Page 38 of Carnival Queen

“Yep. But it makes sense. He needed the tax issues for Douglass and Jackson to go away so that they could keep working on the pipeline. If it didn’t go away, all eyes would be on them, and he’d lose months of planning. The energy commission and others wouldn’t have approved the pipeline or anything else that they tried to pass in a legal manner,” said Angel. Gaspar nodded at the men in the room, then stood.

“Michael? I know you still have connections in D.C. You are, after all, the former POTUS.” He smiled at his friends.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Get on the phone and start calling. Put a bug in everyone’s ear that you speak with and see what you can come up with. If anyone wants to know details, just tell them you’ve been hearing rumors. D.C. knows what an asshole Leon is. Let’s find a way to stop them all.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“How are you doing?” asked Sophia, stepping up onto the porch with Lissa, Johanna, and Ella.

“I feel as though I’m going crazy. Like I’ve lost my mind,” she whispered. “Jamal was my father’s best friend. How could he do this to him? How could he have sent Jackson and Douglass to him knowing what they were doing?”

“Sweetie, money is a powerful motivator for people,” said Ella. “He probably thought since he and your father had a relationship that he would make the tax issues go away and just turn a blind eye to all the illegal activity. He never counted on your father actually being a good man.”

“This isn’t going to just go away,” said Deanna. “This man, Leon, sounds dangerous and driven. Then you have Douglass and Jackson kidnapping young men and women, trafficking them in the sex trade, and now this! It’s too much.”

“Honey, why don’t you lie down for a while,” said Lissa.

“No. No, I need to do something. I need to stay busy. We’ve still got the parade to think about, and I need to finish that. For me. Not for anyone else. Plus, I want to look at what you’ve found in the documents that my dad had.”

“Alright,” nodded Ella. “I think the guys would tell you that you should stay put for now. So, let’s go into the offices, and you can see what we’ve done so far.”

“Thank you. Thank you all for being here and supporting me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

As they started down the steps of Deanna’s cottage, Razor and Skull smiled at her, dangling her car keys.

“What’s this?”

“Well, it’s not done yet, but we’ve put in a new engine, new tires, overhauled the brakes, replaced the axels, just about everything. We’re still waiting on a few things to show up, but it’s drivable, and we won’t worry about you killing yourself and others.”

“Oh my God! I can’t believe this,” she said, hugging the two men. “You have no idea how badly I needed this piece of good news. Thank you!”

“Not a problem, honey. It’s parked up near the entrance to the property just until we can get to the rest of it. But it’s running like a dream.”

The two men were thrilled to see her excitement and a smile on her face for the first time in more than a week.

Entering the conference room, Deanna saw Ro, Jean, Miriam, and Tinley with their heads down, looking over the paperwork in front of them.

“Well, it’s good to see your pretty face,” said Jean.

“Mr. Jean, no disrespect, Miss Ro, but I sure wish you were a few years younger and unmarried.” Ro laughed, shaking her head.

“Honey, I’d have to be a few decades, not years, younger. Come here. Come look at what we have here.”

As Jean walked her through what they’d discovered so far, Deanna looked at her father’s notes, written in his familiar chicken scratch shorthand.

“Your father’s handwriting leaves a lot to be desired,” frowned Tinley. “I can’t make heads or tails out of any of this.”

“Hmm, let me see,” she said, turning the sheet toward her. “Some of this you guys already know. They weren’t reporting the taxable income from the clubs. Apparently, one of their bouncers had a conscience, or at least common sense, and had filed his own taxes listing them as his employer. He was audited because, of course, the clubs didn’t have tax ID numbers. That’s what started part of the problem.

“Then he figured out that the ships weren’t authorized to carry oil cargo. I’m not sure how they’re carrying oil, but they are. Dad must have figured out that the ships were authorized to carry sea containers with consumable goods inside. These ships must be converted somehow.”

“Damn, you’re getting all that from his scribble?” frowned Jean. Deanna smiled up at him, laughing.

“Don’t laugh. I have the same scribble. Oh no.”

“Oh no? Oh no, what?” asked Tinley.

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