Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Somewhere in the final three or four feet of distance to clear, Alex offered Hawk her encouragement before backtracking into the warmth of the house and a hot shower. Something they still had, thanks to the gas-powered hot water heater.
Warm and once again dry, she went in search of another book while there was still light coming in from outside.
She pulled two books and then saw a title from the author she’d just read on the highest shelf. Using the chair at the writing desk, she climbed up to retrieve it.
And the shelf moved.
Alex sprang back, peered closer, then gave the shelf a push.
A hidden door opened and revealed what Alex knew the house was missing from the day they walked in.
An office.
She stepped off the chair, pushed the door, and walked inside.
Alex was instantly reminded of a similar door Chase had found in their father’s walk-in closet behind a shelf filled with shoes. Only inside that room lived a safe.
Immediately on her right was the desk and a computer. Built-in filing cabinets, a printer. And on the opposite side of the room ...
A safe.
Taller than her.
Wider than her.
“What the fuck, Dad.”
Hawk descended the stairs, his hair still wet from his much-needed shower.
“Hey, Hawk?” Alex called from somewhere beyond the kitchen. “There’s something I need you to see.”
He followed her voice to the study. “Did you find a cookbook?” he asked, teasing.
“Better than that.”
He walked around the corner and stopped.
The wall of books was displaced, and Alex stood on the other side.
“A secret room?”
Alex sat behind a desk with what looked like the contents of said desk spread out over it.
She pointed to the opposite side of the room.
A massive safe filled up a major section of the windowless wall.
“How did we not see this?”
“It’s a theme.”
Hawk looked at the door and saw a magnet up at the top. The electronic kind that needed a code or a fingerprint to open.
Unless the power went out and the battery backup went dead.
His eyes searched the wall the hidden door lived in and saw a power box above it. “What do you mean a theme ?”
Alex kept digging through the drawers in the desk as she spoke. “There’s a hidden room at the estate. With a safe inside.”
“Rich people have safes,” Hawk mused aloud.
“If this safe has in it what the other safe has, there is more to it than just a place to hide a few precious belongings and documents.”
“What’s that?” Drugs? Weapons?
“It’s hard to explain. I’d rather show you.”
Alex was looking at random pieces of paper and tossing them aside.
“What are you looking for?”
“The code. Chase and Alex found the code for that safe in Dad’s desk. My guess is, he needed to keep it consistent, or he’d forget it himself.”
“Wouldn’t he just memorize it?”
“According to Piper, memorization wasn’t his strong point.”
Hawk walked over to the safe and took a good look. It was the kind that would survive a fire. Which made sense up here in the woods.
“Ha!”
Alex waved a piece of paper in her hand. “This has to be it.”
She rounded the desk and approached the keypad.
The numbers beeped as she entered the code.
On the last one, a loud click filled the room.
Hawk stood to her side as she eased the heavy door open.
Alex smiled, and Hawk’s jaw hit the floor. “Holy fuck.”
“Yup. Just what I thought.”
The safe was stuffed full.
He reached in and pulled out a fistful of currency. Euros, each with bands on them saying 10,000 . Then there were American dollars, Chinese yuan, Russian rubles, Arabic dirhams. And more that Hawk couldn’t identify.
Beyond the money were coin containers.
He lifted one and opened the top.
“Gold coins.”
“Yup.” Alex wasn’t surprised.
A .45 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun sat on one shelf, several filled magazines to its side.
And a shotgun. Both of which Hawk did not touch.
Alex reached for the gun.
Hawk stopped her.
“You don’t know what that gun has been used for.”
Alex snickered. “My father wasn’t capable of—”
“Using a weapon against someone? Then why does he have it?”
“Safety,” Alex said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. You said the other safe looks the same?”
“Pretty much.”
“Even guns?”
She pointed at the handgun. “If not the same, similar. One handgun, one shotgun.”
This had illegal written all over it.
“Your dad was up to something. There is no legitimate reason for a man as wealthy as your father to have this much cash in this many currencies.” The whole thing put an ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“He was so driven by money, Chase and I thought that maybe he just needed physical evidence of his wealth to ... I don’t know, stare at?”
Hawk laughed, pulled Alex close enough to kiss her head, and let her go. “I love that your thoughts stopped there.”
“You’re laughing at me,” she said.
He shook his head. “Your innocence is refreshing. This,” he pointed at the contents of the safe, “says racketeering, money laundering, bribery, drugs ...” Prostitution, human trafficking, and yes ... illegal firearms. But Hawk left that out.
“I can’t imagine it.”
“How well did you know your father?”
