Elena could barely breathe when she finished reading.
“Arnold wasn’t stealing it,” she managed to say. “He was trying to make sure that Josh Rosenbloom and his family got their fair share of the profits.”
Shane socked his fist against his hand. “And I fell for what Kinkead told me.”
“It was true as far as it went. Weller somehow found out about the program and was trying to steal it,” Elena answered.
“At the same time Kinkead was planning to screw his own nephew,” Shane said. “Blake wanted to stop him, but he put you in terrible danger.”
“It wasn’t just him. My brother helped.”
He reached for her, pulling her close.
She laid her head against his shoulder as she whispered, “We need to finish what Blake started. But how do we do it?”
Shane squeezed her hand. “I think we can figure it out together.”
Max pulled up at the entrance to Jerome Weller’s estate and pressed the button on the intercom.
After several seconds, a man’s voice asked, “Who is it?”
“FBI, here to inform you that Jerome Weller is dead,” Max answered. “Killed in a gun battle at a warehouse in Columbia.”
They heard the guy on the other end of the line catch his breath.
“We’re only interested in gathering relevant information,” Max said. “We’re not going to arrest anybody on the estate if you cooperate. In fact, we’ll give you twenty minutes to clear out.”
“How do we know that’s not a trick, and we won’t be arrested if we try to leave?” the voice asked.
“You’ll have to take our word for it. But our best advice is to get yourselves out of this mess.”
“Okay,” the voice answered.
Max backed up and pulled across the road.
Five minutes later, the gate opened and a black SUV barreled out.
They waited another ten minutes before proceeding through the open gate.
“Are they really that stupid?” Jack asked.
“Let’s hope so. And hope that the house isn’t going to blow up when we start looking for evidence.”
Jack laughed. “Right. And the first thing we’d better do is make sure nobody can pinpoint when we were here.”
Shane and Elena talked about how to handle Kinkead. Then Shane got out one of the burner phones and called the head of S&D, using the speaker capacity of the phone so Elena could listen.
“Who is this?” the S&D owner snapped.
“Shane Gallagher.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“We’ve been busy.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“You said you knew where that SIM card was.”
“We have it.”
“Thank God.”
“I’m going to send you the first part of the information on it,” Shane answered. “Then we’ll talk.”
“What about the rest of it?”
“You have the rest of it. I’m sending Arnold Blake’s conclusion.” He looked at Elena. She pressed Send on the email she’d already prepared.
In a few minutes, there was an explosion of cursing from the other end of the line.
“What is this crap?” Lincoln Kinkead demanded.
“It’s Arnold Blake’s last will and testament. Your little shell game with Falcon’s Flight got him killed.”
“No,” Kinkead breathed.
“Should we go to the police with this information?” Shane asked.
“No!”
“Then this is what we’re going to do. I’m sending you a contract which you will sign. In it, you will give seventy-five percent of the profits from Falcon’s Flight to the Rosenbloom family.”
“Seventy-five percent. That’s outrageous.”
“Jesus, Kinkead, the kid developed it, not you. I’m letting you keep twenty-five percent, since you’ve got the marketing ability they don’t.”
“What else?” Kinkead demanded.
“I did the job you hired me for. I’m leaving your employ, but I want full pay for the next year.”
“Fuck, no!”
“You’re getting off easy on that one. Again, I’m assuming you don’t want any of this made public.”
“That’s right,” Kinkead growled.
“I’ll take monthly payments instead of demanding you pay me in a lump sum.”
Again, Kinkead didn’t like it, but he agreed.
Shane glanced at Elena, and she nodded.
“And Elena Reyes is leaving the company,” he said.
“Good.”
“She’ll get a year’s pay and an excellent reference letter.”
“Now, wait a minute.”
“Again, I think we’re in a position to dictate terms.”
“All right,” Kinkead snapped. “Do you have any more demands?”
“If the cops have any questions about what I’ve been doing for the past few days, you need to say I was on an assignment for you. And if you have any second thoughts, we still have a copy of Blake’s account of your double-dealings. If anything happens to us, that will go to the authorities. Understood?”
“Yes,” Kinkead bit out.
“That’s all for now,” Shane said as he clicked off.
Elena breathed a sigh, then looked at Shane.
“I have to tell my parents about Alesandro.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I know that’s going to be tough.”
“I don’t know exactly what to say to them.”
“That he had gotten himself in with a bad crowd, there was a fight, and they killed him.”
“And how do I know about any of that?”
“Let me check in with Max and Jack.”
He called the other two Rockfort agents.
“You got anything?” he asked when Max answered the phone.
“Yeah. A lot of good stuff. We’re on our way back. Sit tight.”
Elena looked at Shane, “What does that mean?”
“That he doesn’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
Chapter 32
Max and Jack were back a half hour later.
“What have you got?” Shane asked as they came in carrying a desktop computer and a laptop.
“Weller’s records.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “Is that legal?”
“Well, you hired us to help your brother, didn’t you?” Max said.
“Did I?”
“Yeah. We’ll postdate an agreement. We were trying to extricate him from a dangerous situation and ran across a lot of other information. Unfortunately, when we tried to rescue Alesandro, he was killed.”
She stared at the Rockfort men. “You can do all that?”
“Yes,” Max answered. “And if we all agree on what happened and keep our stories straight, we’ll be fine.”
“I don’t like being dishonest,” she whispered.
“In this case, you can think of it as protecting your ass,” Max said. “Plus, what would be gained by dragging your brother into a media exposé? Weller’s dead. And they can’t prosecute him for anything he’s done.”
She thought about that for a few moments, then nodded.
“But I have to tell my parents what happened. And I need to get there before the police do.”
“And I’m going with you,” Shane said.
She stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I know how hard it’s going to be for you, and there’s no way I’d let you go there alone.”
He called for the car, and then they went down to the lobby. When the SUV arrived, they got in and he drove away. After turning up Wisconsin Avenue, he took a side street, where he pulled into a parking space.
Elena looked at him questioningly. “What are you doing?”
“I know you need to go to your parents’, but there’s something I want to talk to you about first.”
The way he said it made her chest tighten, but she only answered with a little nod.