Page 56 of Resolution

The two exchanged a glance. “No. Man, you really do have a vivid imagination,” Noah said. “We requested the bank files for Roy Cabe from OPR and as far as the law firm’s accounts go, it turns out, Financial Crimes already had the bank statements from Mr. Billings himself.”

“Mr. Billings?” Miguel asked.

Noah smiled then turned to Judy who was blushing. “Turns out that between you, me, Noah, and these four walls, I didn’t have to hack into the law firm’s accounts. Emmerson Billings Esq.—Aston’s partner—already turned over all their bank records to the FBI’s White-Collar Crimes division which included all statements from their clients’ various trust accounts. Turns out, someone in their office had noticed money missing and they suspected Aston of embezzlement since the missing money came from the trust account of one of his cases. Billings looped the FBI in about two months ago.”

I gaped at her. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” Noah said. “While you were driving over here, Bruce Martin, the ASAC for White-Collar Crimes, walked into the office to ask why in the hell we were looking into his case.”

“White-Collar. I thought the case was with Financial Crimes?” I asked.

“Financial Crimes is part of the White-Collar Crimes division,” Noah clarified. “Anyway, I took Martin into the SAC’s office and the SAC offered him a seat on the taskforce.” He nodded at the door. “He’s in there with the rest of the chuckle club probably catching the DEA up with our investigation.” The door opened and we all turned to see a frowning Snow.

“Hang tight. We’re gonna be a while.” He nodded and closed the door again.

I turned to Noah. “He looked grim.”

Noah sighed. “Yeah.”

“I’m confused about something,” I said.

“What?”

“Well, I thought Lincoln Snow was the Special Agent in Charge for this office? What happened?” I asked.

“Well, that changed recently. Lincolnwasthe SAC. But with a young family and his wife, Sarah Connor, being the SAC for the ATF here in L.A., they decided that both having jobs with long hours and endless weekends, wasn’t working. They didn’t want their daughter, Chloe, being raised by a nanny, so Lincoln volunteered to be the one to step down. He’s the ASAC now which suits him well. He leaves the office at a decent hour and unless something out of the ordinary is going on, he has weekends off. Our new SAC is Donovan Bradley and he’s great. He allows Lincoln the flexible hours he needs with the family and he still leads our team. We’re happy but most importantly, he’s happy without all the stress.”

I smiled. “That’s great.”

Noah nodded. “Yeah, and Bradley is a fair man. He rarely loses his temper, so when he raised his voice at Lincoln this morning, I was a bit surprised. I think he didn’t like being surprised by the DEA and he took it out on Snow. Lincoln’s been briefing him with every twist and turn in the case, but as you both know, things have been moving fast. I’m pretty sure Bradley came into the office this morning, read Lincoln’s daily report on his email, got the call from the DEA, and flipped out. He came in and got updates from Judy and me, and called everyone else in. Don’t worry about Bradley.”

“I’ll reserve judgment then,” I said.

“Really,” Noah said. “We all get along with him. And even though Snow still runs our team, we like it, he likes it, and that’s the way it should be. When we have to go out of town, Max takes point so Lincoln can stay in the office unless Bradley insists he be there. So far, that’s a rare occurrence. Linc does very little field work these days, and it still works because of the way everyone on the team specializes. Having Dr. Reeves here has rounded out the team and we work very well together.”

“Good,” Miguel said.

I nodded in agreement and grimaced at Miguel. “I really feel stupid for overreacting. I’m sorry.”

Miguel smiled at me, leaning close and bumping my shoulder. “You love me. Thanks for being my bulldog.”

The door opened again, and a female agent came in carrying bags of food. She set them all down on the table, smiled, and left.

“I hope you like Chinese,” Noah said. “Judy said you would.”

“We made sure to order all your favorites,” Judy said, passing out chopsticks and napkins as Noah began opening containers.

“This is so not what I was expecting when we got here.” I handed Miguel a carton of sweet and sour eggplant and vegetables he adored.

“Thank you.” He grabbed some fried rice and filled his plate as I scooped some kung pao tofu onto steamed rice.

We ate happily for quite a while before anyone spoke again.

“So, you guys have really been through it, Raven,” Noah said.

I nodded, swallowing the food in my mouth before replying. “Yeah, it’s been a long six months.” I glanced at Miguel, who eyed me up as he bit into an eggroll. “But I wouldn’t change a thing except being shot at by a crazed guy who was mad that we broke into his house, being shot at by an ex-con, meeting a guy with a gun in a dark stairwell, being shot at by a cartel assassin, and watching Miguel getting kicked in the head. I could go on.”

“Please don’t,” Miguel grumped.

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