Page 96 of Lost Truth
“Hey, thanks,” Hayden said. “I owe you big time.”
“I might just call you on that. You never know.” He chuckled. “Let me know if you have a problem accessing the files. Later, man.” Nick ended the call.
“This data could blow things wide open.” Hayden shifted as if he couldn’t wait to get moving. “Mind if we finish this discussion later so I can get to my computer?”
“Let’s go.” She stood, too, but he’d taken off before she reached full height. It would take him a few minutes to retrieve the data and make sense of it, so she cleared the table and loaded the dirty dishes in the dishwasher to lighten Reece’s load.
In the conference room, she paused at the doorway. Hayden and Jude sat next to each other, each staring at laptops. Phone to her ear, Reece sat directly across from Hayden, and Abby next to her.
Abby closed her computer and slid it away from her. “I’m done with the video files from Palmer’s house. I didn’t find anything else of value, so hopefully that flash drive will give you the information we need.”
“Hope so,” Hayden said without looking up.
“Thank you,” Reece said in Betty Lou’s accent, then lowered her hand to the table. “Betty Lou got the info we need, but it’s not good. Ivers is at a statewide county commissioner conference at the Dunes until tomorrow night.”
Hayden’s head shot up. “The Dunes.”
The Oregon Dunes were the largest expanse of coastal sand dunes in America and a huge recreation area and tourist trap not far from Lost Lake. At this time of year, the place would be packed with tourists and off-road vehicles.
“That’ll make watching him far more difficult,” Hayden said.
“Agreed, but we’ll figure it out.” Reece stood. “I’ll call Gabe and tell him there’s no point in surveilling the office. You can find me in the kitchen making his breakfast.”
Hayden went back to looking at his computer screen, and Cady crossed the room to stand behind him.
“Whoa!” He sat back. “It’s all here. All the incorporation papers for the Emerald Scorpion GroupandMarine Investment Associates. The Emerald Scorpion Group is listed as a shipping company, and Marine Investment Associates is a consultancy group. Both companies are LLCs, and Ivers is listed as the president and only stockholder for both. They were founded four years ago.”
“That would be before he was elected county commissioner.” Abby came around the end of the table to join them.
“Big news for sure,” Cady said. “But is there anything else?”
“Oh, yeah.” He looked back at her, a wide smile on his face. “There are spreadsheets listing the dates, times, and number of women his company trafficked for the past three years. It also lists the amount of money he made per transaction and the money he funneled through Kai’s business, starting a few months ago.”
Abby shook her head. “So Kai was involved for sure, but it doesn’t make sense he had access to this drive.”
“However he got the drive, it makes sense Ivers wanted it back.” Hayden looked at Abby. “I can’t imagine with everyone else saying Kai hated computers that he would be able to transfer this information from Ivers’s computer and put it on such a sophisticated drive.”
“Yeah,” Abby said. “That doesn’t make sense. So who owns it?”
“Give me a minute.” Hayden clicked on files.
“Ding, ding, ding!” He swiveled and flashed a smile at them. “I don’t have an actual name, but the drive is registered to CrimsonX.”
A jolt of anticipation hit Cady. “One of the code names Fletcher gave us. Is there any way to search the drive for the other code names?”
“Can do.” He typed inStub, and a spreadsheet opened.
“Stub has his own sheet with dates, times, and amounts paid.”
Cady pointed at one of the columns in the spreadsheet. “All at three a.m. Could Wade Collins be Stub?”
“Sounds likely,” Abby said.
“I’ll cross reference the dates to a calendar to see which day of the week these are for.” Hayden opened the calendar on his screen. “The transactions occur on Thursdays, so yeah, looks like Collins is Stub.”
“And Relay?” Abby asked. “Does he have a page too?”
Hayden’s fingers flew over the keyboard, addingRelayto the search box. A file popped up, and he opened it to reveal another spreadsheet. “Same column headings as the other spreadsheet, but the dates are different.”
