AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You bet your sweet, Irish ass,” she shoots back. “Amaya’s my girl, fellas. And I know that prick and that bitch Ramada did her dirty. So here I am, trying to help. Am I helping?”
The question is rhetorical and the snark is well deserved. I have no choice but to concede as I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to make sense of my own warbled thoughts at this point. We have new information to work with. We have proof that there’s something beyond fishy going on here.
“You know, this makes me want to look into that DNA thing a step further,” I tell Kace.
He gives me a curious look. “Derrick took the photos and sent them to Amaya. Odds are you’re right, Elias. I think we need to do something about this.”
“Blackmail is still a possibility, mind you,” Tanya intervenes. “This could be Derrick’s collateral, in case you go after him. I know I’d absolutely keep such an option if I were to go against big kahunas such as yourselves.”
Leave it to Tanya to talk some fucking sense into our frazzled heads. The more I think about it, the clearer this picture becomes. I can see Derrick pulling an elaborate scheme on the matter. He had help, though. Inside help.
Ramada has been coming to the estate for long enough to pick up on details she may consider useful later. The guys and I have always trusted our security system and our clientele, as well.
We never had reason to suspect foul play because we never had such crises to deal with before. But this is foul to the core, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone ruin the best thing that has ever happened to me. To us. At least I’m not alone in this.
Finn clears his throat and takes his phone out. “I guess it’s time to call that PI back, huh?” he asks.
“Absolutely,” Kace replies, then looks at me. “Looks like the game is back on, fellas.”
Tanya seems doubtful, but she doesn’t say anything. I guess we disappointed her when this wasn’t the first thing we did, weeks ago. I am inclined to agree with her. I am disappointed in myself—in us. We could’ve handled things better. We could’ve been more suspicious. Then again, proof, dammit. There was proof, and it was neatly stacked against Amaya.
Derrick made a mistake when he sent her those photos, however. That’s the trouble with narcissists; they get cocky and slip up. Sooner or later, the universe does catch up with these bastards, and I intend to be a manifestation of its wrath when it catches up with Derrick.
By the end of the day, Kace, Finn, and I are walking into the police station.
We got lucky. The attending physician who signed Derrick’s DNA test results was in Sacramento for a medical supply conference. Our PI alerted us to his presence, and we reached out to our former Navy buddies now working in law enforcement. Apparently, the good doctor had been suspected of falsifying documents for money before, but there had been no proof to convict.
Sacramento PD picked the guy up before he could even sit down for lunch. He’s been broiling in an interrogation room for the past couple of hours while the cops waited for us to come in.
“I’m telling you, this is the kind of stroke of luck that other investigators pray for,” Detective Arroyo says as we step into the room next door, where a double-sided mirror gives us a clear view of the doctor sweating in cuffs, waiting for somebody to save his scrawny ass. “We would’ve had to push for extradition from his home state, had he not been in Sacramento for the whole week. You fellas are blessed, I swear.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I tell our old friend, then respectfully shake his hand. “I’m also sorry we haven’t been around lately. We missed the last reunion, too.”
“Meh, you didn’t miss anything, trust me,” Arroyo bitterly replies. “The rest of our crew are hot messes, through and through. You boys did alright. I’d rather know y’all are busy and unable to visit than rotting away slowly in some VA hospital. But enough about that. We can do a proper catchup at a bar downtown when this is all over.”
Kace nods in agreement. “Right. So, what are we looking at? I’m assuming your guys grilled him good before we got here.”
“Oh, yeah,” Arroyo smiles broadly. “It didn’t take long to make him crack open like a pinata, filled with candy, mind you. Delicious morsels of incriminating information and offers to provide evidence in exchange for leniency.”
“That sounds promising,” I say.
Arroyo nods at the disgraced doctor. He can’t hear us. He doesn’t have to, though. He obviously knows he’s in the worst kind of trouble, judging by the sheen of glistening sweat on his face, the hollow look in his eyes, and the tremors in his legs.
“Meet Gerald Hynes, manager of the Smith-Hannover Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois,” the detective says. “The same facility that issued the DNA results two years ago,” he adds. I can see the papers in an evidence bag on the ledge mounted just under the double-sided mirror. “Problem is, Dr. Hynes, here, has only been working for said laboratory since December of last year. Your private investigator is good, gentlemen. Really good.”
“How did the scam work, then?” Kace asks, a muscle twitching furiously in his jaw.
“We did a little digging into Dr. Hynes’s financial records and his past,” Arroyo says. “Turns out, he and Derrick Stanton went to the same high school. Then, we noticed a few unreasonably large wire transfers going into Dr. Hynes’s account. We traced those back to Ojos Nudos Incorporated, a shell company owned by—”
“Ramada Chesterfield,” I finish his sentence for him because I already know where he’s going with this. We all know. Every piece of information that Arroyo is giving us now only serves to confirm what we already suspected. It also serves to make us feel infinitely worse about doubting Amaya in the first place. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Yeah, so, this is out of your hands now, fellas,” Arroyo says. “We’ve got reason to further investigate, and Dr. Hynes here is more than eager to cooperate in exchange for a reduced sentence. He’ll probably get time served and his license permanently revoked. But I’m more interested in Stanton and Chesterfield. Especially Chesterfield. I smell White Collar Crimes and a collaboration with the Feds for this.”
“It could be a career maker if you play your cards right,” Finn replies with a wry smile. “You have our full support, either way. Character witnesses. CCTV footage. Anything we can provide, Detective. You name it, we’ll get it for you.”
“I want to see those fuckers in jail,” Kace hisses, no longer able to contain his fury.
27
