Chapter 26
Cole secured his laptop in his bag and slipped the strap over his shoulder. He and Isabelle had yet to receive any updates on the identity of the thief from yesterday’s show or the financial records Isabelle had requested from CIA headquarters.
Isabelle, Marit, and Lars waited by the door.
“Are you ready?” Isabelle asked him.
“I think the more important question is, Are you ready?” Cole asked.
“I’ve already bandaged my blisters, so I’m probably as ready as I’m going to get.”
Cole’s phone rang. He pulled it out, intending to silence it, but when he saw Jasmine’s name on his screen, he hit the Talk button. “Anything new?”
“Yes. The fake security guard popped up in Interpol’s database.”
“Who is he?” Cole asked.
“Jemond Mercier. He was arrested six years ago in Paris for forgery.”
“That would explain how he came up with fake credentials to get into the Louvre.” Cole glanced at the others, who were still waiting for him at the door. “We’re heading out now to the next fashion show, but let me know if you find anything else.”
“There’s more,” Jasmine said. “I just emailed you and Isabelle the financials for the top six designers on your suspect list. If you need me to have headquarters pull any more, let me know.”
“Thanks, Jazz. I will.” Cole ended the call.
“What did she say?” Isabelle asked.
“She found the ID of our purse thief. He’s a forger who was arrested in Paris a few years ago,” Cole said. “She also emailed me some new information.”
“Are you ready?” Marit asked. “We really need to get going.”
Cole didn’t like the idea of sending them on alone. Even though Marit’s purse had been stolen, whoever was behind the theft hadn’t gotten what he wanted. If the thief still believed Marit had the flash drive, she was in just as much danger now as before they had set their trap.
“Do you want me to escort Marit and Isabelle to the show while you look at your new information?” Lars asked.
Cole debated briefly. Then he caught the expression on Isabelle’s face, the one that indicated that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, blisters or not.
“Maybe I will stay and check out the new intel,” Cole said. “I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”
“Sounds good.” Lars opened the door.
“Hey, Lars?” Cole called after him. “Since I won’t be there, make sure you set up near the front of the runway, where you can see the whole crowd.”
“What about the backstage area?” Lars asked.
“Isabelle will be with Marit,” Cole said. “And the police have people standing by.”
“True.” Lars nodded and escorted Marit into the hall.
Isabelle lingered and gave him a quick kiss. She kept her face close to his and whispered, “I’ll keep my phone with me as long as I can. Let me know if you need any help deciphering the financials.”
“I can’t believe I have to analyze spreadsheets.”
“You aren’t analyzing spreadsheets. You’re analyzing bank and credit card statements.”
Cole grimaced. “That’s not any better.”
“Good luck.” Isabelle gave him one more kiss and headed for the door.
“You too.”
“Thanks.” She closed the door behind her, and Cole pulled his laptop from his bag.
“Time to get this over with,” he muttered to himself, settling down at the kitchen table and pulling up the files Jasmine had sent.
He keyed in on the banking and credit card information from Henri LaRue and pulled up the file. He scanned over the various line items, searching for any large cash withdrawals or credit card advances. When he didn’t find any, he looked over the numbers again, this time trying to identify what the various expenses represented.
The payroll appeared to run through one bank account, the numbers fluctuating at various times of the year. It didn’t take long to figure out that the spikes in payroll occurred in the weeks right before the various Fashion Week events and extended to the two weeks after they concluded.
After going over the payroll account twice without finding anything that connected LaRue to James, Cole pulled up LaRue’s main operating account as well as his credit cards. Again, the expenses were clustered, but this time, the high points occurred in the two months before Fashion Week. From what he could tell, a large portion of the expenses were for fabric and supplies as well as airline tickets. Hotel charges were the outlier, not occurring until the end of Fashion Week.
Cole went over the expenses a second time, but nothing flagged as a possible cash payout or anything else that would be outside the norm for someone in the design business.
Disappointed that nothing was pointing a finger at LaRue, he glanced at the clock. He’d been staring at financial information for more than an hour. Isabelle would undoubtedly be able to perform this task in a fraction of the time.
With a sigh, he moved to the next set of financials, these for Peter Wade. Maybe if he compared the timing of expenses, he would be able to see if a payment was out of place and was actually being funneled through a third party.
As he had with LaRue’s accounts, Cole started with payroll. Peter Wade’s expenses ran a bit higher than LaRue’s but not by much. When he moved to the expense and credit card accounts, the numbers also fell into a similar category, except that Peter Wade’s deposits were significantly higher than LaRue’s, as was his current bank account balance.
