“Oh, this is going to be interesting,” Matty muttered from beside Dash as she, too, sat back.
Dash watched as Charlotte very calmly tilted her head to the side as if considering her response. Then, just as calmly, she sat forward, crossed her arms on the table and tapped her long, pale pink nails on the tabletop. “I’m not leaving Matty,” was all she said.
“Ms. Lareaux,” Agent Rodriguez warned.
“You can go all ‘federal matter’ on my ass as much as you like, Special Agent Rodriguez, but if you care to have a look, or call into your mother ship, I promise that you will find my security clearance is significantly higher than yours.”
Agent Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. “What do you do that warrants your clearance?”
“I’m a consultant. I consult,” she said, daring him to challenge her.
“On what?”
“Like I said, it’s above your security clearance, Special Agent,” she answered. “But if you’d like a few minutes to call your people, feel free, because now that I’m here, I’m involved and I’m not leaving.”
For a moment, Dash wasn’t sure what Rodriguez would do, but not ten seconds passed before the agent abruptly pushed away from the table, pulled out his phone, and walked back out onto the patio. When he walked back in, it was clear from his expression that he’d learned something interesting. What it was would remain a mystery, at least to Dash, and he sat back down at the table.
“Ms. Lareaux, welcome to the investigation. You’ve been authorized to come on board.” He paused for a moment then a good-natured smile touched his lips. “Actually I’m glad to have you on the team, I’m not much of a numbers guy.”
Charlotte studied Rodriguez for a moment as the rest of them glanced back and forth between the two. Finally, Charlotte gave a nod of acceptance. “Happy to help in any way I can.”
Beside him, Matty let out a long breath. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, what is going on, Special Agent Rodriguez?”
“Call me Damian, please. First, you should know that this isn’t my usual kind of case. But because it involves Windsor and I know Ian, the agency asked me to lead the operation.”
“What involves Windsor? What operation?” Dash asked. From the look on Vivi and Ian’s faces he’d wager they already knew. And judging by the frown that touched Matty’s lips, she’d noticed too and didn’t much care for being one of the last to know.
“I assume this is about Brad?” Matty asked.
Damian nodded. “Do you remember a piece of mail you posted for him—judging by the postmark, it must have been soon after you arrived?”
Matty’s brow creased as she thought, then her head drew back as she obviously remembered something. “Yes, I do. There were three and they were right there,” she said, pointing to the wooden pocket hanging from the wall by the door. “I noticed the envelopes were stamped and addressed my second day here. I figured he’d forgotten to post them, so I took them with me into town and dropped them in the mailbox near the grocery store,” she said, repeating what she’d told Ian and Vivi the day they’d found Brad’s body. Dash wrapped his other hand around hers, enveloping hers in his as her voice cracked at the knowledge that Brad hadn’t forgotten the letters but hadn’t been able to mail them because he’d already been killed.
Damian nodded. “We thought as much.”
“How did you know I mailed it?” Matty asked.
“Fingerprints,” Damian answered.
“Was there,” she paused, hesitant to ask what Dash knew she was going to. She swallowed. “Was there something bad in the letters?”
Damian wagged his head. “Yes, but not in the sense you seem worried about. The letter made it to our office in a few days, but it took a while to move through the channels and be verified.”
“What did you need to verify?” Charlotte asked, sitting back now, taking in the conversation. Damian glanced at her before turning back to Matty.
“Brad Brooks provided detailed information to us regarding the activities of a branch of the Irish Mafia that we’ve been trying to track and bring down for the past ten years. They are based out of Boston, but have significant holdings and dealings in racetracks and horses around the country, including some in this state. Thanks to him and the information he provided, we’re collecting and documenting evidence and should be able to execute a raid in the next day or two.”
Dash blinked at the information. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting the FBI agent to say, but it wasn’t that Brad had helped them bring down a branch of the Irish Mafia. Matty looked just as stunned as he was. Charlotte was frowning, looking to be contemplating everything.
“I don’t understand,” Matty managed to say.
