Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Fine, you’ve made a good case for Rhodes not taking Carrie, but that doesn’t mean my original supposition, that Voss got his wife out of the country, is not valid.”
“Anything’s possible at this point,” Nash conceded.
“Okay, so back to Voss. At the moment, he’s actually only wanted on the SEC charges, which means the Feds are looking for him and he is a fugitive.”
“To be precise,” Nash said, “he was a fugitive, and they were looking for him.”
“What do you mean was?”
“Well, he’s dead.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Voss.”
“I’m missing something.”
“No, you’re not,” Nash assured me.
“This picture,” Owen said, tapping the close-up of Voss with Ash, “the time stamp tells us it was taken last Wednesday at twelve thirty, and according to the FBI, Voss was killed three hours later when he lost control of his car on Interstate 5, heading south from San Francisco.”
“What?”
“The car flipped over several times, came to a stop upside down, and exploded. The body inside was burned beyond recognition.”
“You’re telling me that Elliot Voss, a wanted fugitive, was having lunch with world-famous actor Ashford Lennox last Wednesday, three hours before he died.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, yes,” Owen confirmed.
“And no one thinks that’s weird?”
“Our boss does,” Owen said. “This type of accident is always cause for concern in his book.”
“But highway patrol thinks sure, nothing nefarious, just an accident.”
“Correct.”
It took me a moment because I’d only been awake for a very short time. “Backing up, you’re saying Voss went to a lunch with Ash and was dead a few hours later?”
“Why’re you repeating this?” Nash asked me.
“Because I just—I mean, what are the chances?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we’re here to talk to him,” Nash explained. “Because at the moment, Ash and his director of acquisitions—Inca Hill, the woman in the picture—are the last two people to see Voss alive, along with these two other men.”
My brain was running at that point. “Is it possible that the car accident was a hit?”
“More than possible, of course.”
“And since Voss was defrauding people with Rhodes, there’s no end to the list of suspects wanting him dead.”
“That’s right, but the FBI wants to start the questioning with Lennox.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” Nash said, gesturing at the picture of Ash and Voss on Owen’s laptop. “Again, one of the last people to see Voss alive. Plus, for all the Feds know, Voss lost some of Ash Lennox’s money. He defrauded a lot of people, and maybe your boy was one of them.”
Trying to correct Nash’s “your boy” assumption would be useless since he’d found us in bed together. “So the Feds have questions.”
“They do.”
“Then why is it you guys and not the FBI standing in my bedroom this morning?”
“Because our boss wants to keep our client out of the FBI’s clutches, and he has enough clout to make that happen.”
“How did the Feds find out about this picture?”
“They didn’t—not about this one Ash took, but there were others, taken by fans, posted across platforms, and Voss has an alert attached to him since he was a fugitive and all,” Owen reminded me like I was an idiot. “I have no doubt that the FBI had facial recognition alerts set up for both Rhodes and Voss, which is how they found him sitting at a restaurant with your movie star.”
“How did you find them?”
“From the pictures on Ash’s cloud. I mean, you know, once the client or their proxy signs a contract with us, I get to go through their whole lives, top to bottom, starting with financials and ending with their social media accounts. And I look until there’s nothing else to find.”
“So when you found the photos Ash took, you went looking for more, and that’s when your path crossed with the FBI.”
“Yep.”
“Well,” I said, exhaling much of the adrenaline from waking up and finding them there, “good work as usual. Also, I want to thank you both for flying out to ensure Ash’s safety.”
“The client is important, without question,” Nash assured me. “But you are just as important. No way we would’ve left you alone when you could be in danger.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And of course, our boss put us on his private jet this morning when it was still dark outside because he’s a fuckin’ sadist.”
“You’re not even kidding,” I agreed.
“Both of you need to shut the hell up,” Owen said sternly. “You’re talking about the love of my life.”
“Gross,” I said flatly.
Nash gagged.
“Fuck off, all the way off,” Owen retorted, glaring at us, but his slow smile took any heat out of his words.
“So the FBI is waiting to hear from Jared?” I asked Nash. “Do I have that right?”
“You do.”
“Amazing that if Jared says he’ll question Ash, they just back off.”
“I suspect that when your network all over the world is bigger and a helluva lot scarier than theirs, they’ll sit instead of taking matters into their own hands.”