Colt would’ve been impressed if he’d expected anything less than perfection. As it was, he wasn’t surprised. The people who worked at BDI were good at figuring things out. They had to be or the world would be in a lot worse shape than it was.
Ian propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “The condensed version is this. The account belongs to Gorky Construction.”
“Shit,” Colt said. “Martinelli was stealing from the fucking Russian mafia?”
They all knew that Steve Gorky and his sons were connected to the mafia. Construction, gambling, sex trafficking, drugs, weapons—those were the Russian mafia’s rackets, and the Gorkys were a major part of it. Steve was first generation American, but that didn’t mean a damned thing. He was in it up to his dirty neck.
They’d had dealings with him before, though nothing so close to home.
“Our old friends,” Ian confirmed. “The Cardinal Group was founded by Christopher Shaw and Paul Sobol. Shaw and Sobol went to college with Martinelli—and Sobol’s sister is Gorky’s fourth wife.”
That explained a lot. “Sobol and Shaw are laundering money for Gorky then. And Martinelli was a part of it.”
Ian cocked a finger gun at him. “Bingo. Sobol and Shaw set up a business as venture capitalists—one guess where most of the capital comes from—and they use the firm as a front to move money for Gorky. They get kickbacks, Martinelli gets kickbacks, everyone’s happy. Except Martinelli wants more and figures nobody will miss it since he’s cooking the books.”
“Well somebody sure as hell found out,” Jace said.
Colt shook his head. “Martinelli is probably at the bottom of a well somewhere. Or he’s been poured into a foundation in a Gorky Construction project. Shit. How is this connected to Jenny Clark?”
“Ah, but there’s more,” Ian said. “That spreadsheet doesn’t just contain snapshots of Gorky’s and Martinelli’s accounts. There are two more accounts. The biggest one, besides Gorky’s, has Paul Sobol’s name on it. Shaw got money too, but he doesn’t seem to have gotten the kind of cash Martinelli and Sobol did. Sobol was stealing from his brother-in-law, with Martinelli’s help, who was also stealing for himself and logging everything. Dax, tell them the rest.”
“It took a bit of digging,” Dax said. “But I finally managed to trace the deleted files from the Barton, Barnes and Blake server. The files were erased with Jenny’s login. So either she did it at someone’s instruction, or somebody stole her login and did it themselves. Either way, she’s connected to the Cardinal Group account and its disappearance. Could be a motive for murder. I also confirmed that Martinelli sent his spreadsheet to the company server the night before he didn’t show up for work. It wasn’t there before that. He did it deliberately.”
“So someone could find it,” Colt said. “Fuck.”
“Yes,” Ian replied. “It seems that way.”
“And Jenny?”
“There’s still no proof Jenny was killed. I got the report earlier and her death is consistent with an overdose. She had enough alcohol and Xanax in her system to kill an elephant. She had a prescription for the meds. But if somebody didn’t force her to take those pills, I’d be surprised. The marks on her neck are consistent with the rough sex she had—they’re also consistent with someone holding her and forcing pills down her throat, which wouldn’t’ve been too hard if she was already drunk enough.”
Colt’s gut tightened. “If Jenny’s death is a coincidence, it’s a pretty spectacular one.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Ian leaned back in his chair, looking speculative. “Here’s what we do. We keep Angie in protective custody. We keep looking for Martinelli on the off chance he’s alive, and we watch Sobol and Shaw too. Most importantly, we keep an eye on Gorky. Keep digging into his finances. Martinelli recorded some big transactions in Gorky’s account. What were they for? I’d love to find a way to take him down this time. He’s eluded us before, particularly with that drug ring last year.”
They all remembered it. Gorky’s people had been importing synthetic opioids and selling them to human traffickers as a way to keep their victims in line. Gorky’d managed to keep himself out of the fray when that particular operation fell apart. If there was something dirty and a way to make money off it, then Gorky was one of those scumbags that was in the middle of it. But he was a lucky damned scumbag who kept coming up smelling like a rose even when everyone knew he was nothing but a pile of shit.
“If we’re lucky,” Jace said, “maybe they’ll try Angie’s place again. If we can get somebody to talk, we can connect it to Gorky that way.”
“They won’t talk,” Ian replied. “They’re more scared of him than they are us.”
“What if Angie goes home again?” Dax asked.
“No,” Colt and Jace said at once.
“Not Angie for real,” Dax said. “Can’t we find a hot redhead to impersonate her?”
Colt might have growled.
Ian arched an eyebrow in Colt’s direction. Then he looked at Dax again. “Too bad Victoria Royal isn’t still with us. She’d be perfect.”
Colt knew who Victoria was. He’d come aboard right after she left. The lady had legendary sniper skills. She’d left BDI and married a military operator from the Hostile Operations Team. Now she did contract work for them.
“Jamie Hayes could do it,” Jace said. “She just needs a wig—or she could dye her hair.”
Jamie had impersonated Maddy when they’d sent her to a safe house and wanted Calypso to think Maddy was still home. It hadn’t worked, but not because Jamie wasn’t good.
“Jamie’s in Afghanistan, infiltrating a terror cell disguised as a journalist,” Ian said. “Even if I was inclined to send for her, it’d take at least twenty-four hours to get her here. Besides, I’m not convinced it’ll make any difference. So Angie goes home and someone tries to break in. What then? If they’re watching her place,