“We don’t know how he did it either, and that’s why we’ll be bringing in a team of people to go through all of Brad’s things. They should be here shortly,” he added with a glance at his watch before continuing. “We do know that he provided enough information in the letter he sent—including bank accounts, dates of transactions, movements of the members, and those sorts of things—that we might even be able to bring the whole organization down.”
“So, he was doing something good?” Matty asked, still sounding somewhat confused, but Dash didn’t miss the tiny little spark of hope that interjected itself into her tone.
Damian frowned. “Is there a reason you might think otherwise?”
Dash looked at Ian as Matty looked at Vivi. Vivi gave a small nod of encouragement. Matty took a deep breath and answered.
“I don’t know, Damian,” she said with a shake of her head. And then she told him everything she’d told Vivi and Ian a few days earlier, about the pictures, what she’d found out about the people in them, the jockey, and the visit from the bank officer. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to find out he did something wrong, but if there were irregularities in the accounts he worked with at work and he had ties to all these other people who were convicted of various financial crimes, I just had to wonder. And knowing he had inside information into organized crime, enough to maybe even bring it down, seems to suggest he might have been a part of it, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“You didn’t tell Damian any of this?” Dash interjected, directing the question to Ian and Vivi.
Ian shook his head. “He called on his way here and we spoke for five minutes. I didn’t have much of a chance to say anything other than that we would meet him here.”
“It’s true,” Damian interjected, obviously not wanting to sow any seeds of discontent between friends and neighbors. “I got the assignment a few days ago and we’ve only been focusing on the information in the letters—trying to verify and confirm it. We didn’t know who’d sent the information until Matty’s fingerprint turned up on the envelope; we identified her last night and tracked her up here to Windsor through credit card statements. That’s when we learned about Brad, his murder, and the other events that have been happening up here. I was on the first flight this morning and called Ian on my way. We may have a head start on the Mafia angle, but we don’t know much about Brad Brooks himself, other than it fits that he is the one who provided the details. And as to what you might be thinking, Matty, I wish I had a clearer answer for you, but at the moment, all I can say is we’re looking into it all.”
“Is there any possibility that the information he gave you in the letter is wrong? Or that maybe he was a part of it, but had a change of heart?” Matty asked. “I guess, I mean,” she paused, took a breath, and continued. “I guess I mean to ask, is there any chance, since you don’t know much about Brad or his movements or motivations, that what he gave you was misinformation or an attack of a guilty conscience?”
“With respect to the possibility of misinformation, no, absolutely not,” came Damian’s swift answer. Dash felt some of the tension leave Matty’s hand and he rubbed a thumb over her palm as she gave him a soft smile.
“But as for an attack of a guilty conscience,” Damian shrugged, “I don’t know. L
ike I said, we’ll have to dig into his things to find out. But at this point, we don’t have enough either way to say if he was involved in criminal activities or just a Good Samaritan, reporting what he knew.”
“Okay,” Matty said on a breath. “I know it’s ridiculous, but if you discover something bad about him, it will be nice to know he did some good, too. Even if it was just a last ditch effort.”
“And we may not discover anything bad about him,” Charlotte added, placing a comforting hand on Matty’s arm. “We don’t know what the bank officer was looking for or what raised the red flag. Maybe it was Brad looking into accounts to gather the information for the FBI. Just because he did something that gave the bank concern doesn’t mean he did something wrong.”
For a long moment, Matty looked at her friend. Then she sat back and let out a sigh. “Okay, I like the sound of that much better. I like the thought of him trying to help rather than embezzling, or being part of the Irish Mafia, or something like that. I know you’ll find whatever you’ll find, but I think I’ll do my best to try to think the best of him until you all tell me otherwise,” she said with a meaningful look at Charlotte, who gave her an answering nod. “So, this mean you’re going to look at the members of this gang, of this Mafia branch, as potential suspects in Brad’s death, right?” she asked, turning to Ian and Vivi, who both nodded.