“I didn’t.”
Hawk met her gaze. “Start imagining it. It might give us a clue as to who planted the Play-Doh bomb. The person who threatened you.”
Alex took a step back. “I never even considered that.”
Hawk knelt down to the bottom of the safe, where stacks of documents and folders were piled.
“Are there documents in the other safe?”
“Yes. It’s how we learned where to look for Max. A clue was hidden in the receipts of artwork certificates.”
Hawk opened a file and saw what looked like a deed to a property. Maybe the one they were in. He pulled out folders and stacked them. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to take the guns in, have them dusted for prints and run through ballistics.”
“You mean to see if they were used in a crime?”
“Yes.”
“You really believe he was into something illegal.”
Hawk picked up the folders and stood. “The cartel that put a hole in me, the walls of their home were literally filled with cash. The kind that can’t be traced. The only way you spend this money is wading through the mud.”
Alex blew out a breath. “And to think I came in here looking for a suspense novel.”
He handed her a stack of papers. “Why read fiction when you have this?”
Hawk tapped the fake EU passport against his knee. The picture inside was Aaron Stone, with a fake name and nationality.
He stopped counting when the cash equaled one million. From the looks of the stacks, there was likely another million in euros and a few hundred thousand in miscellaneous currency.
Then there was the gold coin. A couple hundred grand, easy.
“Your dad didn’t have this to look at,” Hawk announced. “This was an escape plan.”
Alex sat on the floor by the fire, thumbing through the documents while Hawk was estimating the monetary value of what was in the safe.
“Escape from what?”
“In order to determine that, we need to know how he skimmed this money.”
Alex put the papers in her hand down and gave him her full attention. “I’ve spent a lot of time looking over the books in the last five years of Stone Enterprises. I didn’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t. If done right, it would take a forensic accountant to find these kinds of missing numbers.”
“He could have just written himself owner distribution draws.”
“Possibly. He’d have to do it in small sums, and you’d likely be able to trace that. Large sums are a red flag.”
“Over time, though ...” Alex suggested. “Wait.”
Hawk looked up.
“We did find cash draws from an account that Dad set up to pay off Max’s mother.”
“With this kind of money?” Hawk asked.
“No.”
He put the passport down and picked up a file from the stack.
“Obtaining money from other countries you do business in isn’t difficult, but the Russians don’t like their money leaving their country.
He worked hard to get it out.” What Hawk left out was the danger factor.
If you were caught taking more than ten thousand out of Russia, you’d likely be detained for a very long time.
“Why bother, then?”
“Bribes?” Hawk asked, more to himself than a question that Alex needed to answer.
“Well, we know he was capable. Ultimately, he bribed Max’s mother to stay silent about him.”
Hawk sighed. “The money is dirty. The question is, How dirty? If this was his escape plan, along with whatever is in the other safe, then he was worried about losing his company. Or not being able to access its funds.”
“How could that happen?”
“The government hates tax evasion. If an investigation took place, they could seize control of Stone Enterprises and everything Aaron Stone. Not one credit card would work. Without this,” Hawk pointed at the money, “he couldn’t put gas in his car.”
“Even if he was innocent?”
“Guilty until proven otherwise,” Hawk told her. “Regardless of what you might think.”
Alex stared at him with worry in her eyes. “The crimes stay with the company, not the person ... right?”
Hawk knew where she was going with her question. If Stone Enterprises was accused of tax evasion, everything the Stone children inherited could be at risk.
“I’m not an expert on fraud investigations.
I know some people and can poke around. But before we do any of that, we try and determine what happened and who was involved.
Why did your dad need this? Was he using this money to bribe others?
Where did the money come from? Did he expect an investigation?
Your father didn’t need to skim off the top of his already profitable company.
If the company was struggling, then maybe,” Hawk mused.
“He was expanding too quickly. He took advantage of fire sales after the pandemic and leveraged the profitable parts of the company to fund the purchases of the others.”
“Any risk of going bankrupt?”
Alex shook her head. “More like risking a takeover. Although he had the majority shares.” She sighed. “He was obsessed with money. It didn’t faze us when we found the first safe. Truth is, we’ve been too busy to give it much thought.”
It didn’t make sense. “Then we’re back at why . And how many more of these safes are out there?”
She rubbed her temples. “It hurts my head.”
“Yeah, and we’re supposed to be here for R&R, not mind bending over the sins of the father.”
“We can’t just leave this here,” Alex said.
Hawk waved a stack of euros in the air. “It’s a damn good thing you have a private plane, then. This would never pass TSA.”