Strip Search (15 page)

The asshole disappeared into his own apartment a few moments later, and Mark emerged quietly, carrying the blank CDs as he eased soundlessly down the stairs.

Sneaking into Nicki's office wasn't a challenge. Picking the lock didn't exactly require a master thief's talents. Mark made his way into the office.

As he entered, an exterior door to the club slammed somewhere below him. Who would be here? One of the dancers who'd stayed after rehearsal? Maybe Zack had been doing that stage and costume maintenance he'd mentioned. The guy worked damn hard.

A glance out the window of Nicki's office down into the club below proved no one remained inside. Whoever had slammed the door did so as they left. Good.

Shrugging, Mark booted up the accountant's machine. It was still warm. Apparently, Bocelli had just finish another day of screwing up Nicki's books.

With a shake of his head, Mark called Rafe on his cell phone.

"Hey, buddy," his brother-in-law greeted. "It's about time. Enjoying strutting your stuff half-naked?"

"Fuck off and get to work."

Rafe laughed. "Isn't that my line?

"When you get your mind off humiliating me, yeah," he said. "Oh, and happy slightly belated birthday. What did you and Kerry do to celebrate your official welcome into the firmly over thirty club?"

"Ha, ha. Well, it's. hard to dance the night away, since we have a baby due in two months and your sister has ankles that could double for the Goodyear blimp. So we went for sushi. Had any luck fishing out the identity of the Fed on location?"

Mark paused. He hadn't given it a lot of thought, to be honest: But then no one around him seemed like they could be FBI. Lucia? Not a chance. Zack? The very idea made him laugh. None of the other dancers seemed like good candidates, although he admittedly didn't know them well. But there was one other possibility ...

"Any chance the Fed could be dead and the folks in Washington wouldn't know it?" he whispered.

The pause on the other end indicated Rafe was mulling over the possibility. "I guess anything is possible. What happened?"

"I hear Nicki's accountant was murdered in March. Supposed random drive-by."

"The timeline fits. Norton said the agent hadn't been heard from in about three months."

"Exactly, and Marcy died just over two months ago. Not only that, if the Feds were going to put someone in here, why not undercover as the accountant, where they'd have access to all the financial figures?"

"I don't know what this agent's assignment is exactly, but that makes sense."

"And with Marcy out of the way, bet you can guess who's taken over the accounting."

"Bocelli? Seriously?"

"Guessed it in one. Now that I think about it, I wonder if Bocelli discovered that Marcy was a Fed and did her in. It would serve two purposes: remove the threat of an agent and get him one step closer to handling Nicki's money."

"You're right," Rafe said. "I'll talk to Norton and see if their agent was a female operating under the name Marcy and get back to you. But keep your eyes open just in case it wasn't Marcy. If the agent is rogue, he is one dangerous cat."

"Or she," Mark pointed out.

"Or she. If the agent is just deep under cover, we can't afford to be in their way."

"Got it. Thanks."

"No sweat. So, how's your boss? Have you managed to charm her yet?"

Rafe's suggestive voice crawled on Mark's exposed nerves. "Get your mind out of the gutter and off of Nicki."

Mark did his best to ignore Rafe's laughter in his ear.

A moment later, the Windows desktop on the computer appeared with pictures of a dark-haired woman about Nicki's age standing next to an older woman who had to be her mom. They'd tilted their heads together, each wearing bright red Santa caps and matching smiles.

Based on what he'd heard about the murdered accountant, the younger woman in the picture had to be Marcy. Mark felt a shiver as he stared at pictures of the dead woman, who couldn't have been much more than twenty-five, apparently gunned down in the parking lot in a random drive-by.

Random, my ass.
The more Mark thought about it, the more he was sure the shooting had only been random enough for the current accountant to separate the previous one from her duties so he could gain control of the books and Nicki's money. In other words, totally premeditated.

The picture reminded him that his mission was no laughing matter. Bocelli was deadly serious.

