High-Risk Investigation

by Jane M. Choate

  She gathered up her purse, her laptop, and walked out of the house with Tolliver. The uneasy look he threw her way told her he’d been acutely uncomfortable witnessing the confrontation between her and Nicco.

  When Scout walked into the newspaper office twenty minutes later, she was called over by Delia, the secretary who kept everything running.

  “Hey, Scout, I heard about Crane’s murder. Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” The lie must have been reflected in her eyes for Delia raised a brow.

  “Really?”

  “I’ll be okay.” Right now, it wasn’t Crane’s murder that upset her. The order Nicco had issued still caused her to see red. They’d argued at other times about her backing off the investigation, but they’d managed to work it out. Why had this time been different?

  Perhaps this last incident had been so intense because she’d thought he understood how important this was to her. Obviously, she’d been wrong. Just as she’d been wrong about Bradley. She was really batting a thousand when it came to men. Bradley had wanted to use her, Nicco to control her. She wouldn’t tolerate either.

  After an uncertain glance in Scout’s direction, Delia took off. To her chagrin, Scout had forgotten the other woman’s presence. Scout knew she’d handled it poorly and promised herself she’d make it up to her friend.

  Feeling raw and uncertain, she kneaded the space between her brows, something she realized she’d been doing a lot lately. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t know where she was going. Then she remembered her promise to herself to find the truth. Because truth mattered.

  It always mattered. Truth was inconvenient. It was messy. It created problems as much as it solved them. But it mattered. She’d built her life upon that. If she abandoned it now, she might as well throw away everything else she held dear.

  Truth mattered. It had to be told.

  And, so, she’d tell it. But what was the truth?

  SIXTEEN

  A relief agent had shown up at the paper, taking over for Tolliver.

  Scout bit her lip. Guilt lapped at her conscience at her reaction to Nicco’s suggestion that she back away from the investigation. He had only been trying to protect her, and she’d thrown it back at him. Even as she tried to convince herself of that, anger wove its destructive path through her as she recalled his high-handed orders.

  She punched in his number. “We need to talk. I’m at the paper.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  When he showed up at the office fifteen minutes later, it was all she could do not to throw herself at him.

  They both spoke at once. “I’m sorry—”

  She gave a sheepish smile. “You go first.”

  “I was wrong to try to exclude you from the investigation.”

  “And I should have understood that you just wanted to keep me safe.”

  The words, freighted with meaning, were right on both their parts, but the tension beneath them told her that a huge chasm still separated them.

  Would they find a way to bridge it?

  * * *

  After a brief explanation, Nicco dismissed the operative sent to take his place. The man looked like he wanted to argue but accepted the orders from a senior agent.

  The drawn lines in Scout’s face told Nicco that they hadn’t resolved what stood between them. They’d patched things over, but that was only temporary, like a cheap bandage that could peel away at any time.

  He knew he’d been in the wrong, trying to force Scout out of the investigation. He’d been clumsy and insensitive because...because why? How did he make her understand his feelings when he didn’t even understand them himself?

  And so he concentrated on what he did best. The job. He was overdue for checking in with Shelley and gave her a call, putting the phone on speaker so that Scout could listen in. “Scout’s on the line, too.”

  “You hanging in there, Scout?” Shelley asked.

  “Doing my best.” Nicco couldn’t help noticing that her voice sounded ragged.

  After he explained the connection to the People’s Militia, Shelley said, “I’m sending someone who knows the group inside and out.”

  “Ransom.” Nicco waited a beat. Another. “Are you sure he’s ready? He was pretty broken up.”

  Mace Ransom, former Ranger, had good reason to want in on the takedown of anyone related to the People’s Militia. When he was serving his country overseas, his younger brother joined the militia, believing he’d be serving his country like his big brother. The brother, Troy, only eighteen, had died on one of the militia’s raids.

  “It’s been a year,” Shelley said. “Mace needs to do this. And you need to let him.”

  “I get it.”

  “Mace has good instincts. Use them. He won’t let you down.”

  “I know that. Ransom is solid as they come.”

  A baby’s wail interrupted whatever Shelley had been about to say next. “Hold on.” Within seconds, soothing sounds replaced the cries. “Okay. The IP address you gave me is anonymized.”

  Though Nicco knew his way around a computer, he was by no means a whiz at it as Shelley was.

  “Without going into a bunch of computer-ese, I traced an account to an LLC with an address on the Isle of Man.”

  Things began to click into place. Apparently they did for Scout as well. “The Isle of Man has one of the most secure offshore trust jurisdictions in the world. It rivals Switzerland in terms of privacy.”

  “That’s right,” Shelley said. “It’s nearly impossible to get past the shield and find out who’s behind the limited liability company.”

  “But?” Nicco prompted, knowing she had more. Shelley wasn’t one to give up. The more impossible the problem, the more she dug in until she found the answer.

  “I’ll keep digging.”

