“I will be careful, Mr. Harris, but I am a doctor, it’s not like I can go into hiding. And even if I could, I’m not sure I would.”
“I’d forgotten how stubborn you were. I used to tell Dana that I didn’t know who was worse, you or Linc.” Even though he smiled at me, it didn’t reach his eyes. They seemed to reflect sadness or disappointment.
“Can’t answer that considering I haven’t seen him in years. Sounds like he is where he needs to be. That he finally found what he was looking for. I’m glad.” I stood and so did Louis.
“Yes, he has. However, I don’t think he has everything to make his life complete.” I knew where he was going and I refused to go there so I walked toward the door. Since my dad first mention Linc’s name, he’d been on my mind and I wasn’t quite sure if I liked it.
“I would appreciate it, if you would keep me posted on the audit or anything else you find out that involves my dad. I hate to say it but I don’t think he will keep me up-to-date. I do know if he does have to go to jail, my mother will be the one to suffer more than him.” I opened the door and stepped out of the office.
“I will. Katie, your mom will be taken care of no matter what happens to Paul.” Louis stepped out of his office behind me.
“Yes, even if I have to do it myself but I wasn’t talking financially, her physical being is what worries me the most. Though her medication keeps her pretty balanced, I don’t know if this will throw all that out of sync. We shall see I suppose. Thanks for your time, Mr. Harris. I’m going to get some sleep before my next shift at the hospital. Hopefully, it won’t take too long to get the ball rolling on this.” I started to walk away when he called out my name.
“Katie.”
“Yes,” I said as I stopped and turned back to face him.
“You know Linc will do everything he can to help your father.”
“I don’t doubt that since it will help his club too.”
“Yes, he would do anything for Haven.”
I turned back the way I had come and started walking away once again.
“And you.” My step faltered, once upon a time I might have believed that.
The ringing woke me up and I reached my hand out for my cellphone that sat on the nightstand by my bed. I didn’t even look at the screen before I answered. “Dr. Stevens.”
“Kosnoff’s not happy with your dad. I think he’s going to need an incentive to keep his mouth shut,” the man said, then all that could be heard was a dial tone.
I sat up in bed and went to recent calls to see if a number showed up but the only thing listed was Private Caller. The man’s voice was deep and gravelly, one I couldn’t recall ever being heard. I was sure I would have remembered it, he sounded like a smoker with a two pack a day habit.
The clock showed I had time to shower and get a bite to eat before my shift. It was a full moon so it would be a long night because the crazies would be out in full force. I showered, dressed, and headed to the kitchen for something light to eat.
It didn’t take long to heat the small microwave dinner and less time to eat it. I cleaned the few dishes in the sink, then walked down the hall and grabbed the bag with my gym clothes in it in case I felt like working out after I got off in the morning. Something I tried to do at least three times a week.
I hadn’t pulled into the garage when I had come home that morning so I walked out the front door of the condo I rented and headed for the driveway where my Mustang sat. The car had been my splurge when I was hired full-time at the hospital.
The subdivision I lived in consisted of nothing but condos: two together, connected by the garages placed in the middle with the living space on each side. They were two bedroom, two baths, and the layout in each was exactly the same. I rented mine as soon as I pulled my first paycheck. The area was nice, clean, and the rent was reasonable, which meant most living in the subdivision were single or families just starting out.
I disengaged the alarm to the car and inserted my key just as I heard the motorcycle approaching and the garage door next door started to rise. I opened my car door, then turned to watch as my new neighbor pulled up on a black Harley. I loved motorcycles, but I hadn’t ridden on one since Linc had taken me for rides on the one he had gotten for his high school graduation. The one we had been riding the night he told me he was leaving. I shook my head to clear that train of thought because I didn’t need to go there before work. So, I smiled as I watched my neighbor dismount and pull the helmet off her head and walk toward me, the sun shining off her red hair that she had pulled back in a braided ponytail.
“Hey, Katie, going into work?” Charlie asked when she stopped in front of me.
“Yeah, last shift, then four whole days off. I’m so ready.”
“I know what you mean, my time off has gone by fast. I start my new job in a week. I finally got everything organized and put away. Moving sucks.” Charlie looked up and down the street and then back at me.
“What do you do? I never asked you last week when you moved in.” I’d only talked with her shortly one day when I ran into her as the moving company was unloading in front of our place.
“Oh, I’m a bounty hunter.” My jaw dropped when I looked at the woman and she laughed.
“Wow, that would have been the last job I would have put you in.” I laughed with her.
“I get that look all the time when I tell people what I do. But if you think about it, I would be the last person that a runner would think was after them. I’m able to get close to them without them even suspecting they got caught.” When she smiled her whole face lit up and her green eyes sparkled.
I looked down at my watch, “Ugh, I need to leave to get to the hospital on time. We are going to have to get together while I’m off. I would love to hear more about your work.” Charlie had to be close to my age and she seemed genuine and nice and I liked her.
