Chapter 12 Ben
Ben
Dallas, Texas
Wednesday night
“What do you mean you’re packing heat?”
I press my cell phone closer to my ear, hoping I misheard my gran’s declaration. Her cackling on the other end confirms she’s
not taking this nearly as seriously as my mom, who just called asking me to talk some sense into my grandmother.
“Isn’t that what you law types call it?”
“No, Gran, it’s not.” I glance up as Ruby walks into the office holding a coffee cup like it’s the Holy Grail. I hold out
my hand. She stops midstep, eyes wide, and clutches the cup like I’ve just asked her to hand over her firstborn.
“Who told you to buy a gun?” I ask into the phone.
Ruby’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline before a smirk creases her lips and she reluctantly hands me her coffee. One sip and
I nearly gag on the sugar level before handing it back.
“Toby,” Gran says cheerfully. “He’s that good-looking fella Martha Jane’s granddaughter used to see. You know who she is,
right? The pretty girl who takes photos of the dead?”
Photos of the dead? I stare at the wall like it might help my brain catch up.
Gran’s words echo in my head, and I start to seriously question whether she’s finally lost her marbles.
Not that any of us Bradleys would dare say that out loud.
Not if we valued our lives. Dorothy Bradley might be in her seventies, but she can still take down a full-grown man with a glare and a rolling pin.
“She’s the girl who came out after Glory thought she found a human bone in the park.”
There’s not enough caffeine in Texas to jolt my day back to order. I’m about to have Ruby call my mom back when it clicks.
“Wait. Do you mean she’s a crime scene tech?”
“Yes, yes. That’s the one. She dated Toby for a while, but I think he spent too much time at the gym. Nice muscles, but what’re
you gonna do with a bunch of muscles if you don’t have a nice wife to show them off to? Stop it, Bernie,” Gran says, scolding
her best friend and fellow geriatric criminal comrade, Bernice. “Bernie has the hots for Toby and isn’t one bit sad he’s single
now.”
Aspirin. I need aspirin. “Gran, the gun? Did you buy a gun?”
Ruby drops into the chair across from me and props her boots on the desk. She’s clearly enjoying the conversation that’s causing
my brain to pulse against my skull.
“Well, honey, I tried, but the man at the store said I needed to have i-dent-if-ication.” The word crawls out, dripping with
Southern sass. “’Course I don’t have a driver’s license anymore and he wouldn’t take my Magnolia Hill resident card. Or the
extra twenty I tried to bribe him with.”
“You tried to bribe him?”
Ruby’s feet drop to the ground as she leans forward, her eyes sparkling. “Speaker,” she whispers, gesturing at my cell phone.
“Put it on speaker.”
I shake my head and frown at the very clear amusement she’s getting from my grandmother trying to invoke her Second Amendment
rights.
“He didn’t take it,” Gran continues. “Good fella, that one. Said I can’t buy a gun until I bring back my state-issued ID.”
I exhale, relieved that, at the very least, someone out there is following the law. “Gran, you don’t need a gun.” I’m already mentally drafting the text that sends my mom to Magnolia Hill on a covert mission to confiscate Gran’s ID. But first things first. “Why is Toby telling you to buy a gun?”
“Oh, he’s not, honey.” I hear Wheel of Fortune blaring in the background. Gran raises her voice to compete with the TV. “He teaches self-defense, and Bernie asked if we
were too old to own guns, and he said no. So Bernie and I got to thinking—we should get a pistol. You know, kind of like as
a mascot for our club.”
Ruby snorts. Loudly. I glare at her. She grins and mouths, I love her. I toss a pen at her head, which she dodges like she trains regularly for this kind of abuse—just as SAC Katherine Scott walks
into the office.
“Gran, I’ve got to go,” I say quickly. “But you do not need a gun for your club.”
“But we’ve already got the pearls.”
Ruby is practically choking on her laughter now, and Katherine gives me that do I need to be concerned? look.
“Gran,” I say, fighting the headache pulsing behind my eyes, “do not buy any guns from anyone—at least until I can go with
you and help you pick one out.”