“Yes, we will,” Vivi answered. “We’d like to cooperate with the FBI and exchange information. We may not be able to look into specific people until after they conduct their raid, but you can rest assured that if there is a link between Brad’s death and the information he sent the FBI—and given what the information is, it’s not too hard to believe—we’ll do our best to find it.”
Matty’s eyes swept around the table. Dash knew this wasn’t at all what she’d thought her trip up to Windsor would be like. He’d bet that never in a million years did she think she’d be surrounded by law enforcement, her best friend, and her future fiancé—because that is what he was, despite not having said much on the subject the day before—discussing her half brother’s death and the Irish Mafia. But she was handling it well. And he wouldn’t have expected any different.
“You’ll take care of telling Douglas and Sandra what they need to know?” she asked Ian who nodded again. “Okay,” she said, turning back to Damian. “What do you need from me?”
Damian smiled and Dash knew they were almost out of the woods.
CHAPTER 24
MATTY GATHERED UP HER THINGS while Dash collected the dogs’ supplies. They planned to load up his truck and move her, her car, and the dogs to his house for the time being. Matty didn’t mind being usurped from Brad’s house while the FBI went through everything. Damian had said she could stay, but she really had no wish to be underfoot all day. With the arrival of the FBI team, there were just too many law enforcement officials around for her to relax anyway.
All that was left to do was bring her bags down, grab her computer, and load the dogs. Coming down the stairs, they were about to take a left into the short hall that led to the office when Damian’s voice, sharp with authority, caused Matty to pull Dash to an abrupt halt right outside the door.
“Agent Pearson, I hope you put more thought into how you investigate than how you flirt. Do you have any idea who this is?” Matty heard Damian say to one of the agents who’d arrived not long ago. Matty had briefly met Agent Pearson, a good-looking young man from the Albany FBI office, when he’d arrived. Emphasis on young.
“Her name is Charlotte Lareaux, our financial consultant, sir,” came the answer—the last word sounding a bit forced. “And I wasn’t flirting,” Pearson added, making him sound even younger than he probably was.
Dash raised his brows at Matty as she fought a smile. “For an FBI agent, he’s not very good at lying, is he?” Dash whispered. Matty’s smile cracked and she shook her head. She’d seen the way Damian looked at Charlotte and she was curious to hear how this exchange was going to play out. Clearly, he was displeased with the young agent’s behavior. It wasn’t professional, to be sure, but if Matty wanted to place a bet, she’d bet that Damian just plain didn’t like another man flirting with Charlotte.
“You were,” Damian countered, his voice brokering no argument. “But more to the point, she’s more than just a consultant, Pearson. She also works with the EU, the World Bank, and the IMF. Just last week, she was in Europe meeting with the EU on the debt crisis. In the five days she was there, she met with prime ministers of three of the G7 countries. And her last boyfriend, if you’re curious, was Anthony Goulakis, sole heir of one of Europe’s wealthiest shipping magnates. She’s not likely to be impressed by a twenty-six-year-old FBI agent based in Albany, NY, even if you had—what was it you called it, Ms. Lareaux?” Damian asked.
“A magic cock,” Charlotte supplied.
“Yes, even if you had a magic cock. That said, if the badge does give you one, like Ms. Lareaux intimated, maybe we should exchange badges, because I’ve been wearing mine longer than you and I have to admit, I’m still just a regular guy.”
Matty choked back a laugh as Dash did the same. It was just like her friend to feel no compunction with setting down a young agent, even in a graphic way. Charlotte was not a woman who allowed her time to be wasted, and though Matty felt a little sorry for the young agent, she kind of regretted having missed the exchange. Although it wouldn’t have been the first time she had heard Charlotte call out an officer for using his badge like it was a magnet for sex. There was nothing Charlotte hated more than someone using publicly granted authority for personal gain.
“Sorry about that,” Damian said after Pearson had muttered an apology and shuffled out of the office into the kitchen. “I can’t really blame him for trying, but you were right to set him straight when he tried to use his badge, his position, to impress you.”
“You do your research, don’t you, Agent Rodriguez,” Charlotte responded after a pause.
“I try.”
