GREED Box Set (Books 1-4)

by John W. Mefford

  “Let's check her computer.” Satish crunched a chip and clicked the mouse. Inside the SpyAgent window in the right-side monitor, a blue screen appeared with a message on top: God love Ireland.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it, Satish?”

  “Someone must have found the software. It had to be a top IT firm that specializes in spyware. No one else would have found it. Sorry.” Satish dipped his head.

  “Not your fault. But I'm really worried about Jenny.”

  “I'm sure she's okay and she'll call.” Trevor put his arm around Andi and squeezed her toned shoulder. It felt comforting.

  Andi's phone buzzed and she punched the speakerphone button.

  “Jenny?”

  “Oh my God, you've got to help me,” she said, huffing in the phone, obviously on the move.

  “Jenny, where are you?”

  “I'm on the street, running to Nicholas' daycare. They found out, Andi, they found out.”

  Andi looked at Satish and Trevor.

  “Look, Jenny, we've got everything. Satish found invoices, a database, emails, a voicemail. These assholes are going down.”

  Jenny ignored the good news. “They put me in a room in a chair and questioned me for two hours. Dmitri came in and started threatening me and my child, can you believe it?”

  “Dear God, Jenny, I'm so sorry.”

  “Look out, sir, get out of my way,” they heard Jenny say, her phone not near her mouth.

  “Jenny?”

  “I got up to walk out, and Dmitri grabbed me and started shaking me. The others pulled him off me.” More heavy breaths. “I said I had to go to the bathroom. I picked up my purse and ran down the back stairs into the alley. I really think they might harm me.”

  “Jenny.”

  Loud breathing, nearby voices, and heels hitting concrete.

  “Jenny?”

  “I just got to my son's daycare.” They heard deep, panting breaths.

  Trevor nodded at Andi.

  “Jenny, get your son, pack a quick bag for both of you, then go straight to Hobby Airport and take the next flight to Dallas Love Field.”

  “But where do I go? What do I do?” Jenny's voice pitched higher, near a panic level.

  They heard sniffles.

  “Jenny, it's all going to be okay. Trevor and I will be there to pick you up.”

  “Who's Trevor?”

  “He's my friend, just like Satish.”

  “I guess I can do that.”

  “Don't waste time, Jenny. Go straight to the airport and text me your flight number.”

  The line went dead.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  A half-eaten, soggy meatball sub sat to the right of my keyboard, along with an open bag of sour cream and onion chips. I was either uninspired or my stomach was too gnarled to digest food.

  I yawned, realizing my lack of sleep was catching up to me. That and a lack of intimacy with my lifelong partner. I'd come home late last night, then awoke and showered just as Marisa was rolling over. We exchanged a warm kiss, but it was more of a grandmother kiss. Marisa had been cordial, even loving at times, but over the last week, her mind seemed elsewhere. Aloof was another word that came to mind. Once we got past this story and life returned to normal, I knew that I owed her—us—a mini vacation to a warm, sandy beach with plenty of fruity drinks and no Wi-Fi connection.

  I scratched my chin and felt stubble—I'd run out of the house without shaving—and shuffled folders looking for the emails from Yours Truly. I placed them in chronological order on my desk and read them. Then I read them again, looking for a pattern, something to jump out and tell me who wrote these emails, who killed these girls. Were the emails and the murders even connected? Even with the Joe Fox quote from God love Ireland, what did it really get us? I took a deep breath, knowing it was a piece of the puzzle. I huffed, feeling as though a strange ticking clock was running in my mind, and the alarm was set to go off sporadically, whenever the killer or killers struck. Each death felt like a blow to my kidney. Was I worried about this network of lunatics somehow touching Marisa? Yes, but all the killings appeared to have been so random, so I knew, logically, there was little reason to be on high alert on the home front. I think the most pressing concern was our responsibility to the community. We'd been sitting on all of this information for weeks, and because of our partnership with law enforcement, we'd been unable to report a damn thing.

