Chapter Eighteen - Rachel
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rachel
Present
“We’re getting nowhere,” I grumble, taking another still-warm paper from the printer and setting it out on the floor.
Ryder doesn’t even glance up from his laptop as he continues printing record after record. “These things aren’t always a quick find.”
“But we don’t even know what ‘these things’ are.”
“Or if ‘these things’ exist,” he agrees.
I shoot him an annoyed look that makes him chuckle.
Glad someone’s amused.
It’s only been three days since the gala, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that we haven’t figured anything out yet, but it’s still discouraging. I guess I thought whatever it is we were looking for would have become obvious by now, but it hasn’t.
Ryder only spent a few hours going through my thumb drive before he moved on since it’s all information he already knew. Now, we’re going through the Sacramento database, printing every single file submitted over the last two months and laying them out around the room—which is now a mess.
When I asked how this was supposed to show us anything, Ryder just shrugged and said that spreading it all out would be better than scrolling on a screen over and over again.
We only work a few hours at a time, between when I get off work and when Ryder leaves to go…
well, I actually don’t know where it is that he goes at night.
I suspect the base or maybe one of the clubs in the area that the family owns, but he’s never told me, and I haven’t asked.
As it is, the lines between us have blurred to an almost non-distinguishable point, especially after the gala.
We never talked about the kiss or the fact that he let the capos assume we’d slipped from the party to hook up. I’m not sure why I expected him to bring it up so we could clear the air and re-establish boundaries, but he hasn’t, and neither have I.
If he wants to pretend it never happened, that’s fine by me.
Aside from an hour-long training session yesterday, all our interactions since the gala have either been about taking care of Lyla or going through the files.
I look around the record-covered room. There are so many of them that we’ll run out of space soon, and the fact that Ryder hasn’t looked up once to inspect what we have so far isn’t reassuring.
You’re just wasting your time. You’re never going to find anything useful—
“Stop that,” Ryder says, looking up to glare at me while I pop my knuckles.
“Stop what?”
“Convincing yourself this is all for nothing. It’ll take time, but we’ll figure it out.”
How did he know what I was thinking? Then again, this is Ryder—perceptive to a fault and just as calculating.
I drop my hands at my side. “I need a break.” I set the tape down and walk out of the office without waiting for a response. I go down the hall to Lyla’s room.
Her door is cracked open just enough that I can see her curled between her favorite pink blanket and the stuffed tiger that Ryder gave her a year ago. Seeing her so peacefully asleep slows my spiral of dark thoughts, and I focus on the fact that she is here and safe.
At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
I wish I could capture this moment and bottle it up for when those fears take over. I’d give anything to go back to this second—when her peaceful sleep calms me and reminds me that everything is okay.
Everything can change at a moment’s notice, and I won't take these moments for granted, especially after what Lyla and I have been through. I’ll relish in them and use them to ground me when the anxiety creeps in.
The idea hits me with a force that makes me gasp, and I cover my mouth to stop waking Lyla as I rush back to the office. Ryder’s on his feet when I walk in, either hearing my gasp or sensing my urgency.
“What's wrong?” he asks as I shut the door behind me.
“Anyone could’ve changed them, right?”
“Changed what?”
“The records,” I tell him. “If you were tampering with records, wouldn’t you go back and cover up the evidence?”
Ryder eyes me. “Yes, but we can’t trace any changes made without having that software in place prior to the change.”
“Exactly. We need a reference point that hasn’t changed.”
I see the second recognition hits him, and Ryder turns to lift my thumb drive off the desk.
“Every file on that drive was saved offline as soon as they were submitted,” I say.
“So, if someone went back and changed it, this drive would have the original,” he finishes, eyes sparking with something both surprised and impressed.
It’s one of the rare moments he lets emotion openly touch his face, and it makes him so undeniably handsome that I have to force myself to look away.
I gesture to the drive. “It’s not foolproof, but comparing what’s on the drive with what’s currently in the base is a starting point.”
An hour later, the mess of printed records starts to come together, and putting each file in chronological order takes up most of that time. The information covers so many topics that arranging it in an understandable way hasn’t been easy, but we’ve done a decent job.
We start by taping up the records from the live database; then we’ll go back through and cross-reference them with the thumb drive’s files.
So far, we have brief biographies of all Mason’s known followers placed on the timeline when their betrayal was discovered.
Then, there’s the description of the resources found at the factory Mason used as a base.
The rest of the records are inventory and financial summaries from every base ordered by Moreno to be submitted for this specific investigation.
Each one is placed on the timeline according to its timestamp.
I finish taping the last few files on the wall while Ryder takes everything in.
When I turn to him, he’s focused on the pictures of Mason’s followers. I don’t recognize any of the soldiers who betrayed the Moreno family, but Ryder clearly does.
“I worked with some of them for years,” he mutters. “Hard to believe they just turned on the family like that.”
Something in how his brow creases, jaw grinds, and shoulders lock up with tension prompts me to do something I probably shouldn’t.
Breaking the very rule I set myself, I close the space between us and brush one hand along Ryder’s back. The second my hand makes contact, his tense muscles relax, and though I’m sure it’s only his surprise, I let myself believe that I comfort Ryder as much as he comforts me.
