Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,61

to the first shell corp. On the morning of Monday the twenty fourth—after we believe they were already dead—the money was transferred again. And then again and again until the twenty-eighth. Each layer making it more difficult to track.”

“Yes,” Laura said, but she didn’t see what Lucy was trying to show.

“She had a partner. Someone who she worked with on this, or who forced her to do it.”

“Forced her how?”

“Threatened her family. Her kids. Maybe she had committed a crime and didn’t want to go to jail. Or maybe she uncovered a crime by one of her other clients and wanted the money to disappear—but they got to her first. I don’t know. That’s why we want all the client information. If she was privy to a crime, maybe she was being blackmailed and used the money to pay a blackmailer.”

Nate said, “She was probably dead the minute she transferred the money at four forty-five.”

“Her and her entire family?” Laura said. “That seems— Well, tragic just doesn’t cut it.”

“Maybe the kids walked in when they weren’t supposed to. Maybe they saw something. Maybe the killers thought Denise shared the information with her husband. This is a lot of conjecture right now,” Lucy said.

“I think I know what you’re getting at. I can follow up personally with all her clients, they already know me.”

“Tread carefully there,” Nate said. “We may be heading into the territory of organized crime. Don’t interview anyone solo.”

“I’ll run these names and businesses by Daphne first,” Laura said. “You know when something’s wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it? We have her client records, but it’s clear she shredded documents before she left. We weren’t able to put them back together—it’s a state-of-the-art shredder that crosscuts and then injects ink into shreds. So I was thinking she was working for one or more clients that she didn’t want us to find. And in light of the fact that they were murdered, maybe she was scared of one of them. She kept great business records—for her taxes. But we couldn’t find anything in her taxes to point to illegal activity.”

“If I were scared of a client I was doing business with, I’d take something to protect me,” Lucy said. “Like if she was an accountant for the mob—keep a set of books that you could use against them.”

“I’ll see if there’s anything in any of these companies that is a red flag. There wasn’t at first blush, but we were looking at them as possible victims. It could be that she worked for someone under the table, and that’s going to be harder to uncover after three years. I have her calendars, and there are some holes, but that may not mean anything.”

“I didn’t see the calendars,” Nate said.

Laura sorted through the file, and they were at the bottom. “A printout from her computer.”

“May I?”

Laura handed it to Nate, and while they reviewed the calendars Lucy looked again at the photos from the Albright house. They were all printed, but each referenced a digital file they were attached to. They’d been taken by the sheriff’s department, but they’d sent the FBI hard copies, which made it easier to go through.

The Albright house had been bright and homey, even after a thorough search by the police. A large family room with multiple places to sit to watch a large-screen television. Lots of books and videos for kids of all ages packed into a bookshelf. The dining room looked unused, but the kitchen had a big, scuffed table in the nook and kids’ artwork had been framed for the wall.

Along the staircase were school pictures of the kids and candid photos of the family, framed seemingly haphazardly, but together they were charming. Lucy found herself saddened at the loss of life. A family destroyed because of horrific violence.

Looking at the kids’ bedrooms was almost too much. Lucy could generally suppress her emotions—partly because of her personality and partly from her training. She wanted to believe with all her heart that Ricky Albright was alive and well … but realistically, he’d probably been murdered as well. Buried far from the others. And the call to his grandparents wasn’t him but a cruel prankster.

Yet there was a sliver of hope.

She picked up the three photos of Ricky’s room—obvious because it was all boy. Baseball pictures—his team was the Astros—a signed ball under a glass dome, though she couldn’t make out who had signed it. The room was messy—clothes tossed randomly