Chapter 18 #2
Jaz pulled his laptop close. “Did Cal reach out to him, or did you?”
“Neither. Edwin called me out of the blue. I asked Cal, and he vouched for him, said they’d known each other for years. I’m sure Cal was the reason Edwin reached out, though he never admitted it.”
Jaz nodded, but his attention was on the computer. “How long did you work with him?”
“We had a couple of Zoom calls early on. And then I launched my business—”
“No pun intended.”
“You’re impossible.”
He glanced her way. “I get punchy when I’m tired.”
“After that, we communicated via email. I’d send him questions, and he was always gracious to answer. My first job was a referral from him.”
“You noted them all?”
“I wanted to record where the business was coming from. At first, I always thanked him, and he replied. But then, he just quit replying, and I got the feeling I was bugging him.”
Jaz shifted back to the papers he’d pushed aside, flipping through quickly to check the margins. “A lot of these are from those management companies we were talking about.”
“Right. He told me he knew people who could help, and he wasn’t kidding. I’m not sure I would’ve survived without his referrals.”
Jaz nodded, but any amusement on his face faded as he turned his attention to the screen.
“Why? What are you thinking?”
“Not sure yet.” His fingers danced over the keys, then he leaned in. “Edwin Cusack. Businessman. Caribbean connections.” He paused. “What did he look like?”
“Older, like I said. His hair was blond, though, not white. Or maybe there was a little white in there, but I didn’t see it over Zoom.”
“You never met him in person?”
“Nope.”
“Where’d he live?”
“Uh… Florida? Gulf Coast, I think, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”
“What else?”
“He had kind eyes and this gentle way of talking, very patient.”
“Hold on, let me type that in. Kind eyes, gentle way—”
“Oh, shut up. I’m doing my best.”
He grinned. “What did he look like?” He’d barely gotten the words out before he said, “Wait. I think I’ve got him.” He clicked a button, and his smile faded.
“What?” She leaned in and saw the photo that filled the screen, the familiar face of the man who’d been so generous with her. “That’s him. You found him.”
He clicked the mouse, and the photo got smaller, letting her see the attached article.
It took her a second to process it.
“It’s an obituary,” Jaz said. “Edwin Cusack was killed in a hit-and-run accident.”
“Oh, no. I hadn’t heard.”
“Look at the date.”
She did, then read it again. The article was dated two years before.
Two years?
“That can’t be right. According to that, Edwin died… It would’ve been just a few weeks after he first reached out to me. But it doesn’t make sense. We were in contact after that for…months, trading emails. I’ve been getting referrals from him all this time.”
She scanned the article. Husband, father, grandfather, businessman, avid sailor. It was definitely the Edwin she’d known. “I don’t understand.”
Jaz reached for the paperwork again and grabbed the most recent packet.
He set it between them, and her eyes flicked to the margin.
EC referral.
“That’s the Blue Fantasy.” She met Jaz’s eyes. “That job came from Edwin.”
“How do you know that? What was the process…?”
“I’d get an email, a request.” Her voice was shaking. None of this made sense.
“Go on,” Jaz prompted.
“There was usually a note, something like, Edwin Cusack said you’d be perfect for this job, or…Edwin says you’re the best.” But Edwin had been dead, so who had those referrals come from?
“Let’s start from the beginning, Kenzie. When did you first meet with him?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Let me guess—you use a paper calendar, right?”
“Actually, no.” She reached automatically for her phone, but Jaz had pocketed it when they’d left the hotel that morning. “Get me my cell, and I’ll look it up.”
He looked away, making no motion to move.
She got a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Jaz, where’s my phone?”
“You have the burner, so—”
“The burner doesn’t have my calendar on it. Or my contacts. Or my life.”
“I know. It’s just… I was afraid someone could use it to track us, so I left it at the safe house.”
The anger that filled her chest was irrational. It was only a phone. She’d get it back, probably.
“I’m sorry. I was going to tell you. It just hadn’t come up.”
It was fine. She’d survive.
“Just try to think.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” She closed her eyes, feeling guilty for snapping at him.
She’d finished getting her license at the end of the summer.
She’d floundered, halfheartedly looking for a full-time sailing job but mostly wanting to start her own business.
And then Edwin had reached out and basically offered her the job of her dreams on a platter.
She remembered it had been chilly where she lived in South Carolina, so it must’ve been late fall.
Now that she thought about it, she’d been planning her trip home for Christmas.
“It was two and a half years ago, probably November or early December. We had a couple of conference calls, maybe two or three, all before the holidays. I remember because by the time I went back to Maine for Christmas, I had a business plan. Dad even invested to help me get started. His company owns the house on St. Barts, and he let me rent that apartment.” She laughed, though there was no humor in the sound.
