Page 28 of Home Again

8

“Man, you’ve got to give me more than an LLC out of Delaware. There are hundreds of thousands of those,” Gideon said.

“You’re the information genius, don’t tell me some NYU student can find something you can’t,” Sebastian baited his friend.

“I told you, Jada is a whole lot more than that.”

Sebastian heard both frustration and admiration in his teammate’s voice.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be an asshole. Not enough sleep.”

“No worries. But I’ve got to tell you, I don’t think it is a bad idea for you and Gianna to work together.”

Sebastian pulled his phone away from his ear and looked at it to see if the name on the screen said Gideon Smith. It did. “I’m sorry, are you suggesting I work with the woman who paints sheets?”

Gideon laughed. “Point number one, anyone who can make that much money designing sheets is someone I admire. Point number two, I say hell yes. You two have matching agendas.”

Sebastian leaned back in his grandfather’s leather chair. Fuck, he’d been thinking the same damn thing.

“Gideon, my mom was basically executed. Gianna is five foot nothing. I don’t want her near this situation.”

“Point number one, that was twenty years ago. Point number two, do you want her going off on her own, or do you want to be working with her so you can watch out for her?”

“You know how annoying it is when you talk in bullet points, right?”

Gideon chuckled. “Yep.”

“You know it’s even more annoying when you’re right, right?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.” Sebastian dug his fingers deep into the tense muscles in the back of his neck. “What else you got for me?”

“I have a hunch about Etta Rose.”

Sebastian sat upright. “Yeah?”

“I got to thinking—how would she know which girls to target at the universities? Then I remembered the age-old rule of ‘follow the money.’ Gianna’s mother was getting tuition aid, so I tracked down who had access to that. There are six different women who fit the bill in the Louisiana area during that time who would know the financial situations of young co-eds. I’m running some cross-searches right now. The only problem is, our Etta Rose could have just been paying someone for the intel, so that widens our search again. Or I could be full of shit.”

“There is that. I doubt it. But the full-of-shit option is always on the table.”

Gideon chuckled again. “I’ll get back to you tonight.”

“I appreciate it.”

Sebastian got up and went to the office door and opened it. Gianna was leaning against the opposite wall with her ankles crossed.

“How long were you planning on waiting there?”

“I was just waiting until you were done with your phone call.”

“The door is thick; you couldn’t hear my call from where you were standing,” Sebastian said.

“I had my ear to the door for the conversation. Unfortunately, everything was muffled.”

Sebastian looked up at the ceiling for guidance. “You might as well come in.”

“So are we a team?”