Numbers Never Lie (Crimson Romance) (9 page)

“Well, I wasn’t completely honest with you about that, or a few other things. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, honey. This is Uncle James. This man, right here. Only, he’s not your uncle. He’s your father. Sophie, I’d like you to meet Randolph James Henderson.” Brianna gestured her free hand at the man in the room with her.

“Randolph James Henderson, the New York real estate mogul? My father?” Sophie was completely dazed as she looked from one face to the other. Now, she placed the face — from the newspapers and television that featured him every few months. He looked different in person. Still tall, but more gray-haired and haggard. His face permanently tanned, but drawn and wrinkled. As she looked at him, she knew it was true. Anyone that looked at them side by side would see the resemblance. “Why are you here, now? After all this time?”

He shook his head. “Your mother insisted I stay away. When you were little, I went to New York when I got the job working for the mayor’s office. I worked there for a little over a year before your mother was able to get away from the university and come to New York with you.”

Sophie stared at him, furious. No matter what the story, it couldn’t excuse the years she and her mother had struggled. She had come to terms with his absence and now was proud of her mother’s ability to cope, as well as her own, but then he was a worthless deadbeat that ran out on them. Wait, he was still a worthless deadbeat, he just wasn’t poor, she thought.

Brianna stepped in to help him. “Your dad didn’t leave us, honey. I left him. I hated New York. The city life, the constant parties. I hated people staring at us all the time.” Her voice became weaker and her breathing a little less regular. “When your dad first started, we struggled financially, but he always had the golden touch. He could turn water into money.” She smiled at him and stroked his cheek gently.

“So, you gave up?” Sophie asked. She didn’t say it but in her mind she added,
Like you’re giving up now.

“No.” The gray-haired man’s voice strong and reprimanding, as if to warn her not to go where she tread. “When I made our first few big acquisitions of real estate there, our names and pictures started to become prevalent in the local papers, mostly the ‘small town kids do good’ type of articles. Some people didn’t like us together — they didn’t say it but we knew. Some people just can’t get past the color of a person’s skin enough to know what’s underneath. When the first threat came against you, we ignored it as an isolated incident. After the fourth, your mother packed you up and took you home. She was not about to have you live in an environment of intolerance or have to shadow you every minute to keep you safe.”

Brianna squeezed his hand. “That wasn’t the only reason.”

“I know, but you shouldn’t have even thought about that. Time would have resolved that issue,” he responded.

“Your dad was in the limelight then, a good candidate for political office. He invested smartly and made a name for himself. My presence remained a detriment. That would have been tolerable for just the two of us, but not for a child at that time even in New York.”

“That’s ridiculous. I can’t believe after all that you’ve taught me that you would have backed down from that,” Sophie spouted.

“Perhaps it was silly looking back now. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do for you and for James.” So, she called him James not Randolph or Randy? Of course, Randolph is too pompous and Randy is too juvenile. James fit.

“When your mother went home, she managed to get her old job back at the university. I went down four times to try to convince her to return with me but she refused. That was not the life she wanted for you.”
So you just gave up, too.
They could build empires and great careers, but they couldn’t build a life together?

“I’m sorry, Sophie.” Her mother looked at her sadly.

“Why would you let me think Dad didn’t want me?” Sophie looked at her mother, trying to suppress the hurt and anger. She turned to him. “And why would you just give up? You never came back again. Never talked to me! Nothing.” She couldn’t talk about it anymore. She got up and left the room. Left the hospital. That was Sophie’s last conversation with her mother before Brianna, her last task in life complete, left this world.

As Sophie remembered strained meetings with her father after the funeral, she struggled to control the emotions. He tried hard to spend time with her, but years of absence made it almost impossible to catch up. They were complete strangers. Sophie found herself unable to understand or forgive the silent years of her childhood.

Sophie didn’t talk about her dad to anyone. She wasn’t embarrassed by him, but she made a place in this world on her own and she wanted it to stay that way. In a way, she guessed that was probably a trait she’d inherited from him. She didn’t want to be defined by her rich father, even though on numerous occasions, he asked her to come to New York to attend events with him and his new wife.