“He said if I insisted on living in the Caribbean, he wanted me in St. Barts because it’s one of the safer islands. ”
“Ironic.”
“No kidding.” She looked at the newspaper article again. “Oh, gosh.”
“What?”
“Edwin and I met on Zoom in late November or early December. He died on Christmas Eve.” Kenzie sat back in her chair.
It didn’t make sense. Had his wife been sending her the referrals?
But why would she? Kenzie had never met the woman, and surely she’d had more important things to worry about than some random sailor her husband was helping. She’d just become a widow, after all.
“All those referrals…” Kenzie was starting to see the bigger problem. “They weren’t from him.”
“No.” Jaz’s voice was grim. “They weren’t.”
“Someone was impersonating him.” The words came out as a whisper. “Someone took over his email, his phone number. Kept sending me jobs. And I just…I trusted it. I never questioned it because Cal had vouched for Edwin, and I met him, and he was so kind and…”
“You had no reason to suspect anything.” Jaz’s hand slid over her shoulder, steadying. “This isn’t your fault.”
“All those yachts.” She stared at the stack of contracts and thought back over the many, many jobs they represented. So many of them had come from Edwin. Not Edwin. “Were they all…? Do you think they were all drug-smuggling operations?”
He rubbed his lips together like he didn’t want to say.
“Oh, no.” She dropped her head into her hands. What have I done?
She’d been betrayed, horribly betrayed. By Edwin? Or…or had his help been sincere, and then…what?
She couldn’t process it.
“Cusack was killed in a hit-and-run on a residential road in Tampa,” Jaz said. “Police never found the driver.”
She looked up, trying to process that. He hadn’t just died of a heart attack or cancer. It’d been an accident. Or…a murder.
“I need to call Cal.” She reached for her phone, then remembered it wasn’t here. She could use the burner, but it didn’t have her old sailing instructor’s phone number programmed into it. “Maybe he’ll know something.”
“Let’s think before we bring anyone else in. You said Cal vouched for him, so maybe we shouldn’t trust him.”
“My dad trusts him.”
“Would he if he knew what we know?”
She started to answer, then stopped. She had no idea what Dad would say about any of this.
“We need digital forensics on those emails and texts from the impersonator,” Jaz said. “We need to know who was really sending them.”
Digital forensics? Kenzie didn’t know exactly what that was, but she knew someone who did. “Let me forward what we know to my sister Alyssa. She’s former NSA…and a bit of a hacker.”
“Only a bit of one?”
“Well, you know… She can do it, she just doesn’t, usually. But if anyone can trace those messages, she can.”
“You trust her?”
“My sister?”
“Right.” Jaz shook his head. “Stupid question. You do that. I’m calling my handler to see if he knows anything about Edwin Cusack. It’s time to bring in the cavalry. To quote a wise woman I once knew, ‘help is helpful.’”
Kenzie tried to smile, but she didn’t think Jaz bought it. She stood and headed to the bedroom to get the burner. At least she knew Alyssa’s phone number by heart.
Her mind raced through the implications. Someone had been running her business from the shadows. Every success she thought she’d earned, every connection she’d made through “Edwin’s” referrals—all of it was a lie.
Her entire career had been built on drug money and deception.
She stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, one hand braced against the frame. The weight of it threatened to crush her. Everything she’d worked for, the life she’d built—it was a shack built on sand, and a hurricane was bearing down.
“Kenzie?”
She turned.
Jaz was standing in the kitchen, watching her.
“I’m okay,” she said automatically.
“No, you’re not.”
He was right. She was the opposite of okay, but she didn’t have time to fall apart.
“I’ll process later.” She continued into the bedroom and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. She dialed Alyssa’s number, praying she’d answer.
She didn’t, and the call went straight to voicemail, which wasn’t surprising, considering it was almost midnight. Kenzie ended the call and tapped a text instead.
Sis, I need your help. Someone impersonated my business mentor for two years. Need you to trace my email messages and find out who really sent them. They’re in a folder called Edwin. It’s urgent. Will explain more later. Love you. -K
She added her email login information—Alyssa would lecture her about that, but at this point, Kenzie didn’t care. She was texting from a burner, and Alyssa was cautious to the point of paranoid about cybersecurity. Kenzie figured nobody would intercept their messages.
When the text had been sent, she logged into her email and moved every message she had from “Edwin” over the past two years into a folder.
She tapped an email to her sister with further instructions. For now, that was all she could do.
Maybe Alyssa would be able to figure out who’d sent those emails. Maybe…maybe this would somehow lead them to the elusive and dangerous El Fantasma, and both she and Jaz could get their lives back.
Though without her business… She had no idea what she was going to do.