"Okay, let's get on with this. Nicki doesn't know I'm here. Bocelli just went upstairs to his place," Mark said, all business. "No password protecting the machine as a whole." He explored around, found what he wanted, and tried to launch the file.

"What else?" Rafe prompted. "There's a password protecting the main accounting files."

"Is the machine connected?" "Yep." He clicked around, found the device manager. "Cable modem."

"What's the IP?"

Mark hunted, then found the series of numbers that identified the machine. He recited them to Rafe.

"Firewall?" "Yeah . . ." Mark clicked and found the answer. "Just the usual Windows firewall."

"Damn it, after a week and a half, couldn't you at least give me a challenge?"

"I thought my sister was your challenge." "Good point."

Silence. Mark knew better than to interrupt Rafe while he hacked. Less than two minutes later, he said. "Got it. The password is 'poodle,' followed by the number one, no space."

"Seriously? I'm not sure I want to know why."

Instead of questioning it further, Mark simply entered the password for the accounting files in question. The entire balance sheet emerged.

"I'm in," he said to Rafe. "Saving to CD right now. I'll study it later. Bank account numbers ..." Mark tugged on filing cabinets, finding them locked. A few moments and a few handy pieces of metal later, they opened. In the second drawer, he found a series of bank statements. "Got it."

"Lay it on me."

Mark gave Rafe the name of the bank and all the associated account numbers he could find.

"Good work," his brother-in-law said. "Give me a few minutes and I'll e-mail the bank's records to you."

"I'll compare their records with the CD. I have an inkling that these records will be pure fiction," Mark said.

Maybe then he'd have some proof to take to Nicki, show her that her Italian stallion was cheating her out of her money. It would start a circumstantial case against the asshole for Marcy's murder. Maybe then he'd get sweet revenge and sweet Nicki all at once.

"Good work," Rafe praised. "Now get out of there before anyone sees you."

"Yeah. I'll be in touch when I find something."

"I'll wait. Your sister will, too, although a lot less patiently."

Mark laughed. "Kiss Kerry for me."

"You got it. Talk to you soon."

Mark flipped his phone closed. The CD finished writing the current imprint of the file, and he extracted it from the drive. Quickly, he shut down the computer and exited the office, carefully locking it behind him.

Back in his apartment, Mark booted up his laptop and found a nearby high-speed wireless connection that wasn't encrypted. He surfed on. Within moments, he'd launched his e-mail and downloaded three months' worth of the club's bank statements. Bless Rafe's pointy head, but he was a truly great hacker.

Mark opened both files and compared debits and credits for February. It looked good. Nearly every
I
dotted and every T crossed--except on the last day, very late in the day. On the twenty-eighth, a flurry of activity littered the bank's records, after five in the afternoon. Several sizeable credits from a corporation Mark had never heard of and would bet his eyeteeth was a dummy front for something else, followed by even more sizeable debits sent to offshore accounts. None of that appeared in the accountant's records. The monthly totals, however, ended up exactly the same.

Even so, Marcy would have seen the activity on the bank statements. If she hadn't already known about it, no doubt that would have incited her to start asking questions. Questions Bocelli wouldn't want her finding the answers to.

March started very much the same. After the nineteenth, the accounting records became incomplete. Some items weren't categorized correctly. Others had amounts that just looked plain wrong. Four thousand dollars for catering in a single night? Girls' Night Out served a whole lot of drinks, but not much in the way of chow. But payroll files looked good. Same for taxes and insurance. It just didn't make sense.

April and May looked a lot like March, whacked out and full of shit that struck him as totally mismanaged--or fabricated.

And at varying times in every month, the bank's records showed a slew of credits in large but not alarming amounts, all from obscure corporations. Inevitably, those amounts were transferred offshore on the same day, late in the day.

None of the accounting records reflected a dime of that.

At this point, Nicki's books were simply screwed. It would take Mark a solid week and access to every one of her records to even begin to sort it out. But more, it begged the question: How could Nicki be so unaware of what was happening in her business financially?

