“Not really.”
“I saw in the records that detectives in my department took his laptop, but since returned it,” Teagan said. “If so, could we take it with us?”
“I wish I could give it to you but it belonged to his company, and I turned it over to them. He used it for personal use too. Due to all the travel, the company let their employees do that. They gave me a drive of all the personal information it contained.”
“Did you look at it?” Teagan asked.
Daniela nodded. “I scrolled through the files. It was just pictures from his travels. Really just meaningful to him, so I haven’t done anything with it.”
“Could we take it?” Drew tried to hide his enthusiasm, so she didn’t notice it and waste her time searching the pictures for information that might only make sense in connection with the other murdered men.
“Let me grab it from the spare room.” She jumped up and fled as if being chased.
Teagan faced Drew. “I assume you caught the Middle Eastern connection to potential antiquity theft and heroin.”
“I did.” He let his enthusiasm into his tone. “Let’s hope this drive contains information that finally makes some sense of these murders.”
21
Teagan trailed Drew into her dining room where Mackenzie was still hard at work. Mackenzie had tacked large sheets of paper on the wall, one for each victim, and had listed additional details for each of them. Perfect. Not only did she provide great information, but Teagan’s worry lessened just by having her sister at her side in this investigation. After years of living together, they had an unspoken code between them that no one else could match. That would help find these killers. Teagan was sure of it.
“Nice work.” Drew approached the papers. “Did you find anything to connect them all?”
Mackenzie sat up in her chair. “They all formerly played sports and loved it, but none of them were currently active in any leagues. And I couldn’t find anything in the sports themselves that connected them.”
Teagan thought back to their previous research. “Rossi is a soccer coach for kids second through eighth grade. Maybe our victims played in his league when they were little.”
“Sounds possible. Grab a book and let’s see if we have that info.” Mackenzie pushed one of the murder books to Teagan and another one to Drew.
He pulled out a chair for Teagan, and she smiled at him, letting her gaze linger a moment longer than necessary.
“Um-hmm,” Mackenzie said. “Just like I thought.”
“You have a lead?” Teagan pulled her chair in.
“No. Just observing the two of you.”
Teagan wouldn’t get into a personal discussion now so she shook her head at her sister and flipped open Benton Hoyle’s binder. “Good job in finishing the books, by the way.”
“Glad to help.” Mackenzie smiled, but it was more of a smirk holding a residual knowing look. “I have to admit that I kind of miss this. Not enough to go back, but I miss it.”
“Me too,” Teagan said, glad at the change in subject. “But after working this investigation, I’ll be happy to return to running a business.”
Drew had been ignoring them. Or if he was paying attention, he didn’t comment. He just kept running his finger down pages in his book and flipping them with a frenzy. “Here it is. Forte grew up in Salem. Makes it unlikely that he was in Rossi’s soccer league.”
Mackenzie tapped a page in her book. “Romo lived in Tillamook. That’s an hour away like Salem, so Rossi probably didn’t coach him either. Not impossible for either one, though.”
Teagan continued reading until she found the needed information. “Hoyle was raised in Gresham. I remember reading that Rossi’s league was neighborhood specific for the most part, but they did take kids from other areas. Gresham might be on the other side of the city, but we can’t rule Hoyle out.” Teagan grabbed her phone. “I’ll text Nick to see if he can locate old team rosters.”
Drew looked at Mackenzie. “I didn’t see any sign of sports betting in Forte’s file. Did you come across it in the other files?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Forte and Romo both went to Vegas recently, but not at the same time. The detectives on each investigation looked into their finances. Nothing odd there. If these guysweregambling, they were finding a way to do it under the radar.”
Drew draped an arm over the chair next to him. “Which means they couldn’t be losing money as they couldn’t very well hide withdrawals from their accounts.”
“And if they were winning,” Mackenzie said. “They were hiding their earnings as they weren’t buying extravagant items.”
Teagan gave it some thought. “They could still be losing, just not their own money. If they borrowed it, they could’ve been into someone for the money they lost.”
