Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,80

had looked for her countless times from the end of a mahogany bar, that plowed obliviously through skyway crowds while she submissively darted and dodged. The same face that had the audacity to judge her life choices last week even as he’d pushed her to take the Strike case. He’d known the exact depth of this snake hole, and he’d convinced her to enter it anyway. Everything she’d known about Corbett had changed, to the point where she might not recognize him even if he stood before her healthy and whole. Then she wondered—if he knew what she had done in the last few days—whether he would recognize her, either.

Deliberately, she tapped down the row of his exposed knuckles—the only part of him that still seemed flesh-colored—with the index finger of her free hand, whispering as she went. A chant, a nursery rhyme only he knew the ending to.

“From Magers Construction to the online account.”

“From the online account to Nassau.”

“From Nassau to Tortola.”

Light taps, skipping a stone over the water, twenty million stones crisscrossing a sea.

“From Tortola to …”

She hovered above the last knuckle, waiting. Even Logan hadn’t known the final destination of the stolen money, but her story in the woods had started in a familiar place.

She’d met Corbett when Nora had brought him to the trial “bring-a-friend-for-free” class. She’d picked on him that day, calling him Ben Affleck from the movie The Accountant and Nora had thought that was the end of it, but she didn’t know the two of them had spoken again after class. While Corbett was waiting for Nora in the lobby, he and Logan began chatting. Logan asked if he really set up tax shelters and protected his clients from evil corporate assassins. He’d laughed and handed her a business card, telling her to call him if she ever needed any accounting or bodyguard services.

To Corbett’s surprise, Logan did.

“She took me to some crap apartment in Northeast and showed me an email she’d found in her sent files.” Corbett’s voice barely carried over the noise of the machines. “She said she’d never written it. The other person on the email couldn’t confirm or deny anything because—”

“They were dead.”

Corbett nodded once, a small jerk of his bandaged head. “Then she showed me a deposit confirmation. Said her husband must have done it. He was the only one who had the access. He was framing her for embezzlement.”

“She alleged.” It was the second time Nora had heard this story in the last twenty-four hours. “Did she have proof?”

Corbett shook his head. “I told her to hire us outright and get a lawyer, that we could try to uncover how Gregg had framed her, but she refused. Said she wanted to beat him at his own game. She handed me a duffel bag full of cash. No strings. No records. I knew it was wrong, but Katie wants all these vacations and the kids have one bloody camp after another… so I took the money. I set up some bank accounts and called it done. I didn’t expect to ever see her again.”

“That’s why you were so quiet when Gregg Abbott accused his wife of stealing twenty million dollars,” Nora said. “Because you helped her steal it.”

The heart monitor blipped faster. Too fast. She made a shushing noise and circled his palm, calming the witness to extract his testimony.

“When we went to our last happy hour, you made sure I was the one who took this assignment. Why, Corbett? Did you think I wasn’t good enough to figure out what you did? Or did you assume I would be more willing to excuse you?”

“No. Ellie. That’s not …” His hand convulsed on hers and his eyes flew open, but they didn’t seem able to focus on anything. She shushed him again, made soothing sounds to bring his heart rate down. She couldn’t have the nurses coming back, not yet.

He swallowed again and the pain of even that simple action was audible. “I thought I could get her to return it. That she would listen to reason.”

“But she didn’t, so you moved the money again. It’s not in The Bahamas. It’s not in Tortola. You moved it to another account where no one could find it.”

“I told her we had to come clean and tell you everything. That I wouldn’t give her the account until she agreed.” He made a noise that sounded like a half laugh, half groan. “She landed the punch before I ever saw it