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Chapter Seven
JOSHUA
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
She wasn’t at home or work, and I hadn’t passed her when I’d driven in the direction of the prison Connie was in, so she hadn’t broken down or crashed. Where was Eva at?
Making my way back to Addison, I drove to her house, my relief almost overwhelming when I saw her car parked in the driveway.
Before I could even reach her door, it opened, and she stood with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Thank Christ you’re home. Eva, I’ve been going out of my mind since you hung up on me. Where have you been?”
She raised an eyebrow at my frantic questions, looking unimpressed. “What I do with my day is none of your business, Joshua. However, as it happens, I’ve got something to show you.”
This cold, remote woman was a far cry from the warm, constantly amused one I’d first met and fallen for. I hated it, but at the same time, I could understand why. I’d asked myself on many occasions since we’d met if I’d been in her shoes, would I just open up that information immediately to someone I didn’t know and was dating? The answer had swung from yes to no until I’d had to admit last night that I likely wouldn’t have and would probably have looked for a way to do it, just like Eva had.
I just hated that I couldn’t explain what she meant to me. I mean, I could, but I had to come up with a way that would resonate with her and that she’d understand, accept, and find a way to forgive me.
Walking back into the house and leaving me to follow behind her, she said, “While I was talking to Mom, I remembered that Roy—or Tyson—had dropped by the house the day after she’d been taken to the prison, claiming he wanted to help us box her stuff up. We were moving boxes over to our new place so the new tenants could move in, and we left him there while we did it. That must have been when he either planted or accidentally left that bank statement there that you found.”
“Eva, wait just a minute. Please, I need to explain something.”
Not paying me any attention, she picked up a black leather notebook and shook it at me. “Mom remembered today that he’d left this at ours once, so she’d hidden it in the spare wheel compartment of her car, which was parked at my little sister’s house. I went and retrieved it today and had a look through it. I think I know where James’ money is.”
I didn’t reach out for it, so she’d understand she was my priority and the reason why I was here, but I stayed quiet while she continued explaining.
“I’m still not sure if the bank statement was deliberate or not, but I found something in here that looks like a reminder to set up payments into it every three months, all for different amounts.
“It got me to thinking, with Mom already going through the trial and having admitted to doing most of what she’d been charged with, the new account would either serve as a nail in the coffin if they found it. It’d be a good way to begin moving money around if the authorities didn't, though. Almost like he was playing chicken with the detectives, and then if they didn’t find it, he’d have an account he could change the name on and put money into.”
“I’m sure they would have been thorough when they investigated, Eva,” I said slowly.
“Really? So how didn’t they find it?”
When she put it like that, I could understand what she was getting at.
“So, you think he left the paper at your house in case they went digging through her stuff at any point to keep the attention off him?”
“Yes,” she nodded emphatically. “Or he accidentally dropped it into one of the boxes when he went through them to find his notebook.”
“Both are credible possibilities. It’d stop anyone who found out his real name or who searched for any accounts under Roy Green from tracing the money, too. How did no one find the secret one under your mom’s?”
She flipped the book open and skimmed the pages until she found what she was looking for.
Turning it to face me, she pointed at some details next to the letter E. “That’s the correct day and year of Mom’s birth, but the month she was born in was June, not July. The social security number is also two digits off.”
My head dropped back, and I glared up at the ceiling. “He had someone making fake details and accounts for him, so he’d be able to do that no problems. Shit.”
“Wait, he has someone doing creating fake details online for him?”
Lowering my head in surprise at the happiness in her voice, I nodded. “Yeah. We found out his real name and some of the other shit he’d done and concluded he had to have someone in his pocket who could do that. He took the details of some men with the name Roy Green, merged them, and created his own persona from them. The guy who helped him do it and set up the accounts has to be good at what he does, or it’d have come up during the investigation when so many banks had made errors like that.”
Jogging over to the coffee table, she picked up her phone and began typing on the screen. “My sister’s been a computer whizz since she was eight. I reckon the government would have her on some sort of watch list if they knew about her, but her level of whizz kid is that she’s even good enough to snoop around undetected by them all.”
I shook my head fiercely. “No, Eva. I’m not involving you guys in this shit. You’ve been through enough. I’ll feed this back to Harry and get one of his guys to look into it.”
Look totally unaffected, she wiggled her phone at me. “Too late, the text’s been sent.” No sooner had she said the last word, it beeped in her hand. “Oh, and she’s on her way over. You better call Harry and get him to meet us here.”
