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My heart did a jump. Was the marriage certificate that Marjorie and I found a forgery? Or had someone gotten into the Colorado database and changed Daphne’s name?
Next I accessed records of birth. I pulled up Jonah’s, Ryan’s, and Talon’s. All were identical to the copies we’d found in the Steels’ basement. I inhaled and typed in Angela Marjorie Steel.
No record.
I typed in Marjorie Steel.
Bingo again. Marj’s birth certificate popped up, minus her unknown first name.
Why would anyone change these? Again, I wondered if the documents we found were forgeries or whether someone had accessed the Colorado database. That would not be an easy thing to do.
Unless one was a city attorney maybe? I shook my head, erasing the thought. Larry had the same access to the files that I did. He didn’t have authority to change them. If he had that kind of authority, he certainly didn’t need me to do his investigating for him.
I couldn’t imagine who might have that authority and who the Steels—or possibly someone else—could’ve gotten to make the changes. Or why they wanted the changes made anyway.
I made quick copies of both documents to show Marj later. Then I opened the first folder on the stack Larry had given me.
It was full of bank-account records from the Cayman Islands. Criminals often kept their money in Cayman banks due to the bank secrecy laws and reduced taxation. Those were also perfectly good reasons for anyone with a lot of money to bank there…and the Steels did have a lot of money. More so than I could’ve even imagined, as I cruised through these bank accounts.
There were bank accounts in all of the Steels’ names and many in names I assumed were dummy corporations set up to move funds around. Still, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The Steels had money. That was certainly no crime. And just because they banked in the Caymans didn’t automatically mean their money was dirty.
The next two folders contained more bank accounts, some of which were hopelessly outdated.
My eyes were bugging out from looking at all the numbers.
I felt like I was working at cross purposes. I both did and didn’t want to find something. I certainly didn’t want to find out that the Steels were involved in anything illegal, but I did want to find anything that might help me uncover the secret that Talon was keeping and that Jonah and Ryan were helping him keep. These bank accounts did nothing to help me figure out why the marriage certificate and name certificate had been changed.
I doubted any of their money was dirty, at least not the current Steel money. I had witnessed how hard both Jonah and Ryan worked at the ranch. Talon too, when he was out at the orchards. He knew his stuff, and I couldn’t wait until the Fuji apples were ready. And the peaches… Colorado Western slope peaches… Nothing better.
More bank statements in the next folder. Had Larry only given me bank accounts?
At one o’clock, I took a quick break to walk over to Rita’s Café and have some spinach quiche, and then I got straight back to work.
At about two thirty, Larry walked into my office. “How’s it going?”
I looked up from the millionth bank account I was reviewing, my neck now stiff and aching. “Still looking through the files.”
He let out a chuckle. “Yup, there’s a lot of them. If there’s one thing the Steels have, it’s money.”
I smiled. “Is there anything specific you want me to look for?”
“Just anything that doesn’t look quite right. The fact that they bank in the Caymans and in Switzerland is a red flag, as far as I’m concerned.”
I nodded. “It can be. Though they might just bank there because of the laws.”
“I thought of that, but better safe than sorry. Let’s see what we can find.” He walked out the door.
Why did I have the distinct feeling that the city of Snow Creek was paying me to do someone else’s dirty work?
I left right at five o’clock, my eyes crossing from all the numbers. One more folder to look at, but it would wait until tomorrow. A whole day’s work, and all I had learned was that the Steels were loaded. That they’d always been loaded.
I stopped at Rita’s again, got a sandwich to go, an
d headed down the street to my hotel. Living in a small town was great. Everything was within walking distance. I might not like it when winter came, but right now was perfect. By winter, maybe I’d have saved up enough for a car.
Up in my room, I shed my work attire, washed the makeup off my face, and got into a pair of cutoffs and a David Bowie T-shirt. I hadn’t brought the extra file home as I normally would have. I really needed a break from those numbers. I grabbed a bottle of water out of my mini fridge and sat down on the bed to eat my sandwich.
Midway through my first bite, a knock sounded on the door. “Hold on,” I said, my mouth full of turkey.
