Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (53 page)

"That still points to Ramos," pointed out Maddox. He
placed a call, giving
instructions to have Hector Ramos picked up.

"I
f you thought Ramos had it in him, you would have said that straight off, right?" pressed Solomon. He had a little knowing smile on his face, one that told me he had reached the same conclusion.

"Yep. I think there's someone else."

"Who?" asked
Maddox
.

I threw my hands in the air, the flat photograph of the four men smiling proudly back at me. "That's the problem, I don't know."

We went through the details over and over and nothing
emerged
. If anything, I just felt more frustrated. When Maddox's cell phone rang, he answered on the second ring, listening briefly then hanging up. "Ramos' wife reported him missing two days ago," he told us, slid
ing the phone back in
to
his pocket
.

"That's not good," I said.

"Ramos
could
be the killer. Maybe he ran?"
persist
ed Maddox. "He could be out of the country by now."

I shook my head. "Mathis, Harris and Dean are all dead. Unless Ramos really hated his wife, I think he's dead too," I said. "Plus, he wouldn't go missing without the money and I don't think they've got it yet. He's worked too hard for it.
That’s why someone came after me. Whatever Tanya Henderson had, they think I now
have.
” It hit me. “
They can’t get the money
.
”

We all stared hard at the photograph
,
but I shook my head. There were a couple of faces visible in the background where a cluster of people stood. "I don't know anyone else in this picture," I said.

"I'll send it to the team. They can run facial recognition." Maddox took over the keyboard, his hands flying across it. "Done. Let's see if they get any hits."

"What now?"

"Now, we wait,
"
said Maddox. “I need to stretch my legs.”

I hated waiting.

When Solomon and Maddox went out
of
the house to talk together about secre
t stuff, or their weekend plans—
who knew?
—I
went
into the living room and pulled out my notepad and the sheet of notes I'd made in the office. Keeping my finger on the first address Lily had checked, I flipped through the note
book
. On the t
hird
page
,
I struck
gold
. The first set of numbers before the slash matched
an
account number
on my list
. After that first
slash, the numbers were still a mystery. I suspected that the digits were made up of a partial encryption, with the first part simply an account numbe
r. But what could the second,
third
and fourth
parts mean?

I ran my finger down the list and found a policy opening date near to the first
one
that
I matched
. The account number matched another
one on the list. The month read March. I
penciled
“
March
”
on a sticky and added it to the
notebook
page a
s I
flicked back to the beginning. Every few pages, there was a blank
,
and the same pattern continued until I counted twelve sections. I wrote the months on sticky notes and added a note to each section. Now that I had a way of differentiating the numbers, I
quickly
found seventy
-
six of the accounts on my list written in the not
ebook
, each with a corresponding six
-
digit policy opening date
. All I had to do was work out what the last
two parts
of Dean's notes meant
;
but I folded it away when Maddox and Solomon came back. I would share when I had the whole thing worked out.

Ther
e was one thing I was sure of. This innocent looking notebook was
the master list for every fraud the gang had commi
tted. The question was, did who
ever was after me want this piece of the puzzle too?
Was this what they needed
?
N
ot the key Tanya Henderson held?

Solomon took off
after an hour to who knew w
h
ere—I’m
not even sure Maddox knew all the time
where he went
—
leaving us
alone again, a
shared
pizza between us. Both of us were on edge, knowing how close we were to breaking the case. I paced the floor, munching a slice, waiting while Maddox filed his report. Every so often, he would look up and ask me a question, his forehead furrowed with lines
,
then duck back down, typing qu
ickly as I gave him my answers.

Try as I might, however
many
question
s he asked
, I couldn't
imagine
who the fifth person could be.

"I don't think the fifth person is connected to the group at all," I said finally, coming to a standstill in front of
him
, my hands on my hips. "Five even sounds too many for a group. It's another person t
hey
trust to keep quiet, another person to split the proceeds with. Maybe we shouldn't look for a connection to the gang. Just like they weren't really close, this fifth person isn't
close to them
either."

"What does your gut tell you?"

"Blackmail. I think someone found out and wanted a piece of the pie."

"But they didn't get it?"
Maddox leaned back and stretched.

"No, because Dean was killed. But it would make sense how the others started dying, or disappearing. The fifth person was chasing the money. Not just a little bit of it, all of it, and I don't think
he
can get it. Maybe each of them had part of the puzzle to
recover
the money," I mused
. I was
thinking about the object Martin Dean's girlfriend had died to retrieve, the keys I'd
pried
from her hands. It had to have been something small and something the water wouldn't damage. "
It was probably the fifth person
who killed Tanya.” Another thought occurred to me. “
None of them seemed extra
wealthy
at their time of death, right?"

"We combed Dean's records and there was nothi
ng
,
which was why we were spying. When Dean
’
s name kept coming up
in the
investigation that
was
when I got put in
to
his department
. I was
trying to find out who
exactly
in Green Hand was part of it
, as well as
how it was going down
. My team is pulling Mathis
’
, Harris
’
and Ramos' financials now. We can comb them
,
but I think we'll find the same thing.
Nothing.” Maddox sounded exasperated. “
T
hey
probably
have it stashed somewhere?"

"
In a bank account
?
Ramos would be able to move and coll
ect
the money. If he turned it into cash, it could be in storage
or in the vault
. Somewhere safe where they could collect
it
when the time came, when
and if, any suspicion
was gone."

"So
, if none of them trusted each other to keep the money
,
and they all had something that enabled them to collect it together,
all the fifth person ha
d
to do
wa
s find all four pieces of the puzzle and wait it out."
Maddox
f
olded his arms behind his head.

"Except the heat
is on," I
noted
. "If that person
connected the dots, they must know we can too. They need to get the money and fast."

"This mystery person is going to go for the money and disappear," said
Maddox
with a sigh. "Then
he’s
gone."

"Unless we get there first." If we cracked the case
,
I could go home, back to my own bed, and, more importantly, my own life. I took a deep breath and put a dent in my plan. "The only thing is, Adam, the fifth person knows who I am, but I don't know who
he is
."

"
The Finklesteins?”

"If they weren’t dead
,” I
replied. I paced the floor while Maddox watched me
. “
But some of
those creepy messages
came after they were shot
.
It has to be the person who shot
Tanya
. They knew we were following her
that night. Maybe they think I'm after the money too
, that I know all the fraudsters are dead except Ramos
.
They just think I know who they are,
"
I surmised.

"It's not enough to keep you safe
.
You figured out the rest of it. Until we stop that person, you're still in danger."

Shit.

"I
believe
Dean's girlfriend's key is one of the
items
he needs," I said. "It's still the only thing I can think of that could have been hidden in the
toilet tank
. It wouldn't have gotten damaged like a map or a code, and
was
easy to move. No one else knew Dean went there
,
so it would be a safe place to hide it.
We need to look at lockers. The bus station?
Ramos’ vault for sure.
"