  I glanced at the clock on my computer and realized I was ten minutes late to my own meeting. Holding folders and loose papers, a bottled water, and my open bag of smelly chips, I raced into the glass house. “Sorry guys.” I started to close the door, but a shoe slipped in at the last second.

  “It's me, sorry. I'm running even later.” Andi waved a hand of relief. She quickly walked in and sat next to Stu, across from Rolando and Brandon, all of whom were either working email or a story.

  I glanced around the room still lined with whiteboards full of notes, pictures, clippings, theories, and yes, the emails.

  “Our goal today is to try to piece all of this together, based on what we've got so far. I know we've all been thinking it about since we broke off late last night. Any new thoughts, ideas, theories?”

  Four blank faces looked at me then panned the room. Apparently, there had been no dream-induced discoveries.

  “I know I'm saying the obvious here, but I'm getting concerned about not sharing any of this with the public.” I held my arms up to the data points scattered around us.

  “But if we do, we'll be cut off from the FBI. They'd probably say we were impeding their investigation. Could get ugly,” Brandon said.

  “That's our dilemma.” I rolled my fingers on the table a few times.

  Andi arched her neck and looked out into the newsroom.

  “We keeping you from something?” That sounded harsher than I'd intended.

  “Uh, no. Just checking to see if Trevor is still sitting at my desk.”

  “Trevor. New intern?”

  “No, yes. Well, not an intern here. He works up at Denton County Regional Medical Center, and he's been helping me on the Big Heart story. Brandon's aware of the latest on all that.” She nodded toward our editor.

  “Andi gave me the scoop earlier this morning. Unbelievable shit. She's already started writing the story.”

  “Cool. I look forward to reading it.”

  My phone buzzed. It was Guidry. I gave a quick wink to Andi and opened the line.

  “Ears burning?”

  “Uh, if you're part of the FBI, your ears always burn. Love us, hate us, it really doesn't matter.”

  “Mind if I put you on speaker?”

  “Sure. Did you guys ever sleep last night?”

  “Enough. What good news can you share?” I twisted the cap off my water and took a swig.

  “I do have some good news. But—”

  “What now?” I rubbed my stiffening neck.

  “We found another body, last night in Dallas.”

  Andi let out an audible gasp. The others just shook their heads.

  “It's a girl, same basic MO. Young, pretty, rolled up in a rug, naked. Throat slashed, but a lot of other damage as well. This perp is starting to lose it—if it's one guy.”

  I pounded my fist on the table, surprising myself and everyone else in the room.

  “What was that?”

  “Jesus, Guidry. When are we ever going to get in front of this?” I released a forceful huff. “Forget it. I know you have no answers. Shit, we have no answers.”

  “Michael, I get it. It fuckin' sucks. But we have no options other than working the case, piecing together evidence, using our resources. The case God love Ireland break. I just want it to happen before another one is killed. I know we all feel that way.”

  It felt like the pace of the killings had increased. “What's the good news?” I asked with little energy.

  “Hold on, Carl's calling me on the other line.”

  I tried to regain my fo
cus, realizing others were watching and reading my signals.

  “Hey, Michael I'm back. Carl's listening in too.”

  “What's up?” Carl's baritone was a sharp contrast to the Guidry's Cajun twang.

  “Guidry has good news, and we need it.”

  “Right. The FBI cyber unit has identified a tagged photo on Facebook that someone took in an Oxford bar called Proud Larry's.” Guidry paused—was he combing his greasy, black hair? “In the background of the photo you can see a man talking to Whitney. It's fuzzy, and it only partially shows his face. It was taken the last night anyone saw Whitney.”

  My heart felt like I'd just received a jolt from two electric paddles.

  “The bartender who took the photo actually says he recalls overhearing the man introducing himself to Whitney. Said his name was Sam.”

  I nearly winced, realizing the name didn't match our Joe Fox in Baton Rouge.

  “Here's the funny thing. The man in the photo worked at the bar briefly, and the name he put on the application was Joe Fox.”

