Page 120 of Heist

“It means when he told you his daughter took a turn for the worst he was lying. That tells me we need to be taking a harder look at him. Who else can we talk to or dig into that might be connected to him?”

Austin did a mental check of her notes. “The only two people who come to mind are Nicholas Sutton and Grant Sterling. Of course, you might want to look into Troy Wilson too. I don’t know how much his path would have crossed with Tim though.”

Jax was making notes as she spoke.

“Do you want me to call Patrick? I don’t know if he’ll take my call right now, but he needs to hear this doesn’t he?”

Jax shrugged. “That’s up to you. He’s paying me, so I figure he’ll take my call. I’m going to dig further into this before I reach out though. I don’t want to go to him with a halfcocked theory. This helps,” he said, tucking his notebook into his shirt pocket. “I’m gonna go hunt down Lance and see if he has anything else for me. Let me know if I need to get a cattle prod after Patrick.”

“What is with you Texans and cattle prods?” she asked.

When Jax just stared at her she giggled. “Dakota wanted to use a cattle prod on him this morning too. There was also mention of castrating him like a bull? I didn’t ask.”

Now the cowboy laughed. “What can I say, great minds think alike.”

When Jax was gone, Austin stood and went back to finishing the tables. The party would start in just under two hours, and she definitely wasn’t in a party mood. She hadn’t withdrawn from the house submissive program, so she was technically under the supervision of Lance and she had no idea what that meant for her.

The focus of her thoughts walked through the bar entrance and motioned her to him when he spotted her.

“Did Jax find you?” she asked when she stood in front of him.

Lance nodded. “He did. I was just coming to check on you. Does this help your case at all?”

Austin shook her head. “Not yet. Right now, we have no way of knowing if Tim’s lies are tied to the diamond heist or not.”

“What if I told you I traced a deposit to Tim’s bank account?”

Austin gasped. “You could have led with that, Jesus.”

“Master Lance,” he corrected with a wink. “Jesus is good and all, but he can’t dig up digital footprints the way I can.”

Austin rolled her eyes. “Fine, Master Lance, what does this deposit tell us?”

“Nothing yet. I can tell you that it came right before his daughter got into the program in Canada and I can tell it originated from a bank account that was used to pay Troy Wilson to kidnap Holly.”

“Holy fuck. I didn’t know there was payment involved in her kidnapping. I just thought Troy did it out of anger.”

Lance shrugged. “No one has been able to trace the payment. It’s just something I’ve been working on for Elijah on the side. We were never able to figure out if Troy was working with someone, but the big payday in his bank account made it seem like he was. Since I’m the one who found the money, it was never admissible in court.”

Austin grabbed his shoulder. “You need to stop talking to me then. If this isn’t admissible in court, I need to figure out a way to come by the information via legal means and you cannot help me get there.”

Lance nodded. “Fair enough. Don’t want to do anything to make things worse. Just let me know when I can help, OK?”

That night, Austin couldn’t face being in the dungeon, so Lance put her behind the bar with Mitch for the duration of the party. Getting lost in the work and learning how to make different cocktails helped keep her mind busy.

She was grateful to her friends for convincing her to stay in Colorado instead of running back to New York after Patrick left. Had she done that, she would be crying in the dark in her apartment. There would be plenty of tears when she went to bed that night, but for now she was lost in busywork. That didn’t mean Patrick was far from her thoughts. She thought of him every time she poured the scotch he drank, and she silently prayed they would be able to share a glass together.

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