Page 3 of A Real Good Bad Thing

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The client, Andrew, was looking for a man who turned chocolate into art, but not like they did inTheGreat British Bake Off—in a stolen-money kind of way.

I took off my shades and looked Andrew in the eye as the sun cast golden rays on the Key Largo boardwalk. He’d come down from Miami, where his business was based, and hadn’t balked when I’d moved the meeting from the office to the boardwalk midday. The gray-haired man wore slacks and a button-down. I was dressed for a dip in the water with my nephew when we were done.

“Let me get this straight. You think your business partner embezzled money from chocolate investments, put the money into art, and took that art to Flamingo Key?”

My client nodded as we stood to the water side of the boardwalk, looking like two friends just catching up for a chat—not a bounty hunter and a customer. “It’s easier to move art than money.”

I had one eye on my nephew, Mason, making sure he didn’t get too far away as he pedaled his bike down the boardwalk, but I was listening. “So you’re saying Eli Thompson—Eli ‘launched a hedge-style fund of sorts for ordinary guy investors with seed money from his wife’s craft-fair jewelry sales’ Thompson—has been skimming pennies off his clients’ accounts for two decades?”

“She’s his ex-wife now.”

“How much money are we talking?”

“Over twenty years? About ten million.”

“Damn.” Swearing reminded me to check on my nephew, and I spotted my sister’s kid speeding off in the distance. “Mason! Don’t go past the ice-cream shop. Circle back this way, buddy.”

He turned around and pedaled toward me and my potential client.

“Did you see how far I rode?” Mason shouted from yards away, grinning.

“I did. And good job turning around when I called you.” I circled my finger, indicating the area around us. “Just stick closer, okay? We’ll get the chocolate peanut-butter-cup scoop when I’m done here.”

“My favorite!” Mason said as he pedaled off in the other direction.

I joined Andrew in leaning against the boardwalk fence, getting back to business. “I gotta ask—how did nobody notice? You said you and your brother were Thompson’s right-hand men.”

Andrew sighed. “We all manage investments in our own area of expertise. There’s a lot of movement. A discrepancy of pennies goes under the radar. Even a big loss isn’t rare—that’s the nature of this type of fund. Then this cocoa bean farm went belly-up, taking a lot of investments down with it, and at the same time, Eli suddenly retired and opened a nightclub. With his new wife. Well, fiancée.”

I almost laughed but ten million wasn’t funny. “So, big red flag.”

“Yeah.” He sounded embarrassed—even apologetic. “Only then did we look back over his accounts and realize there was a pattern. Believe me. I feel like a fool for not catching on sooner.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said, trying to reassure the guy. “Just give me the details. You believe he embezzled all this money over the years from these little hidden investments,” I recapped. “Now here’s the ten-million-dollar question: got any proof?” I felt for the guy, but I didn’t move without hard evidence.

Andrew nodded and opened a file on his phone. “Besides the financial audit, we did a data search. Twenty years of data, memos, and documents. I can send it over.”

I wanted Kate to verify it all. She had the expertise and the analytical mind. I had the bullshit detector, but it wasn’t pinging with this guy. He seemed legit.

“So, why not go to the cops?” I asked. “The SEC?”

“I’d rather resolve this as quickly and quietly as possible. We want to recover our clients’ money and get it back to them. Headlines won’t help us do that.”

I nodded, liking that answer. “Send me the paperwork today. We’ll get back to you with a final decision.”

We parted ways, and I made good on my promise of chocolate peanut-butter-cup cones. Wasn’t going to risk my status as the cool uncle by not coming through.

* * *

Two hours later, this cool uncle was carrying a conked-out Mason into the office. I settled him on the corner couch without disturbing his snooze then went to ask my sister what she’d learned so far.

“All the docs from Andrew checked out,” she said. “Looked into Thompson and his fiancée. Willow runs a classy art gallery, and she’s made some impressive deals over the years.” Kate clicked through a few pages of her research. She was fierce while digging into a case. We shared the same drive, the same motivation. No surprise there. She’d practically raised our much younger siblings after our parents were killed in a car crash several years ago. “Here’s where the gallery is. Convenient for tourists.”

I leaned over her shoulder. “Show me the bars and cafés near the gallery and nightclub.”

A few clicks on the map where she’d zoomed in covered the street with pins. “Never say never. You’re planning to—gasp!—socialize while you’re there?”

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