Sweet Talk (Buchanan-Renard #10)

Sweet Talk (Buchanan-Renard #10) Page 32

“Okay, what’s the question?” he asked.

She surprised him. She straddled his h*ps and put her hands on his shoulders. Sighing, she said, “I was going to ask if you wanted to go back to bed. You know, for sex.” She leaned forward and ran the tip of her tongue across his lower lip, then she shrugged her shoulders and looked at him with sad, innocent eyes. “But you wouldn’t let me ask any questions . . . and now it’s too late.”

He was laughing as she got up and headed to the kitchen to get them something to drink. A knock on the door changed her direction.

“Ronan’s here,” she announced as she swung the door open. Please don’t let it be more bad news, she prayed.

“It’s bad news, isn’t it?” she asked before Ronan could step inside. “It’s Sunday, and you’re here, so it’s bad news.” So much for taking a stab at optimism.

Ronan smiled at her. “No, it isn’t bad news.”

“Oh, okay then.”

“We’re going to New York,” Ronan told Grayson, who was already heading to the closet to get his coat.

“Why?” Olivia asked.

Ronan answered. “We want to see what’s in that wall.”

“They’re going to let you?” she asked.

He gave her the look, just like Grayson did, the how-could-you-ask-such-a-dumb-question look.

She found his arrogance amusing. “Of course, you’re going in. Why haven’t they opened the wall?”

“They’re waiting for McGraw, so no one’s been inside the apartment yet.”

“What about my father?”

“They’ve been holding him, and he’s not too happy about it. He was picked up when he landed in New York. He can’t be held much longer. We have to get moving or we’ll miss our flight.”

Grayson followed Ronan to the door. He stopped, pulled Olivia into his arms, and kissed her passionately. “I’ll call,” he promised. “Don’t go anywhere without—”

“Calling one of the bodyguards,” she recited as though she’d memorized the rule.

“Call Carpenter,” he suggested. “His wife’s pregnant. He can use the extra money.”

And he was gone.

TWENTY-FIVE

Robert MacKenzie’s apartment reeked of wealth. Original artwork hung on every wall, rare antiques blended in with the elegant furnishings, and beautiful rugs covered the gleaming hardwood floors. Grayson walked by a table with a vase he knew cost more than ten thousand dollars. He wondered whose pension paid for that.

A locksmith was working on the door to the study. One of the agents told Grayson he’d been at it for twenty minutes.

The locksmith heard him. “I haven’t seen a lock like this before. It’s tricky.”

Grayson motioned to Ronan. “You want to get this?”

Ronan stepped forward. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

The locksmith moved out of the way. “I’m telling you, it’s tricky.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ronan said as he reached for the tool the man was holding. He squatted down eye level to the lock and after a couple of maneuvers, turned the door handle, and the door opened wide.

The locksmith’s mouth dropped open. “How did you do that?”

How? Ronan had grown up in the inner-city and had learned all sorts of tricks, most of them illegal. That’s how. But he wasn’t going to talk about his past with a stranger or boast that he could pretty much open any lock by the age of ten. Instead, he said, “Just lucky.”

Agents rushed into the study with cameras. While everything was being documented and recorded, Grayson and Ronan turned their attention to the walls. They examined each one carefully and finally agreed on the one that would move. It took them a while to figure out how it worked, but once they pinpointed the correct spot and gave it a firm push, a section of the wall, about four feet wide, swung open, revealing a small room. File cabinets lined one wall, and a stack of file folders sat on an immaculate desk in the center.

Grayson and Ronan were the first to have a look. They sifted through some of the files and called in a couple of investigators who, after several hours of inspection, verified what the two agents had concluded: Robert MacKenzie was running one of the most elaborate Ponzi schemes they had ever seen.

