Page 37 of Six
“Jewels,” Nora added.
“Horses,” Cyn said, drawing his attention to her.
“Horses?” he asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “When you spend millions of dollars on a horse, you want to be sure it stays safe in transit.”
He stared at her. He was from England, the land of horses. But still… “People actually pay millions of dollars for horses?”
Cyn’s cheeks went a little pink, a look he’d never thought he’d see on her based on the file he’d read. “Um, yes,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You’vespent millions on a horse, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
He held her gaze.
She threw up her hands in a motion that reminded him of Violetta. “Fine, yes. I have. Ilovehorses.”
“And to be fair,” Nora said, joining the conversation, “you have a good eye for them.” Then turning to Gavin, she added, “She’s had several horses win some big-name races, including a Kentucky Derby winner, one who won the Epsom Derby in England, and two Breeders’ Cup champions.” While Cyn might be a little uneasy discussing her four-legged spending habits, Nora was clearly proud of her friend. As she well should be. He might not know the first thing about how much horses cost, but he knew statistics, and statistically, winning those kinds of races took a keen eye for horseflesh and some excellent training.
“Right. Okay,” he said, turning back to the task at hand. “So, Victor DePalma… If he’s still tight with his foster sister, then I doubt he’s also into blackmail. All the men involved work for—or, in Julian’s case, is married to—her.” Violetta made a sound in the back of her throat. “What?” he asked.
“I don’t know that I’d ditch your idea altogether,” she said. He gestured for her to continue. “He has gambling debts. A lot of them. The kinds of debts he wouldn’t want to go running to Mommy and Daddy to for help with their dirty money.”
“And how did you find this out?” he asked.
She brought up another picture. “This was on Jeremy’s phone.” Gavin looked at the screen and saw a picture of Victor talking to some man. “That’s Rodrigo DeSpaio,” she said. “He’s a loan shark. A high-end one, but a loan shark nonetheless. You know how in books, loan sharks always say they’d never kill people who owe them money because then they’d never get paid?”
Gavin nodded.
“Well, DeSpaio doesn’t subscribe to that,” Devil said. “He’s more of the ‘if I make a statement by killing people who don’t pay me, then people will pay me’ kind of guy.”
“How many kills?” Gavin asked.
“No one knows for certain, but there are seven cases the FBI is tracking,” Nora answered.
“Okay, so blackmail is still on the table for DePalma. I’ll check my email to see if the financials on Newcross and the Fogartys have come in,” he said, moving around to the other side of the desk.
“And I’ll look into DePalma’s financials,” Cyn said, pulling out a laptop from a bag that he hadn’t seen by the door to the office. “We came prepared,” Cyn said, holding the device up with a smile.
Franklin had told him that these four women were close, but it hadn’t been until the past few days that he understood what that meant. They might not be able to work together officially, but they were tied at the hip in every other respect. He had a few army buddies like that—men and women he’d move mountains for and vice versa. Even so, he suspected it was still a different bond than what these women had. They’d grown up together, gone to school together, lived within ten minutes of one another, and of course, they shared one hell of a secret.
He didn’t know the specifics of each of their careers, nor would he ever know, but he liked their unfailing support of one another. He’d even wager that on some days, the bad ones, their friendships were the only thing that got them through to the next day.
He smiled at Cyn and took a seat behind his own computer. A few minutes later, Devil and Nora were side by side on the couch, their feet up on the coffee table and their laptops open on their laps. He didn’t know what they were working on, but they had their heads together and were talking softly.
After logging into the secure server and opening his email, he was relieved to see the message at the top of his inbox. “I have the financials of Julian Newcross as well as Kaden and Austin Fogarty,” he said.
“You take Julian and send Kaden and Austin’s to us,” Devil said. “We’re just going over the videos to see if we can pick up anything new, but we can do that later.”
She rattled off their addresses, and he attached the reports to an email and hit Send before digging into the state of Julian Newcross’s affairs. Not surprisingly, Julian and Julia had a complex set of financials. There were numerous joint accounts, but Julian had a few just in his name, too. Gavin scanned, then dismissed the joint accounts. The transactions looked normal for the kind of lives the couple led. He also thought that while Julian’s moral compass might be lacking, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to pay any blackmail—if there was any blackmail—from an account he shared with his wife.
Closing those files out, he focused on the four bank accounts in Julian’s name and the six accounts he had with a money manager based out of New York. Gavin had gone through the bank accounts and was about to open the second of the managed accounts when Violetta started, her chair jumping back on its wheels. Everyone in the room looked at her.
“What did you find?” Gavin asked, rising and circling the desk to stand behind her.
“That,” Violetta said, pointing to a series of lines on a phone log. Cyn, Devil, and Nora joined them.