“That sounds great. Let’s get together tomorrow night. I bought a new grill, we could cook out and drink, then you can tell me where all the hot men hang out around here.” I laughed and turned and got in my car.
“You’re on, well except for where the hot guys hang out because I haven’t a clue.”
“Great, see you tomorrow. Is six good? Then you can tell me how a woman that looks like you, doesn’t know where the men are.”
“That works, see you then.” We said goodbye and I closed my door as she turned and headed back to her place. Charlie would be shocked when I told her I hadn’t had a steady boyfriend since I was sixteen. I tried to date a couple of times in college but had given up when both men couldn’t stand up against Linc. Dammit, I said I wasn’t going to think about him. I reached up, turned the music up loud, and pushed down on the gas petal, it was enough to push Linc right out my mind.
Chapter Six
Moose
We sat around the table in the Prez’s office to discuss anything new that had been found out.
“You first, Moose. How was Stone holding up?” Prez asked and leaned back in the chair.
“He hadn’t broken yet, but when we are done here I will go back down. Don’t think it’s going to take too long. Stone acts tough, which plays to our advantage because he likes to talk about how smart and tough he is. The read I got on him so far is that he is scared of Kosnoff for one. Two, Jacks knows a lot, maybe not everything, but Stone tried too hard to play Jacks off as an idiot who only knows what Stone tells him.”
“What makes you think Jacks knows more than that,” Hawk interrupted me and asked.
“He was Sergeant of Arms for Haven before me and you can’t do this job without some ability to read people. I’ll bet Jacks knows everything and if he was present when things were getting discussed, well, he could know more than Stone. If Stone doesn’t start talking, we will start on Jacks, he won’t break per se, but if he feels Stone is pushing him under the bus, he’ll spill.”
“How do you know that?” Keg asked.
“Loyalty to Stone is the only thing that is keepin
g Jacks quiet. As soon as Stone breaks that loyalty, then he won’t feel obligated to give his. I was with Jacks before I went into the room with Stone and the doubt is there. He will wait, see how Stone acts when we put him back in the cell beside him. Give them a few minutes together, alone, then take Jacks out. If Stone holds out this first go around, Jacks I feel will give all he knows.”
“Brother, you do realize you are kinda scary with that shit. Makes me want to start watching what I say around you,” Crank said and I chuckled.
“Alright, Tram, what do you have for us?” Wild Bill asked. Tram’s specialty dealt with anything electronical, and if a computer system was hackable, he was in. I couldn’t count how many times that skill came in handy when a terrorist held a phone in his hand ready to blow something up and given the time, Tram would find where the signal was bouncing off towers, jam it, rendering the device useless.
“I won’t go into detail how, I will just cover where and what I found. SEC is already looking into Paul Stevens. From what I saw they’ve been at for about two months. I’m thinking the Feds are the ones to clue them in because when I jumped over, they have been busy looking at Kosnoff for approximately six months. I figure they followed the money trail back to Stevens and Harris Brokerage, then called the SEC in on Paul. The SEC has enough to take down Paul but they haven’t and it made me curious so I dug deeper and found why. There seems to have been money of substantial amounts that generated from Taiwan, Japan, China, and several other Asian countries that bounced from several banks, even went through a Swiss bank, stayed there for a few days, then bounce somewhere else before ending up in Kosnoff’s shipping company’s brokerage account to be spread out in different stocks. Some of it would transfer back from a quick buy and sell trade, and that would go directly into Kosnoff’s personal account.” Tram stopped and took a drink from the glass in front of him.
“How the hell is that not enough to nail Kosnoff on?” Pinch asked.
“Because every time the money bounced, the total changed. They would add together say two, then the next time it bounced somewhere the balance was different. They started out with like fifty accounts and by the time they made the last bounce, it was one amount until it hit the brokerage firm where it was split again, several times with different amounts each time.”
“Did you find what the money from the countries was paying for? Shipment cost, maybe?” Crank asked, then leaned back in his chair.
“Trafficking was what the FBI has listed.” Before Tram could finish, Prez interrupted.
“Guns, drugs...people? Which one?” the Prez asked.
“All of the above. One other thing surfaced too. Moose, your dad had their company lawyer give him a list of attorney names that handled these types of cases.”
“Did you get that digging in my dad’s stuff?”
“No, the Feds had a note referring to it. They want Paul to flip on Kosnoff. The note also said as of right now, Paul wasn’t willing to do it. They have a flight watch too. They think if he is pushed into a corner, he will either deal with them or take off. That is pretty much all I got.” Tram closed the file in front of him and leaned back in his chair.
“That was a lot, Tram. Nice job,” Wild Bill said, then turned to face Pinch and Keg. “You and Pinch are up.”
“Pinch and I went to your house, Prez, and you were right, there was still some boxes out in the storage shed that had been boxed up from Stone’s trailer after he left. It was mostly pictures, whatnot shit you thought Carly might want of her mother’s stuff. We were almost done going through it all when Pinch came across a little notebook that was between some books that had been boxed. He started flipping the pages while I finished going through the box to look for anything else that might have gotten overlooked that day so I will let Pinch tell you what it contained.” Keg nodded to Pinch when he finished.