It was all there. His meticulous record keeping was impressive. There were statements for every investor and every deposit. Transaction records showed that he made purchases of stocks, bonds, and other funds, but when these were cross-referenced with the statements the investors got, it was apparent that he had bought only a fraction of the amount he had reported to them. Buying ten shares of a stock and then showing a hundred shares on the investor’s statement, he was able to pocket the difference, and the investor never knew. The number of transactions he showed in one month alone was mind-boggling, making it almost impossible for his clients to keep up. The inspectors surmised that some of the companies and funds that appeared didn’t actually exist. There were lists of handwritten names crossed off in a ledger book, and these names appeared on statements as a buy, and the very next month they were listed as a sell. If an investor were to ask about any particular security, it would already have disappeared. Like a Ping-Pong ball, MacKenzie had bounced from one to the other, never landing for long in one place.

Investors were sent reports that showed how much money they were making, and even with those, MacKenzie was clever. One month the profit would be slight; the next it would be bigger. He even showed a couple of minor downturns, just to make it realistic.

There were records that indicated some investors had cashed in and taken profits, but these were few and far between. With his charisma and powers of persuasion, Robert MacKenzie had most likely convinced his clients to wait for a bigger payout. How long he could have held on to his deception was the question. The only way he could keep going was to take in more than he returned . . . or spent on his lavish lifestyle.

Without a doubt, it was the most convoluted scam Grayson had ever seen. It was also brilliant. No wonder Olivia was having such trouble finding proof. It was a maze of lies.

A particularly thick file caught Grayson’s attention. It had Eric Jorguson’s name on it.

He picked it up and thumbed through the papers. Some of the pages showed names of other people whose investments appeared to be linked with Jorguson’s. One was Gretta Keene. It didn’t take much scrutiny to discover that funds were being moved from one to the other through the account. Grayson could tell that it would take some time to unravel all these figures, but he knew Huntsman was going to be ecstatic when he got his hands on this information.

Jeff Wilcox’s file was there, as well. Inside were several signed documents.

Grayson looked through them and held up a couple of pages, comparing them to two pages he had laid on the desk. He called to Ronan. “Look at this.”

“What have you found?” Ronan asked.

“Contradictory documents,” Grayson said. “And they all have Jeff Wilcox’s signature on them.”

“Why would MacKenzie keep them?” he asked. “These alone will put him away for years.”

“For his signature,” Grayson answered. He pulled out a sheet with Jeff Wilcox’s name signed at least a dozen times. “When MacKenzie forged his name, he wanted it to look authentic.”

“What about the money from the charity Wilcox gave him?”

Grayson gathered the papers and slipped them back in the file. “Looks as though Wilcox gave it to him in good faith, and MacKenzie lost a good deal of it in a risky scheme and kept the rest for himself.”

“What a guy,” Ronan said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, a real peach,” Grayson agreed.

“I’ll bet Olivia will be happy, knowing that her suspicions were true. She was right all along.”

Grayson thought for a second. “I don’t think she’ll be celebrating.”

“Why? She’s been vindicated. Her father won’t be able to scam innocent people anymore.”

“That’s true,” Grayson said. “But now all those people who trusted in Robert MacKenzie, the innocent clients who gave him their life savings, are going to find out the truth: They’ve lost it all.”

TWENTY-SIX

Monday was a nightmare. The sins of Olivia’s father were being broadcast all over the news channels and the Internet. It was the story of the day. Investors were in shock and disbelief. They awakened to find that they had been duped and that all of their money was gone. Those who had lost their life savings felt helpless. They had no one to turn to, nowhere to go to get their hard-earned money back. Such deceit was simply inconceivable.

Once the initial shock wore off, they were out for blood, and who could blame them? They couldn’t get to Robert MacKenzie—he was safe behind bars with guards protecting him—and so they took their anger out on the other members of his family. Olivia had anticipated what was coming once the news broke, and she knew it would be bad. She still wasn’t prepared.

Officer Carpenter drove her to work, but instead of leaving and returning for her at the end of the day, he stayed. He pulled up a chair and sat right outside her office door—Grayson’s instructions, no doubt.

Working at her desk, she received a multitude of hateful phone calls. She listened to the comments of the first few callers, and from then on, she simply hung up as soon as the irate words began to fly. If she took the time to respond to each one, she’d never get anything done. Mr. Thurman stopped by a couple of times to check on her.

“Are you worried about me?” she asked.

“Just a little,” he admitted. “There are some terribly angry people out there calling and threatening you.”

“Sir, I work for the IRS. I’m used to it.”

