Chapter 23
Garnet dove in at work, forcing focus on the task of identifying everyone listed on the roster as someone who attended her session, or anyone she talked to.
By lunch, she had identified one hundred and thirty-four people who had attended her session, and forty-nine people had attended the sessions twice. Thirty-three people attended all three sessions. She had a feeling that the people who attended three sessions were the best candidates to look into.
She stood up and moved to the whiteboard. “I’ve identified thirty-three people who attended all the sessions. I have a feeling these are the ones we need to look at the most.”
“Okay, everyone, split these people up and let’s see what we can come up with.”
She felt better now. They were done looking for people to investigate. Her work colleagues had been cleared. She might work directly with them, but her work was a little more intense than theirs.
Finding out that the people she worked closely with weren’t terrorists had given her relief. Now they needed to figure out which one of the government employees who attended her sessions was to blame for what had happened.
Brady came over to stand next to her. It was the first time since they’d shown up here that he’d come to her side. He ran one finger down her arm, sending a shiver through her.
She smiled up at him, wishing they were alone. “Hey.”
“You doing okay?” Brady asked.
She nodded. “I am. I think we’re close.”
“Good. I’m going to go back to my seat and look into a couple of people.”
“I’m going to use the restroom and get something to drink.”
“I think Chase is ordering pizza for us. We’ll work through lunch. Hopefully by tonight we’ll have some proof.”
“I hope so. We need a break.”
He nodded and squeezed her fingers before turning back to his seat.
She would be lying to say she didn’t watch him walk all the way over to his seat.
The man had a great body, but it was more than just his body she was attracted to.
There was something that clicked between them.
She didn’t understand it, but whatever it was worked for them.
Bean started going through the information for the first person on his stack. There was nothing that connected this person to a foreign bank account, and they hadn’t received any deposits. It wasn’t them.
He moved on to his second person. With seven of them working on this, it wouldn’t take long. He saw a few of the guys move on to their second person.
Chase had placed the pizza order and was moving on to his second person when Keel made a noise.
“What is it?” Chase asked.
Keel sat up straighter. “I found an account in the Caymans. It’s in his son’s name, but it has almost a million in it.”
“Oh, that’s not right,” Stanley said.
Garnet moved to stand behind Keel. “Him. I remember him. He acted weird at the last event. Asked me to eat lunch with him, but I already had plans. Told him he could arrange to do a video call, but I was busy.”
Chase stood. “Everyone, do a quick check on the other people in your stacks and figure out if they have any accounts overseas or random deposits. Let’s make sure there isn’t someone else hiding in the weeds.”
“We should check all the other people who attended my sessions to make sure they weren’t involved,” Garnet said.
It wasn’t the news they wanted to hear, but it was what had to be done. They needed to be thorough. They couldn’t leave anything like this to chance. A collective groan rose around the room.
“She’s right,” Bean said.
“Yeah, she is,” Stanley said.
Bean turned to Chase. “It sucks, but we have to get this right. It’s too important. How about we split the team and have four of us keep checking, and the other three start digging into the one guy we’ve connected to money.”
Chase squeezed his chin and then nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. This could be something else. We need to check everyone who attended her sessions, and then check everyone at that conference. We have to run this to the ground and make sure we don’t miss anything.”
They had their work cut out for them. It was a lot of information to process, but they understood how important this was.
Soon, maybe by the end of the week, they would retrieve the man and find out exactly how deep his activities went.
It would take them interrogating him to figure out if he was the mastermind behind this or just another pawn working for someone even higher up in the chain.