AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So, that’s how we did it. We skimmed twenty million, an astronomical amount to ‘skim’ usually, putting all of the money into the Owens Construction business account Harry had the details for. After that, Laura erased the transactions and altered the history of the reports so that it looked like it’d never existed in them. She then changed the account details to show both Tyson Randall and Roy Green as the ones they were opened in and went a step further and changed the addresses to his home one.
Finally done with it all, she gathered what she needed and sent the tips into the whistleblower sections.
“Let me just find a couple of things before I wrap this up,” she muttered as she typed. “Ah, here it is.”
“Who are you emailing?” Eva asked as she frowned at the screen.
“I looked up the head of the whistleblowing department for the IRS and the head of the financial fraud team in the FBI. I’m emailing them the details directly.” With one final tap of her keyboard, she sat back and smiled at us all. “Done. I didn’t want it to get held up in a general mailbox where it could potentially be overlooked.”
“Damn,” I whistled, “good idea.”
Eva looked worried. “What if he finds out and changes the address on the accounts again?”
“I’ll just keep changing it back. I’ve already changed the security so he can’t get into them as well as the date of birth, but if he actually goes into the bank or contacts them about it, he’ll have to jump over some hurdles to prove his identity. In case he gets his buddy to hack them, I’ve installed a safeguard that’ll kick him out of the accounts and notify me of any attempts so I can be waiting.”
I was beyond impressed…and also slightly scared of the woman.
Not caring what Harry’s reaction to my next question would be, I asked, “Now, how do we get this information into the right hands to get Connie out of prison?”
His head snapped toward me. “What’s this now?”
“Oh, didn’t you hear?” Laura asked sweetly. “He set mom up to take the blame for it all. As you can see, she never had any of the money, and we kind of have an idea why he dropped that bank statement in one of the boxes.”
I blinked and then looked at Eva, who was glaring at her sister. “How the hell did you find that out?”
Instead of giving her an answer, Laura just tapped the side of her nose. “Given that both of the emails I just sent have been opened, read, and forwarded onto people already to action ASAP, I don’t think we’ll have to wait long to go to a lawyer with the appeal information.” Rubbing her hands together excitedly, she squealed, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
This time when Harry looked at me, it was with respect and a healthy dose of amazement.
“She’s fucking awesome,” he mouthed, shaking his head, and looking back at Laura, who was now crowing about what was already being assigned to investigators and how quickly they were looking into the information she’d forwarded them.
His phone ringing in his pocket dragged Harry’s attention away from the excited woman who was explaining things on her screen to Eva.
“Hey,” he greeted, not getting up and moving away from us for privacy. “Yeah, I know. Connie Ray’s daughters have been sleuthing away today and found where he hid it, so they got it back for you.”
He was quiet for a moment and then said tersely, “Yes, her daughters. One of them has even sent everything they need to lock him up to the IRS and FBI.”
The women finally looked up from the computer, their eyes locked on him nervously as he listened to what the person I assumed was his uncle was saying now. “He set up Connie, she had nothing to do with it. Yeah, I think they’re taking what they have to her lawyer to appeal it, too.”
Unsure of what else was going to say, I pounced on the topic of the lawyer to distract them. “Okay, who’s your lawyer?”
“Jay Powell, he’s who handled Mom’s case the last time,” Eva replied, not looking all that happy about the fact, and with good reason.
“Jay Powell, the guy whose picture with him shooting the thumbs up at people with a glow-in-the-dark smile freaks people out when they pass the board on their way into Chicago?” They couldn’t be serious.
“He’s the only one we could get at the time,” Laura explained, the expression on her face matching her sister’s. “He did it for half of what all the other lawyers were asking, but that was likely because Mom had worked for a couple of them, and they didn’t want any bad press.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” Eva sighed, dropping her head back onto the cushion behind her. “He kept missing appointments in the lead up to the trial, and even then, I’m not sure there should have even been one. She confessed to it all aside from the safe-deposit boxes and the accounts in our names. Isn’t that meant to rule out the need for one?”
I knew just the man to ask about it all, but I didn’t want to raise their hopes in case he had a full workload. “I think it depends on the case, but there was likely a trial because of those two things.”
“He’s still billing us for her, you know,” Eva mumbled, ignoring the glare her sister shot her at the revelation. “Every month, he sends an invoice through for admin fees and hours he’s supposedly worked on the case. Like he’s going to do anything to change the outcome after almost thirteen years.”
Laura’s eyes widened. “He what? How much is he invoicing you for?”
Eva shrugged. “It averages around six hundred dollars a month.”
Her sister’s mind went to the same place mine had—attempting to add up the amount that came to in total.
