Page 30 of Furever Loyal
“It’s right there on the screen,” she said with just a bit of bite to her words, pointing at three separate boxes all containing the same information, with one difference: the time stamp. All three were dated two days earlier. The day before his trial against Krawll.
“A million dollars.” He tried not to sound disappointed but failed. “You know the scale of the funds we have access to, Haley. A million dollars isn’t exactly much.”
“You told me to look for large sums that might seem unusual. This is three separate transactions, all deposits into his account, for a clean, even, million dollars each. I’m telling you, as the one who runs the books for you guys, this is odd.”
Kincaid looked at the sums again. He’d been hoping for more. Much more. Still, if she said it was weird… “What’s so off about them?”
She sighed, using the mouse icon in circles over the name of the company depositing the money. “A million dollars. Three times. From a restaurant? One that he’s never had contact with before? Never bought food at, or invested in? Nothing?”
“A restaurant?” he echoed. “You’re right, that is odd. We have no record of this place, do we? Nothing on the files?”
“No.”
Kincaid grinned. “We might just have found a new one to add. Which is perfect.”
“How is that perfect?” Haley sounded confused.
“Because I’m starving. Come on, we’re going to get lunch.” He walked back around the desk, smiling eagerly to himself. They were back on the hunt! It was time to go search for clues.
“That’s your plan?” she asked, staring at him in astonishment.
Kincaid waggled a finger at her, putting just a bit of extra flair into it so that she knew he was mocking her. “Hey, there is absolutelynothingrule-breaking about going to get food from a restaurant. That was your condition. I didn’t say breaking in. I said getting food.”
Haley didn’t look overly impressed. He was playing by her rules, even if it probably wasn’t how she’d expected to go about it, and so there was little she could do about it. Either she admitted that, or she would suck it up and come along. Kincaid didn’t care much which one she chose.
A handful of seconds later, she stood up. “Fine. I don’t know why we’re doing this though.”
“Tactics,” he explained as she grabbed her coat and put on her outdoor boots.
“Tactics?”
“Yes. Think about it. This is an entirely different avenue of attack than what we’ve done so far. Whoever is after me, they’re expecting me to go down. The incident at the docks? They probably hoped I wouldn’t be allowed to go searching, but they had to have planned for it. Now they think I’m stuck, and that I’m running out of time.”
“You are running out of time,” she pointed out, leaning back against the elevator wall as they descended to the ground floor.
Kincaid glowered. “Thank you for the unnecessary reminder. Still, thelastthing they expect is for me to show up at this restaurant, something they don’t think I even know about. We’re going to throw them off balance. Push them into doing something unexpected, and we’ll see what we flush out by doing that.”
“You’re trying to get them to make a mistake and give you another clue.”
“Exactly!” he said, clapping his hands together, glad she understood his train of thought.
“And what happens if this is just a restaurant and we get food, and nothing happens?”
He smiled. “Then I’m happily full and we go back to searching for more clues.”
Haley sighed, not saying much more as they got into his car and headed off. He was following her directions, having no idea where the restaurant was.
Kincaid was focused on this new bit of information. Someone had paid Krawll off, that much was evident to him now. It was the same people trying to frame him, he knew that. They were tying up all the loose ends they could think of. He played out the scenario in his mind—the scenario if they had won.
Krawll would end up as the Hunter, a pawn of someone in Canis as a Title Holder. Then, while they’d be going through his things, including his bank account, they’d find the “missing” money from the Ursa corporate account. Suddenly he’d be one of the remaining traitors that Kirell, the Queen and everyone else had been looking for all along. They’d announce this, and any real traitors would stay hidden, free to continue their attempts to destroy Ursa from the inside.
It was a tidy little plan. The only thing whoever was behind it hadn’t accounted for, was the trust Kincaid’s Queen had in him, giving him the ability to clear his own name. That, and the fact that Krawll was nowhere near as good a fighter as he boasted about being. He’d managed to fool his handler in Canis, but Kincaid knew better.
Whoever it was behind this, he was going to find them. They would pick up the trail again at the restaurant, and this time, Kincaid wouldn’t stop until he backtracked it all the way to the top. Then he would have evidence he could use.
That’s where things would get complicated. If the man behind it all reallywasLaurent, the Reaver of High House Canis, he was beyond Kincaid’s ability to go after, at least physically. Attacking—or more satisfying,killing—the sonofabitch would result in open warfare between the Houses. He could hire someone unaffiliated with the Houses to do the job, but that wasn’t guaranteed to work, and could still backfire upon him.
No, if you want to bring this bastard down, you’re going to need to take it to The Court.
