Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,56
His back thudded against the plaster, sending a surge of triumph through her entire body. It was almost like being Logan.
The thought stopped her cold. “I can’t. I need to …”
She was standing in Logan’s old apartment, inhabiting the space of the woman she’d been mesmerized by for months. Before she could process anything beyond that, Logan’s husband stepped in and kissed her.
He drew her up, hard and tight, inviting her to bruise him in every way possible, and for one mindless moment she did. She let herself go, slipping further into the fantasy. She breathed him in with Logan’s nose, bit him with Logan’s teeth, but when he said her name—“Nora”—the illusion ended. She broke away.
“No. It’s not me.”
Breathing heavily, Gregg ran a hand over his mouth and stepped back, leaning against the wall.
Nora went to the table and put her laptop away. She picked up the stack of deposit slips, straightening them until the edges cut into her hands.
“Do you have any evidence that Logan and Aaden had an inappropriate relationship? Or that she might have had undue influence over him?”
“Other than his suicide note?” Gregg’s voice was uneven.
Nora turned. Halfway between them was the strange circle in the carpet, bleached and blotchy, the place where a crazed fan had intruded on their lives. How many people had thrown themselves at Logan’s feet over the years, all of them delusional, yearning for some imagined connection? How close was Nora coming to that circle?
Swallowing, she said she’d be in touch with her progress, and left Gregg alone in the musty dark.
* * *
Nora walked back downtown as fast as she could, crossing the bustling Stone Arch Bridge with the case-clinching evidence of a nineteen-million-dollar fraud tucked neatly in her briefcase. She should have been skipping, fist-pumping, and texting the entire team with the good news. Instead, she wanted to vomit.
She’d just hit a client and then kissed him while imagining herself as another client. Her personal and professional lives, which she’d kept rigidly separate since the day Sam White put a bullet in his head, were careening into each other with breathless velocity. She never should have taken this investigation. Her independence, her entire career, felt on the verge of exploding.
When she reached the south bank where the flour mill graves rusted in the shadow of the bridge, she reached into her briefcase and pulled out the email Inga flagged last night, the key document that unearthed the crime. She had to focus. If she could forget everything that just happened—ignore it, bury it—maybe she could still make it through this case. There were only two days left in the tournament. Win or lose, by the end of the week it would be over.
Nora read the email again, concentrating her entire being on its content.
From: Accounts Payable, Magers Construction
To: Logan Russo
Subject: RE: RE: RE: New Instructions
Dear Ms. Russo,
Great!! We’ll make this change right away!
Regards,
Maggie Smythe
AP Supervisor
Magers Construction
“Make it a great day!”
* * *
From: Logan Russo
To: Accounts Payable, Magers Construction
Subject: RE: RE: New Instructions
Hi Maggie,
Yes, thank you for confirming. The new bank info is correct for reimbursements only. All contracts and administrative communication should continue to be routed to the 3rd Avenue address and your regular contacts.
Logan Russo
Strike
* * *
From: Accounts Payable, Magers Construction
To: Logan Russo
Subject: RE: New Instructions
Dear Ms. Russo,
We received the below email requesting a change in your remit to information. Please confirm these instructions so we can make the change to your customer profile.
Regards,
Maggie Smythe
AP Supervisor
Magers Construction
“Make it a great day!”
* * *
From: Aaden Maxamed Warsame
To: Accounts Payable, Magers Construction
Cc: Logan Russo
Subject: New Instructions
To Whom It May Concern,
Please note the new electronic transfer instructions for all future payments and refunds to be processed to Strike.
Strike Inc.
315 University Avenue SE
Box 0010
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Bank Account 058088438
Routing Number 091900533
These instructions can be confirmed with Logan Russo, General Partner of Strike Inc., copied here.
Best Regards,
Aaden Warsame
Strike
Less than a hundred words total.
A hundred words to net almost twenty million dollars.
Logan’s confirming reply was what had triggered Inga last night, but it wasn’t signs of stress or pressure that the computer had detected in the content of Logan’s email. It was the opposite. After processing hundreds of Logan’s blog posts and direct messages to trainers, Inga had learned the kickboxer’s curse-laden, abrupt, declarative sense of normal. Logan’s typical communication was exactly what Inga would flag as high-risk material in any other investigation, but not here. In this upside-down world, Inga had found the one email that sounded as cool and professional as Nora