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The threads connecting Fergus to Diamond Tommy to Natasha Orton to Drea hung loose in front of him, as tangible as the plastic chair under his ass. His intuition told him all of the threads were connected, but he couldn’t quite see how. Not yet.
The commonality was Grayson Domestic, but he couldn’t get to the why. And the why mattered. A target’s motivation alwa
ys highlighted their soft spot, where a swift shot would hit hardest.
An excited gleam lit Drea’s eyes. She stood and cracked her knuckles like a woman about to get into the ring and kick major ass. “So he has to find the extra money somewhere else within the business, right?”
“Exactly.”
They paced in opposite directions, then came together in the middle of the room and turned sideways so they could squeeze through the narrow space between the bed and the table.
“Moving drugs?” she asked.
He rolled the idea around in his head. It didn’t gel. “No, they aren’t going overseas or traveling much.”
More pacing.
“Undocumented labor?” he wondered out loud.
“Possible, but that’s low grossing.” She shook her head. “We need to think about the business’s assets. What assets could he exploit?”
A business like Grayson didn’t have big capital expenses, equipment, or office space. The owners ran it out of a rented office in a high rise. “Really, it’s just the people.”
“He could charge a premium for extraordinary services, or…” Her step faltered, and she stumbled to a stop.
Their eyes met. Certainty punched him straight in the guts. “For the servants’ silence.”
She smiled and nodded. “After all, who knows everything about what’s going on upstairs than those who work below stairs?”
Fuck. If that was true, Diamond Tommy was using Grayson to facilitate blackmailing Harbor City’s elite, people who had more than enough money and motive to want to keep their dirt swept neatly under the rug.
“Okay, let’s walk through it.” He paced toward the door with enough energy bouncing through him to make it feel like he was walking across a trampoline. “Diamond Tommy gets his fingers into Grayson and gets the employees to feed him inside dirt on the big wigs they’re working for. But why kill Mrs. Orton?”
She said, “Maybe Natasha was ready to go public with her husband’s cheating.”
That would do it. If Mr. Orton was paying hush money about his affair, then he wouldn’t have reason to keep shelling out cash if his secret became public knowledge.
“Tommy doesn’t like it when somebody turns off the money spout.”
She stopped, her feet shoulder width apart and her hands planted firmly on her hips, ready to take out whoever pissed her off next. “But why frame me?”
That was the question beating against Cam’s thick skull. For days, they’d been looking at the whole thing like a grand conspiracy, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was just wrong person, right time?
“If I was Tommy, I’d want to throw suspicion as far away from my people as possible.” As the words came out of his mouth, Cam’s certainty increased. “If the police questioned Fergus too closely, he could tell the cops everything and blow the whole blackmail scheme sky high. Instead of losing money from one family, Diamond Tommy could lose it from all of them. So he frames you, throws all of the attention your direction to keep the cops as far away from Fergus as possible.”
“Now all we have to do is prove it.” With her shoulders thrown back and her chin tipped upward, she looked hot as hell and more than up for the challenge.
“Piece of cake.” He winked.
Chapter Fourteen
“Beauty is not generic. Quite often, the thing that makes you memorable is the thing that makes you different.” - Laura Mercier
Drea tightened her grip around Cam’s waist and melded herself to his back as they rocketed across the bridge into Harbor City. He zipped through traffic and wove his motorcycle through the slow moving cars. Drivers honked their horns, and more than a few flipped them the bird. He whipped around a delivery truck so quick she should have had a heart attack. A few days ago, she would have. Now? Just a tiny jump in her pulse.
“Only a couple of blocks to go.” Cam’s voice came through clear on the helmet speaker. “You hanging in there?”
The motorcycle dipped low on its side as he took a left turn onto Forrest Avenue.
