“It’s not what he had over on Peter Sullivan,” Douglas answered, shifting his slinged arm into a more comfortable position. “It’s what he promised him. Sullivan was dying of pancreatic cancer. He was leaving behind a wife and two small boys, and he needed the money. Not to mention, his recent psych eval showed some cognitive decline. His doctors suspected his cancer had metastasized to his brain. Which made him the perfect target for Reynolds. The poor man was desperate and not thinking straight.”
“How did you link the two?” Eliza asked. “Reynolds and Sullivan, I mean.”
“Couple of ways,” O’Toole said, pulling the napkin back toward her and tearing into a croissant. “The day after the shooter at the bagel shop tried to take out Miss Meadows, a scheduled post popped up on Peter Sullivan’s Facebook page. It was a long-winded, fanatical rant about the evils of our government. What you would expect from a guy who’d just killed a bunch of officials. But his wifeassuredus the post didn’t sound anything like her husband. I had our Cybersecurity and Technology Division take a look at it. They determined Peter Sullivan’s account had been hacked. They traced that hack back to the office of Chuck Reynolds.”
“And the other way?” Eliza prodded.
“Once we made that initial connection, we put Reynolds’s entire life under a microscope. The forensic accountants at the bureau noticed some recent activity in one of ol’ Chuck’s Swiss bank accounts.”
“Becauseallfolks on the up and up bank with the Swiss,” Britt said sarcastically.
“Well, right.” O’Toole nodded. “Anyway, on the night of the cocktail party massacre, Reynolds transferred three million dollars out of his account.”
“Transferred it where?”
“We didn’t know for the longest time. In fact, it took our accountants these entire two weeks to trace all the dark web wire transfers that money went through. But come to find out, it landed in an account at a bank in the Cayman Islands.”
“Anotherplace where all the folks on the financial up-and-up bank.” Britt shook his head.
“Guess whose name was on that account?” When everyone blinked at her expectantly, Agent O’Toole answered her own questions. “Debra Sullivan. The account was scheduled to begin paying her five thousand dollars a month at the start of next year. And themonthly donation”—she made air quotes—“was going to look like it’d come from an anonymous source, some angel philanthropist who was sympathetic to the plight of Debra and her boys.”
After that pronouncement, there was a moment of silence as everyone mentally assembled the puzzle pieces.
“So let me see if I have all this straight.” Eliza rubbed her temple. She was no longer sporting a goose egg or bruised to high heaven. She was back to looking sleek and cool with her raven hair pulled into a ponytail, her lips painted her signature dusty-rose hue, and her black eyes enhanced with kohl eyeliner. “John McClean got the dirt on Chuck Reynolds and planned to share that dirt with the members of the newly-formed committee investigating congressional malfeasance. But Chuck found out about it somehow and paid Peter Sullivan, who was dying and desperate for money, to off the entire committee in one fell swoop before they could bring John’s evidence to light.”
“That pretty much sums it up.” O’Toole nodded and then shoved a bite of chocolate croissant into her mouth.
Britt didn’t notice how her lovely throat worked when she swallowed it. Nor did he have a brief fantasy of what it might be like to kiss that lovely throat.
“But then there were survivors.” Becky spoke up. “And Reynolds feared Senator McClean might have already shared his evidence. So Reynolds…what? Hired some rando mercenary out of Asia to finish the job the chef started? How does one even go about finding someone like that?”
Britt had to bite the inside of his cheek. As if Becky didn’t knowpreciselyhow that was done. If the woman hadn’t gone into custom bike building, she’d have made an excellent actress.
“Oh, believe me, there are ways,” O’Toole muttered. “And no doubt a man in Reynolds’s position knows those ways. But to be honest, we haven’t determined how he found this particular man. And we don’t know if this man or any of his potential cohorts were the ones responsible for the hack on Senator Chastain’s pacemaker. Those are mysteries we may never solve. Unless, of course, Chuck Reynolds tries to use that information to cut himself a deal.Thenwe might know how it all went down.”
Britt could tell by her expression it rankled to leave a question unanswered.
“Which means you don’t knowwhothe bagel shop shooter was,” Ozzie concluded. Their onsite tech wizard had made sure the various computer monitors showed nothing but highly detailed CAD drawings of fantastical motorcycles.
Britt hoped it was enough to convince the overly perceptive Agent O’Toole they kept all these computers for their work. Because the night two weeks ago when he and the others had taken her to the second floor to show her what little security footage they had of the shooter, she’d glanced around at the technology with an analytical eye.
She hadn’t questioned why a bunch of motorcycle designers wouldneedso much high-quality equipment. But he’d seen the speculation in her eagle-eyed gaze.
“Nope.” O’Toole shook her head now, and it caused her messy bun to wiggle in the most delightful way.
Not that he noticed.
Okay, maybe he noticeda little.
“We know from the CCTV footage we pulled, the security camera video taken at Northwestern’s ICU, and the images you guys supplied us that it was the same man at both sites. But he was wearing a prosthetic nose and forehead and, obviously, his hair was dyed. Our facial recognition software failed to find a match on his identity.”
“Where did the plane land?” Fisher was the one to ask this question, and Britt couldn’t help but admire the easy way Agent O’Toole handled the inquiries being lobbed at her from all directions.
“China.” She grimaced. “Beijing to be precise.”
“Right. So then that’s a dead end.” Ozzie ran a hand through his out-of-control hair. The man avoided the barber like most guys avoided talking about their feelings.
“We had our ambassador to China make inquiries with his contacts in the NPC but, as you can imagine, everyone over there is claiming to know nothing about a mysterious private plane jetting an orange-haired passenger from Chicago to mainland China.” She shrugged resignedly. “If the assassin Reynolds hiredisChinese, or if the Chinese government was tied up with Reynolds in some way, you can bet your ass they’re not going to admit it.”
