Page 88 of All Wrong
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CORINNE
It was amazing what some rest and quality pain meds could do. Between those, IV fluids, and hot showers, she felt almost human again. She would never again take water or soap for granted.
After a couple of nights in the hospital and a series of X-rays, MRIs, and ortho consults, she was more than ready to go home. The problem was, there seemed to be disagreement on what that meant.
Lacie wanted her to come stay with her and Shane, of course, but that was a no-go. Their house was already packed, with their parents having flownup from Florida when they found out Corinne had been taken. And while she didn’t particularly like the idea of being alone just yet, she didn’t think she’d be able to handle that level of fussing.
Others had offered her a place to stay as well. Jake and his wife said she was welcome at the pub. Maggie and Michael said they had plenty of room at their place, as did Ian and Lexi, and Kieran and Faith.
The best solution had come from her brother, Brian, and his wife, Tori. Their hippotherapy ranch was less than an hour away. Close enough to visit, but far enough away to limit interaction with well-meaning but smothering female relatives. Lacie and their mother were a lot alike in that respect, but Brian and Tori, they understood personal space.
Many of the details of what had occurred were being kept quiet. When she’d woken up, lucid and comfortable, Nicki and Sean had sat down and had a long talk with her about what had happened, what was happening, and the potential consequences of going public.
Going public was not something Corinne was interested in. As far as anyone outside the family knew, Corinne had gone on a camping getaway and had an accident. She was perfectly fine with that.And when Nicki and Sean told her they were handling things, she believed them. She’d seen and heard enough over the years to know that she didn’t know—or want to know—the details.
The one thing she had asked about was Nick and how he was doing. Nicki’s eyes shuttered, and she muttered something about him being in denial and then changed the subject. Corinne hadn’t asked again.
She’d hoped he’d stop by. He was the one person she wanted to talk to more than anyone. She had questions. But when it was time for her to be discharged and he hadn’t visited or attempted to contact her even once, she figured she had her answers.
“Ready to get out of this place?” Tori asked, popping her head into the room.
“So ready, but I haven’t officially been discharged yet.”
“Michael’s taking care of it. You’re good to go. Brian’s pulling the car around to the private entrance so we can make a clean getaway.”
“Sometimes, I feel like I’m in the midst of a Jack Reacher storyline.”
Tori laughed. “Honey, you don’t know the half of it. But something tells me, you will.”
A lotof things happened in the next two weeks. Corinne was aware of them through daily visits and phone calls from Nicki, but she wasn’t directly involved, and she was fine with that.
Whatever Corinne had uploaded into the bank’s system that day had far-reaching effects. Ian, along with one of Nicki’s friends, had been able to use that information to follow the money, so to speak, and uncover a vast network of illegal activity, including, but not limited to, drug trafficking and money laundering.
The operation was vast, covering a huge part of the US and extending into Canada and Mexico. It was run like a corporation, with regional offices located near major cities and ports. From what they’d been able to discover, Henderson, the real estate developer who’d been buying up property in and around Pine Ridge, was a major player in the Mid-Atlantic region, which covered Philadelphia and New York City, both easily accessible from Pine Ridge. His real estate company was one of many legitimate businesses used for illegitimate purposes.
Henderson didn’t touch the drugs himself; he had a whole staff of underlings to handle the day-to-day operations, including recruiting high schoolers for distribution.
His goddaughter, Becci—who wasn’t really his goddaughter and wasn’t the vapid airhead she pretended to be—was put in place to fiddle with accounts and effectively oversee a portion of the money laundering part of the business. Mr. Gehman hadn’t been in on it, thank goodness, but Corinne was still disappointed that he’d been so easily manipulated.
The whole thing had been planned out well in advance. Apparently, it was part of a recurring MO, not only in Pine Ridge, but also in smaller communities across the US. Any discrepancies caught via audits would be chalked up to incompetence and nepotism as opposed to outright swindling. By the time anyone figured it out, the damage had been done, and those involved had moved on, assuming other identities in other towns.
Thatwas why Corinne’s access had been revoked. By going in and fixing Becci’s mistakes, she had disrupted their plan.
They didn’t know about the parasite virus she’d uploaded—at least not right away. Nicki’s friend theorized that someone within one of the financial watchdog agencies was on the take. Once theyrealized the transactions were getting flagged and tagged, they tipped off the organization.
Somehow, they’d traced it back to Corinne, probably through the timing and careful scrutiny of security cameras, and that was how she’d ended up with uninvited guests in her house and the subsequent trip to the Adirondacks.
Just thinking about how close they’d come to achieving their objective gave Corinne a case of the shudders. If she hadn’t been found in time …
Which begged the question, how had the brothers known she was in trouble?
According to Nicki, that had been all Nick’s doing. He was the one who had been convinced something was wrong, and he was the one who had demanded a check of her credit activity and a bead on her exact location.
And yet, after going to all that trouble to find and rescue her, she hadn’t heard a word from him. No calls, no texts, no visits.
The one thing she hadn’t been able to figure out was how Brett Buckman fit into any of it. Nicki explained that too. She said that Nick hadn’t liked the guy from the get-go and believed there was more to Brett than what was showing up on his background checks. For a while, Nick suspected thatBrett had something to do with the rash of new drugs being distributed.
