Page 57 of Desolation

“Paid extra for that,” he jokes.

I laugh and head over to the kitchen island, pulling papers out of the file.

“I was flipping through these documents again. You mentioned something the other day about how the coding seemed off. That it kept changing. Your software found out as much but then I kept seeing a name.”

“Al Rashad?”

I shake my head. “Still can’t find shit on him. Duthmoor Holdings, however, keeps popping up.”

“Duthmoor?” David’s brow raises and he is suddenly next to me grabbing a handful of papers from the counter. “I’ve never seen that name before.”

I raise a brow at him. “You sure?” I know for a fact he has. I may have stumbled across it on an open file on his desk one day.

“Yes, positive.” But I can see the slight tick in his jaw. I was one of the top interrogators on SEAL team 3. I know when someone is lying. But I find it hard to believe that David has something to do with this. Why would he be working with a terrorist group? He doesn’t need the money. Unless he does it for the thrill. But I find that unlikely too.

Of course, David being involved would make the most sense as to why over the last six weeks Cole Security has barely broken any ground on this case. It’s easy for someone to fuck with intel when they are on the inside.

My plan coming over here was to see if David would break. Either way, I am going to Jackson about this.

I read David one more time before continuing on with what I found, hoping the more I reveal, the easier it will be for him to break. “I’m really good at anagrams. Thanks to sitting on base being bored out of my mind half the time. Anyway, I noticed a combination of the same letters popping up.”

Something must click in David’s head when he puts together the highlight marks I made. “Shit. Ruth, Ginro, Dolum…”

“They never used all the letters, just fragments of Duthmoor Holdings.”

David scratches his head. “I don’t get why my software didn’t figure that out.”

I smirk. “We can’t all be geniuses.”

He snorts. “So how did you find Duthmoor? That isn’t in any of these documents.”

“Remember I said something seemed off?” I pick up the papers and start organizing them. I point to the numbers on the top of the page. “We thought these were dates. Hence why nothing made any fucking sense. And honestly, I wouldn’t have thought much of it but I was paying a bill earlier and it clicked. These aren’t just dates. They are routing numbers. Broken up amongst the files so it isn’t obvious. I worked backward, took me all fucking day. But as we both know offshore accounts change their routing numbers frequently, I just had to work backward.”

“Holy fuck. That’s how you found, Duthmoor?”

I look over at David and study him some more. He looks in awe of what I discovered. And he doesn’t look nervous or guilty. Maybe he isn’t involved in a terrorist group. But he knows something. I can see it in his eyes.

“More or less.”

He looks up at me and that’s when I see a flash of something cross his face. A mixture of awe, curiosity, and fear.

He knows something.

“Of course, the first time I saw Duthmoor was in a file on your desk. Seems like an odd coincidence. An offshore account worth millions, a case we can’t break, and here you are sitting in a multi-million dollar house.”

His eyes bug out as I say it. “Wait, are you accusing me of working with terrorists?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“I… you can’t… you actually believe…”

I’m ready to call Jackson. End this whole thing. But the click of the front door makes me pause.

“Dax?”

I know that voice. I dream about that voice. But what the hell is she doing at David’s and who the hell is Dax?

Chapter Eighteen

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