He smiled over her joke and said, “All right, I’ll let you get back to work, but I insist you take half the day. Go home at noon, and if you must, work from there.”

Olivia didn’t argue. She intended to leave at noon as Mr. Thurman had ordered, but it took her longer than expected to finish working on one particularly challenging file. It was after two when Officer Carpenter dropped her at her apartment door.

Safe and sound, she thought and sighed with relief. She actually believed that, once she was inside her apartment, she would have a little peace and quiet.

There were forty-eight extremely hostile messages waiting for her on her home phone and half that many on her cell phone. Both numbers were unlisted and Olivia was surprised that so many people had been able to get hold of them. She wanted to hit the delete button, but she made herself listen to each and every message. By the time the last one played, she felt completely drained.

She was just about to change out of her black wool skirt and silk blouse when another call came in. The second she heard the voice she picked up.

“Olivia, it’s me, Henry Kincaid. Can you come to school?” The little boy’s voice trembled.

“Of course I’ll come to your school.”

“Now? Can you come to Pinebrook now? ’Cause I need a lawyer and you’re my lawyer, right?”

“Yes, now,” she promised, hoping her quick agreement would calm him. “Henry, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“We have to go to the principal’s office ’cause I got into trouble,” he whispered. “It’s because of soccer. Bobby told me not to try out or I’d be sorry, but I told him I was going to try out anyway. Ralph is going to try out, too.”

Olivia checked the time. Two thirty. “Where are you? Shouldn’t you be in the classroom?”

“I’m in the nurse’s office. Miss Cavit wants to talk to you. Okay? And after we talk to the principal, will you take me home?”

“Henry, I’m not authorized to take you out of the school—”

“But I—”

“I’ll sit with you until your grandfather or Patrick gets there.”

“You won’t leave me alone?”

“No, I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

The nurse came on the line a second later. She introduced herself and said, “Henry had a little accident. He tripped into a locker and struck his forehead, his nose, and his eye. The nosebleed has stopped, but I’ll keep him here until school dismisses at three fifteen. He’s resting on a cot,” she explained. “The poor lamb’s got a bump on his forehead. I’ve got an ice pack on it now.”

“Have you notified his family?”

“I left a message for Grayson Kincaid. Henry told me his uncle is in New York on business. I also left a message for Henry’s grandfather, and I just spoke to Patrick, Henry’s housekeeper. He was at the dentist and couldn’t leave yet. He’ll be here at the regular dismissal time, but Henry seems insistent that you come, too.”

“May I speak to Henry again?”

“Olivia,” Henry whispered, “Miss Cavit says you should come when school is over.”

“Henry, let her think that’s what I’ll do, but I’m really leaving now and should get there in fifteen minutes or less. All right?”

She could hear the anxiety leave his voice. “Okay.”

Olivia was out the door minutes later. She said a prayer there wouldn’t be any angry people in the garage waiting for her, and blessedly there weren’t. Once she was in her car with the key in the ignition, she used her iPhone to get directions to Pinebrook School. It was a cold, rainy day, which worked to her advantage. Few reporters liked waiting outside in the raw elements. There were several cars parked along the street with their motors running. She spotted them before she turned in their direction and quickly drove the other way, even going so far as to drive down an alley on the off chance she was being followed.

She thought about calling Grayson to let him know she was going to the school, then decided to wait until she had the full story from Henry.

The private school was all redbrick and ivy vines. Very Georgetown, she thought to herself. She pulled into one of the visitor’s slots and went up the stone steps.

A security guard opened the door for her. He was a man in his late sixties and wore a brown uniform. He had a sincere smile and a wealth of information to impart. “You’re here for the Kincaid boy?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” she answered. “My name is Olivia MacKenzie.”

She put her hand out, and he quickly shook it and introduced himself. His name was Arthur. He motioned to a corner, and she followed. “I didn’t see it myself, but I have no doubt what happened,” he stated with a nod. “That Deckman boy is a bully, and he’s been after Henry and his friend Ralph because they’re younger and smaller. I used to be just like those little boys. I was small for my age, and I got picked on. I know what it feels like. I wish Principal Higgins would take a firmer hand.”