already dialing on his cell phone.
After a minute, he hung up. “Jimmy didn’t pick up.”
“Okay… take me to the office, I’ll get with Ace about April and Sebastian, and you go look for Jimmy. See if he’s with April, or knows where she is. Or why the hell she would be investigating our house.”
“The same house that was hiding a tomb of murdered victims, and blown up this week.”
She looked at him. “Exactly.” She ran her fingers through her hair and began muttering to herself. “I’ll see if Ace can track down Sebastian and pin his location this evening… maybe he’s not still vacationing in Africa. If he’s in town, maybe he’s our guy. But how is April involved and why?”
He grabbed her hand. “You’re spinning, Roxy. We’ll figure it out. Take a deep breath.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Yes, you’ll figure it out, Roxy. You always do. You always do.
Minutes later they sped down the driveway of Black Rose Investigations.
He rolled to a stop at the back door. “I’m going to go see if Jimmy’s still at the scene. If not, I’ll swing by his house, and then I’ll come back here, and we’ll regroup.”
She nodded, looped her bag around her shoulder.
He grabbed her arm. “Hey.” He smiled. “Come here.”
He kissed her on the lips—a soft, sensual kiss—sending tingles through her body. She smiled, squeezed his hand. “See you soon.”
“Can’t wait.”
CHAPTER 17
Roxy darted across the yard, jumping over puddles as Weston’s truck rumbled down the driveway. She pushed through the back door.
“Ace!”
Silence.
“Ace?”
She flicked on the battery-powered light they’d put in the kitchen, which unfortunately only illuminated half the space.
Her phone rang.
“Roxy here.”
“Rox, it’s Ace.”
“Where are you?”
“On the way to meet everyone at the Black Crow. Wanna come?”
“Dammit.”
“What?”
“I thought you’d be here. I really need to… we need to…”
“You okay?”
She hesitated. Did she want to tell him about Ad
am's murder? No—not yet. She needed a second to gather herself. Just a damn second.
“Yeah. I just need to lay out everything we know about these bones. I need to know about that bank account, phone numbers and whatever you dug up on April.”
“My timing is impeccable then, that’s why I called. Which do you want first?”
“Phone numbers.”
“Easy—all disconnected, or lead somewhere else. One’s an elderly lady in a tiny province in Africa. Trust me, she has nothing to do with this.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temple, feeling the beginning of a monster headache. She hadn’t expected anything to come from the numbers but was hoping. “Okay, the bank account—the ten-thousand-dollar transaction. Go.”
“Okay, you’ve definitely stepped into some serious shit here, Rox. I traced the account number to an LLC that’s still active today. However, it’s an anonymous LLC, meaning the ownership information isn’t public.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“I’m not finished. So with private LLC’s someone has to file it, right? And in most scenarios, it’s a third-party entity. So I traced the filings to another LLC named Biobaku Enterprises and guess what? The owner is a man named Lubanzi Biobaku, a very wealthy business man… with widely rumored connections to the South African Liberation Leaders.”
Her head was spinning. “You’re fucking joking.”
“Nope. SALL is the biggest militia group in the country and is deeply intertwined with the political field as well. Have plenty of insiders. These are some bad and very powerful dudes.”
She shook her head, taking a moment to digest this new information. “Still no connection to Sebastian Wells? The transaction did not connect back to him?”
“No—the only connection I have is that he has a beach house in Cape Town that he frequents. That’s it. And I gotta tell ya, this guy seems pretty clean. Does a ton of philanthropy work, involved with Doctors without Borders. He’s a big investor and getting into real estate.”
“Okay… well, can you hack into his cell phone and pin his location for this evening?”
She heard a groan through the phone. “That might take some time…and I’m real thirsty.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine. Go have your beer, but can you get on it right when you get back? This is really, really important.”
“Thanks, Rox and yeah, definitely. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Okay, good, thanks. Now tell me about April real quick, and then you can go.”
“Girl is as boring and clean as they come, Roxy. I put together a write-up for you. It’s on your desk. Seriously, there’s nothing worth noting. Never been in any trouble, no sketchy friends or family. No money troubles. No drugs—Graves tests twice a year. She likes to drink and have a good time, but that’s it. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I’d be shocked if she had anything to do with the bones or the explosion.”
“Dammit.” She leaned against the counter. “Well, someone had her dig up information on our damn office, Ace.”
“Are you sure it was our office? I mean blueprints all look the same, really.”
She paused, questioning herself. Was she sure? Maybe she was going nuts. She heard the muffled laughter of a crowded bar through the phone. “Okay, go drink. We’ll talk later. Tell the girls I said hi.”
“You got it, sister.”
Frustrated, she dropped her phone back into her bag. Her mind was going a mile-a-minute.
Sebastian Wells, SALL, Lubanzi Biobaku, Adam…
Sebastian Wells…
How the hell does it all connect?
There was way too much of a coincidence to cross Sebastian off her list of suspects. First, he was friends with Leland Richmond. Second, he has been financially supporting Leland’s nephew, Adam, since his father Cliff, died. Thirdly, Sebastian owns a beach house in Africa—the same location of the disease Leland was trying to cure, SALL, and multiple phone numbers they’d found in Adam’s folder.