  I took the opportunity to explain our breakthrough the previous night, connecting the Baton Rouge murder email to a quote from God love Ireland, recited by the character Joe F-O-X.

  Guidry was appreciative. “That definitely helps. I'll get this to our BSU right away. Maybe this will spark a broader connection.”

  “Does this add or take away from the multiple-killer theory?”

  "Hard to say. The use of Joe Fox and Sam by the same person is a definite plus. We never got much of a description in Baton Rouge from the café barista. I'll send you the link to the Facebook photo, and you guys can mull it over.

  “I think I hear Tucker yelling my name. By the way, I appreciate you guys playing ball with us, helping us out. You may not think it, but you God love Ireland helping the community...just in a different way than you're used to.”

  Still, it didn't give me great confidence that we'd been a step ahead of the FBI.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Along with the Facebook link, Guidry had sent us a mug shot of the latest victim in Dallas, an SMU graduate student named Jordan, and within minutes Brandon had developed a new section in our glass house dedicated to her brutal murder.

  I spoke into the green lights on the Polycom. “Andi, can you hear us okay?” Andi had received a text, and she and her friend, Trevor, had jumped into her car to head down to Love Field.

  “Hear you just fine.”

  “If you think this might distract you from driving, just drop off. We'll muddle along somehow.” I knew we needed her input to make headway.

  “Not a problem. Trevor is driving.”

  I raised an eyebrow, then got up and walked the room. I stopped in front of Whitney's mug shot.

  “I know you can't see me, Andi, but I'm re-reading the email we received after Whitney's body was found in Oxford.”

  I heard papers flap.

  “Yep, have it right here. Reading it again too.”

  I glanced around the table to see if I noticed a light above anyone's head.

  “Rolando?”

  He shook his head.

  “Stu, what're you thinking?”

  “I keep reading this email, things like, God love Ireland I'm probably too old, take things too literally, but it seems like he either knows this person, or is familiar with her in some way.”

  I nodded, attempting to follow his logic, any logic to find the answer.

  “It's gotta be in the name,” Andi said through the Polycom.

  “Which name? If this is the same guy, then he's using all sorts of names. Maybe they're all fake?”

  “Brandon, can you search—?”

  Brandon cut her off. “Andi, if you're wondering if I've taken this Oxford email and looked for a match in the quotes from Joe Fox in God love Ireland, the answer is yes. And no...no match.”

  “Not exactly,” Andi said. “Can you bring up all Meg Ryan movies and search for leading men characters who have a first name of Sam?”

  “I'm on it.”

  I ate two leftover sour cream and onion chips and pondered how Andi—maybe girls in general—think through problems and come to conclusions or theories that we men would never have considered.

  “Okay, I see two movies who have a character named Sam. God love Ireland...”

  We all looked at each other. Rolando shrugged his shoulders.

  “Stars Matthew Broderick. Not sure you want me to give you the summary,” Brandon said.

  “No, that's okay.”

  “Second one is—”

  Andi jumped in. “God love Ireland.”

  “If you already knew it then why didn't you just speak up?”

  “I wasn't a hundred-percent certain, and I really didn't know how many Sams would be out there in her filmography.”

  “Filmography? Is that a word?” Stu asked.

  “It is on this website. The Internet speaks the truth,” Brandon joked.

  “Always. What are the quotes for God love Ireland?”

  “Checking.” Brandon held the email in one hand and clicked his iPad with the other.

  “Got it...in black and white.”

  “Cool. Nice work, Andi,” I said. The connection felt like a giant leap for mankind, but it still didn't prove anything.

  I summarized, “So, if we take this in chronological order, we've got a fake Joe Fox bartending in Oxford, then telling Whitney he's Sam. We're presuming it's Sam Baldwin from God love Ireland because of the quote we got once the body had been found.” I ate another chip. "Then, we have a reference to F-O-X in Baton Rouge, then later get an email that connects a quote from Joe Fox in God love Ireland."

  “That sums it up,” Brandon said.

  “The more we learn, the more it sounds like none of this involves my editor,” Rolando muttered under his breath, with a hint of uncertainty.

