“Sir, I wish I had better news.”
Definitely wasn’t the start of the conversation Big Jim had anticipated. No, he’d been certain Drury would come bearing good news this time, not the same old nothing. His hands clenched into fists beneath the table, and he breathed deeply, struggling to regain his composure. The guard stood right outside the door, glaring through the glass panel, waiting for him to make the slightest mistake. This guard in particular always seemed to delight in tormenting him. Chuck something or other. He’d make sure Chuck and his family became one of the first to feel his wrath, once he was free again.
“Spit it out, Drury.”
“We’ve done everything we can to access the account in the Cayman Islands, the one under Sharon’s name. We can’t touch it.”
He gritted his teeth. Dealing with incompetents put him in a really bad mood. “Why?”
“The bank, located on Grand Cayman, won’t release any funds without Sharon Berkley being present in person. The bank president stated the way the account was set up, the account requires in-person access only.”
“Impossible.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “What moron thought that was a good idea? I certainly didn’t authorize it.” Drawing in a calming breath, Big Jim leaned back in the chair and struggled to maintain control. He was so tired of dealing with other people’s stupidity. “Have one of the hackers get into that account, and transfer the money to another. Create a new one the feds don’t know about. It’s not rocket science.”
Drury fumbled with the knot of his tie, his breath coming faster, face bright red. At the visible shaking of his hands, Big Jim leaned back in his chair. If he intimidated the little weasel too much, Drury might have a heart attack, and then he’d be back to square one. No, he was too close to getting it all to screw up now.
“The…the hackers can’t get in. There’s some kind of new software the bank instituted to prevent fraudulent access. They’re working on it, I swear! I…I don’t understand how the account got set up for in-person access only.”
Big Jim tapped his fingertips against the tabletop, trying to think back to when the account was created. It happened right before the feds arrested him. He kept a tight rein on the flow of funds, incoming and outgoing. Money was power, and he craved power like a politician craved popularity. Nobody pulled a fast one on him and lived to tell about it. Nobody. Nothing had been done differently he could remember. His brother-in-law transferred the money to a brand new account in the Caymans. Could he have screwed things up? Too bad he wasn’t around to ask him.
“Abner was the last person to touch the account. If it’s screwed up, he’s the one. We gotta get somebody down to Grand Cayman with fake ID, pretending to be Sharon, and get access those funds.”
“Umm, I…we already tried. I had my wife…she put on a wig and contacts, and had fake ID…passport, driver’s license. They wouldn’t—”
“Idiot! Your wife couldn’t pass for Sharon. Even a blind man could tell they aren’t the same person. She’s gotta be what, seventy-five to a hundred pounds bigger? Of course it didn’t work.”
“It should have. I mean…how would the bank even know what Sharon looks like?”
Big Jim closed his eyes and prayed for patience. They needed to deliver him from having to work with stupid people, because that’s all he seemed to be surrounded with these days. He didn’t understand Drury’s incompetence. In the courtroom, the man was a shark who rarely lost a case. He intimidated opposing counsel on a routine basis with his knowledge and preparedness. But whenever he got around Big Jim, he cowered like a little mouse, afraid of his own shadow.
“All anybody had to do was do a quick Google search. Sharon’s pictures are all over the internet from the trial, moron.”
“Oh. I didn’t think about that. Sorry.” Drury hung his head, but then shot up out of his chair. “But, I do have some good news—I think.” He shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out what looked like pages from a magazine. They were wadded up and wrinkled, and he shoved then toward Big Jim.
“What’s this?”
“You know my wife gets all those fancy magazines, right?” Drury’s voice was laced with excitement. “Stacks and stacks of them, they arrive in the mail all month long. Anyway, she was looking through this magazine and showed me this.”
Big Jim smoothed the creases out of the paper before looking at the glossy pages in his hand. The thud of his heartbeat sounded loud in his ears, racing, thumping faster and faster. He blinked twice to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him, because the picture in his hand looked like—Sharon. His niece. The traitorous witch who’d sold him out to the feds. The woman who’d made his life a living nightmare for the last several years.
“Where is she?”
“It’s her, right? I mean…she looks different. The hair’s a different color, and you can only see part of her face, but I swear it’s her.”
Big Jim slowly rose from his chair. “I asked where she is?”
Drury gulped. “Texas.” At Big Jim’s silent stare, he continued. “A small town called Shiloh Springs…looks like she’s working in real estate…if it’s her. I had one of your men search her place. He’s a pro, so he didn’t leave any evidence behind he’d even been there. He’s good, I swear! He didn’t find anything to prove it’s her, but—”
A slow smile spread across Big Jim’s lips. “It’s her.”
Drury slumped into the chair he’d vacated, placing his hands on the table. “What do you…want me…us…to do, boss?”
Big Jim closed his eyes, and allowed the feeling of euphoria to spread throughout him. Finally, after all these months of dreaming about getting the duplicitous, backstabbing witch back in his orbit, he had her.
“Find her—and kill her.”
CHAPTER NINE
Antonio pulled into
