Chapter Thirty-Five #2
“Why are you masked?” The man twisted his hands as he shrank back, but he didn’t step aside.
“Sir, impeding bureau officers is a jailable offense. Take us to his office.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” said the man as he let them in. “I’m just the cook.”
“Is there anyone else in the house?” asked Cass.
The cook looked up at her with wide eyes. “They’re all at the gala. The study is the second door on the left upstairs.”
“Thank you for your cooperation. Ace, stay downstairs, please,” said Cass.
Mace nodded and gestured for the cook to lead the way into the nearby kitchen.
Scarlett tensed as they followed the old man’s directions to Lord Federsin’s study. Brixton stood by the door while Rex, Lock, Cass, and Scarlett went inside.
An enormous map of Soleil dominated the back wall, and Lord Federsin’s shelves were filled with model ships and other nautical-themed ornaments.
Unlike her father’s study, there were no books, and the room was as neat as a pin.
Federsin either didn’t read or did all his policy reviews at Parliament.
Adrenaline rushed through Scarlett as they approached his desk and she spotted his laptop. Lock went straight for the closet, while Rex pulled open desk drawers.
Cass handed a burner phone to Scarlett. “Here—tell him you have a laptop.”
“Yes?” answered Tyler after one ring.
“I’ve got a laptop,” said Scarlett without preamble.
He cackled. “Hell yeah. Here’s what you do.”
Scarlett was too focused to laugh with him as she followed his instructions.
Once Tyler had access, he began to transfer the contents of the laptop to his cloud.
As her heart pounded, Scarlett kept an eye on the others moving about the room while she waited next to the laptop in case Tyler needed her.
“Bank statement with account numbers,” Lock said in a low voice. He placed several papers on top of the desk in front of Cass, who was searching the desk.
Scarlett glanced toward the closet, noticing an open safe. Lock got into a safe? Yes. That was something.
Cass took the bank statements and began photographing them with her phone.
“Okay, the laptop’s done,” said Tyler a minute later.
“Wonderful.” Hope filled Scarlett at the thought of all the incriminating evidence that could be on it.
“Tell him bank statements are in his inbox,” whispered Cass as she shoved her phone into her pocket.
But before Scarlett could, a thump shook the floor, causing a golden stapler to topple off the edge of Federsin’s desk. Scarlett whipped her head to the office door.
Brixton stood over a body in the hallway. “The cook lied. There was someone else here. He came down from the third floor holding this, so I had to knock him out.” He plucked a gun out of the unconscious man’s hand.
“Nice work. Guess we’ve got to arrest him for messing with bureau business.” Cass winked at Scarlett. “Cuff him, and let’s get out of here.”
Scarlett remembered her task and told Tyler about the bank statements. Brixton produced a pair of handcuffs, cuffed the man, and threw him over his shoulder, ready to carry him downstairs like a sack of potatoes.
Scarlett stopped Cass by the door. “What are we going to do with him? Won’t it be a problem when he wakes up?”
Rex came closer. “That’s my shift. I’ve got plenty of injectable anesthetic. We’ll keep him unconscious on the boat till the job is done.”
“Then we’ll dump him on the dock by the hospital,” added Cass.
Scarlett’s brow pinched. “What if he dies from the blow to the head?”
Rex waved his hand in dismissal. “He’s going to be fine.”
Seeing her worried expression, Cass gripped her hand. “Brix is a trained fighter. He knows how to knock someone out without doing permanent damage. Now, come on. Rex, the cook is going to have to come along now that his buddy is down.”
They hurried downstairs. The cook whimpered at the sight of Brixton carrying his unconscious colleague.
Rex stalked over to him. “Hold him for us, Ace.”
Mace’s large arms circled the small man tightly as Rex shoved a needle into his neck and pushed the plunger down. Mace caught the old man as he fell.
Scarlett’s gut twisted. Was that what it had looked like when she’d been kidnapped? She shook her head, dismissing the thought. This man would be back on his feet later tonight no worse for wear. She had to believe Cass and Rex, or she’d be unable to go on.
“Nice one,” said Cass.
Before Scarlett could blink, the cook was over Mace’s shoulder, and Mace was on his way back to the boat.
They’d gotten in and out of the Federsin house in twenty minutes. They had to go across town to get to the Goldenrod headquarters, which would leave them a short time before the gala was scheduled to end.
Scarlett stared down at the two unconscious men on the floor of the boat.
