The Girl from Her Mirror (Mirrors Don't Lie Book 1) (13 page)

As she blinked away a tear, he was gone.

Makenna took a quick shower and changed
into jeans and one of the blouses from her own closet, a simple plaid shirt
layered over a tee. She waited in the lobby until she saw the professor pull up
in a blue car, then met him outside before he had a chance to come in.

“Where do you suggest we eat?” he asked
as he slid in behind the wheel.

“I hear there’s a nice seafood
restaurant just down the street,” she offered. Anywhere but the restaurant
where she and Hardin were supposed to be dining with the Lewises. She wondered
if Hardin would brave the couple solo, or if he would beg off for the evening.
Stop
thinking about him,
she scolded herself.
You put an end to it, and
that’s that. You had no choice. Now get over it.
Still, to think of the
look in his gorgeous blue eyes….

“Are you cold?” Simon asked in concern,
seeing her shiver.

“No, I like the chill in the air. It’s a
lot different from what I’m used to.”

They chatted about the weather and their
hometowns and colleges as they drove to the restaurant, settled at a table, and
ordered their meal. It wasn’t until the waitress was gone and they were
nibbling on warm biscuits that they broached the topic that brought them
together.

“So you really piqued my interest on the
telephone,” Makenna told him, tucking a curl of auburn hair behind her ear.
“What was the information you wanted to share?”

“You asked me if I knew anything about
the mob being involved in this project. Do you mind if I ask where you got your
information?” he asked curiously.

“Honestly, I came across it totally by
accident.”

Simon Hanks nodded. In his late
twenties, the Dartmouth College instructor had neatly trimmed blond hair and
nice blue eyes, although they lacked the vibrancy of Hardin’s. “That doesn’t
surprise me. As far as I know, not many people are even aware of the connection
between organized crime and NorthWind Energy.”

“So what is the connection?”

“Back in the late 80’s, the government
was trying to generate more interest in renewable energy and encourage power
companies to pursue efforts in that direction. Because of the astronomical
cost, the U.S. government and the IEPA were offering some very lucrative grants
and incentives to American companies.”

“IEPA?”

“International Energy & Power
Alliance. Even though first generation technology like hydroelectric plants
have been in practice here for over a hundred years, the government was pushing
for companies to develop and practice second generation technology such as
solar heating and cooling, wind power, solar photovoltaics, that sort of thing.
In 1990, a new conglomerate came into existence, an energy company named Modern
Power who promised to aggressively pursue and provide its energy through
renewable resources. They were particularly focused on wind power.”

Makenna frowned. “So where does the
mafia come into play?”

“All over the field,” Simon said with a
dry laugh. “To begin with, half of the companies that made up Modern Power were
either empty shell corporations or were legitimate companies owned, for the
most part, by organized crime. The Zaffino family was the key player.”

Makenna nodded. There was that name
again.

“From what I gather, Modern Power used
government funds to literally build one of the companies supposedly already
under its umbrella. NorthWind existed only on paper until grants paid for it to
be built. Early on, NorthWind was awarded several government contracts to build
wind farms. The government practically paid them to build the farms, which they
then sold to other power companies and, in one case, even back to the
government, enabling huge profits.”

As the waitress delivered their salads
and left, Makenna nodded. “I know that emissions trading and energy credits can
make for very lucrative business deals. It’s an invisible commodity with an
inaccurate scale of measurement, leaving the field wide-open for fraud and tax
evasion. I don’t know a lot about carbon credits or green tags, but even I can
see how the system can be abused. And why organized crime would be attracted to
the whole scheme.” She cocked her head sideways, thinking. “But in the early
‘90’s? Had the United States even started emissions trading back then?”

“The Clean Air Act of 1990 established
the first cap and trade system in the U.S. as part of the Acid Rain Program.
Modern Power was a very forward-thinking company. They could see the potential
for future money making schemes, although I believe their main focus, at the
time, was in obtaining free money from the government through grants and
credits and subsidies. Many of those early grants were for research, but half
the time no actual research was being done. Again, dummy corporations and
non-existent research teams.”

“How did they get away with it?”

Simon shrugged. “It was a new market
with little accountability. Plus, there were fewer overseeing governing
agencies back then. All they had to do was look good on paper, which they did.”

“But NorthWind is a legitimate company.”

“Now it is, but it was built on fraud.”

“And you know this, how?”

He offered a sheepish smile. “Like you,
I more or less stumbled upon it, quite by accident,” he admitted. “When I was a
kid, my uncle had a buddy who was an accountant for a big corporation. One day
the guy came by my uncle’s while we were all there for a family dinner. I was
outside playing, building a house with blocks and dirt and sticks and anything
else I could find. The buddy stayed outside and struck up a conversation with
me while he waited for my uncle, even helped me put the roof on my house. He
said he liked building things, too, but when I asked what he built, he laughed.
He had this far-off look in his eyes. He told me he was building a future
fortune for his boss.

“You know how people do, sometimes they
say things to a kid because they know the kid doesn’t really understand.
Sometimes a kid is a safe sounding board. So that day, this guy starts telling
me all about something called green energy, and how he was building
make-believe companies so that one day his boss would get credit for them. I
thought we were talking about green grass. While he sat there and told me all
about false numbers and energy credits and using money from Uncle Sam and a
bunch of other stuff I didn’t understand, I was picturing smoke stacks built
out of grass, and wondering what would keep them from catching on fire. 

