Chapter twenty-five
Amber looked up from the open laptop on the table as Callie, Philly, Leo, Ryan, and Grace walked in.
A pang of guilt mixed with gratitude wrapped around her.
So many resources were dedicated to helping her that her intrinsic reaction to not want to be a bother warred with her appreciation for having these people in her life.
“Wipe that look off your face,” Daphne said, bringing up the rear, followed by Lovell.
He’d been in the garage with Philly, working on a car, and both men had more than a few stains on their work jeans.
“I can see the doubt creeping in,” Daphne continued.
“First, everyone is here because it’s the right thing to do.
And second, harsh to say, but it’s not all about you.
There’s Zoe to think of, all the victims who have been killed by the drug Anthony is handing out like candy, and a pharma company that employs over three thousand people who likely won’t appreciate a researcher willing to be corrupted. It’s a bad look for them.”
Amber blinked. “Well, when put like that.”
Daphne nodded as the others found seats. “Now, where’s my niece?”
Amber smiled. “Spencer took her out to the garage. Thought she was old enough to start learning about tools. I suggested maybe a walk would be better, but he insisted she needs to learn her way around a car. A bike, too.”
Daphne blinked once. “Right. Was not expecting that. We’ll join him,” she said, looking at Lovell, who nodded. The two turned and left.
“I’ll head back, too,” Philly said, lifting Callie’s chin and dropping a kiss on her lips before leaving.
“What are you looking at?” Grace asked. Amber’s eyes darted to Ryan, then back to Grace. The agent huffed. “Toni’s doing?”
Amber gave a hesitant nod.
“You can fill Callie and Leo in after we leave,” the agent said. “Which means you get to go first,” she added, turning to the HICC folks.
“I’m here mostly as backup,” Leo said. “And because Charley and Joey are heading over with Mantis in a bit for a barbecue tonight,” he added with a grin.
“It’s the Callie show tonight,” Callie said. “But it will be a good one. Promise.” She pulled out her computer and booted it up. “The short story is Anthony is committing fraud and possibly money laundering, too.”
“I like the sound of this,” Ryan said.
“The bulk of Anthony’s income, and I use that word lightly, comes from three different consulting contracts he has. Each is set up as general business consulting services—”
“As opposed to a contract for goods?” Ryan interjected.
Callie nodded. “It’s much easier to prove if goods were paid for and not received, and much harder to show the same for consulting services.”
“Or to prove the value of the consulting,” Grace added. “In the government space, a single phone call to the right person, or a single connection to the right person, could be worth millions.”
“All that is true,” Callie said. “But the companies Anthony is ‘consulting’ for don’t actually exist. Well, they exist legally, in a complex structure, but they don’t do anything. All three are investment firms with no clients.”
“Where are they located?” Grace asked.
“The ones who write the checks are located—and I know this will shock you—in the Caymans. Each of the three has a few entities in its own structure, and those shell entities are located all over the world, including a few in the US.”
“That’s convenient,” Ryan said. Amber looked at him in question. “Makes it easier to get warrants if there’s a nexus to the US,” he explained.
“Got it,” she replied.
“Walk us through it,” Grace said. And for the next twenty minutes, Callie did just that, one shell company at a time.
Amber exhaled when Callie wrapped up her findings. “What you just summarized must have taken hours to pull together,” she said.
Callie shrugged. “It’s what I do. I’m good at it, but I like it, too. I know that might make me weird, but…” Again, she lifted a shoulder. Then added, “The only piece I haven’t figured out—”
“Is where the payments into the shell accounts originate from,” Ryan said. “Before they get paid out to Anthony.”
Callie inclined her head. “Well, I actually do know that. They come from payment consolidators. But I’m still working on how they get into the consolidators. There will be a tagging system—”
“A what?” Amber asked, feeling way out of her depth.
“A system that tags incoming payments from payors that are then held and sent to the designated payee. It’s the only way to ensure that the intended recipients get the money meant for them.
But I need to figure out the algorithms the consolidators use before I can track it. Leo is helping me with that.”
“Kind of like escrow?” she asked. “Meaning money is paid in, held, then paid out when some event happens?”
Callie nodded. “Very similar, yes.”
Amber considered this. The layers of caution made sense, as did the intricacy of Anthony’s structure.