Katherine raises an eyebrow. Ruby blinks at me in surprise. I shake my head quickly—absolutely not happening—but it’s easier to let Gran think I’m on board than to start a whole new argument. I wrap up the call, making her
promise—twice—that she won’t buy any weapons without checking with me first.
“Weapons?” Katherine settles into her chair. Behind her, the Dallas skyline flickers to life against the velvet dusk. “Is
this the part where I start worrying?”
“With my gran? Always.”
“How do I join her Pistols and Pearls club?” Ruby grins. “I don’t own pearls, but I have a pistol.”
“You’re about fifty years too young,” I say, rolling my eyes. “And I’m texting my father to make sure no one at her retirement
community is, as Gran put it, ‘packing heat.’” I throw up air quotes for good measure.
Ruby chuckles. Katherine still looks like she’s debating a background check on my grandmother—and honestly, based on the stories Dad used to tell me about her, it’s probably overdue.
But the humor fades as my mind shifts back to the reason we’re still at the office after hours.
“That was . . . enlightening,” Katherine says, arching a brow as she sets a folder on the table. “If you’re sure your grandmother
isn’t going to end up on a federal watch list, let’s see if we can end this night before the cleaning crew gets here.”
I toss my phone onto the desk and reach for the folder Seth dropped off earlier. “Let’s talk VerityCrypto.” I flip it open
and slide matching documents to them. “Seth’s done a preliminary pass. On the surface, it looks like a textbook crypto startup—fast
growth, strong branding, media spin. But there are a few things that make him uneasy.”
“Like what?” Ruby asks.
“Timing inconsistencies. Certain wallet addresses rerouting through strange exchanges. A couple of offshore registrations
that look clean, but the time stamps don’t match up with the press releases,” I say, recalling the way Seth explained it to
me. Like I was five. There’s a reason I didn’t go into forensic accounting. Numbers. “He says there’s nothing solid yet, but
he’s flagging it for further review once OSB is done.”
Katherine nods. “Operation Shadow Broker is the priority. We can’t dig too deep—not yet. Too much noise and we risk Ramirez
catching wind. And we still don’t have enough for a RICO indictment.” She looks to Ruby. “What do we know about Earl Edmond?”
Ruby opens her own file. “Interestingly enough, Edmond’s real estate company has had its own questionable dealings. In the
early days of his company’s growth, there were inflated valuations, kickbacks, a few red-flagged contractors. Our white-collar
crime division tagged Earl Edmond early on for public corruption and financial crimes, but it never turned into a case.”
“Why not?” I ask. If Earl Edmond had been charged, Cybil wouldn’t be working for him and she wouldn’t be caught in the middle
of this mess.
“Not sure,” Ruby answers. “There aren’t any notes in the file.
But I did a little digging, and what’s interesting is that it looks like he’s tried to clean up.
His wife died six years ago, complications from pneumonia.
That’s about the same time he started bringing in compliance experts and streamlining operations, but it cost him.
Nearly thirty percent revenue drop, causing contractors to walk and investors to pull back. ”
“So either grief made him grow a conscience,” Katherine says, “or he’s playing the long game.”
“Which could explain why he’s entertaining a deal with Ramirez.” Ruby looks between us. “Ramirez offers big cash. A fast return.
Edmond might be desperate to recover losses.”
My stomach tightens. If Edmond’s that close to the edge, that means Cybil’s standing in the middle of his crumbling empire,
and she doesn’t even realize how fast it could fall on top of her.
Katherine nods. “That brings us to Italy.” She pulls out a travel packet and slides it across the desk to me. “US Attorney
General Fritz personally signed off on a limited travel directive. The FBI director fast-tracked your clearance. You leave
tomorrow.”
I glance through the documents. Passport, flight details—private jet. Another part of Craig Miller’s financial fairy tale.