  “Great. Thanks, boss. I owe you one.”

  * * *

  When Scout’s phone rang, she reached for it, still trying to get a handle on what she’d learned. She found an unfamiliar voice on the other end. “Scout McAdams?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bug told me how I was to call you if something happened to him. Iffin’ you was still alive.” A giggle punctuated that.

  “I’m still alive.” Apparently the dryness of her tone reached him for he gave another little giggle.

  “Yeah, I guess you is, at that.”

  “What did Bug want you to tell me?”

  “He left something with me, somethin’ I was to give you.”

  Her pulse quickened. “What is it?”

  “A little stick.” The caller sounded puzzled. “Nothin’ to make such a fuss about, but Bug was real anxious that I get it to you.”

  “A memory drive.”

  “Yeah. Guess so.”

  “Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”

  She disconnected the call and filled in Nicco.

  “There’s no way of talking you out of going, so I won’t even try,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  They met Bug’s friend in a fast-food place, and he gave her the drive as promised.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  “Bug was a friend,” he said simply and slunk off without ever giving her his name.

  Nicco took her home, and they got to work.

  “This is what Bug planned on giving me,” she said, “until he decided to turn on me instead.” A momentary sadness caught in her throat. “If only his greed hadn’t gotten the better of him, he might still be alive.”

  “Giving the drive to his friend was his insurance policy.”

  To her surprise, Bug’s information didn’t start with Crane but with Patrice Newtown. Scout’s interest quickened as she read further.

  If Scout was interpreting the records correctly, Newtown
had been using the charity her husband had started to cover up multiple transfers of money to Crane.

  Scout’s lips tightened at the hypocrisy of it. She’d been wary of Newtown from the start, but had allowed the woman’s professed desire to help Savannah’s poor cloud her judgment.

  The charity’s corporation was a blind for its real purpose, creating dozens of shell businesses to make it as hard as possible to tie a single person to the core enterprise. Each business bore a different name—yet another way to blur the truth—but they all shared the same address, a PO box. Whoever had set up the shell companies probably didn’t think anyone would get this far.

  Digging deeper into what Bug had discovered, she found what she was looking for, the final link between Crane and Newtown. It was buried under multiple layers and lawyer-ese, but once she knew where to look, it wasn’t all that hard to find.

  Everything became clear.

  The two were in each others’ pockets, the socialite and union boss. Between them, they controlled most of the city’s infrastructure. There was no telling how many cops and city officials were on the take.

  She felt Nicco looking over her shoulder.

  “It makes a terrible kind of sense, using her charity as a front, doesn’t it?” Scout asked. “Even the sanitation union fits in, providing the trucks necessary for moving the inventory.”

  “Newtown’s smarter than anyone gave her credit for,” Nicco agreed.

  Scout nodded, her thoughts swirling. The flawless manners and gracious façade masked the woman’s true character. The queen of Savannah society, the lady who gave so generously to the homeless and poor, was a common crook.

  When the Newtown money had run out, she wasn’t about to give up the lifestyle she enjoyed. Or the opportunity to play Lady Bountiful to all those who worshipped and adored her.

  “Gotcha,” Scout said as she stared at the columns of numbers.

  Math had never been one of her strengths. She’d struggled through college algebra, calculus and statistics. The more she studied the spreadsheet, the more the numbers blurred before her eyes. She needed a break and a fresh perspective.

  “Can you make sense of it?” she asked Nicco.

  “A little. There are layers. Layers upon layers, distancing Newtown from the dirty business of gunrunning.”

  Scout printed out what she needed and, with Nicco, went to see Daniels. He needed to know the truth about Newtown.

  She found him in his office behind his desk, as usual, but that was where usual ended. He’d kicked his wardrobe up a notch or two, and his gray hair sported a salon style rather than his normal barbershop special.

  Scout had always admired him. The man had made no pretense of having come from the wrong side of the tracks. The antiquated expression, which had all but disappeared from popular lexicon, still held true when it came to distinguishing between blue bloods and commoners in the privileged Savannah society.

  One of the city’s nouveau riche, Daniels was regarded as an upstart in the eyes of the ruling elite.

  A self-made millionaire, he hadn’t let that stop him from pushing his way in. He had literally bought his acceptance into the upper echelons. Enough money could polish over the rough edges of poor beginnings, especially if that money was thrown at approved charities and the arts. Daniels had always made certain his money went to the right causes.

  Upon seeing Nicco, Daniels scowled. “What’s he doing here?”

  Scout made the introductions. “There’ve been some incidents,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Nicco’s keeping an eye on me.” Wanting to defuse the tension that vibrated between the two men, she gave an admiring whistle. “Looking good, boss.”

  Color stained his cheeks. “Thanks.” The gruff word held both embarrassment and pleasure. “Trying a new look for tonight’s party.”

  The gala. With all that had been happening, Scout had totally forgotten the event.

  “You’ll be there.” Daniels made it an order.

