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“How?”
“Because when the feds would lock in on a case and finally have evidence enough to go to court, the criminals in question usually have no choice but to trust their lawyers with all the details they can manage to share, so their lawyers can best defend them. Not to mention they get to read over the probing information the prosecution has gathered as well. See? It’s brilliant. He failed at his attempt to simply take the money and pin it on a patsy. That wouldn’t work twice, so he decided to steal the money-making formula and form his own empire, since it’s shady but not as risky as drugs, guns, or gambling.”
It runs alongside my theory that a fed would have done it to get the info that way. A lawyer never crossed my mind. I don’t even know what to say. But Sarah does, because she continues.
“Your uncle has all the makings of a criminal mastermind, but he has bad luck. First there was your father. He recruited him as the perfect scapegoat. A chunk of money goes missing, you blame the man who has immediate access to your accounts. My guess is that the Death Dealers threatened Aaron, and your father was smart enough to figure out it was your uncle. He hacked your uncle’s computer, somehow found the account, and transferred the money back, while also locking your uncle’s access out. If I had to guess, your uncle had a bug in your dad’s work computer to find out account codes to begin with. All your father would have had to do was change the access codes.”
Mind. Blown.
Headache.
“Then there’s you—his second string of bad luck. He recruited Ben as muscle and a scapegoat in case shit went south. Ben assumed all the risks because he wanted the girl, and I’m guessing your uncle is good at selling someone whatever they want. But you got desperate and went to Benny for help. Herrin has been taunting Benny for a while with knowledge of how the feds knew so much about his business and how they broke up a few of his associates’ gambling rings. Benny used you as a bargaining chip, and well, the dominos fell after that.”
I lean back, sucking in air as we pull up to a crappy one-floor motel that makes my old place look like a five-star hotel.
“Where are we?” I ask as she turns off the car.
Only a couple of other vehicles are in the parking lot.
“My current squatting place. It’s nicer on the inside. Promise. No one here asks questions or eavesdrops. No one here wants to know what you’re doing in a place like this, since they have their own dirty shit going on. Gotta love these places.”
I get out as she walks toward a door and opens it, motioning for me to hurry up. I take in the fact she’s dressed in all black leather like she’s definitely an assassin and dressing the part. Her makeup is heavier than she ever wore it before, and her hair looks even blonder than it did, and it’s cut differently.
I don’t study her long, because her appearance is the last thing I need to focus on right now.
“How are you processing all of this?” she asks as she shuts the door behind us. Surprisingly, the inside really is a lot nicer.
“I’ll let you know when my mind catches up. I need to call Drex.”
“Not yet. He’ll trace your phone and they’ll come here. I’d rather not have to kill anyone else today.”
“You’d kill one of them?” I ask in disbelief.
“Not unless they tried to kill me first. I don’t just let someone point a gun at me without pulling my own trigger, Eve. Speaking of which…”
She pulls a gun out of her purse and hands it to me—the same one she used to kill Dumb and Dumber. I take it and look at her like she’s sprouted a second head.
“If anyone walks through that door without knocking three times, shoot them until they drop. Understand? I have to call the hospital to check in on Colleen. When she called me, I heard what was being said and I showed up in time to put a tracer on that SUV. Fortunately I was fishing out some information from a guy nearby. I cut them off at the alley when I realized where they were going.”
“Why can’t you call from in here?” I ask her as she pulls her phone out of her purse.
“Because I’m paranoid for one, and for two, I don’t want you hearing who I’m talking to. I trust you, but I also know you well enough that I know you’ll tell Drex anything and trust him with it. Two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead and all that. For now, I have someone on the inside, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
