Chapter Four #2
“Maybe,” Sam said, giving him her best diabolical smile, “we should go together.”
“A date with my beautiful wife in the middle of a workday? Sign me up.”
“Only you would see it as a date.”
He closed the distance between them, placed his hands on her hips and kissed her. “Any minute I get to spend with you is the best date I’ve ever been on.”
“I’m so mad.”
“Me, too, babe.”
“Let’s do something about it.”
“I’m with you.”
“This idea makes me giddy.”
“Giddy is a good look on you.” He kissed her again. “What you said to Scotty about it not being for a lack of trying on our part was classic. The look on his face…”
Sam flashed a big grin. “Right? I was rather pleased with that myself.”
“The poor kid,” Nick said, chuckling. “He’s going to need PTSD therapy by the time we’re done with him.”
“No, he won’t. He’s our masterpiece. He’s going to make us so proud. I know it.”
“I tend to agree. He’ll make us proud despite us.”
“No, because of us. He thinks we’re so gross with the kissing and stuff, but we’ve shown him what to aspire to when it comes to love and marriage and happily ever after.”
“That’s true,” Nick said. “I can’t wait to see him fall madly in love so I can tease him mercilessly.”
“Same.”
“But until the day comes when we can mock and torture our son, I’d like to focus on my own happily ever after.”
Sam put her arms around him. “Is that right?”
He kissed her neck and seemed to breathe her in. “Uh-huh.”
“What did you have in mind?” She needed to spend time online, digging into the life of her latest victim and finding out more about the scheme that’d probably gotten her killed.
But with her husband hot and hard and talking about happily ever after, the case would have to wait a little while longer.
“What I have in mind will require full nudity.”
“Your plans usually do.”
“Only the ones that involve you.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
His low laugh echoed through his big, muscular body. She loved to make him laugh, to make him smile, to make him happy. Whatever it took, she was there for it, even if it meant putting work on hold for a bit.
Once upon a time, before he came back into her life, the idea of putting work on hold for anything never would’ve occurred to her.
Now, she did it regularly, because she’d learned there was nothing more important than him or their family.
She gave her job everything she had for eight to ten hours a day, plus weekends, holidays, vacations…
She’d learned that allowing a minute or two for herself in the midst of an investigation made it so she could continue to fight for justice for her victims.
And the minutes she allowed herself to have with Nick were the best of her entire life.
Being naked in bed with him was one of her favorite things in the world, and after the long, emotionally charged day with Gonzo and the new case, not to mention the conversation with Scotty, she felt the tension leave her body when he wrapped his arms around her and held her close to him in bed.
“This is the best thing ever.”
“The absolute best thing.”
For the longest time, they did nothing more than cuddle and touch and kiss, which was more than enough for her. It was so relaxing, in fact, that they both dozed off after a while, and because it was so rare for him to sleep, Sam had to sneak out of bed an hour later so she wouldn’t disturb him.
He’d left his laptop on the dresser, and after she put on Nick’s discarded T-shirt, she retrieved the computer and brought it back to bed, moving carefully, hoping he’d stay asleep.
She checked her email to see if there was anything from Lindsey, which there wasn’t, but there was a message from Detective Cameron Green.
LT,
Took the liberty of a deep dive into the case against Virginia McLeod and summarized the details for you below. I also made a very LONG list of the people we need to speak with. I figure we can maybe divide and conquer tomorrow? Hope this helps.
Cam
“God bless you, Cameron Green,” she whispered as she scrolled down to read the details of the scheme Ginny had perpetrated against her family and friends.
The gist, Cameron had written, was that she got them to invest in properties, such as old warehouses and run-down apartment buildings, that would be rehabbed and sold at a profit, though many of the properties didn’t even exist. She used photos of properties located in different parts of the country to build detailed prospectuses about the possibilities for each one, along with projections for profitability for each development.
Working with a local Realtor, she’d shown potential investors properties similar to the ones she had in mind for rehab.
And the money came pouring in, to the tune of twenty-two million dollars from four hundred and eighty high-end investors.
Ugh, Sam thought. That gave them four hundred and eighty people with motive to kill.
The scheme was uncovered, Cameron wrote, when the FBI was tipped off by one of the investors, named Brett Haverson, who’d spotted some cracks in the scheme and asked an FBI agent friend to check it out for him.
That had led to a full-blown investigation by the FBI and IRS that found Ginny was collecting the money, living large, not paying taxes and not rehabbing anything.
Sam composed an email to Cam.
This is fantastic work! Thank you so much for getting a jump on it. You saved me a ton of time. Questions:
How do people think they will get away with this stuff?!?
Don’t they know that eventually the investors are going to be asking for progress reports on the properties?
How do they explain their new extra lavish lifestyle to the friends and family whose money is being used to pay for it?
He wrote back a few minutes later.
I wondered the same things. If you’re going to do something like this, there’re smarter ways to get your friends to invest in something less tangible.
And if you’re an investor, don’t you view the property in question BEFORE you turn over a shit ton of money?
! But people who have shit tons of money in the first place probably don’t do the same due diligence ahead of time that you and I would do.
Which also leads to the fact that she was asking friends and family to invest, and that lends a certain credibility.
Who would suspect a FRIEND or FAMILY MEMBER of blatantly stealing from them? In that way, it’s kind of brilliant…
Diabolically brilliant, Sam replied. We’ll talk to Haverson to start with in the a.m. Divide up the rest of the list among the team. And thanks again for getting a jump on this. You earned multiple gold stars!
Ha-ha, how do I cash in on these gold stars you speak of? Also, we need to talk about the OTHER THING in the a.m. I might have something for you.
I’m intrigued. Gold stars to be redeemed as the LT sees fit. The system is somewhat arbitrary and undefined. Have a good night and thanks again.
The “other thing” was a side investigation into Sergeant Ramsey they were conducting completely off the books. They believed he reported Gonzo for buying drugs on the street and was looking for any way to discredit Sam and her squad.
She’d asked Freddie, Jeannie and Cameron to do some digging into Ramsey, leaving no paper trail that could come back to bite them. She couldn’t wait to hear what Cam had uncovered.
She read through the reports Cam had forwarded to her from the FBI investigation into Ginny’s scheme and how it had unraveled, as well as the IRS audit of how she’d spent the money.
The home she’d been murdered in was relatively new, as were the luxury cars she, her husband and children drove.
They’d been on trips to Europe, a safari in Africa and a cruise in the South Pacific, but all that represented only a small fraction of the missing money.
The Feds believed the rest had been stashed offshore, but they’d been unsuccessful in locating the accounts.
Sam tried to imagine living large right under the noses of the people she’d stolen from.
It was so brazen as to be unreal. Ginny was either the smartest criminal in the history of criminals or the stupidest. Sam couldn’t decide which.
This would be one of those cases where she’d have to work to remain empathetic toward her victim.
Often, those she sought justice for were innocent people who were either in the wrong place at the wrong time or caught up in something bigger than they realized until it was too late.
Sam would never go so far as to say that someone deserved to be murdered, but after what Ginny had done to the family and friends who’d invested in her scheme, it wasn’t surprising that someone had exacted the ultimate revenge.
That motive would drive the investigation, and Sam was looking forward to digging into the case in the morning. Because regardless of Ginny’s despicable crimes, she would still get Sam’s best effort—and that of her team—to bring a killer to justice.