Hank didn’t have a chance to question Mace. Brody, Lee’s computer guy, came in and shouted, “I found the link!” Al the men turned to look at Brody.
Brody’s pale face under his dark-rimmed glasses was ful of excitement. He bounced in, probably wired on copious intake of energy drinks and over-processed food and threw his doughy body in the other chair in front of Lee’s desk as he shoved the glasses more firmly up his nose.
Brody was a computer genius and looked the part. He could do anything with computers, hardware, software, wiring, programming, troubleshooting, searching and, most important to Lee, hacking.
He was dark-haired and goofy as al hel . He was in his early thirties but he acted like he was twelve. Stil , you couldn’t help but like the guy.
“Did you guys see it? We made front page again today.
Total y awesome!” Brody was stil shouting. “Fuckin’ great picture of Luke tossin’ some guy over a railing. Man, I wish I was there.”
Hank moved to the side of Lee’s desk, crossed his arms on his chest and rested his thigh against it, his body turned mostly to Brody.
“What’d you find, Brody?” Mace asked but either Brody didn’t hear him or he chose to ignore him and his eyes swung to Hank.
“They did you today. You and Roxie. Al about your thing which people knew about, kind of, as it made the news after Vance blew off Roxie’s ex’s hand at Daisy’s party,” Brody informed Hank unnecessarily as, early that morning, Hank, sharing coffee with a sleepy, seriously grumpy (but stil cute) Roxie, had read the whole thing. “Got a great picture of her from some beauty pageant when she was in high school. Dude, she was hot even back then,” Brody proclaimed.
Hank took a deep breath and settled in. Brody was on a rol and they’d just have to ride it out.
“And they did Jules and Vance too. It was kil er. They made her sound like a superhero. I forgot how good she was at kicking ass. Too bad she’s into this mom-to-be shit, she was awesome!” Brody went on.
“Brody, did you find the link?” Lee cut in and Hank could tel by Lee’s voice he was losing patience.
“I wonder who’s feedin’ them this shit. They got everything, ” Brody ignored Lee and kept at his theme.
“The link,” Lee repeated, voice firm.
“What link?” Mace asked.
“They’re doin’ Ava and Luke tomorrow,” Brody continued with excitement.
“Brody, shut the f**k up about the paper and focus. The link,” Lee had lost his patience and now his voice was not only firm but low and vaguely threatening.
Brody clamped his mouth shut and stared at Lee in confusion for a beat.
Then he said, “Oh, yeah. Right. Sure, I found it. I got the link.”
Brody stopped talking and al three men stared at him.
“Wel ?” Lee asked, now crossing his arms on his chest.
“It wasn’t that deep but I had to cal Kim in on it,” Brody started.
Kim was another employee of Lee’s who worked the computers. She ran searches mostly but also did some phone investigation.
Brody kept going. “See, The People’s Bank is owned by Canault Limited. Canault Limited is owned by SunPower.
SunPower is owned by –”
“Cut to it,” Lee interrupted Brody, having, from experience, learned how to deal with Brody’s exuberance but never having learned to have patience with it.
“APM Holdings!” Brody finished on a shout, the room went hostile and that hostility was coming entirely from Mace.
Everyone in the room knew that Preston Mason was the man behind the multi-national, multi-bil ion-dol ar APM
Holdings.
“What the f**k?” Mace asked, his voice low and unhappy, his eyes on Lee.
Hank knew that, after Stel a was kidnapped by Mace’s dad, Lee had ordered both Brody and Vance to look into it.
Brody could find a computer trail, amongst other things.
Vance could find everything else. Lee was protective of his team and seeing as Preston Mason could pose a significant threat and had made a move, Lee wasn’t taking any chances.
What Hank hadn’t known, until now, was that Lee hadn’t shared this with Mace.
Lee ignored Mace, eyes stil on Brody, he prompted,
“Let’s go back, Brody, this al means…”
Brody blinked then said, “Oh yeah. The People’s Bank owns Travis and Sherry Gunn’s mortgage.”
“Stel a’s parents,” Lee guessed and the hostility in the room increased.
Mace’s calm and relaxed posture started to disintegrate.
He hadn’t moved but his entire body had become visibly tight.
“Yeah,” Brody confirmed.
“Explain,” Mace growled at Brody and Brody’s eyes moved to Mace. With one look at Mace, Brody’s face lost even more color.
“Wel , they’re behind on their mortgage, like, seven months behind. The bank has already sent foreclosure notices.”
Any trace of calm and relaxed was history. Mace unhooked his ankle from his knee, sat forward and put his elbows to his knees, body leaning toward Brody.
Brody took this in and swal owed but pressed on, “It gets weirder.”
“Yeah?” Mace’s voice was deceptively light.
“Yeah,” Brody replied. “See, Stel a’s folks’ve been having problems for some time now. That’s what Kim looked into. Stel a’s Mom’s got cancer and they don’t have insurance. They’re in debt out the ying yang, drowning in it.
They were already behind on payments when The People’s Bank bought the mortgage. It was a bad purchase but that shit happens al the time. What’s weird is that, even though they weren’t current on their payments and fal in’ behind on their other bil s, their credit rating is in the shitter, by the way, they went to the bank and borrowed more money against the house and the bank gave it to them.”
“God damn it,” Lee muttered.
“It gets weirder,” Brody went on and Hank watched Mace close his eyes for a second, sit back in his chair again then train his gaze on Brody as Brody carried on. “This isn’t new.
This al started to go down a year ago.” Brody turned back to Mace. “I wasn’t here then but Kim said it was when you first started to see Stel a.”
Hank watched as Mace traced his teeth with his tongue behind closed, tight lips. Hank knew this wasn’t a good sign.
“Mace –” Lee started but Brody was stil talking.
“It gets weirder.”