Chapter 17
Seventeen
JACE
The Chinese arrived at seven-thirty, which meant we’d been in the shower much longer than strictly necessary, and neither of us was apologizing.
We spread the files across the coffee table and the floor around it, dividing them by category: Madden’s compiled case materials on one side, the local government records on the other.
Apparently our visit to town hall this morning had greased some wheels, because Peggy had pushed through a public records request Madden had submitted weeks ago.
The result was a substantial stack of meeting minutes, approved contracts, bid submissions, and budget allocations going back five years, all of it bureaucratic and dense and exactly the kind of thing that hid interesting information inside layers of procedural language.
I settled onto the floor with my back against the sofa and a container of beef lo mein and started reading.
Layla sat cross-legged on the other side of the coffee table, chopsticks in one hand and a highlighter in the other, moving through pages with focused efficiency.
Koa stretched out beside her, chin on her knee, periodically receiving an absent scratch behind the ears without her looking up from whatever she was reading.
It was—comfortable. Unexpectedly comfortable, in a way my brain kept trying to draw my attention to when it wasn’t otherwise occupied with the documents in front of me.
It kept drifting back to other things, too. Like the sight of her naked and glistening beneath the shower spray, head thrown back in ecstasy as she pulsed around my cock…
I pulled my attention back to the page and found Anthony Strand’s name in a contract approval from three years ago—a feasibility study for waterfront commercial development on the south end of the marina district, approved under Miles’s administration, cost shared between the city and Albemarle Development Group.
The study had gone nowhere, or at least nowhere that showed up in the subsequent meeting minutes.
There were other names. Coastal Meridian Holdings, a real estate investment group out of Raleigh that had put in two bids on properties adjacent to the marina that hadn’t been accepted.
A local contractor named Pete Wharton who showed up in an unusual number of approved projects for someone operating out of a two-man shop.
A company called Blue Water Infrastructure had won a contract for dock renovation work that seemed over-priced for the scope described.
A developer named Gary Fitch who’d submitted a proposal for a resort complex on the Atlantic side that Miles had championed before city council voted it down.
Some of it was probably ordinary small-town government inefficiency and favoritism. Some of it might be something else. The problem was they all looked the same on paper until you knew what you were looking for.
“Strand’s in here,” I said.
“I saw.” Layla didn’t glance up. “Feasibility study. And there’s a follow-up correspondence where he’s requesting a meeting with Miles that seems to have been scheduled, and then nothing. No notes from the meeting. No follow-up documentation.”
“Meetings that don’t leave a paper trail.”
“Very common when you don’t want a paper trail.” She set down the highlighter. “You said he wanted to develop the land that had been in your family for generations. Were there others before him?”
“Oh yeah. My dad, for one.” I set down the lo mein. “He’s a venture capitalist. He’d been pushing my grandfather to develop that land for years, and Granddaddy always said hell no. Willa’s a chip off the old block there, which is a big part of why it was right that the land go to her.”
“Was there any connection between your dad and Strand?”
I turned the question over. “None that I’m aware of.
But I’m hardly up on his business associates.
I didn’t cut my parents off as cleanly as Willa did, but I’m not the favored son anymore.
” I paused, looking at the Strand contract on the table between us.
“Do you think my dad could have been involved? In any of this?”
“I have no idea.” She said it without softening it, which I appreciated. “I think anyone with significant money connected to this island deserves a second glance.”
“That could be a lot of people. There are plenty of vacation homes here.”
“True. But it makes more sense to start with people who have a genuine operational connection and work outward from there. If money was being laundered through businesses on the island, the money has to be coming in from somewhere nearby. Taking it straight to be laundered gives less opportunity to be caught with it.”
“Fair argument.” I leaned back against the sofa.
“But whoever’s at the top of the food chain doesn’t have to be physically present to oversee it.
They’d have an enforcer. Someone who handles the operational side, who would’ve been the one to approach Miles directly and make the threat.
And that person, if they’re smart, isn’t walking around looking flush all the time. ”
“True.” She picked up the highlighter again. “Which means we’re looking for two different things—the money architecture and the operational layer. They might overlap, but they might not.”