As I sat and listened, I couldn’t believe how much we had uncovered in half a day. It all wasn’t making sense right now but it would once I spread the information out in front of me and moved it around until the info pretty much told a story. It was almost like putting a puzzle together.
“It took me a little while to decipher what was in the notebook. They were numbers and letters in columns and beside them were dates. We brought it back with us.” Pinch set the notebook on the table and pushed it to Wild Bill. “You can see for yourself. Figured you want to lock that up, I scanned the whole thing into the computer. Gotta say, I spent way too much time trying to figure it out until it hit me that it was Stone’s and no way in hell did that dumbass have some elaborate coding system. So when that hit me, well, I did the basic. The numbers switch to letters and give you names, then the letters in the next column give you amounts when switched. One section is showing deposits and withdrawals on an account. When I searched club accounts, it was to one that you had closed and transferred the money to another account after Stone left. The deposit went in and then the next line, a portion came out. That portion was set into another ledger of sorts and part was paid out every time to the same account, same amount, monthly. The account that part was going into wasn’t any account of the club’s but it is the same bank where we do business. I called there but Madison wasn’t working today and she didn’t answer her cell but I left a message for her to call me. She will look that up for us and tell us who is on that account. There was another set of columns in the back of the notebook that was the most interesting. It was money paid and deposited into yet another account. That was Stone’s personal account because in the boxes we found an old statement with that number on it and it is at another bank. Give you guys each a guess where that bank account is.” Pinch paused to see if any of us would play. Cal Wetzel was given the name Pinch while prospecting for Haven after he told us the story of how he came back from his stint in the Army with almost all his pay. He’d only spent enough of to live on because he wanted to save and be able to help his sister, Madison, with college. Penny pincher was too long of a road name, so he became Pinch.
“I only need one. A bank in Canada.”
“Damn, Moose, you are right. That is what we found today. Only need Madison to get us the other information,” Pinch finished and Crank was staring at him. “What?”
“You seriously going to bring Mad into this. They find out she is giving out names and account numbers, she could lose her job.” Pinch squinted his eyes at Crank while the rest of us sat back to watch. The two had joined Haven together, they’d been friends since middle school.
“Madison isn’t going to lose her job. She is over the accounts. Give me a little credit. And why are you so concerned about her anyway. Your ass better not be sniffin’ around my sister, asshole. She is too young for you.” Pinch crossed his arms over his chest.
“Young? We are only six years older than Mad.” Crank chuckled.
“Just fucking stay away from her. I don’t even want you to go in the bank and see her,” Pinch said and turned back to the rest of us, ending their conversation.
“Hawk, Crank, and I met with General Petal. He handed over the package for the next mission. We got pics and individual statistics on each cell member know to be in the area. Only thing he told us was it was four men and one woman. When we get a chance we will lay it out and get a better picture of what we’ll be looking at. You will be going to Boston this time, boys.”
Groans came from each of us. Boston was hell to move around in on a good day, add the marathon traffic to the equation, and it was going to be damn near impossible. We’d do it but fuck it was going to suck.
“Let’s plan to look through this stuff day after tomorrow.” The Prez stood and we followed suit. And just as I stood my phone buzzed. I reached in my pocket to see who had texted and read the text.
“That was dad. Audit is coming in tomorrow. He said he would come to us.”
“Sounds good. If we are lucky, you can get us some more information from Jacks or Stone and we will be one more step ahead of Kosnoff. Moose, with all we learn
ed, if Paul cooperates with this, Kosnoff might go after your girl. If Paul doesn’t, Kosnoff might still go after your girl anyway to send a message to him. Have you thought about that yet?”
“Yeah I have, working out a plan on that. But I need to get this over with Stone first. What I get from him or Jacks will let me know how it should be handled.”
“Then get to it.” Wild Bill slapped me on the shoulder.
I nodded, told my brothers I would see them in few, and headed to the basement.
Chapter Seven
Moose
How the hell Freak and Shock could stand the smell in the room was beyond me. It made me wonder just how bad being a POW had been on them. It brought another level of respect for the older men.
When I walked back in after I had met with the others, it was to find Stone still hanging by his wrist but passed out. He was still breathing but his breaths were a little labored. It seemed a person could get bit by a rattler, several times in fact, and if the anti-venom was readily handy, survive.
Shock had recorded Stone’s ramblings while I had been absent, he knew I would want to go over every word out of the asshole’s mouth. He looked like death was knocking at his door but other than faint burn marks on the bottom of his feet, where the current from the battery tried to escape his body, and the five or six sets of puncture wounds from the snake bites, he’d live. It would be with a few scars from the bites but he would continue to breath as he lived out the rest of his life in prison. With his attitude though, it would be a short life on the inside.
Snatched: MC Romance (Haven MC Book 1) Page 5