The web would insulate him from some of the risk, and he’d feel very superior creating it.
“How do you figure out who’s depositing the money into the consolidator to begin with?
Is that what this algorithm will tell you? Through a tagging system?”
Callie nodded again. “It can be done. It just takes a little more time than we had before meeting today.”
“I have some calculations running,” Leo said. “Maybe by tomorrow, definitely by the next day.”
“Can’t you get a warrant for that?” Amber asked, directing her question to Ryan and Grace.
“If we have evidence of activities linking the money to the drugs or murders, yes,” Grace answered.
“It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation,” Ryan added.
“We need evidence that links Anthony to the deaths to get warrants on his financials, or we need the evidence on crooked financials to get a warrant to conduct a full investigation that would lead us to his connection to the deaths,” Grace said.
“And the evidence Callie found so far isn’t enough?” Amber asked.
Callie wagged her head. “It’s getting there. If there was a very sympathetic judge, maybe.”
“And if it’s not enough and we file now, it looks like a witch hunt,” Leo said.
“Which I assume we don’t want,” Amber said on an exhale.
“I’m guessing that might make future requests harder.
” Grace nodded. “So the plan is to get either evidence of the murders or more evidence on the financial information and use whichever we get first to propel an official investigation,” she said, mostly to herself.
Then looking up, she asked Leo, “You said you were here as backup, but any news on the physical evidence the state police collected and sent to HICC?”
Leo waggled his eyebrows. “Yes, but nothing concrete yet. I can say, though, that they collected enough good samples from the pieces they gathered to run the tests the lab wants to run. They’ve started those and results should be in tomorrow.”
“Between that and figuring out the algorithm, tomorrow could be a big day,” she said. The others nodded.
An awkward silence filled the room. Amber’s gaze drifted among the four guests. Callie and Leo steadfastly looked at their computers. Ryan and Grace shared a resigned look.
Finally, Grace sighed and rose. “We know when we’re not wanted.”
Ryan rose as well. “I know I don’t need to say this, but I will. If you find something, think carefully about how you use it.”
“You’re both welcome to stay for the barbecue,” Amber said. “I think Dottie and Clara are in the garden, and Adrian might be as well. The guys, and Daphne, are in the garage. A new restoration project came in they are all excited about.”
“I’m headed home for a family dinner. You’ll keep me posted?” he said, directing the question to Grace, who nodded.
“I’ll head out to the garage. Kind of curious about this restoration project,” Grace said.
Amber suspected she was curious to see if Dulcie was out there as well, which he was.
But rather than comment, she held her tongue, then turned to Callie and Leo when the door closed and said, “I’ve been going through the pictures Toni took and watching some of the video from today.
There’s not much that stuck out to me, but we can go over it together. ”
Concern etched Callie’s brow. “You don’t need to watch it with us. I’m sure once was quite enough.”
The smile that touched her lips was half wry, half resigned. “This will be my third time. Spencer watched it with me the first time. I watched again so I could take some notes. That’s when Zoe woke up from her nap and he offered to take her to the garage.”
“We don’t have to do it again,” Leo repeated.
Amber shook her head. “It’s a bit cathartic in a way. It was the scene of so much pain and fear. My nightmare. But now…” She exhaled and pulled the computer back in front of her. “Now it’s starting to just look like a house. One where bad things happened, but a house nonetheless.”
Callie and Leo shared a look, but she took the choice away from them by opening the first file of photos. “I’ll make sure you have these, but for now, go ahead and click through.” She slid the computer in front of Callie. Leo shifted to sit beside her and they began scrolling.
“You have video, too?” Leo asked, his eyes on the screen.
“We do. Spencer can send you the link to the feeds.” She paused, then added, “I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched any live feed.
Looking at the video Toni took last night while he was sleeping, and pictures of the house, is something I can manage.
I didn’t want to push my luck and risk seeing him in living color, though. Not very strong of me—”
“The man nearly killed you, Amber. You have every right not to want to see him again,” Callie cut her off.
Amber fell silent. In her head, she knew Callie was right. In her heart, she still felt a little like a coward.
“Did you notice anything different or off?” Leo said, cutting off her spiraling train of thought.
“A few things. But it’s been over a year, so it’s not too surprising,” she replied.
“What did you notice?” Callie asked.