CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE TINA
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
T INA
Tina sips coffee from her mug at her cubicle while Pratt steps away to take a phone call. The search of Makayla’s father’s home turned up no sign of Liam. So far, neither has the search of Ted Stevens Airport, which narrows the possibility of Liam being anywhere besides on that plane.
She catches movement in her periphery and looks up to see Ruiz striding past her cubicle.
“Did you ever get ahold of the gate agent?” Tina asks.
Ruiz slows, shaking her head. “No. I sent an officer to her address, but she wasn’t home. And she hasn’t returned my calls. I’ll let you know if I hear from her.”
“Thanks.” Tina returns her focus to her laptop screen.
She double-checks the seat map of Makayla Rossi’s flight before putting a check mark beside the name of the twenty-year-old female passenger in the aisle seat across from Makayla on the printed passenger manifest on her desk.
Tina thinks about her own daughter, wondering if she’s still asleep. Often, when Isabel has a nightmare, a second one follows. She feels a pang of regret for not telling Felicity when she spoke to her. She won’t have another chance for a while.
On her and Pratt’s way back from Lionel Rothman’s penthouse, Castillo had woken one of the bureau’s forensic accountants, who works remotely, to go through all of Jack Rossi’s accounts. A few minutes ago, the accountant called to say he couldn’t find any pending or completed transactions in the accounts Rossi manages since Liam went missing. The same thing Lionel Rothman had said after logging into the accounts.
It is going to take a while for the accountant to complete a deeper audit to confirm Rothman’s suspicions that Jack Rossi has been committing fraud. But for now, the accountant is monitoring the accounts for any withdrawals or new transactions.
Tina moves her pen down the manifest to the two passengers seated in the third row of the middle aisle in Makayla’s cabin: Mark and Jordana Bauer. According to the information the airline sent over, they purchased their tickets together five weeks ago using a Visa, and they share an address in Wasilla, Alaska.
Tina types their names into her database and sees they’re ages fifty-one and fifty-three, and neither has a criminal history. After placing a check mark beside both their names, she moves to the single passenger seated in the row behind them.
When she ran checks on the crew, she discovered that one of the flight attendants had recently been issued a notice of default on his home mortgage. She flagged his name before moving on to the passengers. She would have to wait until the start of business hours to dive deeper into the flight attendant’s finances.
She’ll run deeper background checks on all the passengers and crew later, but for time’s sake, she’s running preliminary checks on those seated closest to Makayla, looking for anyone with a criminal history or someone who bought their ticket with cash—or any other red flags.
She enters Rose Bahnmiller into her database, along with her upstate New York address. Her ticket was also purchased with a credit card. After seeing the passenger in 15E is eighty-four and also has no criminal history, Tina makes a check beside her name when Pratt returns to her cubicle.
“That was Jack Rossi,” he says, leaning against the desk to her right. “He accused Lionel Rothman of running a Ponzi scheme. Said he only found out yesterday, and that Rothman admitted it after Rossi discovered a discrepancy in his client’s statement. So, pretty much the same story that Rothman told us, just in reverse.”
“Someone’s lying, or they’re in it together.” Tina finishes the last of the coffee in her mug. With each being so quick to accuse the other of the same thing, she’s inclined to think the latter.
“Rossi thinks it’s possible that Rothman is behind his son’s kidnapping. That he might stage a ransom to cover up his fraud,” Pratt adds. “Although, if Rossi were really worried about that, he should’ve told us when we were at his condo earlier tonight.”
Tina replaces her empty mug on her desk, recalling the financier she met an hour ago. So rich. Is Rothman Securities all a fraud? If it is, it would be the biggest fraud of the decade. Like Bernie Madoff all over again. Had Rothman done the unthinkable to cover it up?
“Rossi also said his wife became very close to a new friend in the last few months, and he seems suspicious about their relationship. He’s going to send me the friend’s contact information. When I get it, I’ll forward it to you. And he said his wife has been restrained on the flight.”
Tina spins to face him. “What?”
“I don’t know any more. But I’m guessing she must be freaking out and causing a disturbance.”
“Of course she is! Her baby’s missing.”
Pratt shrugs. “Don’t look at me. We’ll have to find out more from the flight.” He nods toward her computer screen. “Find anything?”
