“I do.”
“I’ve decided I can tell you a lot. But what we say here doesn’t go beyond this room. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then have a seat.”
Colt let go of her hand and pulled out a chair for her. He took the one beside her. He already knew what Ian was going to say. The things they’d discovered, thanks to Angie and Charles Martinelli. Angie listened attentively while Ian told her about Steve Gorky and the various accounts detailed in Martinelli’s spreadsheet. They’d found other, hidden account numbers when they’d analyzed everything.
“It took a computer to do that analysis, Angie. You didn’t miss it,” he added. Colt was grateful he said it because he knew Angie would be upset she’d missed something that important.
Ian explained that Paul Sobol had clarified some things as well. He was the one who’d been having sex with Jenny. They’d met during one of his many visits to Charles at BB&B, but they’d only been going at it for about a month. He’d targeted her initially because she was easy to manipulate, and he’d wanted eyes on Charles because he’d been growing suspicious of his old friend and co-conspirator.
Sobol erased the files from the server, but Jenny logged in. He was trying to clean up the evidence, but not doing a great job at it.
“That’s why she was nervous when I asked if she’d found any wonky accounting in Charles’s files,” Angie said.
“Probably so.”
“Did he kill her?”
“He says he didn’t. He says that Gorky ordered it because she was a liability, and Tommy Baskin carried it out. He’s one of the men who grabbed you.”
“The one who asked if redheads feel more pain than other people,” she said.
Colt stiffened. She shot him a smile. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”
“They made it look like a suicide because that’s the way these kinds of people operate. Jenny was known to be depressed about her situation, and Sobol knew she had a prescription for Xanax. The rest was easy enough to do. Gorky has always had strong ties to certain people in high places. Not that they’re aware of his criminal activity, but they don’t make it easy to investigate either. It’s possible someone leaned on law enforcement to close the case when they had an obvious cause of death.”
“She texted me that night. Was it really her?”
Ian shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. They were trying to draw you out. When you didn’t answer, they moved on.”
“And Charles? Is he alive?”
“No, he’s not. Tommy and Marco—that’s the guy you clocked with the pipe—good work, by the way; he has a concussion, and one hell of a headache that he richly deserves. Anyway, Sobol talked Charles into meeting on the night of the fire. Charles had been lying low, but Paul sent him messages saying he was coming around to Charles’s view. Charles eventually agreed to a meeting. They met in public, but Tommy and Marco grabbed Charles when he left the meeting and took him to the office. They were supposed to drug him and knock him out, then start the fire so he’d burn to death in the building. But Tommy shot him and they had to move him. They started the fire to erase the blood spatter evidence and disposed of the body elsewhere.”
Angie had a hand over her mouth.
“You okay?” Ian asked.
“Yep. Just disgusted at how evil people can be.”
“It’s a lot to process, I know. I won’t tell you how they disposed of him, but we’ve sent a tip to the police about where to look for remains.”
Angie’s nostrils flared. “Who tried to break into my condo?”
“Tommy. He was supposed to get your computer and take it to Sobol.”
“And if I’d been home?”
Ian’s dark eyes flashed. “Tommy Baskin kills indiscriminately. I think it would have been very bad if you’d been there alone.”
Angie nodded. Colt was watching her closely for signs that it was too much, but she was taking it all in stride. His kitten wasn’t helpless. She was fierce as fuck. God, he loved her.
“I appreciate you telling me everything. I honestly didn’t think you would.”
Ian smiled. “I know. But I was serious about you working with us, Angie. I know BB&B is moving into another location soon, and you already have a job there. I’d like you to consider working here, though. We need good analysts, and I’ve seen your SAT scores as well as your grades. I think you’d do great here.” Ian shot her one of his trademark grins. “Plus you’re already cleared for the fifth floor. Think about it.”
She didn’t comment on what he’d said about her SAT and grades. She was learning. “I will. What happens now? Can I go home again or what?”
“You need to stick with Colt for a few days, until we wrap up some loose ends, but you should be able to go home then.”
“Would that be Steve Gorky?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
As predicted, Gorky had moved the money from his offshore account to another one he thought they didn’t know about. But they had evidence Gorky was funneling money and arms to terror groups in Afghanistan in an effort to destabilize the region. Sobol had added a little information of his own to their knowledge, which was basically that Gorky also sent arms to neo-Nazi organizations in the states because he liked the idea of white supremacists pushing back against black arrogance, as he put it. The fucker was a straight up white pride kind of asshole who pretended to hide it while posing for photo ops with black councilmen and bucking for deals to build houses for low-income families, many of whom were black.
Ian wanted to make sure they could nail Gorky to the wall this time before sending Angie back home. Tommy, Marco, and Sobol were locked up and unlikely to bother her. Christopher Shaw was still out there but his only crime was laundering money and taking kickbacks. He wasn’t involved in skimming from a mob boss or