Moving on, Cole opened Li Du’s account. He did a quick skim of his budget in case there were any large cash deposits. Again, nothing. Then again, Li Du’s show had already occurred. Surely, if he had been behind the theft of Ralph’s designs, they would have seen some sign of it yesterday.
With that thought in mind, Cole focused on the only other designer who hadn’t yet shown his line but who had also started on their suspect list: Kyle Adams.
A text buzzed on his phone, and Cole pulled it up. Isabelle walking down the runway in a red pantsuit, her chin up, a little smile on her face. The Peter Wade show was underway, and he was missing it.
Determined to finish this analysis before the Kyle Adams show tonight, he hit the thumbs-up button on the photo Lars had sent him and turned his attention back to his laptop screen.
The payroll accounts looked much like the other three he had already researched. He pulled up Adams’s credit cards, the first two showing normal activity. When he reached the third, he skimmed over the pending charges, which included a four-hundred-euro expense yesterday at a hotel along with a large restaurant bill last night. He continued down the list, several of the next charges catching his attention. An Air France bill for over six thousand dollars preceded by a KLM charge for twelve hundred dollars.
Cole checked the dates. The airline ticket purchased on KLM occurred the day after the robbery at Ralph’s office. The other tickets were purchased three days later.
Cole grabbed his phone and dialed Jasmine. As soon as she answered, he said, “Hey, I need you to access some airline data for me.”
“What do you need?” Jasmine asked.
“Passenger names and flight dates. The first is for KLM. All I have is the credit card info.”
“If it’s off the financials I sent you, tell me where to look.”
Cole relayed the credit card account information.
“Got it.” Jasmine fell silent. “I assume you want the details on the Air France flights too.”
“Yes.”
“This may take a minute.”
Cole checked the time on his computer. Peter Wade’s show was long over, and Kyle Adams’s show would begin in less than a half hour. “We don’t have a lot of time on this.”
“Hold on,” Jasmine said as though calming an impatient child.
Cole gritted his teeth. He needed to get over to the Louvre, and he wanted Isabelle and Marit in his sight.
The clicking of a keyboard carried over the line. “Also, I was about to call you. I found an interesting tidbit today.”
“What’s that?”
“Did you know that James used to intern for Kyle Adams?”
“What?”
“Could be that Adams used James to gain access to Molenaar’s designs.”
“That would make sense.”
“Okay, I’ve got the first one. Corbin Butler,” Jasmine said.
“I’ll pull his info if you’ll look up the Air France passengers.”
“You got it.” Jasmine relayed the man’s US passport info.
Cole tapped into the State Department’s database and did a search for Corbin Butler. It took only a minute to retrieve his personal information and five more minutes to retrieve the name of his current employer: Kyle Adams.
“I think we found the designer behind Ralph Molenaar’s design theft,” Cole said. “The man on the KLM flight is one of his employees, and he left the day after James was killed—probably with Molenaar’s muslin patterns. My guess is Kyle went to pick up the designs from James, and either James got greedy, or Adams lost it when he found out James had dropped the flash drive into Marit’s purse.”
“It’s possible, but the fact that his employee flew to the States the next day isn’t concrete evidence he was involved,” Jasmine said.
“But it is suspicious.”
“Yes, it is.”
“If we can find evidence of Adams using Molenaar’s designs, the police will at least be able to tie him to the theft.”
“True.” Jasmine paused. “Okay, I have the other passengers; all four are women in their early twenties.”
“Why would Adams pay so much money to buy last-minute tickets for four women?” Cole asked. “Unless...”
“Unless they’re his models for the new clothes he had made from Molenaar’s designs,” Jasmine finished for him. “I’m looking at their passport photos. All four women are beautiful.”
“I need to get over to the show. It’s starting in a few minutes.”
“Do you want me to call the police for you?”
“That would be great. Call Capitaine Dupont. His phone number should be in my report.”
“I have it,” Jasmine said. “Be careful.”
“I will,” Cole said. “As long as Adams doesn’t know we’re on to him, he isn’t a threat.”
“He may have killed Brinton James,” Jasmine reminded him. “Don’t underestimate what the man is capable of.”
“I won’t.” Cole hung up and secured his laptop. As soon as it was locked away, he rushed out the door. He debated briefly calling Lars, but Jasmine’s last comment carried with him. Adams could very well be capable of murder. Cole couldn’t take a chance that Lars, Isabelle, or Marit might inadvertently alert Adams that he was suspected of both theft and murder.
With expediency in mind, Cole rushed to the elevator and used his phone to summon a taxi.