Assault, drugging, and kidnapping. Impersonating bureau officers.
She’d known the night would be high-risk, and here it was, right in front of her eyes.
She swallowed thickly. The rest of her life might be ruined if they failed.
As they pulled away from the house in the concealed speedboat, she was still on the phone with Tyler, waiting while he searched.
“Oh wow,” said Tyler eagerly. “He’s got a bunch of extremely damning deleted emails he probably thought no one would be able to find. They didn’t even use code names, the idiots.”
“What is it? What do you see?” Scarlett couldn’t breathe as she waited.
Everyone in the boat sat in silence. The engine was the only sound as it propelled them along the canal.
“Emails between Federsin and Ashworth confirming the timeline for the day your dad died. They’re referencing the date and time and confirming Federsin sent the payment to the designated account.
I got into his bank account, and there’s a record of two hundred and fifty thousand marcs going out that same day.
I’ll look at his banking contacts and see who exactly that went to. ”
She sat in stunned silence. Two hundred and fifty thousand marcs to murder my dad.
Federsin and Moira had done it, and they had evidence.
Real, irrefutable evidence that pointed directly to not only Federsin, but also Moira.
Scarlett saw red. Federsin had paid someone to kill her dad, his colleague, whom he’d known for years.
The son of a bitch. She almost wished he’d been home when they arrived so she could have seen Brixton tear him apart in his wolf form.
“Justice will be served, Scarlett. He’ll have to live through worse than a dire wolf attack once this is all exposed,” said Nori. “Remember, you didn’t like seeing those men harmed.”
True. Scarlett let out a huge sigh of relief. Nori was right. Prison would be a worse punishment.
Tyler went on, oblivious to Scarlett’s emotional roller coaster. “I’m scanning all the large payments. There are also several payments of fifty thousand leaving his account in May—a total of one hundred and fifty thousand marcs. Those have a name on them. Dr. Mel Turner. Was he your doctor?”
“Yes, that’s him!” Scarlett whooped in triumph, and Cass looked at her, both curious and admonishing.
“Sorry,” she said in a lower voice. She approached Cass, who was driving.
“He found payments from Federsin to Dr. Turner. I thought Laylani had acted alone, maybe with Moira’s help, but it was a full-blown Goldenrod conspiracy against me too.
And now I can prove it.” She beamed at Cass.
Cass’s answering smile was dazzling. “Excellent. Now let’s see what we can find in Goldie HQ.”
The Goldenrod headquarters was located in a nondescript high-rise downtown in the financial district. Cass led them to the back of the building, covered in her nocturna darkness.
Lock slid a thin black case out of his bag and kneeled in front of the door. Less than a minute later, he pulled it open. The alarm system immediately started to beep. He bashed the alarm with a hammer until it ceased. When he turned around, he was grinning.
“I know it can’t dial out, but we couldn’t leave it beeping, right?”
Cass snorted. “Glad you enjoyed that.”
The lights went out one at a time as they walked to the elevator still cloaked in her nocturna darkness. Nori and the three other soul lights lit the way for Scarlett. She wondered if Lock and Rex were nervous at all as they walked in the dark.
The elevator dinged, and they exited on the floor where Moira Ashworth’s office was located. They walked past the rows of cubicles, heading toward the large offices along the far wall. Cass left the lights on this time, presumably because they’d have an easier time searching if they could see.
In Moira’s bland office, they did the same meticulous, fast-paced search they’d done in Federsin’s study.
Mace and Brixton stood by the door, keeping watch, while Scarlett facilitated Tyler’s plundering of the desktop computer.
Cass, Rex, and Lock searched every drawer, closet, and box in the office.
This time there were no noteworthy paper records.
They’d just left Moira’s office when an elevator dinged.
The overhead lights were still on, and before Cass could put them out, a young man appeared by the elevator bay, fifty feet away. He wore a white button-down shirt and slacks—definitely a junior staff member working late. He stumbled at the far end of the floor as he stared at them.
Brixton sprang forward faster than lightning, and the movement jolted the young man out of his shock. He ran for the elevator bay, his hand outstretched.
Brixton reached him seconds later, kicking out and dropping him to the floor, but it was too late. The fire alarm began to sound through the building.
“Fuck. Let’s go!” shouted Cass.
Scarlett had to force herself to breathe as they rode the elevator to the ground floor. Flashlights danced in the lobby, but Cass immediately snuffed them out.
“What the hell?” said a male voice.