You don’t know us, but now you owe us.
No signature.
Without pause, Hutch opened the file and skimmed the pages, his mind racing. Physical evidence that implicated Scott in the most heinous of crimes, carefully organized with names, dates, places, and specifics. Too precise to be fabricated. Illegally obtained, but handed over freely and anonymously, so legally usable.
Handed over by whom?
This work was beyond FI’s skill set.
So who had engineered this? And why? A vendetta?
Hutch knew he’d probably never get those answers. And right now he didn’t give a damn. He’d take his gift and run with it.
He leaned forward and tore the duct tape from Willard’s mouth.
Offices of the Zermatt Group
West Seventy-Fifth Street, Seventh Floor
Manhattan, New York
Wednesday, March 22, 10:50 p.m.
Aidan ended the call with his on-the-scene Zermatt operative and hung up the phone.
“Hutchinson and his team took Willard,” he announced. “They put him in their SUV, and transported him to the New York field office. I’d bet the bank that he waived his rights in order to get as lenient a sentence as possible and is spilling his guts to the Bureau as we speak. And every word will match the details in that file and put another nail in Charles Scott’s coffin.”
Terri nodded, her brow furrowed as she focused on her computer screen. “Willard knows that Scott sent a team to kill him, and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to stay alive, and to get Scott’s ass behind bars. From what Forensic Instincts has told us, Hutchinson is sharp as a tack. He’ll bring this investigation to a close in record time.”
“Yup,” Aidan agreed with the sense of satisfaction he always felt when Zermatt’s brand of justice was served. “So that’s a wrap.”
Terri clicked a few final keys on her keyboard, scanned her screen, and then sat back with a broad grin. “No, this is a wrap,” she corrected him. “I drilled around Scott Security’s finances, and drained a substantial amount from their illegitimate accounts. Same for Charles Scott’s personal offshore accounts. All of those funds have been moved to the Zermatt coffers. So we’ve now officially been paid for our work.”
Aidan’s lips curved. “Nice to be handsomely compensated and to break that bastard. He won’t be reporting his losses to law enforcement; I can assure you of that.”
“No, he’ll be vacationing in a supermax prison cell.” Terri folded her arms behind her head.
Aidan picked up the phone again. “Time to advise Marc that they can contact Caitlin Walsh. I’m guessing that, in the blink of an eye, she’ll be coming home to her daughter.”
27
One Week Later
Hutch had moved mountains over the past seven days, knowing that there was a nine-year-old girl who needed to be reunited with her mommy.
For starters, he’d taken the time on the drive back to the field office with Willard to contact an assistant US attorney he knew well and ask her for a favor: to expedite things by meeting Hutch at the field office ASAP.
As a result of that meeting—and with the anonymous file of damning information courtesy of Zermatt—Hutch got the immediate okay for search warrants for Charles Scott and his company’s financials, as well as the go-ahead to search his house, his office, and to seize all his electronic devices.
The wheels of justice spun at a breakneck pace. With all the incriminating data now being uncovered by the joint efforts of the FBI, the Bureau had enough for a long line of arrest warrants within days. Not only was Scott cut off at the knees, so was his entire criminal enterprise. The evidence was irrefutable, and the entirety of his alliances were now either in FBI custody or, where it came to moles inside government agencies, being ferreted out and taken in. As for Scott, it came as no surprise that his high-powered lawyers advised their client to stay silent, even after the courts deemed him a flight risk and he was remanded without bail.
What neither Scott nor his attorneys had counted on was Owen Willard being there, alive, and ready to testify.
So much for Scott’s final safety net.
He was going nowhere except behind bars.
And that meant it was finally safe for Caitlin Walsh to come home.
