Chapter 33 Roman
ROMAN
“You look pissed. You okay?” Thomas appeared next to me as I glared at my screen like it had personally affronted me.
“My car had two flat tyres this morning.”
I saw the moment his protective nature kicked in, and his gaze hardened. “Like, someone slashed them?”
I shook my head. “No, just flat. Garage thinks I’ve driven over some glass or something. Had to get it towed there this morning, and I can’t get it back until late tonight.”
“Ah, Monty’s a good egg. Not sure he’s got much of a life outside that place. He’s always there. Bet his wife isn’t happy.”
I chuckled because he had a point, but everyone in this town seemed to have a superhero-level work ethic.
“So, the tyres are what’s causing your face to look like you swallowed a wasp.”
I sighed. “Well, that and Hana.”
“Still no sign?”
“Nope.” I huffed dramatically. “I have Face ID programmes running as the tracker on her phone isn’t working. In fact, her phone hasn’t been turned on since she went missing, she’s not used her bank account… nothing.” I swallowed before voicing my deepest fear. “I’m worried she’s—”
Thomas didn’t let me finish. “She’s not.”
I recoiled. “How the hell would you know?”
He held up his hand, the other one holding a clear bag with something inside. “I don’t. I promise. This isn’t me hiding her from you to teach you a lesson.”
“Again.”
He rolled his eyes. “Again. But last time, I knew where she was, and I didn’t keep her from you for long. I can see what this is doing to you, Roman. I’m not a complete arsehole.”
My lips twitched into the tiniest smile. “Just half an arsehole. What’s that?” I pointed to whatever he was holding.
“A distraction.”
I waited for more information before I let myself get too intrigued.
“This was found on a body last night.” He pulled open the sealed bag and shook the contents out onto the table.
“What is it?” I pointed to the black-backed, rectangular card adorned with a gold edge.
“Can I touch it?”
“Yep, forensics did their thing.”
I flipped the card over and stilled.
“You recognise it?” Thomas asked, his voice low and commanding, as if he knew this was important before I said a word.
“I do. Sean gave me the flash drive that was found with Larson. The same tarot card was included in the files that were on it.”
Thomas tilted his head a little, jaw locking. “Sean and I haven’t managed to catch up yet, so apologies for not being up to speed.”
I held the card between my thumb and finger, taking in the details that perfectly matched the other copy I’d seen. “No problems. You can’t be expected to know everything all the time.”
Thomas snorted out a derisive laugh because this was the exact opposite of the way this man worked.
“Where was it found?” I asked, placing it down and pushing it back to him.
“Inside the pocket of a dead judge.”
“Murdered?”
“Heart attack… well, that’s the prelim finding.”
“Right. Why do I feel like there’s a but?”
Thomas ran his fingers through his dark hair before saying, “It has Larson’s fingerprint on it.”
“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,” I replied honestly. “What do you need from me? I can’t get much tech info off a tarot card.” I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temple, as if I was connecting with it psychically. Thomas tutted.
“See what you can find on our latest body. His name was Judge Gilbert Preston.”
My eyes popped open as I tried not to make a joke about the name Gilbert. Instead, I reminded myself I was a professional. “Leave it with me.”
“What you got?” I stood behind Wren’s chair, my arms folded over my chest. He turned his head to his husband, who was never far from his side. “You ready, babe?”
Lev pushed his glasses up his nose with his long finger before nodding. “Yeah.” He typed something, and then Wren’s machine pinged with an incoming email.
“You have it all now.”
Wren rolled his chair back from his desk and leaned over to drag an empty one from nearby so I could sit.
“Thanks,” I said as I lowered myself into it, waiting to hear what they’d found on our two dead victims.
“Gilbert Preston, sixty-two, widowed. There’s some suggestion he had step kids, but I can’t find any record of them after their mum died, so I’m guessing they went to live elsewhere,” Wren started.
“Names?”
He frowned. “Nothing. It’s like they were wiped clean, so I presume he didn’t want any connection to them or saw them as a liability and was worried they’d come after him for money or something.”
“Weird. Okay, what else?”
“Preston was a high court judge, highly thought of by his peers.”
I didn’t bother replying because I could tell from how anxiously Lev stared on that this wasn’t the end of this story.
“However, behind the scenes, our judge was about as corrupt as they come.”
I coughed, trying to hide my shock because this wasn’t the direction I thought this was going. I thought maybe Larson was blackmailing Preston, but now I wondered if it might be the other way round.
“We’ve found a heavily encrypted computer in Preston’s house that we, of course, hacked.
There wasn’t actually much on there, which was weird, given the level of security he had on it, but we did find secret bank accounts that have some pretty impressive amounts in them.
Way more than we’d expect from a judge’s salary, and it seemed to build exponentially over the last decade or so.
This man definitely had a second income, and given how encrypted the computer was, I’d put money on the fact it wasn’t legal. ”
“Rich judge dies of a heart attack. Not that noteworthy. If he didn’t have that tarot card on him, we wouldn’t think anything more about him. Were him and Larson acquaintances?” I asked.
