Page 142 of Reckless

Slate notices without looking.

“So…” he says quietly, “… why’re we only hearin’ about it now?”

“Because until yesterday…” Sin answers before I can, “… it looked like our problem.”

“And now?” Quarry asks.

I zoom out another layer of the ownership records. “Now the shell company ties back into the same financial network Calloway’s been using.” The room falls quiet, but I keep going. “We dug further.”

Property records replace financial statements.

Then satellite imagery.

Then the compounds.

Slate leans forward, not dramatically, just enough for me to notice. “Back up.”

I scroll back one image. Slate doesn’t speak. He just keeps looking, tracing the cattle ranch with his eyes before finally leaning in and pointing to the eastern boundary. “There… we’ve been watchin’ that property nigh on four years.” Nobody interrupts him. “We always knew somethin’ wasn’t sittin’ right up there.” His thumb scratches slowly through his beard. “Different owners every year or two. Different companies. Different paperwork.” He looks up. “Same damn trucks.”

Koa leans forward. “You’ve had eyes on it?”

Slate lets out the smallest grunt. “As much as they’d let us, it hits kinda personal.”

Static, sitting off to Slate’s left with a beer balanced on one knee, snorts. “ ’Bout the third trail camera we planted.” He shakes his head. “I told him somebody was playin’ with us.”

Slate’s mouth twitches. “We’d hike back in…” He pauses. “Camera’d be gone.”

“So they found it?” Deek asks.

Slate looks at him. “No.” Another small pause. “They replaced the fuckin’ thing.”

The room goes completely silent.

Static chuckles without any humor. “Brand new camera. Same tree. Better model than the one we’d bought.”

Even Deek doesn’t have a smartass comment for that.

Slate picks up his beer again but doesn’t drink it. “They weren’t hidin’ from us.” His eyes meet Sin’s through the screen. “They were lettin’ us know they’d seen us, and that now they were watchin’ through their lens.” He sets the bottle back on the table with a quiet thunk. “If Ghost’s right…” he glances back at the satellite image, “… this is the first new thread we’ve had to pull in four years.”

I pull the ownership structure onto the screen.

The first company appears, then another, then another beneath that.

Arrows spread across the display until they stop looking like individual businesses and start looking like a spiderweb.

Deek whistles low. “The hell am I lookin’ at?”

“Layers.” I zoom in. “Every company owns another company. Different names, different addresses.” Another click. “But the paperwork never really changes.”

I highlight the first signature, then the second, then the third. “They’re all using the same nominee directors.” Another click. “The same accounting firm.” Another click. “The same legal office.”

Static leans closer to the screen from Montana. “So somebody’s launderin’ ownership.”

“They’re burying it.” I bring up the financial transfers, lines connecting one shell company to the next until they all eventually circle the same handful of accounts. “It keeps changing hands on paper.” I trace one path with the cursor. “Money leaves here… lands here… disappears through three more companies… then ends up right back where it started,” I state.

Sin nods. “Same money.”

Slate’s jaw tightens. “So, where’s Calloway in all this?”