“One of the flight attendants, Derek Strous, has a loan default notice on his home mortgage. Also, I learned from the airline that he wasn’t originally scheduled for this trip. He picked it up as an extra trip a couple of weeks ago.”
Pratt crosses his arms. “Interesting.”
“It would be easier to keep the infant hidden if you were the one conducting the search of the plane,” Tina adds.
“I agree. Good work. Find anything on the passengers?”
Tina returns her attention to the flight’s seat map, a sickening feeling settling in her gut after hearing the mother has been restrained. “Not yet. But I’m just getting started.”
“Rossi’s face told a different story earlier when he assured us nothing suspicious had happened at his work. Now he calls with this late confession accusing Lionel Rothman of fraud. It doesn’t sit right with me that he would withhold that information until now.” Behind her, Pratt exhales.
Tina whirls around. “What about kidnapping insurance?” She thought of it earlier when they were leaving Lionel’s apartment, but then it slipped her mind after her phone call with Felicity. “The Rossis don’t seem wealthy enough to be at risk over their income, but Jack has access to nearly a billion dollars, and the Forbes cover could put him at risk.”
“It’s worth looking into.”
They won’t be able to contact insurance agencies with a warrant until the start of business hours, so Tina types in the website that allows law enforcement to search for policies held by major insurance companies. She feels Pratt hovering over her as she types Jack’s full name, address, and date of birth into the search field.
She leans back when the search yields a result. The type of insurance coverage is listed beside the policy number as KR&E .
Tina clicks on the policy for more details. “Rossi’s got a kidnap, ransom, and extortion policy for himself and his immediate family members with coverage of twenty million dollars.”
When Pratt leans toward the screen, Tina feels his breath on her shoulder. “No shit. That’s a lot, even for that kind of policy.”
Tina scrolls down. “It looks like Rossi is getting a corporate rate on the policy through the firm, but it’s individual coverage. And it’s in his name, not the firm’s.”
“How long has he had the policy?”
“Only since March of this year. It’s possible he took out the policy after being featured in Forbes ,” she thinks aloud.
“It seems more likely that Jack and Makayla Rossi staged their son’s kidnapping to cover up his fraud with insurance coverage. It seems crazy that they would do that, and I’m not exactly sure how they were planning to get away with it all. But if Rossi is committing fraud and Rothman found out, Jack Rossi would be facing life imprisonment. And if the mother’s in on it, too, it would explain why the kid is nowhere to be found.”
“Yeah, it would,” Tina agrees as she hovers her cursor over the two passengers seated three rows directly behind Makayla.
“I’m going back to Jack Rossi’s condo to talk to him again.” Pratt straightens, and Tina can see the wheels in his head turning. “Do we have any proof that Liam went with Makayla Rossi to Alaska?” Pratt asks. “Aside from the Rossis’ word for it? Or what Makayla Rossi’s father told Anchorage FBI?”
“I went through her social media.” Tina pulls up Makayla’s Instagram page and scrolls through the photos for Pratt to see. “These were posted over the last week, one of them yesterday. Her baby was with her, clearly the same baby that she’s been posting the last few months. And he looks to be about three months here.” She clicks on an image of Makayla with Liam in a stroller in front of Lake Anchorage to enlarge it. “And they were definitely in Alaska.”
Pratt leans forward, placing his palm on the desk beside her. “What if these were taken a few weeks ago? Makayla could’ve taken Liam to Alaska and then gone by herself this trip to fake his kidnapping. That would mean her father is in on it too, but parents do extreme things for their children.”
“I’ll need you to get me access to the TSA master list to see if Makayla Rossi traveled to Alaska recently.”
“On it. Then I’m heading to Rossi’s.”
It takes Pratt a few minutes to give Tina a link and passcode to access the TSA list. Annoyingly, as an analyst and not an agent, she would have hit nothing but brick walls trying to access the list on her own. Now that she has it, Tina runs a search to see if Makayla Rossi went through TSA in the last few months, aside from her current trip.
“Let me know if you find anything else,” Pratt calls over his shoulder on his way to the elevators.
After finding nothing, she stretches her arms above her head, glancing at her empty coffee mug. Before refilling it, she decides to finish screening the passengers in Makayla’s cabin.