Page 60 of Ultimate Justice

“Sammy’s right next to me,” Deck said. “She ran Manello’s financials.”

“Hi, Evan,” came Sammy’s cheerful voice. “Get this, the man’s got no credit cards.”

Evan frowned. “Unusual, unless you don’t want anyone to know where you’ve been, where you’re going, and how you live your life.” All juicy tidbits a person’s credit card charges indicated.

“True that,” Deck agreed.

“We got a quick return from the one and only bank he’s got an account with,” Sammy continued, “and this is odd, too. For the last five years, basically since he opened his own company, the ending monthly balance in the account is always low, just enough to avoid low balance fees. As soon as payments come in from his customers, he withdraws the cash.”

“So he’s either stuffing it under his mattress, or it’s going someplace else.” Evan thought back to Manello’s house. Not an estate, by any means, and his one and only registered vehicle was the company van that had been—and still was—parked in his driveway. “What about investment companies? They won’t show up in credit histories.”

“Possibly,” she agreed. “Especially since every other month or so there’s a nine-thousand-dollar deposit made to the account, keeping him below the IRS 10K Currency Transaction Report requirement. Like his customers’ payments, that money doesn’t stay in the account longer than a few days before he withdraws it.”

“On top of being smart enough to not leave a credit card trail, he’s savvy enough to structure his money to avoid unwanted attention.” He hadn’t figured Manello for being so financially street smart. “Can you see where the money came from?”

“Purple Dream, LLC. It’s an anonymous corporation in the British Virgin Islands. Since I know there may be a marijuana link to your case, Purple Dream, by the way, is one of the most popular strains of marijuana of all time. It’s also the name of a pretty purple tulip.”

Great. Not only was it an offshore company, but even if they went through DOJ and INTERPOL, the bank would never disclose the names and contact info of the owners. “For the moment, we’ll consider that account a dead end. Even if we manage to get a response from the bank it would never be in real time.” And his gut told him time was running out. With another boy missing, something was happening with this case. Whatever it was would happen soon. “Let’s hope the warrant for Manello’s emails gives us something to work with. Deck, let me know when the return comes in.”

“You got it,” Deck said.

“Any word on the missing Lakewood kid?” Marlie’s conjecture that the latest missing boy had something to do with the camp losing Noah seemed spot-on.

“No,” Brett said. “Sorry, man.”

“Did you get the list of properties I sent you?” Sammy asked.

“Yeah.” Before they’d left the house, he’d scrolled through Sammy’s emails. Several Wyoming properties matched Noah’s general description and were about two hours north of the farmers market.

“Couple more things,” Deck said. “Tony wanted me to tell you it looks like Noah’s mitt was wiped with some kind of leather cleaner. Other than Noah’s, there were no viable prints on the mitt. The note had his prints and yours, but that’s it.”

So far, Manello was turning out to be smarter than he’d figured the man for. “You said a couple things. What else have you got?”

“I checked with Tori, like you asked me to,” Deck continued. “She can’t confirm it, but it’s possible Noah’s discharge papers containing Marlie’s address were left out on the nurse’s station desk right around the time that guy was looking for him.”

It wasn’t exactly good news, but maybe he hadn’t missed a tail after all, and it hadn’t been his fault Noah had been tracked to Marlie’s apartment.

“Before you go,” Deck added, “Tori’s doing a final head count for the wedding reception on Saturday. You never sent back your RSVP card. She wanted to know if you were bringing Annelise. I told her probably not, but I’d ask anyway.”

In his peripheral vision, Marlie arched her brows, looking thoroughly pissed. Inwardly, he groaned louder than a roaring lion.

When Tori and Deck had sent out the wedding invitations, he’d still been seeing Annelise. The natural assumption for Marlie to make was that he’d cheated on his girlfriend by sleeping with her last night.

Even if Manello was arrested before the wedding, he wouldn’t chance leaving Noah unprotected with John and Margaret still out there. He cleared his throat. “Annelise and I split for good. Any chance I can bring two guests? Marlie and Noah?”

“What?” Marlie’s head whipped around so fast he thought it would fly off her neck. “No!” Anger flashed in her eyes, hotter than a blow torch.

“Yes!” Noah leaned between the headrests. “I’ve never been to a wedding.”

“Sure,” Deck said. “I’ll let Tori know you’ll be a plus-two.”

Before Marlie could slice off his gonads, Evan ended the call.

“I—we,” she amended, including Noah, “are not going to any wedding.” She sat back with a huff, crossing her arms.

“But I wanna go.” Noah leaned farther forward, giving Evan a glimpse of the eagerness on the kid’s face. “C’mon, Marlie.”

“No.” She shook her head, more vehemently this time and putting more emphasis on that one little two-letter word. “Besides, I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding.”