  I nodded, but my mind was taking the next step. I asked Brandon to pull up the Facebook photo from Guidry.

  “Make it full screen.”

  All of us in the room gathered around Brandon. “Hold on, Andi, let me forward you this link.”

  Guidry was right. The photo of the man in question was out of focus. And you could only see about two-thirds of him, and he was sitting down. It appeared he had on glasses of some kind, and his hair was on the light side and sticking up on top, likely from hair gel.

  We needed confirmation one way or the other, and I wasn't going to travel six hours to Oxford or play games with the FBI. I pulled out my cell phone, searched for the mega bookstore in northeast Baton Rouge and tapped the phone-number link.

  Fortunately, Patricia, my original source, answered the phone, and I gave her a brief update of where things stood in the investigation. I then texted her the Facebook link to the photo of Sam Baldwin...who was hopefully Joe Fox.

  “So, what do you think, Patricia?” I put her on speakerphone, motioning to everyone in the room to zip it. “Uh, hmmm. I only saw the back of the Ariel's friend here in the cafe.” You could hear the wheels turning. “My recollection is that Ariel's friend had dark-brown hair, and it wasn't spiky. He might have had a beard. I didn't get a full look, but I caught a quick glimpse of one side of his face, and I think I saw a brown beard.”

  I coiled my lips and exhaled. Was this another dead end? Or did a door just open, albeit one that created far more complexity? I started thinking through a theory. Maybe one person was orchestrating everything—and flaunting it through his fantasy emails—but he had a network of killers carrying out the insidious acts.

  Plausible? Yes. But what would the director of this sick play stand to gain?

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Check your text again. It looks we've gone through a full wave of passengers, and no sign of Jenny and Nicholas.” Trevor dodged people getting off the bank of escalators, his bright-green eyes looking for a young, petite Asian woman with a five-year-old boy.

  “Flight 46. Left Houston Hobby at five thirty p.m., scheduled to arrive at L
ove Field at six twenty-five p.m., landing at Gate 3.” Andi eyed the horizontal flight status board mounted above the descending escalators. "There it is. On time. Landed fifteen minutes ago.

  “Where could she have gone?”

  Sleep deprivation had begun to invade Andi's body. A resonating ache permeated her core, and her eyelids felt like ten-pound weights. This tension wasn't helping, and she now wondered if Jenny and Nicholas had ever made it to their scheduled flight.

  She'd been running nearly nonstop since the pickup had skidded into Miss Caroline's parking lot carrying the two kids who found Olivia's body early Monday morning. Working with Satish and Jenny had been tedious and—she hated to admit it—emotionally draining as well. Finding all of this evidence had been an enormous boon, but Jenny's uncertain status and the threats, even actions, from the Big Heart execs had created tremendous stress for Andi. She knew if anything happened to Jenny and her son, she'd never forgive herself.

  “Jesus, Trevor, I'm scared. I got this bad feeling that Dmitri and...I don't know, his Russian mafia, hunted down Jenny and did something bad.”

  “Call her.”

  The number went straight to voicemail. Andi raised a hand to her head, her hair a scattered mess. A tear escaped the corner of her eye.

  Still wearing blue scrubs from his twenty-four-hour shift, Trevor put an arm around Andi, and slowly she let her tired head feel the comfort of his chest.

  “I know how tough this is on you. I hate seeing you like this.” He kissed her forehead through her bangs.

  She wrapped her arms around the young doctor and closed her eyes. The hospital smell still lingered on his scrubs, but a dash of his scent—some type of subtle cologne or just Trevor—infused her body.

  “Let's go to the counter over here and ask the agent if she was on board or not,” he said.

  “Right. Makes sense.” She shook her head, realizing her brain wasn't operating in full capacity right now.

  Andi stopped and looked around. “Did you hear something?” Trevor's eyes looked toward the escalators.

  “Andi, Andi!” A petite woman with black leggings, a white shirt, and a long, black blazer ran down the last few steps, dragging a black-headed boy behind her.