Frowning, Mark began to close the file with the bank's records ... until something at the bottom snagged his attention--a series of deposits from more unheard of corporations totaling about a hundred thousand dollars, followed almost immediately by transfers to offshore accounts. Every one of these transactions had occurred today, after five in the afternoon, In fact, the transactions had transpired just under an hour ago. Where had Bocelli been then?

In Nicki's office, probably overseeing it all.

The bastard had to feel pretty smug in his position to pull a stunt like that under Nicki's nose. He couldn't have had any clue that she would be occupied.

Could he?

The thought stopped Mark cold.

While Blade had been playing musical bank accounts, had the wise guy known that Mark would be busy getting to know Nicki in the biblical sense?

No. Impossible.

But it was possible ... if Nicki was in on the scam, too.

Mind racing, Mark sat back in his chair. The Feds thought it likely she was unaware of the money laundering in her club, but weren't certain of that. Could they be wrong?

Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. After all, why would Nicki allow her club to be used for illegal crap? And if she was, and if the light nearly falling on Nicki hadn't been an accident, why would Bocelli try to kill her?

Well ... there was another possibility: The falling light might actually have been an accident--or a warning from a jealous lover, just like the blaring music. But the money laundering would, no doubt, make Nicki money. The question was, how far was she willing to go for it?

Mark closed his eyes, but couldn't escape that sick feeling, as if he'd been punched in the gut. Was it possible he had again fucked a woman who was just as intent on fucking him outside the bedroom?

He dialed Rafe again, who answered on the first ring.

"That was quick," said his brother-in-law.

"These records are all bullshit," Mark confirmed.

"We figured they would be."

"Yeah, it's just ... Nicki is so smart and together. I don't see how she's letting this happen under her nose. So I'm wondering..."

"If she's involved? Why would you think that?"

Mark sighed, feeling dread slide through his gut. And something that felt suspiciously like hurt. Damn, he wanted to deny the possibility. But it
was
possible ...

"She tried to avoid any personal interaction with me from the minute I walked in the door. I've spent some time with her, but not any quality time, if you catch my drift."

"Yeah."

"So, today the club is closed, and I get this voice mail from Nicki to come see her at her place at five o' clock. I go up there and try to convince her that Bocelli is no accountant and that he may not be honest. She basically defended him, told me to get my nose out of her business, then informed me that she had invited me over for sex."

Rafe choked. "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack. Afterward, I get the subtle hint that this is a one-night thing, which is odd since she invited me and things went well. When she drifted off, I slipped out of her place to find Bocelli coming up the stairs, probably leaving Nicki's office, and all the bank records in a file cabinet that, I think, only Nicki has the keys to. Worse, a whole bunch of money changed hands while Nicki and I were busy. Coincidence ... or by design?"

Mark shrugged, but inside denial raged. Fury grew. Would a woman that smart and successful participate in such a scheme? He wanted to say no. God knew he did. They'd connected in bed, not just sexually. For the first time since his marriage, he'd felt something with a woman besides the release of getting off. He'd felt her, the woman he sensed she didn't share easily. The wants she'd never told anyone. Her need to let go. Both her insecurities and her sexual confidence. For that, he'd wanted her fiercely, so deeply it scared the hell out of him.

And now this shit.

He shouldn't be surprised, he supposed. He had terrible taste in women. The badder, the better. After an ex-wife who'd been a thief and married him to frame him for her crime, why shouldn't he be interested in a woman with secrets of her own, like being a money laundress?

His temper soared until Mark wondered if the top of his head would pop off from the pressure. Had Nicki invited him over at just the right time, then spread her legs for him to distract him, to cover up the fact she was involved with Bocelli both personally and criminally?

"Maybe I'm answering my own question," he growled to Rafe, seething inside. "Maybe Nicki isn't unaware of what's going on with her accounting records. I can't see her being duped like that."