“Fritz believes we’re close,” Katherine says. “Close enough that a controlled risk is worth it. If this trip gets us the kind
of evidence that ties Ramirez to extortion, wire fraud, obstruction—”
“Murder,” Ruby adds, her tone flat. “Danny Morales didn’t get shot for fun.”
“—then we’ll have what we need for a RICO indictment,” Katherine finishes. “Do you anticipate any issues?”
Ruby opens another folder. “We pulled the flight manifest. Sammy Pawson’s on it.”
My pulse spikes. Ramirez’s muscle. His fixer. His silent threat. He doesn’t leave the country unless Ramirez expects trouble . . .
or plans to handle it. If he’s going, this trip isn’t just business—it’s enforcement. But for whom?
“Ramirez is hosting the trip. I received the details on the villa—where we’ll be staying.
He wants me positioned as his point of contact for all financial transactions during the negotiation.
I’ve done a cursory check on the banker he’s introducing me to, Alessandro Moretti—he’s old money, operates several offshore institutions in Switzerland and Malta.
Seth’s prepared me with all the documents I’ll need and Ruby’s taken care of the tech. ”
Ruby meets my eyes with a nod. “Your laptop’s been embedded with a network packet analyzer. It’s passive surveillance and
less risky than direct access. Looks and acts like standard accounting software and will sniff for unsecured connections whenever
Ramriez or anyone else logs onto the villa’s Wi-Fi. If his laptop syncs with any financial accounts or opens unprotected files,
the sniffer will mirror the data, and we’ll grab it in real time from our end.”
I nod. “And if Ramirez uses a secure VPN?”
“You’ll have to get close enough to plug in or air-drop a decoy file,” Ruby says. “We’ve baked a few document bugs into your
USBs—if one gets opened, we’ll get a full path to the host machine.”
“Just get close enough without setting off his suspicion.” I tap the edge of the folder. “No problem.”
“And Ms. Langford.” Katherine watches me carefully. “Is she going to be an issue?”
I shift in my seat, thinking about the restroom incident yesterday—her eyes, cautious but curious, like she couldn’t decide
whether to trust me or report me. “I can manage her.”
Ruby whistles. “Top ten things to never say to a woman.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” I add quickly, annoyed at Ruby’s insinuation that I’m that kind of man. “If she’s the same girl
I remember, she’d punch me for even trying.”
Ruby grins. “I respect her already.”
Honestly, the idea of Ruby and Cybil becoming friends sounds . . . weirdly good. Like something that shouldn’t matter but
does.
Katherine presses again. “Is she a risk? To your cover? The mission?”
I hesitate. “I don’t know.”
I think of Cybil at the museum—how quickly she switched from recognition to indifference. The way she said Craig like she was choking on the word. When I chose the name, it wasn’t like I did it to hurt her. I never imagined our paths would cross, and now that they have . . .
“It’s been twelve years,” I say finally. “I think I can trust her.”
“People change in less time.” Katherine raises an eyebrow. “Some for better. Some . . . not.”
I know what she’s implying. We don’t get to assume the best—not in this job. But when I think of Cybil, I don’t see a threat.
I see the girl in the torn jean shorts and her uncle’s flannel shirt, chasing after me and Rex with murder in her eyes after
we dumped chicken feed in her purse.
Except now she’s a woman. And that memory has been hijacked by the way she looked at me yesterday, her mouth set in that stubborn
line, her eyes calculating. Unaware that her presence was messing with my pulse in a way that was entirely unhelpful.
And she’s walking a line she doesn’t even know exists, and I can’t shake the feeling that if she slips—just once—she’ll land
right in the crosshairs. I won’t let that happen.
“I need you to keep your head in the game,” Katherine says. “There’s a lot riding on this mission.”
I nod, my thoughts shifting to Danny Morales. His family. The cold precision of Ramirez’s operation. And now Cybil, tangled
in the middle of it. This mission was already high risk. But now? It’s personal.
“Understood,” I say, the word thick on my tongue.
Katherine leans back, folding her arms, eyes steady. “Good. Because if she’s the one who exposes you—even by accident—we lose
everything.”