forward, hand outstretched. He and Noah did a manly handshake-chest-bump thing. “Thanks for coming, man,” Mack said.
He did a quick round of introductions for Noah’s sake, listing each man’s name and what special skill he apparently brought to the table. The Russian was last.
“He’s here for muscle,” Mack said.
The Russian pounded his fist. “I beat him up.”
Liv waved her hands. “Nope. No beating anyone up.”
The Russian stuck out his lower lip. Rosie rushed over with the cookies to soothe him.
“Don’t feed him any cheese,” Mack said quickly.
Liv looked over. “Like, after midnight, or . . . ?”
“Just whenever.”
Rosie shrugged and moved on to Malcolm. “Can you eat cheese?”
“Yeah, pretty much everyone else here can eat cheese,” Mack answered.
Noah finally greeted Liv. She shook his hand and narrowed her eyes. “Do you kill people?”
He tilted his head. “Not intentionally.”
Mack clapped his hands. “Let’s get started.”
Everyone who didn’t yet have a place to sit jostled for room on one of the two couches. The Russian had already claimed Hop’s recliner, which was going to be a problem if Hop decided to join them. Malcolm ended up sitting on the floor, which was going to be a problem if one of the hens decided to join them.
“Gavin and Del have a home game today, so we’ll have to fill them in later on what we decide.”
“What do you want us to do?” Derek asked, reaching for another cookie. “These are fucking awesome.”
Rosie beamed. Hop strode in then, noticed Rosie smiling at another man, and scowled. Then he noticed the Russian in his chair, and his expression turned murderous. He jerked his thumb in a get the fuck out fashion. The Russian quickly joined Malcolm on the floor.
“You’re late,” Rosie scolded Hop. She gave him a cookie anyway.
“One of the most important things we need to do is find out how many women Royce has done this to,” Liv said. “And we need to figure out how to expose him.”
“Why not just go to the media and tell them what you saw?” Derek asked.
“That would violate my NDA, and I don’t want to give him that ammunition to shut us down,” Liv said. “Besides, reporters need to do their own research, and that could take a long time. I want to go bigger.”
Mack glanced down at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Bigger?”
“I want to confront him with it at his big cookbook launch party.”
“That’s just three weeks away,” Mack said.
“I know.”
“That’s impossible,” he grumbled.
“Why don’t we just kidnap him and make him talk?” Everyone looked at the Russian as soon as he said it. He shrugged. “Happens all the time in Russia.”
Liv shook her head. “No. No kidnapping. Nothing violent.”
“But maybe we could try to get him on tape admitting it,” Derek offered.
Liv looked at Mack. “That could work,” she said.
“But how?”
“What about at the Chamber of Commerce gala?” Derek said. “He’ll be there. Maybe someone could record him on their phone or something.”
“He’s not going to just admit at a chamber fundraiser that he’s been harassing women,” Mack said.
“Maybe he’d admit it to someone who already knows,” Liv said. “Like me.”
It was strange how Mack’s face could go from totally neutral to completely stony in a split second. “No. I don’t like that. We need to come up with a different plan. That will never work.”
“I might be able to help with part of that,” Noah said. He leaned forward on the couch and withdrew a rolled-up wad of papers from his back pocket.
He held them out to no one in particular, and Liv grabbed them before Mack could. “What are these?”
Mack peered over her shoulder.
“I did some snooping in Royce’s bank records,” Noah said.
Liv choked. “You did what?”
Mack patted her on the back. “Deep breaths.”
“How is that legal?”
“Technically, most of what I looked at is public record,” Noah said.
“Most?” Liv squeaked.
Noah lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted apology. “Some of it may have been acquired through means of questionable legality.”
“Just tell us what they say,” Mack said.
Noah bit into his cookie. “I found a series of weird transactions, so I pulled them together into a spreadsheet to look for patterns and found something interesting.”
Mack stood so close that he was pressed against Liv’s back. “I don’t get it,” Mack finally said, glancing up. “What are we looking at?”
Noah nodded. “Royce’s company has sent a series of wire transfers of varying amounts to a vague, nondescript charity with an offshore address. Each of those transfers was then immediately redistributed to unknown parties.”