“Holden who?”
“Catcher in the Ryewasn’t forced down your throat in high school?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Doesn’t matter. The point is, no sweaty sex for you until you start making wiser decisions.”
I loved seeing humor and love blossom in Diem’s eyes.
“Any progress?” He motioned to the laptop.
“Tons. I have a full profile on Mr. Lukyan Andrich and a shit ton of suspicions.”
Diem nursed his glass of water while I caught him up.
“I followed his career the best I could, but there are weird financial gaps. I can’t sort out the jump from middle-class to multi-millionaire. The idea that he got rich through a strategic real estate investment sounds feasible in theory, until I dove deeper and discovered there isn’tanything that stands out. The guy has done umpteen interviews and talks about having perceptive foresight and visions that turn profits, but… he doesn’t. He’s fake. Contractors hate him. He’s been taken to court numerous times, and I can’t pinpoint where his wealth began. One day, Joe Average suddenly purchased a whopping property he should never have been able to afford. Yes, that property turned him a huge profit, and it all rolled from there, but how did he get the money for it in the first place?”
“Bank loan?”
“It’s possible. He filed for bankruptcy in ninety-five, but it would have been wiped after ten years max and wouldn’t have shown on his credit check, but his income wouldn’t have qualified him for such a steep loan.”
“Inheritance?”
“I thought of that too. His parents are alive. His deceased grandparents all passed decades ago. No rich uncle that I can find.”
“Maybe he’s good at saving money.”
“Not that much.”
“Rich wife?”
“He was married for eight months in ninety-nine. I can’t find evidence of a long-term relationship before he got stinking rich. Now he displays a rotating harem of girls on his arm for photos, but I’m hard-pressed to call it dating. They’re half his age and bear a striking resemblance to Barbie, and they seem to come and go with the tide.”
Diem spun his water glass, looking thoughtful and sexy with his sweat-dampened hair sticking to his forehead. “What are you suggesting?”
“We know he took thirty thousand dollars from Ellwood’s account, right?”
“Supposedly.”
“You suggested Lukyan might have several kids helping him run similar scams on other seniors. Let’s pretend there are ten Darcys. Multiply Ellwood’s thirty thousand by ten, and you have three hundred thousand dollars. That’s one job that took three weeks. Darcy claims Elwood was his first and used as training, so the timeframe was longer. He’s done four jobs since December. Each of those jobs was a single contact thing. Do the math, D. If Lukyan’s been at this foryearsand has even a handful of kids like Darcy working for him, he’s raking in millions.”
Diem’s gaze flitted back and forth as his inner wheels spun. “Then he uses the money to invest in properties, turns those properties into more money, and shows legitimate income on his tax return that supports his lifestyle. No one suspects a thing.”
“Exactly, and I suspect he’s worth way more than two hundred million.”
“That’s a lot of speculation.”
“Maybe, but if I’m right…”
Diem nodded and pushed the sweaty strands from his forehead. “I need to think about this.”
“We need to find proof.” But the only way I could think of to accomplish that task was to cross those legal lines we weren’t supposed to cross, and I wasn’t ready to suggest that quite yet.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“As it stands, we can’t report Luke unless we report Darcy.”
“I’m not doing that.” Diem’s tone brooked no argument.