Sophie sighed as she picked up the jacket from the back of the chair and returned it to the closet near the entrance to her apartment. Everything that she had believed about her life three years ago evolved completely differently. She turned out the lights and retreated to her bedroom.

Chapter Seven

From the street, the FBI Branch Office at 1 Justice Drive in Houston looked like any other office building in the area — a sleek, shimmering structure with beautiful glassed windows, rising from the street.

The box of files that Trev carried containing the information on Benton & Stanley’s staff came from this office. Generic information, a one pass effort to glean the basics related to his case. He marked several of the files for review and intended to work with Cheryl Harper, one of the key analysts, to delve deeper into the lives of some of the individuals.

The next four days at the office would consist of staff meetings where he would update his supervisor on the status of his cases, the primary one focused on Benton & Stanley. After the update, he’d spend the remainder of the week with Cheryl and other staff researching the files he’d brought with him. Trev dreaded parts of it. He knew he’d get some flack on his interactions with Sophie. While he had trailed her and the others almost full-time lately, his focus up until a couple of months ago centered on multiple smaller cases. The incident with Bob brought this case to the forefront; all other efforts were subsequently sidelined so this one could be moved along at a faster pace.

Fraud against the government was always a matter for federal investigation, but once it became life-threatening to citizens, the criticality in solving the case escalated and more resources were involved. Trev and his team excelled in the details. That was the beauty of technology — there was always a trail. Even for those who think they’ve cleaned it, tiny little pieces of telltale data like tracks in snow remained, and his team knew how to look for it.

Sophie’s file was in the box, too, but he intended to focus more on the others this time around. His background in technology and psychological profiling were normally pretty accurate. She didn’t fit — or maybe he just didn’t want her to fit.

First on the agenda — his update meeting with his supervisor.

“Okay, where do you want to start?” Cook asked matter-of-factly. Cook’s first name was Stephanos but he hated it. No one dared to use the name. He’d supposedly even once threatened to fire someone for doing so. Rumor or not, Trev never took a chance on it. Cook heard the updates so many times he had a pseudo-routine for his staff. They presented the updates in whatever form they chose. Then he prodded for details or if concerns arose. He recorded the discussions and then had his assistant compile it into an agency overall report. Confidential items were marked as such and compiled separately. All paper reports ran through the shredder when they left the meeting, and the data handed to his assistant was encrypted as required.

Cook adjusted the collar of his shirt and picked up a pen, keeping it hovered over the notepad in front of him. Trev normally documented his cases electronically and provided a paper copy for the meetings, knowing it wouldn’t leave the room. The electronic copy was transmitted to their secured server in a folder for each case. The team and Cook were the only ones with access to view the information.

“Let me just give you status updates on the cases that are either closed or in the final phases.” Trev began.

“The Katrina and Rita work?”

“Yes.”

“Is it necessary? There’s not much new is there? Aren’t they all in litigation right now?”

“Yes, for the most part. Nate and I were summoned to testify on two of them in a couple months. Other than that, no changes.”

“Good. Let’s don’t waste time on those then. Let me know how it goes in court. What about the Benton & Stanley case? Anything new with the girl?” Cook asked.

“I got too close.”

“I heard.” Cook watched him.

He explained details of the night of the storm.

Cook narrowed his eyes and listened. “Sounds like excuses to me. Nate didn’t warn you?”

“I guess his vision was also impaired by the rain. He tried to help. Anyway, it turned out fine. Good, actually. I met with her a couple of times since. She showed me the reports that Greenwood mentioned. He was right. Someone is skimming money — and it’s not pocket change. From what little I saw, we’re talking big money. Millions, two or three at least.”

Cook wrote a couple of notes on the white pad in front of him, then sat back and continued listening.

“I met a few of her friends. I want Cheryl to dig a little deeper on them, as well as her administrative assistant, and a couple of people in the finance department,” Nate said while Cook wrote more notes on the pad.

