Page 44 of Lies He Told Me

She falls against the wall and draws a deep breath. The nausea inside her is rising. Whoever named it morning sickness didn’t give away the complete story. But it’s more than that. It’s her nerves, too. The cops have noticed her now. She’s no longer invisible.

And yes, she most certainly knows the name Silas Renfrow.

FORTY-TWO

SPECIAL AGENT FRANCIS BLAIR walks into Becky Crandall’s office at the IRS’s criminal division in Chicago. “Hope I’m not stopping by too late,” he says. “I know you Revenue folks like to call it a day about four.”

“Fuck off, Francis.” She removes her glasses, tucks her hair behind her ears. “Nice scruff, by the way.”

The facial hair — three days’ growth of beard. “I’m undercover. A task force with Customs. Might’ve mentioned to you. A sting op. Cargo theft. Been working it about a year now.”

“Well, don’t you live the exciting life?”

“Yeah, don’t I? Tell me you have something good for me, Beck.”

“You tellmesomething first,” she says. “Does this have anything to do with Michael Cagnina?”

He takes a seat across from her. “Why do you ask that?”

“Oh-kay.” She leans back in her leather chair. “The runaround. Answer a question with a question. I don’t ‘need toknow,’ right? Never mind our history. Never mind I worked that fucking Cagnina case with you back in the day.”

Blair throws up his hands. “Not my call, Becky.”

She pushes a file across the desk to him. “Hemingway’s Pub is owned by DCB Enterprises. His initials, David Christopher Bowers. An offshore corporation.”

“Offshore. Hmph.”

“Yeah, hmph. Not illegal, though. Anyway, you know much about the place? The pub?”

He shrugs. “Not really. Why?”

“It’s done really, really well as a business. Very strong revenues. Very strong. It serves food and sells booze. But it must be really popular with revenues like that.”

“It’s located right off the interstate. I know that much.” Blair opens the file. “So I suppose with a name like that, it probably draws a lot of one-off customers — travelers. Plus the local town regulars. Shit, what do I know about restaurants?”

“Well, I don’t know much, either,” says Becky. “But I do look at a lot of financials. This place is doing better than most.”

Blair looks over the numbers. “Yeah, seems like it. You’re thinking, what, he’s laundering money?”

She shrugs. “It’s an ideal vehicle. Personally, if I were going to launder money, a restaurant would be my first choice. A combo restaurant and bar, actually. Drinks are so easy to fudge. But I can’t tell if there’s laundering just by looking at financials.”

“Got it.”

“You see who’s preparing his tax returns, though?”

“No. Who?”

She sighs. “Down in the corner, dumbass.”

He finds it. “David Bowers is doing his own corporate tax returns?”

“He sure is. Now, that’s not anythingnecessarilysuspicious, either. But if I were laundering money, I wouldn’t just pick a restaurant and bar — I’d also do the tax returns myself.”

“Okay, what else?”

“David Bowers is paying himself at least a half a mil a year. Pretty nice coin for a place like Hemingway Grove.”

“Shit, I’d take that up here in Chicago.”

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