“Every other week. Mid pay cycle. It was a just rise at first, then it started to increase. When I saw it spike to close to a million dollars in and out I had to come and talk to you. I was hoping to figure it out on my own, but that’s too much fucking money.” I looked between the men studying the sheets, and wondered when Franz had joined them.
“That is a lot of goddamn money,” Franz said.
“Close to fifteen million rolled in and out,” Nathaniel said.
“This is the only evidence it was ever there.”
The looked at me and I nodded. “The only evidence.”
“They’re laundering.”
I spun in the chair and hadn’t even realized Emmy walked in behind me. She was leaning against the door, and unfolded her arms and walked to join her husband.
Victor nodded, and pulled off the top sheet. “Wanna play detective?” He offered the sheet to her.
She grinned. “Something besides filing and ordering you assholes lunch every day?” Emmy plucked the sheet out of his hand. “You know it.” She looked at Franz. “Can I borrow Cece? You know she’s amazing at research.”
“Text her.” He nodded. “She’s probably at the library though. The books were clean last night, so there’s no catch up.”
“Nice.” Emmy smiled, and headed out the door. “We’ll have some answer in a bit.”
I glanced between all four of them, and watched the door shut. “I fully admit, I don’t know how yins run this place, but…”
“Emmy and Cece are some of the best researchers out there,” Victor said. “It took me a year to convince Emmy to come back to work here after my brother knocked her up the second time.”
Nathanial planted his chin on his fist and stared at his brother. “You think I have any say of what goes on in my marriage?”
“What’s your safe word this week, Brother?”
“What’s yours?” Nathaniel lifted his eyebrows.
“That’s enough with the penis slap fight,” Franz said, rolling his eyes. “Explain to the man what’s going on.”
Victor slipped Franz the side-eye. “Yessir.”
I had no idea what was going on here.
“Sorry, sorry,” Nathaniel said, holding up a hand. “So Emmy and Cece will start researching these accounts. I know you don’t have access to the accounts for deposit and withdrawal, and I’m sure you have all the receipts for the expenditures. So, Emmy will access the accounts, and Cece can help her trace the money.”
“Do you need the receipts?” I asked, starting to stand up. “I can get them—”
“Sit, please,” Victor said. He gave me a pointed look. “If you’re worried about your job, don’t be. I can clearly see what’s going on here and why you would be worried about that. You’re one of our best, Vaughn, and we’re ridiculously happy with what you’re doing down there. This,” he swept a hand across the paper, “is just proof that our faith is well placed.”
I nodded, and the tension drained from my body. “Thank you. I was worried.”
Nathaniel laughed. “Couldn’t tell.”
I watched the numbers dropping as the money moved out of the account. Victor shook his head as he chewed on the sandwich.
The company co-owner had promised to come in and join me on Monday after Emmy had delivered the news on Friday morning and had charged into my office.
“We have a real problem.”
“What do you mean?” Victor said, snapping his head up.
“It’s laundering all right,” Emmy confirmed. “It’s what the money is from that they are laundering. Garabaldi got back to me, and…it’s not good.”
I glanced at Victor and back to the two women standing there. “Who’s Garabaldi?”
“Lieutenant Simon Garabaldi, Pittsburgh PD,” Emmy said. “He’s a friend. And a resource. We were able to coordinate with him and the bank where one of the deposits was placed. It was a very large cash deposit and because it was coming from Walsh-Tyndale, it wasn’t questioned. But we had them pull the few parts of the actual cash that hadn’t been moved.
“The bill sequences were in some that the FBI have been tracking,” she continued. “More than that, the bills tested positive for gunpowder residue.”
Victor’s hand slammed on the desktop, making everything jump. “Someone is using my company to launder gun money?!”
“Yes,” Emmy said.
The word dropped like a bomb in the room and there was no stopping the fist Victor let fly into the wall.
“Every damn time something happens, it’s gotta be a disaster, right? Can we just have bad corn seed just once?”
“What do we do?” I asked. Pointing to the screen, we could see the deposits rolling in in real time. They’d been building since the day before. “We’re going to top out over one point three million this week!”
“Freeze the account,” Emmy said. “Close it and lock it down. Victor, you know these bankers personally. They will totally push a freeze and lock on the account on a midnight request.”
I traded a look with Victor, and his was as sour as mine. “Emmy, freezing the money of a gun runner is about as bad of an idea as filling a blimp with hydrogen. Nothing good can come of it.”
“Do you know another way?”
“We can trace the origin of the withdrawals next week,” I offered. “That would probably get us further. And we can call the FBI for some help.”
“CIA,” Victor corrected me. “And maybe the Secret Service, since they handle financial fraud at this level.”
“I can get Simon to ask for help.” She nodded. “We’ll get this shit straight, asap.”
He took another bite of his sandwich, and leaned back. “That is some shit.”
“Vic, what are you eating?”
He glanced at the sandwich. “Peanut butter and bananas on a pretzel roll. I think. The oldest has gotten all culinary on us. Says she wants to be a chef.”
“With bananas and peanut butter?” I asked.
