Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,74
out, but I want to keep it between us for at least today, until Max can connect Harrison Monroe to Denise Albright and give us a viable reason to talk to him. I went over all the files that Laura gave us and his name is nowhere.”
“He may not be connected to her at all.”
“They went to college together. All of them. Max doesn’t think any of them are innocent, that they were all involved in some sort of white collar scam.”
“She thinks they all knew about Victoria’s murder? About the slaughter of an entire family?”
“I don’t know. The way Max explained it—Victoria, and possibly the others, believed that Denise left the country. But when the bones were uncovered, they would figure out that she hadn’t—and then possibly go to the police with information that could lead to the killer. It’s a bit convoluted right now, to be honest, but I see what Max is getting at. And consider this: If you and your friends were involved in a scam and you were the only one with a family and children to protect, you were the weak link. The one most likely to turn state’s evidence or balk at doing something that crosses a moral line. I don’t know.”
“I think I follow.”
“If Stanley Grant wasn’t lying to Max, Victoria was working on something with Harrison Monroe. When she was murdered, who took over that job? Mitch Corta? But none of that connects to Denise Albright, not yet. Last night I went through her client list again and none of them are associated with MCG or Monroe or his business or his wife or her law firm. So until I get a thread that I can take to Rachel and have a damn good reason to insert myself in an SAPD investigation, I can’t pursue it.”
“Yeah, SAPD doesn’t like us right now.”
“Why?”
“After last year? When they were forced to clean house because of a couple corrupt cops? The FBI is the one that cleaned their clock.”
“I hadn’t really thought about that. Tia and I are still friends.”
“I have friends over there, too, but the atmosphere is definitely colder.” He paused. “I’m glad you filled Laura in on the situation, though. Now that she knows what we’re looking for, she’s better positioned to find it. Also, did you get my email last night?”
“Read it this morning. No security video of Denise Albright going into the bank the day she disappeared.”
“Just a screen shot from a video. And it could be anyone, the quality was awful. As is all the video and photo evidence that Kerr County sent to us three years ago.”
“The manager said he spoke to her.”
“Maybe,” Nate said. “The manager doesn’t have a record, but that’s all we know about him. I asked Zach to run him, everything we can get without a warrant.”
“Is that excessive before we even talk to him?” Lucy said.
“All we have is his word that Denise Albright went into the bank with a signed authorization from Kiefer to make her the sole signatory on the escrow account. He went on about how it was just to move the funds from the escrow account to the payroll account because Kiefer was leaving town, and because he knew her he didn’t think twice about it.”
“Yet it’s suspicious. Laura didn’t think it was three years ago.”
“She said it made sense at the time because they believed that Albright embezzled three million dollars and left the country. On the surface, that’s what she did—photos, evidence of packing, the whole nine yards. Which is also suspicious, because why? She had three kids, a husband, a good job—why would she take the money and leave? And if you listen to Max, it was because she didn’t want to turn in her best friend so she decided to commit a major felony and put her kids on the run for the rest of their lives?”
Nate had a good point.
Lucy thought about Stanley Grant embezzling the money from MCG. “The methodology is very similar to Stanley Grant embezzling money after Victoria Mills was killed. Sean and Max think that whoever threatened Grant embezzled the money—essentially hacked into the MCG accounts—to give Grant a viable motive to have killed her. What if Denise never stole the funds? What if someone else did and framed Denise so that the police would have a clear motive for her skipping town?”
“And she was killed for a completely different reason.”