Jake noticed everything about Kathryn. Her determination. Her sweetness. But he worried about her hesitation.
She trusts us. So, why is she struggling?
With a reassuring press to her shoulder, he asked, “What do you need?”
The tight line of her mouth relaxed. “I . . . uh . . . do you all mind if I pace? It comes from years of being on my feet as a nurse. I do my best processing on the move.”
No one seemed terribly concerned with the request. She smiled her thanks to Jake and stood, making slow strides back and forth across the length of the room.
Before him, she transformed. Certain. Determined. Hardly the kitten begging for what he might bestow. This was the side of Kathryn Chase the world knew. The woman who had saved his life.
I could watch her all day.
As she continued to pace, his thoughts flashed to the memory of her bare skin. Her gorgeous body was branded on his mind.
With every turn, the morning light pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows reflected off her hair in strange and fascinating ways. It cast an almost strawberry-blonde coloring with one turn, then looked distinctly honey blond at the next. It perfectly mirrored the contrasts in her character, and the inseparable differences that defined her to the core.
Wearing barely a trace of makeup, she was exposed. The other men at the table couldn’t take their eyes off the unmasked woman, but they’d never know the real her.
The one who was his.
“Anyway,” she said, working the puzzle aloud, “there are these three life insurance cases I’ve been checking for fraud. Different states. Different time frames. No connection whatsoever, except for three seemingly unrelated pieces. First, each case involved a service member who died in combat. Sadly, that’s not surprising in and of itself. Service members are put in hazardous situations . . . it goes hand in hand with being military. Second, all the service members were men, which again, is not surprising. Female populations in all branches of the military are less than twenty percent, except for the Air Force. So, that all three cases had male insureds may just be a result of probability. Finally, and the most disturbing piece of the puzzle, is that all of the service members were significantly overinsured.”
Jake sat back in his chair. “What’s the significance of being overinsured?”
Kathryn shared an unsettled glance with Zach, who answered for her.
“Statistically speaking, overinsured people die quicker.”
Silence settled in, seeming to weigh on them all.
“But again,” Kathryn said, “in and of itself, maybe that’s not surprising. When service members deploy, they may want to take extra precautions. You know, just in case. All I really had was, well, a hunch. My research was starting to gain momentum when I was robbed. So, I’m at square one and a half. My laptop is monitored. My notepad’s in my car. It’ll take me days to recreate everything I have.”
“Well,” her boss said with a small grin, “if you could try to call me Zach every once in a while, I might have a little something awesome for you. I’ll get your new laptop. It’s in the car.”
“Thank you, Zach,” she said with an extra helping of sweetness, and he left the room.
Ben set down his coffee to ask a question. “Kathryn, did you talk about the cases with anyone? Anyone at all?”
Jake nodded to himself, suppressing his smile. Ben is the best. Waiting until Zach left before tossing her a hard-hitting question without throwing her under the bus. That man’s getting a bonus.
But as she’d confided to Jake, Kathryn was adamant that this, like her other investigations, was completely under wraps.
Ben followed his question with another standard query. “What about someone you might have needed information from?”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded slowly. “Yes. There were a few, actually. I try to stay vague with my questions, and normally I keep from mentioning my company, but I have to disclose my identity when dealing with anyone official. Or with the military.”
Jake watched, frowning as her brows knitted. After everything she’d been through, this was the first time he’d really seen her worried.
She glanced around the table with a slightly sheepish look. “I contacted three separate UMOs.”
“What’s a UMO?” Ben asked as Zach returned with the laptop.
Zach jumped in to answer that one. “That’s a Unit Movement Officer, the poor SOB who decides who’s going on what deployment. A UMO will manage everything from who, when, how long . . . all that good stuff. Why?”
Jake took Kathryn’s hand and squeezed. “Give us the names of the people you reached out to. We’ll see who might have been in the area.”
Kathryn stayed cautious. “But that still doesn’t exactly connect the dots. I mean, so people are getting big insurance policies just before they deploy? That’s not a crime. And somehow, a UMO, or more than one, are involved. It’s not just hard to believe they’d somehow be tied together, but there’s also a question of motive. Why? They’re not the beneficiary.”
“Well,” Jake said, “the first step happens to be our specialty. Our boss, Mark Donovan, built Excelsior/Centurion to be the best of the best at what we affectionately call step one.”
Jake glanced at his teammates, and they chanted in unison, “Follow the money.”