“She’s seven, I just want to keep her happy this side of tween hormones.” He shrugged. “It’s a good snack. She doesn’t realize that men eat a lot more than women do. And then I can honestly critique her work.”
“Dylan’s five and still into dinosaurs, so I can’t relate right now.” I laughed.
“You’ll get there—oh, there goes another hundred.”
His cell phone rang on my desk. “Walsh. Yeah, it’s Victor. Christ, Simon, how long have you known us?” He paused. “You did? They did?” He gave me the thumbs up. “Awesome. All right. Good. We’ll keep an eye on it.” He swiped the connection closed. “They got that one. Origin, destination, and retrieved. The CIA has it.”
“Nice.” I nodded.
“All right.” He stood from the chair, and tossed the sandwich wrapper in the trash. “Got some other stuff to do. I’ll leave this in your capable hands.”
“I’m staring at the screen.”
He laughed. “Yup. If anything spikes or dips, text me, and I’ll get Simon on the phone.” He slapped his hand down on my shoulder. “Good job, man. Seriously. Thank you for finding this. We like to keep the company on the up and up, and this was a great catch.”
“My pleasure.” I smiled.
Also, my heart did a little dance. I was an asset now, and I had Victor Fucking Walsh’s number in my phone. I had worked so hard to get where I was, and so hard to get on their radar. This was the best company to work for, and I planned to retire from it.
The money jerked around a few times, most of it accompanied by a text from Victor telling me they’d snagged or tagged it. It was fantastic.
And at four when the banks were mostly shut, I finally decided it was time to go home. Helen would be waiting, and Dylan’s school had some kind of parents’ night. Our first go-round with this school stuff, and my mom had promised to take Dylan for the night. She’d smiled when she said she would keep him overnight.
She knew. Helen and I needed the break. We’d been struggling a bit th
e past few months, but that was because her job was going through a bad buyout and she was worried about it.
Now, I was pretty sure she’d able to quit that piece of shit job in the next two years or so. I wanted the regional manager position, and now I had a chance at it.
I pushed the front door open, and found the living room shut up tight.
This wasn’t right.
Before I could turn around and check the driveway, I saw a flash of black behind me, and the door slammed shut.
“Helen!”
“Shut up, snitch.” The cold metal pressed to my temple, and I knew there was a gun there.
“What do you want?”
“You. Dead. Fucker.” He pushed the gun against my skin and shoved me into the living room.
Helen was tied up face down on the couch, her head turned to the side. She was naked from the waist down and there was blood everywhere, soaking into the couch. Her beautiful black eyes were dull and resigned.
The guy behind me nailed me in the head with his gun and I dropped to the floor, dizzy and disoriented.
The guy standing in the corner in a black pinstripe suit with the neat purple pocket square walked forward and grabbed my hair. “Why did you out our game?”
“Your game?”
The guy behind me pistol whipped me, on the ear. I screamed, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Our game. The laundering. It wasn’t hurting anyone.”
“It’s illegal.”
Pistol whipped on the other side. My ears were ringing, and I could feel the blood rolling down my neck. “God, please, just get her an ambulance.”
“You just had to keep your mouth shut, Vaughn Willard. That’s all you had to do.”
“That’s not who I am.”
One of the others in the room shoved me to my side. I landed on my cell phone in my pocket. Fucking hell, I had to get an ambulance. Helen wasn’t even moving anymore. Her eyes were on me, but they were dimming.
“We need all that money the CIA stopped, and you’re going to help us get it.”
I rolled into the couch and slipped my hand into the pocket, pulling out the phone. I pushed it slightly under the couch and swiped it open.
“I don’t even know how to do that,” I managed. I pushed myself to kneeling as I hit the dial on the last contact. “I’m a manager, I handle contracts. I don’t really have access to accounts.”
The pistol whipper pulled my head up. “Then you’re going to manipulate those accounts, and get us the two hundred fifty k back.”
I hit the video button the phone, and saw Victor’s face appear on the screen. I grabbed the phone and slid it across the rug into the middle of the floor.
“Victor! Call the cops!” I screamed.
“What the fuck!” Two of the men dove away, and the man in the suit calmly pulled out a gun and shot the phone, effectively ending the call.
The black pinstripe suit came over and held the gun loosely in his hand. “You fucked up, Vaughn. You fucked up big time.” He kicked me hard in the side and I fell over again.
As casual as fuck, he raised the gun and shot my wife in the head.
“Be afraid, mister manager. Be very afraid.” He flicked the gun at the men and ushered them to the back of the house, and I heard them all stampeding out. As if he couldn’t get enough, he kicked me in balls. “You’re a dead man.”
I heard a siren in the distance, and he walked away from me and out the back door.
I crawled to the couch, and wrapped my arms around Helen, pressing my forehead to hers.
She was still warm.
And she was very, very dead.
Chapter Three
Bridget
I ran my thumb over the top of the picture again. Really, about the only thing I had gained from making sure Wittesburg was dead was that I had gotten my revenge.
The bottle of beer that sat on the bar in front of me was weirdly cold. I wasn’t used to cold beer anymore, and it was just another reminder that I wasn’t where I had worked to get to for so many years.