I feel his eyes drop to watch me but don’t have the guts to face whatever calculative gaze I’ll find if I look up. Instead, I lower my hand and clear my throat. “Ready?”
Time passes in a blur of checking and double-checking every detail of the most mundane financial records in the Moreno database—and that’s coming from someone who majored in finance. We each pick a file from the thumb drive and assess every line of it next to the ones on the timeline.
The printer spits out another document, and I pick it up, holding it to the wall to start checking it.
But they aren’t the same file.
“Did you skip one on purpose?” I ask, blinking out of the fog the mindless work has put me in.
Ryder looks up from where he’s printing the next few documents. “I haven’t skipped anything.”
I look at the record in my hand that details the Rohypnol shipments for June, then to where the matching document on the wall hangs: an entire row—a week according to our timeline—below where we’re at now.
We lock eyes with the realization. He’s out of his chair in a flash, and we’re holding the two papers up to one another.
We pull in a sharp breath at the exact same time.
Because the dates aren’t the only thing that don’t match.
The amounts don’t, either.
“This is a forty-thousand-dollar difference, Ryder. How was this not noticed by anyone?”
He doesn’t answer, but I can practically see his mind racing as he studies the evidence. I don’t know how long passes before he rips the copy from the wall and takes them back to the computer. “What are you doing?”
“This was genius,” he mutters, more to himself than me.
“Genius? More like insane that no one found this before us.”
“We only found it because we had an earlier copy to compare it to.” Ryder doesn’t look up as he types away on the computer.
“You’re telling me that no one would’ve noticed that kind of money missing?”
His fingers suddenly stop typing, and Ryder’s lips part with a heavy sigh as he leans back in the chair.
“Are you going to explain?”
“Okay,” he says, turning to face me with an enthusiastic bounce that’s more fitting for our daughter than him.
“Rohypnol isn’t a regular street drug. It doesn’t provide a high as much as help someone disassociate.
Because of that, it’s often used for the purposes of sexual assault.
Another name for it is the ‘date rape’ drug. ”
My blood freezes in my veins, and my stomach rolls.
I’ve always known Ryder’s job required him to actively work against the law and that he was capable of doing things I never wanted to know about. I’ve never liked that particular aspect of his job, but I accepted it because, in my head, he only hurt other, equally bad people.
But sexual assault?
“You-you sell Rohypnol for sexual assaults?” I ask, taking a step away from him as I do.
Ryder lifts a hand. “No—well, technically, not anymore.”
That doesn’t ease my stomach-churning nausea one bit.
“Before Moreno took over, his father had a prostitution ring in place. It’s the first thing Moreno got rid of when he came into power.”
“So, you have no part in it?”
“None. It’s a nasty business and not worth the hassle.” I shoot him a horrified look, and he adds, “And even people like us have boundaries. Sex trafficking isn’t something the Moreno family takes part in.”
I crack my knuckles, but it brings no comfort. “What does this have to do with the records?”
“Right,” Ryder says with a nod. “We still sell Rohypnol, but only to a few medical facilities that do shady work. It’s one of the least profitable products we sell, which is why it was able to go under the radar, especially at this base, which is the main location for shipment imports and exports.”
He points to something on his laptop, and I inspect the receipts. “These are the records for Rohypnol over the last few years, and they’re all roughly the same.” He scrolls down. “Until you look back to two years ago.”
According to these receipts, the cost has slowly tripled over the last two years.
“Someone’s been raising the price of Rohypnol?”
“If that number stays in the budget, it can be pocketed,” he confirms.
“Wait a minute.” I gesture to the screen. “If this has been going on that long, why was it altered last month? Even if it’s been raised over the last two years, the forty-thousand-dollar jump doesn’t follow the pattern, and it should’ve been submitted incorrectly, not edited.”
“Impossible to say for sure, but it could have to do with the aftermath of the factory night. Maybe Mason’s followers needed to pay off anyone who could incriminate them, or it was used for some of them to go on the run.”
“So, the original record—which was still higher than it should be—was submitted at Moreno’s request and downloaded onto my flash drive. Then, a week later, someone went back and jacked up the price to clean up Mason’s mess?”
Ryder nods. “And that’s assuming it’s related to Mason at all, and not just someone exploiting a crack in the system.”
Even I know that’s unlikely. After all, the Morenos are looking for a leak, and this is a full-on flood. It can’t be a coincidence.
Ryder’s eyes suddenly go distant, lost in thought.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Anyone can submit a report, but not everyone can edit one.”
“Which means?”
“Someone with capo-level access had to have done it.”
“Briggs.”
He gives me a pointed look. “It’s too early to make assumptions.”
“Too early? We’re literally staring at the proof! You need to tell Moreno about this.”
“Absolutely not,” he says without half a second of hesitation.
“All we have is speculation. I still need to look into the Rohypnol supply at the base and make sure we’re right about this.
Besides, someone could’ve used one of the capos’ accounts to do it.
Still, if we can find out which account was used, it would narrow the search. ”
“Is there a way to track that?”
Ryder goes quiet once again, slowly nodding as he seems to come to a decision. “There might be.”
“How?”
He lifts his gaze to mine, the resolve there hitting a place inside me that makes my chest swell with something I can’t name. “We’re going to throw a party.”