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She flipped back and forth between financial documents. Definitely not Flynn’s forté. He tried to follow her thinking, but she changed screens too quickly for him to figure out what had caught her attention.
Sam frowned and looked over at Flynn. He shrugged back. He had no idea what she was seeing but her intense focus guaranteed she’d caught something important.
After a few minutes, she nodded her head, and took off her headphones. She looked surprised to find both men watching her.
“What did you find?” The question slipped out before Flynn could stop it.
“Oh. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but there’s a complex financial trail they’ve been trying to hide.”
“How do you know they’ve been trying to hide it?”
She turned back to the laptop and scrolled through the screens, explaining as she went. When she was done, he looked at Sam, who was grinning while he shook his head. Flynn figured his friend had understood about the same as he had. Maybe half.
“Okay. Let’s see how much of that I followed. There are fake companies and real companies and someone is using them all in a chain to hide money. And some of that money is landing in a personal account of someone you think is attached to Pavic. But that someone doesn’t have a real identification.”
Tessa smiled at them. “More or less. To have a bank account, debit or credit cards, you need to have identification. If you don’t want those options, you need to have cash. And if you want cash that can’t be labelled as dirty, you have to access it through a bank or some other institution.”
Sam frowned. “And you’ve found someone linked to Pavic?”
“Maybe. I’ve found that a regular money trail goes into the account of Karl Kuzmetzov. Other than the information at the bank, there is zero record of a Karl Kuzmetzov anywhere. Well, not that I’ve found yet. I’d need more sophisticated programs to dig more.”
Sam nodded. “I can send the name and information to Joe and Nico. Speaking of Joe and Nico, I want to bring them in on this. I know you’re nervous Tessa, but they’d want to help. A bigger team means a bigger chance of success.”
Flynn nodded, throwing his support behind his friend. He knew Tessa was worried about everyone else, but he was confident in the team of people he’d chosen to start a business with. He wanted her to trust them, too. Wanted her to trust him. Take a chance on them finding a solution. And giving them a chance at a future together.
Tessa looked from Sam to him and then simply stared into his eyes for a long moment. He took her hand and brushed his thumb over her wrist, avoiding the numb spot she’d pointed out.
Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
Sam mumbled a thanks and immediately started typing. Flynn was sure he was contacting their friends and getting them here as quickly as possible.
“Thank you.” His quiet words had her smiling sadly.
He leaned over to kiss her, then leaned back. “Okay, Flower Girl, what’s next?”
She smiled shakily at the comment and then pointed at her screen. “I want to try to get an overview of the financial structure of Pavic’s organization. If I can see where the money flows with any kind of clarity, we should be able to find the blind spots. We may not know where they’re hiding the money right away, but following the trail always gives us more information.”
She took a breath and stared at the screen. “I also want to create a map. Seeing it laid out visually helps. A large map with markers for anything associated with Pavic. People, crimes, suspected crimes, targets, properties. That kind of thing.”
Flynn nodded and stood. “That I can start on.”
He moved back to his laptop and pulled up a map of Texas, then zoomed into Houston and the surrounding area. He could narrow it down by neighborhood but collect all the information on one giant map. Then Tessa could zoom in and out, looking for the connections.
Flynn was good with visual data. He had several smaller maps in his files already. Collating them all into one would be a big job, but not impossible. Seeing the entire area might help him as well.
Pavic didn’t have a large area of control. There were more powerful gangs and groups out there. Flynn could use an overlay system to cover those territories. Then he could see where Pavic business overlapped with others.
Because her grandfather wasn’t one of the major players, Pavic might get away with being involved with multiple gangs without pissing anyone off. He should have thought of this angle before.
A message beeped on his laptop from Sam. It showed the message he’d sent to Joe and Nico.
Rodeo King finally showed up to see Midnight Lake. How about we throw him a party? I bet Josie would love to come, too. How’s Saturday?
Perfect. He grinned at Sam and nodded.
If he was a betting man, he’d say they’d have three new guests at the lodge soon. Despite being in high demand, or maybe because of that, Joe and Nico could take time off for important things. He’d bet they’d accumulated a ton of leave like he had.
And they were going to use it because Sam asked.
