75. Garrett
Chapter Seventy-Five
GARRETT
E lias was quiet on the boat ride back. He was at the wheel, staring off into the horizon with a pensive expression on his face.
“Did you have a chance to examine the body before the cops came?” Garrett asked.
“Yeah.” Elias fished out a scrap of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. “This will likely belong to the account Fletcher used to stash the money he stole. I took the liberty of texting these to Toya. She’s already tracking it down.”
“He converted some of it to cash,” Garrett said after thanking him. Folsom had been clutching on to that bag for dear life, but he must not have searched the body. He hadn’t found the account number.
“Not all of it. It would be too heavy,” Ian pointed out. “It won’t take Toya long. We told her to start with the usual suspects—the Caymans and Switzerland.”
It turned out to be both.
Toya quickly demonstrated why Auric paid her so generously, tracking the stolen funds to two newly established accounts. Fletcher had transferred half to the Grand Cayman bank and half to Credit Suisse in Zurich .
She also found more than a dozen calls to the same number in Fletcher’s phone history. The number was traced to a burner phone.
The details fell into place quickly after that. Richard Folsom was a pseudonym. No one by that name worked for the state of California as an investigator.
“The most reasonable explanation we came up with is that Folsom was some kind of fixer,” he told Emma after the Auric investigators had the chance to dig deeper. “Fletcher must have called him for help to get out of the country and set up somewhere else.”
“And he got double-crossed?” Emma asked, a line between her brows.
Garrett nodded. “We’ve recovered most of the money he stole thanks to Toya’s skills and Auric’s contacts. But at least a million is missing. We think he took that out in cash and drove down to Mexico, waiting for his fixer to take him to his new life. Folsom, or whatever his real name is, must have seen the cash and taken advantage of the opportunity.”
He had explained how the man had escaped by endangering a child. She understood, of course, and had told him in no uncertain terms that he’d made the right choice. But she couldn’t hide her worry about the man who got away.
“Are we still in danger?” she asked, pressing close to him. “Folsom knows where we live.”
Garrett pressed a kiss to her hairline. “Aside from the money, nothing ties him to Fletcher’s death except our gut feelings. He staged the suicide like an expert. The Mexican authorities have it down as one, too.”
She exhaled. “So, no one is looking for him for murder?”
He shook his head. “If he has half a brain, he’ll stay away. If he dares show his face in these parts, everyone at Auric will be after him. He knows that.”
Emma didn’t look convinced.
Garrett slid closer to her on the couch, pressing his forehead to hers. “We’ll be careful, but if you want to start looking for a house right away, we can do that. Someplace we can easily secure. ”
Emma frowned at him. “But this place is secure. You’ve removed Fletcher’s fingerprint from the smart lock. And we trust everyone else on it.”
His lips parted to argue. Emma put her hand over his heart. “I don’t want to make you move. You love this apartment. I love this apartment.”
But he wasn’t convinced. “Stella should have a yard to play in.”
“Stella has a huge bedroom filled with toys and a lifetime pass to the zoo. Not to mention the fact we’re minutes away from Balboa Park—which may be the most gorgeous park in the world. Stella is fine here. So am I. Better than fine.”
Garrett knew she meant it, but he’d also seen the way she had begun to stare at the carpet whenever she was in the living room.
Thankfully, George came up with the perfect solution to their dilemma.