  She ignored that. When he saw what she planned to show him, he’d forget about tonight’s festivities as well.

  All business now, she laid out what she had. “You see it, don’t you? There’s a pattern. Money into the charity, and, a few days later, an equal amount is filtered out. It’s labeled different things, but it disappears.” She tapped a finger on another piece of paper. “And look at the corresponding payments to Crane.”

  Daniels glanced at the papers, then pushed them aside. “Crane’s dead. What difference does it make?”

  She couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “What difference? Of course it makes a difference. Newtown was paying off Crane to move the weapons when the time came.”

  Small lines of disbelief puckered Daniels’s brow. “I hope you don’t expect me to believe that Patrice Newtown is stealing from her own charity and involved in gunrunning. We’d be the laughingstock of the city, the whole state, if we ran a story like that.”

  He steepled his fingers and speared Scout with a hard look. “Do you have any proof? Any proof at all besides a few transfers of funds?” The contempt in his voice caused her to flinch.

  She felt Nicco stiffen beside her and laid a hand on his arm, knowing he wanted to come to her defense at her boss’s tone. Daniels was accustomed to doing the intimidating, rather than the other way around.

  His voice was the rumble of nearby thunder warning of an impending storm. It originated from a thick chest that had probably once been muscle but had long since gone to fat where arms as big around as logs used in a fireplace were folded.

  She knew from past experience that he wasn’t above using his size to intimidate others, though she’d never known him to be violent.

  He was a big man with an ego to match. She’d never held that against him, believing that ego was tempered by intelligence and integrity. Now she wondered.

  “I don’t have proof. Yet.” The admission came hard. “But it makes sense. Think about it. Where else is she getting her money? And why the payments to Crane if they weren’t payment in advance for moving the stolen weapons?” She let that sink in. “She’s class all the way, and Crane was barely more than a union thug.”

  “So she was slumming.” But it was a weak answer, and they both knew it. “Get your proof.” He bent over the desk, a clear sign of dismissal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got work to do. The paper won’t put itself out, you know.”

  Salon-styled hair. Placing a froufrou event over a real news story. Ordering her to drop a story that could rock Savannah’s conservative underpinnings. None of it was like Daniels. Not like him at all.

  Come to think of it, there were a lot of things that weren’t like him lately, especially his order that she cover Newtown’s charity events.

  Scout hadn’t known what she’d expected from her boss but certainly something more than this. A few years ago, he’d have jumped at the possibility of such a story. Now he’d brushed it off as though he couldn’t be bothered.

  Was age slowing him down? Or was there something more?

  More than a few rumors were floating around that the paper was losing money as more and more readers canceled their subscriptions in favor of getting their news online, but the paper was only one of Daniels’s holdings. Even if it went belly-up, the man still had more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes.

  A photograph of two young men in college football uniforms snagged her attention, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Scrawled at the bottom of the photo were the names Beef and Lennie. She remembered Daniels telling her once that he’d been called Beef by his teammates.

  She looked more closely at the second man. Leonard Crane? When Daniels received a text on his phone and answered it, she shifted her gaze to Nicco, then redirected it to the picture.

  The slight nod he gave in return told her he understood the significance of th
e photograph.

  Daniels looked up. “Was there something more, McAdams?”

  “No, sir.” Deflated, she left the office and wondered what her next move was.

  She knew with absolute certainty that Newtown was dirty, but she still didn’t have any definitive proof. The numbers showed a pattern, but that was a long way from having enough evidence to arrest the society maven, much less to convict her.

  What was she going to do now? Crane was dead, so were the leads she’d dug up on him. It seemed that she was dead in the water wherever she turned.

  SEVENTEEN

  “You saw it. Daniels and Crane.” Scout’s voice rose in excitement, then ended on a dejected sigh. “But it doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No. But it’s interesting.” Nicco had been weighing the possibilities. “You know Daniels. Would he be involved in something like murder and gunrunning?”

  “I didn’t think so, but now... I don’t know. You heard him. He didn’t want me following up on the connection between Crane and Newtown. Now I’m wondering why.”

  Nicco steered the truck toward his place. Mace Ransom was meeting them there.

  Nicco glanced at Scout’s profile. Strong, yet with a soft cast to the features.

  Though they’d put aside their argument from this morning, things were stiffly awkward between them, their words guarded. They were working alongside each other, but they weren’t together. Too much separated them.

  His fault, Nicco thought. He knew what finding the truth behind her parents’ murders meant to her, but he’d dismissed its importance without taking into account the intensity of her feelings. Now they were both paying the price for his stupidity.

  When Mace Ransom showed up at Nicco’s house, he looked around, nodded. “You’re making something good here.”

  Nicco recalled that Scout had said much the same thing. He made short work of the introductions. Any other time, he’d have enjoyed catching up with Mace, who had been one of the best Rangers in his unit and was now a top operative for S&J.