“You did forget two things, though,” she said. “I also met with two Nobel Laureates, in economics, of course. And I dislike the term ‘boyfriend,’ as the men I date aren’t anywhere near boyish. Of course, Anthony was an exception, so I suppose I’ll grant you that description this time around.”
Damian chuckled and Matty cast Dash another look. She knew she should walk in and pick up her computer, but she didn’t want to interrupt this conversation. On the other hand, when Dash suggested with a gesture of his head that they leave the two alone and head into the kitchen, Matty shook her head—she was also loath to stop eavesdropping. Dash dropped his chin and looked at her from under his dark lashes, seriously questioning her behavior. Shrugging and grinning, she dared him to challenge her since she had no doubt he’d done his fair share of eavesdropping on his siblings in his day. Of course, he’d been a child at the time.
“Thank you, Charlotte, for agreeing to help out,” Damian continued. He hadn’t made another sound and Matty wondered if he’d walked toward Charlotte or kept his distance. “I know we have teams of people that can do this work, but they’re in DC. The Albany team will be good for everything else, but they don’t have the expertise you or our forensic economists have. You’re saving us a lot of time by getting started on all this.”
Matty could all but hear Charlotte shrug. “Matty is like a sister to me. She is a sister to me in every way but by blood. If I can help her out, I will.”
“But it’s not what you came up here to do,” Damian pointed out, more conversationally than argumentatively.
“No, it isn’t,” Charlotte agreed. “I came up here because she’s all but living with a man she’s known less than three weeks. But I know her well enough to know that she won’t give that any thought at all until this stuff with Brad is sorted out.”
Matty frowned. It sounded suspiciously like Charlotte thought she might be with Dash because he was easy, because he was there, because he was a distraction. She looked up to find him watching her and r
eached out to place a hand on his chest. One of his hands came up and covered hers, the other wrapped around her waist.
“They look pretty in love to me,” Damian said. “I’m not sure there’s anything to worry about. Dash seems like a good guy. I know Ian likes him.”
Startled by the mention of love, Matty’s eyes widened. They hadn’t ever said those words, and to be honest, she hadn’t really given much thought to saying them. Not because she did or didn’t feel that way, it was just something, yet another something, she’d never thought much about—yet another way she was emotionally stunted. As if sensing her thoughts, Dash lifted her hand to his lips and placed a sweet, silent kiss on the sensitive skin at the inside of her wrist, holding her gaze the entire time. It was just a moment, a moment like so many others, yet somehow, standing there in the hallway, it felt like it held so much meaning.
“People like Matty and I don’t know much about love, Agent Rodriguez. If she is in love, it will be the first time, and knowing Matty, probably the last. If she does love him, then I want to be sure he feels the same, because if Matty has put herself out there in that way—in the way that kind of relationship would require—and he doesn’t feel the same, she won’t ever do it again.”
“Love is a one-time thing for her?” Damian asked.
“If that,” Charlotte answered.
“And you?” he asked.
“Not even going there, Agent Rodriguez.”
“Call me Damian, please,” he said. “But you know, I think both you and Matty know a lot more about love than you probably think. You have each other.”
“No argument there, but I can count on one hand how many people she trusts, really trusts. And I wouldn’t even need my thumb,” she added.
“And how many do you trust?” Damian asked.
“One less than, Matty. Or so it’s looking like,” she added.
Matty still held Dash’s gaze, even as a tightness spread across her chest. His thumb gently rubbed the hand he still held and his eyes seemed to implore her to breathe, to relax, to trust him. He brushed a strand of hair from her face then slipped his free hand behind her neck. Only he didn’t pull her in for a kiss, but rather dipped his head and rested his cheek against her temple, pulling her just close enough to feel—to absorb—his steady, solid presence. After a moment or two, she relaxed against him. She knew she didn’t have anything to worry about as far as Dash was concerned. He was there; he wasn’t going anywhere. And while he wasn’t going to let her go anywhere either, he seemed to have no wish to rush her to any conclusions about the two of them.
These Sorrows We See Page 33
