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“It’s my understanding the FBI isn’t considering the case closed.”
“So, are you still working on it?”
“I’m assessing it. I can’t shake the feeling we missed something.”
“But Sophia’s safe, right?”
“She is. And K&R cases are generally considered closed when the abductee is rescued. But that’s the case in countries where K&R is an industry. Here in the US, there is a desire to catch the people responsible. So, the case will remain open. And I’m going to write a review of the case.”
“The work you are doing is amazing.” Timothy’s pupils increase in size. He stands before me, his right foot pointed directly at me, and then he adjusts himself.
I have to be reading those signals wrong. I raise my shoulder, rotating to the board, showing him my back.
“Ahm, Alex. I was wondering, would you like to go to dinner with me?”
Oh, no.
“I mean, I’d love to hear more about the Sullivan case and what happened in San Diego. It’ll be my treat.”
I could be reading him wrong. I could be, but I might not be.You have to evaluate behaviors in cluster patterns.Dad’s voice speaks loudly in my head. Cluster or not…
“Timothy, I’m your boss. We could both get in a lot of trouble.”
His cheeks redden, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Much the way the earlier grad student did. It’s the universal sign for not wanting to talk.
“I didn’t mean like as a date.”
“Of course.” I give him a tight-lipped smile. Submissive, non-aggressive. And with that expression, it’s clear I’m not going to pursue this line of conversation. “I can’t go out tonight, but I’d be happy to go to lunch tomorrow. Actually, did you take accounting?”
“Freshman year.”
“Any chance you’d understand these financial statements?”
He laughs. Full-on laughs. His laughter clears the air of any tension.
“I am not an accountant.”
“Yeah, I’m not much on it either. We did have a forensic accountant review everything. If he couldn’t find it…” I trail off, thinking that I have no chance. The forensic accounting world requires a level of expertise I do not possess.
“I won’t figure it out,” Tim says, saying exactly what I was thinking about myself.
“It is interesting, though,” I tell him. “You know, I had always thought that gun and weapons manufacturers had their best years when a Democrat is in office.”
“Because there’s fear they’ll lose the right to own guns?” Timothy asks.
“Yeah. I mean, from what I can tell, completely unfounded fear. But I’ve read a number of reviews over the last several decades, and it was a consistent trend. Gun sales slumped when Republicans were in office. But they did well the last year under Trump. I suppose the pandemic helped.”
“I’ve read about that. Fear drives gun sales.”
I drop the file folder with all of the financial information onto my desk with a thud. The company is profitable, but I’m not going to decipher more than that from a financial statement.
“Are these people on your board suspects?”
“Persons of interest.” I point to Larry. “He was definitely involved. But he didn’t do it alone.”
“Is the FBI tracing the reward?”
“Trying.” I shrug. “Jack played it straight up. True to his word. Paid into an account as directed.”
