fraud division of the FBI and the US Securities and Exchange Commission to uncover inconsistencies in the environmental cleanup of the various hazards created by Stanton-Downey, in exchange for private funding.”
“I’m sorry?” Brig asked Dallas.
He glanced at me before looking back at Brig. “I can’t say that again,” he replied dryly.
“No, I understood what you said, Agent Bauer,” Brig answered tightly, his tone brittle. “I just don’t understand the specifics. That’s the part I need clarification on.”
“The cleanup of the messes that Stanton-Downey created in the mid-nineties and early two thousands was facilitated by companies that are owned by your father’s friends,” he explained, brows furrowing as he looked at Brig. “So he not only made money when he cut the corners that created the environmental disasters in the first place, but then he himself took a kickback on the money the company paid his buddies to clean it up. He profited again for awarding them the contracts.”
“All without anyone at the company knowing, I assume,” I said, not even trying to hide the disgust in my voice.
“There are some who knew, but they were also skimming from the company coffers. Your father’s an evil genius,” he told Brig. “Or thought he was.”
“Oh no,” Brig groaned.
“Oh yes,” Dallas countered, reaching for his backpack, unzipping the front pocket and pulling out an iPad. He hit the home button, and up popped pictures. Using the kickstand on the case, he propped it up so we all could see. “As you see, this is Lane,” Dallas narrated in a dour voice that told me he was not happy. “And this is a very alive and well Eston Travers,” he continued, as we all looked at a series of photos of her running into his arms and hugging him tight. “And this,” he said, pointing at an adorable little girl with short, curly brown hair, “is their daughter, Annie.”
It took a moment for that to sink in.
“No,” Brig gasped, leaning forward, looking at the cute little family.
Dallas sat back in his chair and put a hand on my thigh under the table. It was casual, he didn’t grab or grope me, just rested his hand there to see, I was certain, what I would do. What I would allow.
I put my arm around the back of his chair and moved closer, pressing my thigh to his, letting him know that he could put that hand of his wherever he wanted.
“So,” Dallas said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper before it found purchase and got louder, firmer, “it turns out that Eston and Lane were working together, her from the outside, him from the inside, to bring Stanton-Downey down, all under the supervision of the SEC and the FBI. Where things went sideways was when the DEA, seeing Lane in Mexico, put her into play before she could reach out to her FBI handler.”
“Why wouldn’t Lane just tell the DEA she was working with the FBI?”
“Apparently she tried, but wires got crossed—as they do—and she was snatched by Suárez and his guys before everything got sorted out.”
“Which means what?”
Dallas leaned forward, leveling his gaze on Brig. “Your sister is with Suárez in his compound in Sonora.”
Brig dropped, like a brick, down into his chair. “And she’s being held to leverage me to move his drugs.”
“Yes.”
“And what about Lane embezzling the company’s money?”
Dallas shook his head. “Lane funneled that directly to an account set up by the FBI. It’s all safe and sitting there, ready to be returned. It’s why her friends found themselves cooking meth for Suárez; they didn’t have another option to make money out there in the Sonoran wilderness. She was never funding their life there.”
“I thought you said Suárez forced them to cook meth.”
“He forced them to triple their output once he got wind of it, but they originally started as a means to make quick cash so they could live. Now he’s got them under his bootheel and is coercing them to produce both cocaine and meth.”
“So Lane was there to deliver supplies to her friends, and they showed her the coke, which is why she was in those photos.”
“Exactly. And because she was already on the inside, in the know, and because she makes sense as an asset for Suárez, the DEA fed her to him.”
“She fell into this mess because she was being a good Samaritan and trying to expose the company’s ongoing activities.”
“Yeah,” Dallas agreed. “Lane has been working to out Stanton-Downey, and in the middle