“Which is what makes it complicated.”
“All the good ones are.”
We worked through another hour of it, trading observations when something snagged one of us, building a rough map of names and companies and relationships that might mean something and might mean nothing.
Pete Wharton kept appearing. Coastal Meridian Holdings had some correspondence that used language similar to Strand’s development proposals in a way that could be coincidence and probably wasn’t.
Blue Water Infrastructure had a principal whose name showed up in connection with a real estate LLC that had purchased two properties on the waterfront the year after Miles took office.
Eventually Layla set down her highlighter and stretched her arms over her head in a languid motion that pulled the fabric of her shirt taut across her body in a way that was distracting as hell. I forced my attention back to her face, which didn’t help much. It was a damned fine face.
“It’s getting late,” she said, her voice carrying a note of reluctance that matched what I was feeling. “I’m not going to ask you to stay.”
“Too damned bad.” I looked at her across the coffee table and the scattered papers covering every available surface between us, documents that suddenly felt a lot less important than they had an hour ago. “Does that mean this was a onetime thing?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a slight smile I was starting to recognize—the one that said she was amused but trying not to show it. “I believe you already proved it wasn’t.”
“Then I’m putting in my vote to keep it going while you’re here. Exclusively.” I held her gaze, making sure she understood what I was saying.
“Putting in your claim?” There was a challenge in her tone, but not an unfriendly one.
“I don’t share, Layla.” I let the words settle between us, plain and unadorned. “Not my style.”
She held my gaze for a long moment, something shifting in those dark eyes before she answered. “Neither do I. And yeah, I’d like to continue this while I’m here.”
“Good.” I got to my feet, feeling the pleasant ache in muscles I’d put through their paces earlier.
She stood with me, and I pulled her in for a kiss and took my time about it, a seal on what we’d just agreed to.
When I finally let her go, I took her slightly dazed look as a compliment.
Her lips were swollen, her breathing just a little uneven. “Very good.”
“Very, very good,” she agreed, her voice rougher than it had been a moment before.
I gathered my jacket from where I’d draped it over the arm of the sofa and collected my share of the files we’d divided up for further review, letting myself linger by the sofa a beat longer than necessary, in case she changed her mind about me leaving.
She only moved toward the door, though, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a gesture that seemed almost self-conscious.
“How long do you usually spend on location?” I asked as I followed her to the entryway.
“Anywhere from a few days to a few months. Depends on what we find and how fast we find it.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Why?”
I wasn’t sure why I said what I said next. It wasn’t planned. The words just came out, propelled by something I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Ford and Bree are getting married. After the New Year. You want to be my plus one?”
She stared at me, her eyes widening a fraction. “That’s weeks away.”
“It is.” I met her gaze, committing to what I’d just put out there.
“You’re asking me to a wedding that’s weeks away.” She said it like she was testing the reality of it, making sure she’d heard me right.
“I am.” I didn’t elaborate, didn’t try to explain, or walk it back. I just let it stand.
Surprise, clear and unfiltered, moved across her face, and underneath it something more complicated that she put away quickly, her expression smoothing out before I could read it.
“I wasn’t planning on keeping this a secret,” I added, wanting that clear between us. “Unless you’d prefer it that way?”
“No,” she said, a little slowly, like she was still processing what I’d asked and what it meant. “I don’t want to sneak around. That’s far too hard to do in a place this size anyway. Everyone sees everything.”
“True story.” I shifted the files under my arm. “People on this island have made a sport out of knowing everyone’s business for generations.”
“Yeah. If I’m still here, I’d be happy to be your plus one.” The words came out measured, but there was warmth underneath them.
I grinned, feeling lighter than I had in a while. “Good. See you tomorrow, Tiger.”
She frowned, her head tilting. “Tiger?”
I lifted both fists and mimed a slow punch combination, complete with footwork. “Rocky. You earned it on the mats today.” I pulled the door open, letting in a rush of cool night air. “Night.”