Going to Ireland had been my brother’s idea. He wanted me to get away from the mess that was our parents’ deaths. I was still a kid and I didn’t get what was going on. At least over there, I could just be a kid and not have to deal with any of it.
I never expected to be recruited—and fired—from MI6, but there it was.
“Fucked it all up, Greg, but at least I know your killer is dead,” I mumbled.
I folded the picture in half, along the same worn line, and tucked back in my wallet.
“Deirfiúr?”
I spun on the chair, and there was my brother striding across the room to me at the bar. I jumped off and met him a little less than halfway. “Deartháir.”
My big brother wrapped his arms around me. God, damn. “I missed you, Birdie,” he hissed in my ear.
I laugh-sobbed. “Birdie? You’re still calling me that, Killian?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” He chuckled.
“Fuck you, Killian.” I giggled.
“I’m so glad to have you back. Are you going to be staying this time? Or you going to skitter off back to London?”
“I’m staying, for good.”
“Oh, yay!” He hugged me again. “You can crash with me and Cece and we’ll help you look for a job to get you back on your feet here. There’s lots to do and I’m just so damn glad you’re going to be under the same roof again with me.”
The stunning woman my brother had walked in with was standing next to us looking back and forth.
“What?” Killian asked.
“Do you realize you’ve been chattering in Irish?” she asked.
“We have?” he asked.
I didn’t curb the laugh, and kept on in Irish. “Yeah, we have. I fall into it easily now.”
“I can practice again!” He wrapped his arm around the woman, and switched to English. “Bridget, this is my wife, Cece. Cece, this is my sister, Bridget. She’s going to be crashing with us for a few while she gets her bearings.”
“Good,” Cece said. She pulled me into a hug. “It’s wonderful to meet you, finally. Your brother loves to talk about you.”
“I’m sure he does,” I tossed him the look. “Only good things?”
He looked away, teasing me.
“Come on, let’s let Bridget finish her beer and then we can go grab some food,” Cece said, and pulled us over to the counter. She plunked Killian down next to me and she took his other side.
I liked her already. I like her even more by the light smile that was always on my brother’s face. He just looked happier and more content now, and if that was her fault, I owed her.
The two of them lived in an adorable cottage, with a white picket fence and everything. The last of the summer flowers were getting ready to drop off, and the leaves were well into their fall colors. There was a gorgeous Japanese maple in full red for the fall, and the entire outside of the house was lined with the unmistakable red leaves of the firebush.
And the inside was just as cute. No one would ever think this place was huge—it wasn’t—but it felt so friendly and warm and home-ish.
“All that money and prestige, Deartháir, and you picked a cottage?”
He smiled as he handed me a mug of coffee. “This was Cece’s refuge. And then it became ours. Until there are kids, I don’t see a reason to move. It’s exactly as big as we need it.”
Cece cleared her throat and headed out of the room. “Don’t forget, Kay.”
Killian clearly waited until Cece was out of the room, then turned to me and switched to Irish. “Ah, yeah. So… Don’t go into the basement. We keep the door locked, but unless you want to know way too much about your brother’s life, keep that in mind.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What the hell have you got down there? A sex dungeon?”
He just sipped his coffee.
The laugh burst out of me. “Deartháir, you’re kidding me. I always knew you were a bit of a frea
k, but a whole floor of your house?”
He flicked his eyes in the direction his wife had wandered off. “Cece is a nawashi. She studied in Japan.”
Well. “Is she? Really? So apart from the thrill you get from being tied up, does she know the whole art?”
“She couldn’t call herself a nawashi if she couldn’t. I’ve been trying to get her to just do the art part of it, to put it on display, sell some pieces. She’s fucking amazing at it.” He put his hand on my arm. “Look, Bridget. Don’t go down to the basement. Please. We’re pretty damn kinky and I don’t want you to think less of us because of what’s down there.”
I laughed to myself. Think less of him because he liked to play sex games? What would he think of me when he found out my body count? But, I patted his hand on my arm and smiled, switching back to English. “Believe me, Killian. Nothing could change how I feel about you. You’re my brother, and you’ve done nothing but make sure I’ve had the best life I can. I won’t go down to the basement if that’s what you want.”
“Thanks, Birdie.” He smiled.
“But I might ask your woman to teach me how to use those ropes.”
Cece’s head popped around the corner. “A new student?”
Killian burst out laughing.
Turned out, I was pretty damn good at learning the art of ropes.
Vaughn
“Are you going to be good for grandma?” I asked.
God, the terrified shake in my voice was even unnerving for me.
“Of course, Daddy,” Dylan said.
I could hear the terror in his voice, too, and that nearly broke me. His grandmother—Helen’s mother, Michelle—was a quivering mess as well.
This was a bad idea.
“This is a bad idea,” I said out loud and started to walk back into the house.
David, Helen’s father, put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head. “No. It’s a good idea, Vaughn. It’s time. We all have to start finding the new normal.”
“This is too fucking hard.”
“Please don’t swear, Daddy,” Dylan said, tears pooling in his eyes.
Plain Sight Page 2