“Not a problem. Give her the names, the details. She’ll get it. Or just pass it all to Nate to handle.” Cook shook his head. “No, not Nate. Forgot. He’s visiting his family over the next couple of days. He’ll be back before you meet her again, though. You heard?” He referred to Nate’s dad.

“Yeah, that’s a shame. I don’t know his Dad that well. Met him a couple of times. Good guy.” Trev rolled his pen back and forth between his fingers. “I hope it all works out.”

“Me, too,” Cook agreed. “Be prepared. He might be off-focus for a little while.”

“Understood. So, if you know he’ll be back in time for my next meet, then you know Sophie — ”

“Sophie?” Cook’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re already using first names?”

“Yeah.” Trev ignored the remark, which was half-hearted at best. “I meet her again Thursday evening. She’s getting me a backup of the database. As soon as it’s in my hands, I’ll get it to the data forensics guys.” He scooted back in his chair and looked out the window. Trev knew what to expect and braced himself for the questions and the warnings. How long were they going to side-step? Cook already knew about the kiss. You can’t hide anything when followed.

“So, you didn’t just get too close in the rain,” Cook said. He didn’t look up, just wrote a few more notes on his tablet. This was his way of asking.

“Yeah. But it turned out okay. Didn’t it?”

“You tell me.” He leaned over the table now, his hands clasped together on top of the pad he wrote in. The man was a master of saying everything with just an expression. Right now, he simply frowned.

“For all she knows, I’m just a colleague, and it was a method of showing I had her back. I guess in a way, it served to build trust.” If Cook’s eyebrows weren’t already up, he’d have sworn they rose even more. Then he looked down at the pad in front of him, exhaling a sigh of disbelief.

“Is that right? And you want to take that further.” It wasn’t a question. Trev knew he’d screwed up. He didn’t need a reminder, but this felt like a sitting with a shrink. Cook didn’t move for a minute or two, then added, “Be careful. You’re getting pretty close to crossing the line.”

“I know. It’s under control.”

“Really? Is it? I’ve seen her,” Cook reminded him.

Trev’s temper flared, “If you have something to say or you want me off the case, then do it. Otherwise, let’s drop this right now. I told you it’s under control. I get what you’re trying to say, but there’s one thing you need to remember.” He leaned forward over the table and jammed his forefinger on the polished surface. “Just from the short amount of time I’ve spent with her, we obtained more information than we were able to get the past few weeks. If I keep this going, we should be able to close this out in no time. And, I know you don’t believe it, but she’s
not
the perp. I’ve done this long enough to know.” He shoved his chair back and stood up to walk toward the window and look down on the street. “Besides, you know others have done much, much worse in the past. I’m a fucking saint compared to, well, most of these guys.”

“Others — maybe. Not you, and that doesn’t make it right. Don’t take it somewhere you can’t get back from.” Cook surveyed his pen thoughtfully before continuing. “Anyhow, I’m not making changes right now. Just keep going. But you need to back off a little if you know what I mean.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, but what am I supposed to do if she doesn’t back off? She doesn’t know who I am. If I stop it cold, then what happens?” Trev turned, slipped his hands in his pockets and challenged Cook.

“Good point.” Cook tapped his pen on the table surface a few times, thinking. “Just play it out, I guess. But be careful.”

“Can we get back to the case itself? Judging by what I’ve seen so far, they’ll probably go after her just like they did Greenwood.”

“Then I guess it’s good she trusts you, right?” Cook tapped the pen again and rubbed his neck with his other hand. “Sit down. I’m getting a crick in my neck looking at you.” He gestured with the pencil to the chair that Trev lunged out of earlier. “Tell me about her friends.”

Trev pulled out four manila folders and slid them across the table to Cook. “The top one’s her assistant, Anna Kinnier. Then Callie Madison, the best friend. She’s also one of Sophie’s analysts. Next is Jake Wellborn, a beginning programmer. And Thomas Brand. Thomas is also a programmer but I think there’s a relationship there — or maybe there was at one time. I’ve put what I know in the notes on each file.” He motioned for Cook to open Anna’s file and started talking again. “I don’t have much on any of these guys and the files are lame, at best.”