"Which is why Gordon Giles spent months collecting information," Donovan Caine said. "Which is also why he was going to be the state's star witness. Because he could understand how the money was being diverted and explain exactly where it was going."
"Do the files show where the money was going?" I asked. "What it was being used for?"
Finn clicked a few more times. "Looks like Haley James has hired several new executive vice presidents the past few months. Part of it went to pay their salaries, and I use that word loosely."
"Her crew, in other words," Donovan Caine chimed in. "The men she thought were going to help her take on Mab Monroe."
"I've also got several payments here made out to Carla Stephenson," Finn added.
"Looks like ten payments of ten thousand dollars each. A hundred grand, total." Donovan's face tightened. "Carla? That's Wayne Stephenson's daughter. She's ten."
"Probably not a donation to her college trust fund then, although that's what it's listed as here," Finn said. "Smart of him, putting it in her name. That's why it didn't immediately come up when I ran his financials earlier."
"Keep digging," I said. "I want to know everything there is to know about this scam." We went back to work. Finn surfed files. Donovan squinted at the small print in the folder. And I picked up the stack of Gordon Giles's p**n photos.
Thankfully, and to my slight surprise, not all of the pictures were of Giles doing vampire hookers every which way he knew how. There was a photo of an older lady I assumed was his mother, and several more of Giles in various locales holding up fish and beaming at the camera.
Although they were of a different sort than the previous pictures, they were still mementoes, small treasures the accountant had wanted to keep. Giles had probably put them all together so he could grab them at one time when Caine put him in witness protection. And then Charles Carlyle had stumbled across them and hidden them in his fireplace. Given the amount of p**n I'd seen in the vampire's game room, I didn't have to guess why the hooker photos were on top-and covered with greasy fingerprints and other stains.
I was almost to the bottom of the stack when I came across a photo that didn't quite match the others. For one thing, there weren't any hookers in it. For another, it starred a very different person than Giles's dead mother.
Alexis James.
In the photo, Alexis James wore black Bermuda shorts, a tailored white shirt, and a floppy straw hat. She stood next to some sort of gray shark she'd speared with the gun in her hand. The poor creature hung upside down, its side slit open, guts hanging out for everyone to see. The shark's blood turned the dock a mottled brown, but Alexis was too busy smiling into the camera to notice it. Classy. Gordon Giles stood off to one side. He was smiling too.
So Alexis had gone with Gordon on one of his fishing trips and speared herself a shark. Hell, maybe she'd even let the accountant spear her, and they'd had some sort of fishing trip fling.
I started to put the photo aside, when something caught my eye. A black blob in the middle of the picture. I scraped at it with my fingernail, wondering if it was just dirt that had somehow gotten on the print. But it didn't come off, and I realized it was part of the picture. What was that around Alexis James's neck? I held the photo up almost to my nose, but I couldn't quite make it out.
I got up and rummaged through one of the junk drawers in the kitchen until I came up with a magnifying glass. Then I sat back down and used it to go over the picture again.
Instead of the classic string of pearls I'd always seen her with, Alexis James wore a different sort of necklace in the photo. Oh, the slender white cord that encircled her throat still had pearls on it, but there was a large pendant set in the middle of necklace.
A tooth-a large, triangular-shaped tooth done in polished jet.
The tooth was the same as the jet symbol the guy at Finn's place had worn on a chain around his neck. The same symbol the man at Caine's cabin had tattooed on his wrist.
The Air elemental's symbol. Her mark. Her calling card. I recognized the rune immediately-and what it really was.
"Son of a bitch," I said. "A shark's tooth. The rune is a f**king shark's tooth." Haley James wasn't the Air elemental. Her sister was. Alexis was the one who'd tortured Fletcher, who'd been on her way to do the same thing to Donovan Caine.
Alexis James was the one who'd been pulling the strings of Charles Carlyle and Wayne Stephenson. She was the bitch who'd set up this whole thing.
"What are you muttering about?" Finn asked. "Some of us are trying to concentrate." I slapped the photo down on the table and tapped my finger on the necklace. "This-this is what I'm muttering about."
Both men leaned forward to stare at the picture. They spotted it at the same time. "Is that-" Finn started.
"That looks like-" Donovan Caine chimed in.
"You bet it is," I snarled, cutting them both off. "That's the tooth. The Air elemental's precious rune. Alexis
James is the one running the show, not her sister, Haley."
We sat there digesting the information. The cold knot of rage in my chest started beating like a clock, a slow, steady countdown to Alexis James's death. Tick-fucking-tock.
"But what about the files? The ones that implicate Haley James?" Donovan Caine asked. We both looked at Finn.
"Alexis could be using her sister's log-in information," Finn said. "Wouldn't be hard for her to do."
"Or Haley could be handling the money, while Alexis does the dirty work," Donovan replied. "Alexis could even be making her steal, threatening her with magic."
"Doesn't matter to me either way," I said. "They're both going to die." Donovan Caine shook his head. "No. You can't kill Haley James, not if she's innocent."
"Her sister's running around town using her magic to torture people. How innocent do you think Haley is?" I snapped.
The detective's eyes burned into mine. "Haley James could be as up to her neck in it as Finn is with you. Or she could be as innocent as that little girl playing in her princess castle while her madam of an aunt looked on. Until we know for sure, you can't touch her. Remember our agreement? No innocent people. This isn't negotiable, Gin. Not this time."
"Why? Because she's not a lowlife hood you've busted before?"
"Something like that."
The detective and I stared at each other. His eyes blazed gold with determination.
Cold fury grayed mine out. Neither one of us looked away, and neither one of us was willing to give an inch. Still, despite myself, I liked sparring with the detective. Liked pushing him, liked him pushing back at me. Strength, conviction, and passion were traits I'd always admired, no matter how misguided they were in this case.