Africa.
Even with all of that, she still felt like she was missing something. Like something was right under her nose.
Her gut was screaming at her.
Now what? Maybe she’d settle into her office, read the write-up on April and do some research of her own while she waited for Ace and Weston to get back.
She walked across the kitchen, noticing a cooler on the floor. She rolled her eyes and smirked—Ace couldn’t go without his beer. And a beer sounded damn good.
The rain pattered against the plastic-covered windows as she kneeled down.
Suddenly, a chill skirted up her spine. Goosebumps prickled her skin.
She was not alone.
She held her breath—listened.
Scar, Harley, Ace, Dixie, and Raven were at the bar, Fiona was at the library, and Weston was tracking down Jimmy. Her team was gone, but the house was not empty.
Someone was here.
Her gun—Dammit! Her gun was in her bag, on the counter.
In a squat, she slowly turned, scanning the dark room. She paused, listened again.
Nothing.
She stayed silent a solid minute, waiting to hear the creak of the old hardwood floors underneath the intruder’s footsteps.
Nothing.
She inhaled deeply and started to stand.
Pop! Pop!
Gunshots exploded around her, a glass bottle shattered inches from her face. Her heart jumped into her throat, and she lurched to the side.
Pop!
A bullet whizzed past her head, so close she could actually feel the wind in her hair. The plastic on the window next to her ripped open. Panic shot like lightning through her as she spun on her heel, leapt over a box, and then over another—
But her foot never hit the ground.
She tumbled down the rickety staircase and with a hard thud, her body slammed onto the dirt ground.
She’d fallen into the tunnel—the tomb.
A tomb with only one way out.
Oh, my God.
She heard heavy footsteps across the kitchen above her. Her heart skipped madly in her chest. She pushed off the ground but fell back down.
Her ankle—sprained or broken.
Fuck!
Frantic, she looked around as the footsteps drew closer. She had no gun, no weapon, and now, not a lot of mobility.
But she had darkness.
Chest heaving, she scrambled on all fours and began crawling down the tunnel, into the pitch-black darkness.
She glanced over her shoulder—a dark shadow covered the dim light that pooled down from the trap door. The intruder was standing just above her—coming for her.
Tears of panic stung her eyes. She was trapped. There was no way out, and they had a gun.
Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She gritted her teeth and pushed on, as fast as she could crawl.
Creak.
Tears ran down her face as she looked over her shoulder, again.
One leg in the tunnel.
Oh, my God.
And then another.
She was almost to the small room where the bones had been excavated earlier.
Thud.
She stopped. Her breath stopped.
She slowly looked behind her.
The dark outline of a tall, thick body stood in the light that streamed down from the trap door—and in its hand, a gun.
Fear ran like acid over her skin. What the hell was she supposed to do?
They can’t see you, Roxy. They can’t see you. Use that to your advantage.
She silently crawled into the room, assuming that it would be the darkest spot of the tunnel. Her hand slid into a shallow hole. And another.
What the hell?
Someone had been digging in the dirt.
Her eyes rounded—someone broke into the house to look for the vial.
She crawled over the holes and curled into a ball in the corner.
She squeezed her knees to
her chest and took a deep breath to steady her breathing.
Fade into the darkness. Don’t move, don’t breathe, fade into the darkness, Roxy.
She closed her eyes as heavy footsteps started down the tunnel.
CHAPTER 18
Weston peered in the front window of Jimmy’s apartment, then knocked again. Although he really didn’t need to—based on the lack of light and movement inside, it was obvious that Jimmy wasn’t home. Probably still out on his date with April. He’d already been to the scene of the fire, which had been roped off and vacated until the sun came up the next morning.
He blew out a breath, turned, and looked out at the rain.
What now?
He put his hands on his hips and frowned.
Roxy suspected April had something to do with either the explosion, the bones, or Adam’s death. Which meant, Jimmy might, too.
That didn’t sit well with Weston. Although Jimmy was new to the team, he’d personally trained him and took the young kid under his wing.
Jimmy was from a good, stable home and had been raised a true Southern gentleman. He wasn’t stupid, either—good, solid instincts, which were a necessity in fighting fires, and straight A’s through school. Which meant, Weston felt strongly that Jimmy would pick up on any odd behavior from April.
He flipped up his collar, and a sudden wave of unease swept over him—a knot formed in his stomach.
He looked around.
A bolt of lightning pierced the sky.
He jogged to his truck and jumped in. As he pulled onto the road, he bit his lip.
What the hell was making him so edgy all of a sudden?
The bloody, grotesque scene in Adam’s living room flashed through his head. Adam had been shot at close-range.
Who would do that to the kid?
Sebastian Wells… Sebastian Wells?
He glanced down at his cell phone and knew it was time to make the call he’d been considering all evening—but it was one he didn’t want to make.
Dammit.
He plucked the phone from the console and dialed the number. He shifted in the seat as the rings passed.
Finally, “Hello?”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Weston?”
“Yeah.”
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