“Is she the woman you were engaged to?”
Memories rolled over him, the joy of finding her, the love and laughter they had shared, the cancer diagnosis and long months of suffering, the despair of losing her. He felt a sharp instant of pain before he managed to nod.
“What was her name?”
“Her name was Sarah. Look, Cassidy. I prefer to keep my private life private. Besides, it’s all in the past.” He held up the flash drive. “This is the drive with the bank account information. Let’s see what we can find out.”
Cassidy didn’t press for more, just set the photo back down and walked over to her side of the partners’ desk. She was letting him off the hook, at least for now.
He handed her the flash drive. “So far this whole mess seems to revolve around money. Let’s see if the insurance payment shows up in my father’s bank accounts. If it does, let’s see where it goes.”
“Follow the money. Always a good place to start.”
He relaxed, grateful she was accepting the change of subject. Sarah’s death wasn’t something he discussed. Not with anyone.
“We can use my laptop. I’ve got the senator’s currentbanking information in there. We can cross-reference, see how the accounts interconnect.”
He felt a smile edging aside the dark mood that had claimed him. “I’m not even asking how you got into my father’s banking records.”
Cassidy smiled. “Good idea.”
Beau rolled his chair around to her side of the desk while Cassidy sat down and plugged in the flash drive. She opened it, brought up the files, and went into the senator’s offshore Cayman account records.
“Let’s go back a ways,” she suggested. “See if we can see the bigger picture.” She began to scroll down slowly, reading each line as it passed. “Look at this. Seven months ago, a big chunk of money was deposited directly into the offshore account. Three million dollars. Those accounts are extremely sophisticated. No way to know for sure where it came from.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Beau said.
“Equity Advance.”
“AKA Malcolm Vaughn. He admitted he’d loaned my father money for the construction project.”
Cassidy opened a tab on her C drive and brought up the records from the United Bank of Dallas. “Here’s the transfer. From the looks of those foreign currency charges, it was money from the Cayman account.”
She studied the pages. “Over the next few weeks and months, the money gets dispersed to Alamo.”
“He’s using the funds to build the apartments,” Beau said.
“That’s right. He’s also using the money to pay his living expenses. His car payments, mortgage payments, credit card bills. Since your father lived the good life, he was rapidly depleting the account.”
Beau pointed to a line on the screen. “There’s another sizable deposit.”
“That’s about the time he sold Green Gables Realty. He got half the money, George Larson got the other half. There’s another deposit here, got to be the sale of the building he took in that side deal. The senator transfers all of it into the Cayman account, then uses it to make payments to the original lender.”
“Equity Advance,” Beau said.
“Presumably. He pays down the loan, but he still owes them a chunk.” Cassidy scrolled through the Dallas account. “In December, the senator makes a deposit that doesn’t go to the Caymans. It goes directly into his stateside account.”
“The fire was in November,” Beau said. “Got to be his share of the insurance settlement.”
“Okay, so after his claim gets paid, he takes the money, sells the land the apartments were being built on, closes Alamo, pays off Charlotte, and deposits his share into the Dallas account.”
Cassidy pointed to another line. “Here’s where he transfers the money from the Dallas bank into his Cayman account.”
“He moved the money so he could pay off Equity Advance. They would have called the loan. When the fire destroyed the project, he no longer had any collateral.”
Cassidy studied the screen. “Here’s the payment, but it wasn’t enough to repay the total amount of the original loan.”
Beau leaned back in his chair. “Malcolm Vaughn said my father repaid the money, but according to this, he didn’t have enough to repay it all.” Beau’s gaze swung to Cassidy. “So Vaughn was lying. And if he didn’t get paid back, he had a reason to murder my dad.”
