Page 45 of Reckless Love

Chapter 16

“Agent Dixon. Agent Capp. Thank you for seeing me.” I took a cold and flimsy-looking seat across a small conference table from them.

“Of course. Quite frankly, we were surprised.” Dixon said as he smoothed his ugly black tie. If I could imagine a world where Ididn’t hate his guts I’d find him mildly attractive.

But I didn’t live in that world.

“Yes well, everyone has their limits. I’ve reached mine. As I’m sure you’re aware I’m quite happy with my life these days. There’s only one black spot. You.”

Capp shrugged his wide shoulders. “We have a job to do. Until we can clear you of suspicion I’m afraid things are the way they are.”

I leaned across the table with a folder. I kept my finger on it. “And what leads you to believe I’m a suspect? Or that my father might be? You know...I’m not entirely sure I know what you even suspect us of.”

“Well, we can start at the beginning. It’s a mighty huge coincidence that allegations of game fixing have specifically come out of the two teams Edmund Brown owned.”

“I was in college when my father was part owner of the Nashville franchise. As I’m sure you’re also quite aware, I was busy causing a scandal and pissing Edmund off.”

Dixon blushed and looked away.

So they did know.

“And as I’m sure you aware, I have nothing to do with my father. I’m an accomplished anthropologist with a busy research program. I don’t have time to worryabout football.” I shoved the first of the folders across the table. “That is my financials for the last five years. The lab is self-sustaining with legal money and donations. Grants. And now a legitimate product. My income from both my teaching and the lab are detailed. I have no financial stake in football or Brown Global Corporations.”

“Emotional then?” Capp asked

“What?”

“You said you have nofinancialstake in football. Maybe that means it was never about the money for you.”

“My onlyemotionalstake in football or any other sport comes in the form of loving my boyfriend and his career. That’s it.”

“And your father?” Dixon asked as he flipped through the folder. He glanced up. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Nothing. I’ve never reallyhad a relationship with him until he discovered I was good at financial futures. I got away from him as soon as I could.”

“Yet you attend his parties. We’ve seen you with your brother.”

I sighed. I expected them to remain skeptical but really? “I won’t be attending any more. William and I are trying to build a new relationship as adults.”

That part was true. We left our impromptumeeting with a plan to continue to get to know each other. I was excited. Marie didn’t particularly care for that part, but she was only there to help Leo hash out the logistics on how they were going to move forward with their clients.

I didn’t envy them the task ahead. Since they couldn’t do anything about Jonathan Eubank or his gambling, they decided to begin approaching their clientsone at a time. The newer athletes would be first, followed by the ones least likely to be involved. Kind of like a quarantine of Bancroft Sports athletes. Once they had them covered they’d move on to the athletes that were mostly likely involved.

Many would never admit to being part of this. They were too invested. But they could save a few.

Dixon nodded to the other folder I stillheld under my finger. “What’s that?”

“A hypothesis.”

Both men’s eyebrows rose. “A hypothesis?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “You told Leo that you thought I was more than capable of cracking computer passwords. You’d be correct. I crack most codes. I can trace cultural lineages back millions of years in my head. I can also draw threads of information together that might elude others.”

Yes, I was taking credit for everyone’s hard work but I didn’t have time or the desire to explain how we figured this out. “I’m tired of being a suspect when I’ve done nothing but teach classes and crack a time code for human migration. I took a look at the Nashville allegations and timeline, then cross referenced it with information I’ve found about current issues in the football league.”

“Information you’ve ‘found’?” Capp quipped.

Dixon leaned closer. “I believe that’s code for ‘my boyfriend and his company.’”

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