Page 68 of Honor ’N’ Duty

She turned to his dog. “Be back soon, Smoke.” When Smoke licked her cheek, she laughed, a sound he hoped to hear a lot more of once they turned over all the evidence.

Leaving the engine running and the AC on for Smoke, he locked the vehicle. A minute later, they were standing inside the bank, the first customers of the day.

Laia had brought a light-purple sweater that she put on over her purple tank top. “It was always cold inside here, even first thing in the morning.” She rubbed her hands over her arms, but Kade suspected it was more nerves and excitement than an actual chill in the air.

By the end of the day, the government might have all that was needed to put Fernando Colon away for twenty more years.

“Laia! My goodness, it’s been ages since you’ve been here.” A short, smiling Chinese woman of about forty and wearing a navy-blue pants suit strode toward them, then gave Laia a big hug. “It’s good to see you again. And I’m so sorry. About Josh, I mean.”

“Thank you, Li-Mei.” Laia smiled, but this one was perfunctory. The tension in her posture told Kade it must be incredibly difficult being back in Josh’s bank.

After quick introductions, the other woman asked, “What can I do for you? Did you want to open a new account?”

“Actually,” Laia said, pulling the key from the pocket of her khaki slacks, “I’d like to access my bank box.”

“Oh.” The woman’s brows rose. “I didn’t even know you had one here.”

It occurred to Kade that no one had accessed the box since at least before Josh’s death—two years ago. Payments on the box must have been made years in advance, otherwise Laia would have been notified of a delinquent account.

“I haven’t accessed it in quite a while.” Keeping with the plan they’d discussed, Laia made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “I completely forgot I even had one here.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Li-Mei used a similar hand gesture. “Follow me.”

The woman’s high heels clip-clopped on the granite floor as they followed her to the back of the bank where the vaults were located.

Li-Mei stopped next to a small shelf just inside the first vault. Several small metal boxes sat on the shelf. “What’s the number?”

“Two thirty-nine,” Laia answered.

Li-Mei began flipping through the signature cards in one of the boxes. “Here it is. Oh, you’ve got one of the big boxes.” When she pulled out the signatory card, Kade noticed Laia’s name printed on the top. Every line below it contained a signature. Li-Mei flipped over the card. Half of that side was filled with more signatures. “You know the drill.”

“I certainly do.” Laia handed her key to Li-Mei, then accepted the pen and signed her name, which looked reasonably like all the other signatures.

Kade’s phone buzzed, and he tugged it from his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said to the women. “I have to take this.” He stepped back outside the heavy iron vault door. “What’s up, Manny?”

“Did you open the box yet?” he asked in a somewhat worried voice.

Kade frowned. “No. We’re about to.”

“We’ve got a slight problem. The AUSA wants to get a search warrant for the box.”

“Why? We can get in there right now. Laia is the signatory.”

“The AUSA wants to play it safe and be conservative. She doesn’t want to risk whatever’s in that box being thrown out on a technicality.”

As soon as Manny said the word technicality, Kade realized his eagerness to get inside the box for personal reasons had clouded his professional judgment.

“On paper,” Manny continued, “the box is in Laia’s name, and since she’s in possession of the key, obviously she can access the contents.”

“But,” Kade interrupted, realizing his mistake, “since she admitted that she didn’t set this box up, defense counsel could argue that she has no legal right to what’s inside.”

“Exactly. But it’s not like the contents are going anywhere. AUSA Parcells is in trial for two more days, so we’ll have to wait to get the warrant. She said you and I should start drafting the affidavit. That way she can review it as soon as she’s freed up and get it before the judge as soon as possible.”

“Fine.” Not really. Not by a long stretch. “We’re on our way to you right now.” For a day that had started out with such promise, it was already going down the crapper faster than a mudslide.

He went back into the vault where Li-Mei was inserting the bank’s master key into the brass outer door of one of the largest safe deposit boxes in the vault.

“Laia, wait.”