Page 70 of Blind Luck

“The bank accounts matched up, but then I began analysing the blockchain transactions from the Bitcoin wallet.” Rennick strode to his desk and ate a piece of leftover sushi. “Ugh, this is warm. Now, the patrons who opted to pay using Bitcoin have been disproportionately lucky. I’d guess they were gaming the system—counting cards, possibly—but that’s a separate issue. Plus Bitcoin was extremely volatile during the period in question. Together, those issues meant the Galaxy needed to pay out more Bitcoins than they had in the wallet, and it seems whenever they ran low, they just transferred more Bitcoins in from a second wallet. That second wallet isn’t included in the accounting system, and neither were the transfers. When the first wallet was revalued at the end of themonth, the differences were lost in the foreign exchange account.”

My head was spinning, but thankfully, Lila helped us out by summarising.

“So there’s probably a loan, but the money the Galaxy received wasn’t recorded in the system. And due to a series of errors, the balance owed accidentally ended up being recorded as income in the profit-and-loss account?”

“Exactly right.”

“So the Galaxy’s lost even more money than they thought?”

“Yes. And they paid tax on it too.”

“And were there any particularly unlucky players? Anyone who lost an excessive amount of money?”

“Large losses? Yes. But no one that stuck out. I’ll give you a list of the most sizeable transactions.”

Oh, man. This was a real mess. “Who does the second Bitcoin account belong to?”

“Finding the answer to that question falls under your remit, not mine, I’m afraid.” Rennick tapped two numbers on the wall. “That’s the number of Bitcoins that have been transferred from wallet two to wallet one. And that’s the Bitcoins left in wallet one.”

“Why didn’t they just transfer the whole lot in one go?”

Rennick shrugged. “Why did they do any of this? Lila, do you want to get a late dinner?”

“Sure.”

How would Jerry feel about the discovery? The Galaxy owing money wasn’t ideal, but at least we had evidence one way or the other. Plus we had the Jace Fuller angle. If there was a way to connect the two… Why would the Fullers loan money to a failing business? Presumably so they could pressure Uncle Mike to sell, but then their plan was thwarted when he died.

“Thank you for everything,” I told Rennick. “Honestly, Ihave no idea how I would have worked this out on my own. I could skip a couple of invoices?”

“No need—it was fun.”

Fun?Fun?“Okay then.”

Next time I found a hellishly difficult problem involving math or finance, I knew who to come to. Did I want another case like this one? The beginning was frustrating, but now that it was ramping up, I felt the familiar buzz of excitement in my belly. The thrill of the chase.

“There is one other interesting tidbit,” Rennick said as we walked to the door.

“What’s that?”

“Every Bitcoin transaction is recorded on the blockchain. When those Bitcoins went into wallet number one, they were worth five hundred bucks.”

“Five hundred bucks? So someone just…left them there, and they increased in value?”

“For over a decade. There were no transactions during that time period.”

Who would leave money dormant like that? Who could afford to? Someone wealthy, which came back to the Fuller family again. Tomorrow, I’d speak to connections I had in the city. If Kina was right and Jace Fuller liked to rub people the wrong way, there had to be stories.

The lights turned off automatically behind us, and Rennick shepherded Lila toward his electric sports car. Dusk’s SUV was parked nearby. It had started life as a Porsche Cayenne with illegally tinted windows, but there were a bunch of unexplained buttons that she’d told me not to touch. When I asked what would happen if I used the cigarette lighter, she’d just laughed.

“Guess Echo’s gonna be busy,” she said as the engine roared to life. “Serves her right for meddling.”

“She wants me to keep the details from Jerry.”

“I agree with her on that part. Jez would be on the nextflight back to Vegas, and at least one of us needs a healthy sex life.”

“Nobody else on the team dates?”

“Not really. Priest marries random women from time to time.” A message lit up on the car’s dash, but it wasn’t in English. “Sin has to work tonight, which means I’ll stay at the Johansen place.”

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