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“Okay. Let’s try to get ahead of this thing.” The doors to the elevator dinged open, and Harris checked the lobby before she allowed the other two off after her. They headed straight for the car. “Rose, I want you in the back seat. Stay down as much as you can, but don’t make yourself uncomfortable, okay? Unless he was close by, we’ve got plenty of time. I just don’t want to take any risks.”
“Okay.”
Harris unlocked the car and tossed their bags in the back. “Cassie, I want you up front. Look for a hotel on the other side of the city. Somewhere nice, with a parking garage.”
Cassie slid into the front seat. “Got it. Anything else?”
“You still have that folder?”
It took Cassie a second to remember what the detective was talking about. “From the warehouse? Yeah.”
Harris looked over her shoulder at Rose. “Do you know anyone named Don Reed?”
“Don Reed?” Rose sat up a little in the backseat but slunk back down when Harris pulled away from the curve. “Yeah. How do you know him?”
“How do you know him?” Harris had one eye on the road, one eye on her rearview.
“Randall mentioned him a few times. I’ve never met him, but he sounds like a sleazebag. He was always trying to cozy up to Randall.”
“Cozy up to him? Why?”
“Either to cover up some mistake he made, or to get something on Randall to take the heat off himself.”
“But Randall was smarter than that,” Harris said. It wasn’t a question.
“Aguilar is a scary guy. Not saying Don Reed isn’t, but there’s a hierarchy, you know? Aguilar’s at the top.”
As Cassie waited for a page to load on her phone, she looked back down at the folder in her lap. “We found Reed through a company called Annex, LLC. We don’t have a direct tie from Reed to Aguilar, but we think Aguilar has some hand in the business.”
“I’ve definitely heard that company name before.” Rose thought for a moment. “Is it some sort of real estate company?”
Harris and Cassie exchanged a look. Harris spoke first. “Yeah. Do you know anything else about it?”
“Not off the top of my head. But I do know Aguilar has a bunch of them. Real estate is one of his more legitimate businesses. A lot of them are just masks to hide the real shady shit he’s doing.”
Cassie’s mind was spinning. It was hard to keep track of all the pieces. And she was still thinking about Harris’ situation. Had David really done something to keep her out of trouble? She couldn’t imagine David working side by side with someone like Aguilar. Then again, he’d do anything to keep his loved ones safe.
But she had to focus on one thing at a time. “What about Reed?” Cassie asked Rose. “What else do you know about him?”
“Not much. Randall mentioned him a bunch, but he always tried to keep me out of it. Sometimes I overheard him on the phone. But I can’t remember anything else. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Cassie hit another button on her phone. “I’ve almost got a room picked out.”
“Good. What—” Harris broke off, and Cassie looked up to see her squinting in the rearview mirror.
“What’s wrong?”
“This guy’s riding my ass.”
“Might be nothing.”
“Might be.” Harris didn’t sound convinced. She pressed the gas a little harder, and the engine revved as it worked to keep up. “Read out what you see in the folder.”
Now that they were away from the hotel, Cassie had to use the light of her phone to illuminate the pages inside. It could’ve waited until they mad
e it to the other hotel, but she had a feeling Harris was trying to distract Rose from whatever was going on behind them. “It’s a bunch of insurance claims. Some are for a couple hundred dollars. Some are for half a million.”
“Insurance fraud.” They were on Lake Shore Drive now, heading south. Traffic was tight, and Harris used the opportunity to slip in between two other cars before she spoke again. “Annex and all the shell corporations? They’re trying to hide that it’s all going back to the same person.”
