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“I know him, yes.”
“Before we continue,” Finley said, removing her cell phone and showing her the photo of Grady, “would you confirm that this is the man you know as Alex Wilensky.”
Lawrence glanced at the photo, her face giving away her level of disgust at the image. “Yes, that is him.”
Whatever he’d done, the woman definitely didn’t like the guy.
“What you may not know,” Finley went on, putting her phone away, “is that he’s dead. Murdered.”
Lawrence’s expression remained neutral. “Should this news mean something to me?”
Definitely some bad blood between these two? Was Lawrence another of his victims? Damn, the guy sure had a way with very intelligent women.
Finley blocked the thought of Derrick.
“Maybe. Before his murder,” Finley said, “he stole seven point eight million dollars from his new wife. We’ve yet to find the money.”
Lawrence laughed out loud.
Finley waited for her to finish.
When Lawrence had caught her breath, she shook her head. “You’ll have to forgive my inappropriate response. But thank you for sharing the news.” She stood. “I’m afraid I have another appointment now.”
Finley didn’t move. No. No. This meeting wasn’t over yet. “We have reason to believe that our client is not the first woman he’s done this to.”
“You would be correct.” Lawrence remained standing, but she made no move to walk away.
Finley pressed on. “We also discovered a person we believe to be his partner. The man who represented himself as Jarrod Grady in Nashville and Alex Wilensky here in Atlanta is dead, but his partner is still out there. I don’t want this to happen again.”
Lawrence lowered back to the sofa. “A partner?”
Finley nodded. “This is why it’s important that I find out anything else that connects these women. If you represent a client he swindled, I need to speak with her.”
“He stole hundreds of thousands from her,” Lawrence said. “She wasn’t going to take it sitting down. She intended to file charges, but he used a family secret he discovered while they were together to keep her silent.” Lawrence shook her head. “I urged her to go to the police anyway, but she wouldn’t. This secret—whatever it was—was so humiliating she insisted and wouldn’t take the risk, though I warned her he might divulge her secret anyway.”
“Which means,” Finley said, “that your client still isn’t in the clear. His partner is out there, and she likely knows whatever he knew.”
“She?”
Finley nodded. “If I can find the connection between the victims, I might be able to prove her link to Grady-Wilensky. Right now, what I know could go either way. The rub is in the proving it.”
“I’ll speak to her. If she’s willing, I’ll take you to her, and she can tell her story in whatever way and to whatever degree she feels comfortable.”
“Thank you.” It was the best Finley could hope for. “We owe it to these women to finish this. Bear in mind I have a flight back to Nashville later this evening.”
Lawrence stepped out of her office to make her call. Finley took a water bottle from the silver tray on the table between the two sofas.
She was close. All she needed was confirmation.
Dagne Residence
Riverly Road, Atlanta, 1:30 p.m.
Since Lawrence was local, she drove Finley to her client Meredith Dagne. The client’s home was grander than Winthrop’s, and Finley wouldn’t have considered that an easy feat. Yet here she sat in a home that better resembled a palace than a house.
Dagne was older than Winthrop as well, early sixties, and she was in ill health, multiple sclerosis, late onset.
Grady-Wilensky was a total scumbag. Fury roiled inside Finley.