“Again, not on paper, but they were members of the same gentleman’s club, and we have some CCTV footage from inside that puts them there at the same time, chatting like they’d known each other for years.”
The hum of the computers punctuated the air as we all sat in silence for a moment.
“Do you think Preston helped cover up Larson’s hit and run?” I asked, looking between the men. “Why? How?”
“We don’t know why or how, but we do know that we have a bank account—offshore of course—showing that Larson paid a cool half a mill into it the same night as the hit and run. That account belonged to one Judge Preston.”
I couldn’t hide my smile, proud of how talented my team was.
“Anything on the tarot card?” I asked.
Wren shook his head. “Nothing. I mean, it’s a standard card, so there isn’t anything we can search for to know where they came from.
Someone obviously wanted to show us the connection between these two men, because this wasn’t a partial print where Larson had held the corner; this was in the middle and a full print, like you’d get if you were fingerprinted by the cops. ”
I hummed out my acknowledgement of his words, thoughts and theories whizzing around my head like bumper cars, all clambering for my attention.
“Anyone else involved that you can name?”
Wren turned to Lev, waiting for him to reply.
“It’s easier with this connection as we knew who to search for, but without names, we’re looking for a needle in a haystack.
There are hundreds of payments into this account; it would take years to work out who they all belong to.
Give us some more time, and we might be able to at least work out a few so we have a clearer idea of what Preston was up to, but if there’s anything else at Preston’s house that might help, a laptop, a ledger with names on, that might give us a starting point to make this a little easier. ”
“I’ll get Jarrid to go to the house; see what he can find. I’m going to see what his movements have been over the last week or so. See if anyone came to the house. Also, can we find his medical records? Did he have a heart condition, taking any medication?”
“Good idea.”
“I know. I have them occasionally.”
I left Wren chuckling to himself while I pulled my vibrating phone from my pocket to see an alert that Hana’s bank account had been used.
I practically ran back to my computer to find that someone had used her debit card to pay for fuel in a town a couple of hours away.
My heart raced so fast, the room began to spin.
The facial recognition software I had running pinged a result too. I clicked on it, letting out a loud exhale as I saw her walking across the forecourt. I zoomed in, taking in her grainy image. Despite the shitty quality of the black and white footage, I’d know her anywhere.
The tightness I’d worn in my chest for the last week lessened, allowing me to take the first full breath since she vanished from my bed.
Then the thoughts came flooding in—why did she leave, where had she been, did she run because she knew I was watching like Jarrid suggested, would she even speak to me if she knew what I’d done?
I watched her climb into the car and pull out into traffic, managing to follow her for another thirty minutes until an entire road of cameras were down, and I lost her.
“Fuck,” I muttered, slamming my hand onto the desk.
“Problem?” Jarrid appeared next to me, forcing me to calm the frustration swirling inside me.
I thought about lying, but there was no point in this place. The annoying fuckers would find out sooner or later.
“I found Hana,” I muttered, pointing to my screen.
His eyes widened. “Yeah? She’s back?”
I shook my head. “No. She was miles away. Her image pinged in a petrol station, so she could have been going anywhere. I lost her.”
“Sorry. That sucks.” He stepped back, folding his hands over his chest, looking suddenly guilty. “Sean wants us to go to the judge's house and check it over. Make sure there’s nothing we’re missing.”
I tilted my head because there was a ‘but’ coming.
“But,” he said, and I almost smiled, my shitty mood easing a little. “I promised Amber I’d pick her up from work. Date night. I’ll never get there and back on time, and I don’t want her getting suspicious about what I do.”
“You’ve still not told her?” I asked, knowing how he felt about her and how much he wanted to be honest with her about his life.
He dipped his eyes as if the guilt was eating him alive. “Things are good, man. I don’t want her to hate me.”
I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I can’t say anything about honesty, can I?” He laughed quietly, his shoulders relaxing a little. “Do you know much about her life before you met? She’s new to town as well, isn’t she?”
Jarrid nodded. “Yeah, this little place had quite the influx with the four of us, didn’t it?
We probably lowered the average age of the place by a good few years.
And, no. What do I need to know? She’s a teacher, so she can’t have a bad bone in her body.
Plus, she’s got such a massive heart.” His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read, and then I could swear his cheeks turned a light pink as he said, “Anyway, we don’t really do that much talking. The woman is insatiable.”
I grimaced, not wanting to hear about Jarrid’s sex life, especially when mine was so lacking.
“What do you need?” I said, steering the conversation back on course.
“Can you go to the house? It’s secure. We’ve had people over there to make sure, but Sean wants to check the tech side—see if there’s anything we missed—so it’s really you he needs anyway.”
“My car’s in the garage. Won’t be ready until later.”
He pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out his keys, throwing them to me. I caught them in one hand as he said, “Take mine. I’ll walk to Amber’s, grab her spare keys, and use her car. She won’t mind.”
I furrowed my brows. “You sure?”
He looked relieved. “Honestly, you’d be doing me a solid. You can pick the house keys up from Sean on the way out, and he’ll be on the end of the phone if there’s a problem.”
I stood, collecting my laptop and phone and pushing them into my bag. “Right, best get going.”