“When my uncle came out, he and the
buddy went out to his car and had a heated discussion. About a week later, this
guy’s picture was on the news. He and his whole family had disappeared, and the
police were asking for information on them. I couldn’t understand how a guy and
his wife and two kids could just vanish into thin air. I heard my family
talking about it, and my uncle said he heard the mob was involved. Being a
little kid, I was fascinated by the mob and gangsters and anything that
reminded me of Dick Tracy. The movie had just come out, and my brother and I
had all the action figures. Anyway, I heard my uncle saying he thought his
buddy was involved in some sort of scam. Not only had he done something
illegal, he then double-crossed the mob. My uncle thought he probably
disappeared before the mob could get to him and kill him.”

“How do you know they didn’t just kill
his entire family?”

“Because the mob was still looking for
him. They even approached my uncle and scared the shit out of him, and that was
a couple of months later.”

Makenna chewed on her lower lip. “So
you’re telling me that one of the biggest power companies in the northeast was
built on fraud and has ties to the Italian mafia. Apparently very few people
know about the connection, yet you’re offering me access to your files. Why?”
she asked bluntly. A story like this could be huge, but she imagined it came
with strings. “What do you want me to do with this information?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You do realize I’m a
reporter?”

“I know who you are, Kenzie Reese.” His
blue eyes met hers without wavering. “And I believe you are a caring,
responsible journalist who will take all accounts into consideration before
pursuing this story.”

“I-I don’t understand. You tell me this
incredible story but yet, you want me to keep it quiet? You want me to sit on a
huge story that could have international implications of major fraud and
wrong-doing?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Why would you even ask that?” she
asked, incredulous.

“Because I truly believe pursuing this
story would do more harm than good.”

“If what you have been telling me is
true, NorthWind deliberately set out to deceive the government. They provided
false information to obtain grants and subsidies, used public funds to make
enormous profits for personal gain, and set up a massive scheme of deception
that is still reaping benefits today. I’m sure the guy was talking about
Emission Reduction Credits; report current high levels of pollution - on a
non-existent power company, no less - so that once they built the company with
government funds, they could be ‘rewarded’ for lowering their emissions. I’m
not sure how they knew to do that way back then, but it was a brilliant scheme.
And I think the public deserves to know about it.”

“And what purpose would it serve? Modern
Power may have used false information and ill-gotten monies to build their
business, but NorthWind is now a globally responsible company who is both
environmentally friendly and economically oriented. If you were to expose this
story, thousands of jobs would be lost. This entire project would be scrapped,
the firm’s assets would be frozen, the economy would suffer, and no real
purpose would be served.”

“But what they did was illegal.”

“There’s no proof.”

“You told me you had a file, you had
research.”

“I did do research. You did, too. Did
you find any of this in the records?”

“No,” Makenna admitted. “But you made
the connection. How did you know NorthWind was the same company that man told
you about when you were a kid?”

Again, Simon shrugged. “I was always
haunted by that story… the look in the guy’s eyes when he talked, the
connection to the mob, the thought of an entire family disappearing … I was
just a little kid when it happened, but I never forgot it. When this whole
project with NorthWind came up and generated so much opposition, I wanted to
know more about the company behind it. I started researching, and the whole
time, I kept thinking about that guy and what he told me about building
make-believe companies. I never found any blatant signs of wrongdoing, but I
found a lot of loose ends, mostly those shell companies I told you about. Most
of them had gone out of business, or changed names, or sold to legitimate
corporations. Even the conglomerate itself is no longer in existence, having
broken up several years ago. I did find one old story that hinted at suspected
fraud, but nothing could be proven so no charges were ever made. But I somehow
just knew this was the company that guy was talking about.”

“What about the connection to the
Zaffino family?”

“Nothing current. They may have
initiated Modern Power, and I’m sure they were the ones who profited from the
original grants, but there is no direct link between NorthWind and the Zaffino
family.”

Frustration mounted within Makenna. “I
don’t understand. If there’s nothing to tie them together, how did you make the
connection?”

“Through my uncle,” the professor said
on a sigh. “A few months ago, I brought the subject up. I asked him if his
buddy was ever heard from again, and he said no. Then I asked if he had been
connected to NorthWind Energy, and my uncle went white as a ghost. He asked me
what I knew, why I would even think that, where I had gotten my information. He
was so defensive, I knew I was on the right track. Then he started yelling at
me to mind my own business and asked if I had any idea how powerful the Zaffino
family was. Up until then, I had never heard that name. As soon as I got home,
I researched them, discovered they are part of the Italian mafia. So I started
looking at Modern Power and NorthWind from a different angle, trying to find a
link to them and the Zaffinos. If I hadn’t known what I was looking for, I
would have missed it completely. But I finally found one name that told me I
was right about everything.”

“Your uncle’s friend, the accountant?”
Makenna guessed.

Simon’s eyes twinkled. “Very astute,
Miss Reese. Once I started looking for Joey Mandarino, I found the link I was
looking for, although there’s still no proof of any wrong-doing.”

Makenna’s throat went dry. “What-What
name did you say?”

The waitress appeared with their main
course. She presented the plates with a flourish, offered freshly cracked
pepper, then fussed over them for what seemed to be another five minutes.
Makenna was sitting on pins and needles, waiting for her to leave so she could
hear the answer to the question she repeated.

“Who did you say… what was your uncle’s
friend’s name?”