Kat glanced out her office window, impatient and frustrated at her lack of progress. Snow blanketed the city once again, and still Zachary wouldn’t budge.
“Let’s hold off reporting anything, Kat. I know I can make back most of the money back.”
Zachary remained convinced his trading model was infallible. “What are you going to trade with, Zachary? There’s no money.”
“I’ve got connections—people that will lend me funds. Enough to make some trades and recover some of the losses.” Zachary dropped her report on top of the stack of folders on her desk. As he did, the pile slid, sending several of them to the floor.
Zachary bent to pick them up.
Kat waved him away. “I’ll get it later.” She stood. “What about the investors, Zachary? It’s their money. Don’t they deserve to know about the fraud?”
He stood. “Sure they do—but I’ll recover their losses before they even know about it. It’s in their best interests, even if they don’t realize it yet. I’ll get the money back and they’ll never even know there was a problem. Just a few good trades and things will be back to normal.”
Whatever normal was. Amazing what people will do on a sinking ship. “No, Zachary. You have to shut it down.”
“Kat, you said yourself we’re missing some of the proof. If we alert Nathan without proof, won’t it jeopardize the case? He could make a run for it before the authorities have enough evidence to arrest him.”
Zachary was right. Waiting also meant she might be able to recover Nathan’s missing World Institute agenda and her backup documents. If she found Jace and he happened to still have them. It was unlikely at best. And—it just felt wrong to not immediately disclose the wrongdoing.
On the other hand, it was still an active investigation, and if Nathan and whoever else were prosecuted, she’d better have her ducks in a row. Right now that wasn’t the case. And closing in now could somehow worsen Jace’s situation, whatever that was. It also gave her more time to search for Jace. If she could find him.
She sighed and bent to pick up the files. Why did Zachary have to push the limits? She supposed it was why he was so rich. And relentless.
Her hand felt something rigid in the gutter of one of the Edgewater folders. She opened the folder to find a bundle of credit cards, held together with an elastic band. In her haste she hadn’t noticed them before. She undid the elastic that bundled them and examined the top card. No name. She shuffled through the rest. They were exactly the same—prepaid credit cards. Just like the one she had found in the housekeeper’s uniform at Hideaway Bay. Was there a connection?
Two hours later Kat was finally on the road. She drove north towards Hideaway Bay, thankful for the truck’s four-wheel drive. Deep ruts had formed in the snowpack on the highway, and the snow fell heavier now, reducing visibility to a few feet in front of her.
Traffic then slowed to a crawl en route to the ferry, and she missed the sailing. She was lucky to get on the next one. Once across, she followed the crowd exiting the ferry until the turnoff for Hideaway Bay.
Here the traffic was nonexistent. Despite the unplowed roads and low visibility, she felt much safer driving with no other cars on the road. She relaxed her hands on the steering wheel and bit into an apple. She glanced at the rearview mirror and spotted a snowplow round the corner a few hundred feet back. It was the only other vehicle she had seen since the turnoff.
Her biggest worry was the limited time until nightfall. Daylight disappeared around four p.m. this time of year. That gave her only a few hours to search for Jace on the trails. He might have hurt himself and fallen off the trail. She shivered. If he had, chances of survival in the frigid temperatures would be slim to none after a couple of hours.
Kat’s thoughts drifted back to Svensson and his speech in Stockholm. The snowplow was about fifty feet back now, growing larger in the rearview mirror.
Svensson had changed his views from one global currency to the status quo of many sovereign currencies. Why would Nathan Barron find issue with that? Exploiting differences between the various currencies was how Nathan Barron, and Edgewater, made money. The World Institute’s goal of one global currency actually killed his business rather than helped it. Which begged the question: why Nathan would even join an organization that thwarted his financial ambitions?
She was certain both Svensson’s murder and Jace’s disappearance were connected to the World Institute and Nathan Barron.
Was the woman standing with Svensson really Angelika, the housekeeper? A more logical explanation was that the woman was a look-alike. After all, she had been standing behind Svensson and slightly in the shadows. Of all the billions of people on the planet, there were likely a few doppelgangers. Or was it too coincidental?
Kat glanced at the rearview mirror. The snowplow was right on her bumper, the driver probably anxious to finish work and get home. Kat gripped the steering wheel, not wanting to go any faster but feeling the pressure. There was nowhere to pull over. A sheer rock face to her right and, across the oncoming lane, a steep drop-off to the water below. Couldn’t he just pass her? There was no traffic coming the other way.
Suddenly the snowplow tapped her bumper.
She lurched forward. The apple slipped from her grasp and tumbled off the passenger seat onto the floor. She gripped the steering wheel, heart pounding. The seat belt tightened across her chest as she fought to pull the truck out of a skid. The snowy highway was too dangerous a place for reckless games. The driver’s actions were nothing short of suicidal on this winding stretch of road in a snowstorm. What the hell was he doing? Was he asleep at the wheel? She glanced in the mirror, but the truck’s cab was too high to see the driver.
She’d get his license plate number and report him. The resort was another ten minutes away—the first opportunity to pull off the road. She pulled the seat belt off her chest and exhaled. The snowplow backed off slightly, giving her a view of the cab. This time she could make out the driver, but only barely. A slight man, or teen maybe? A baseball cap covered his eyes.
The gap closed. The snowplow rear-ended the truck bumper again, harder this time.
Her truck fishtailed. She headed across the opposing lane. Instinct kicked in and she hit the brakes. She knew it was a mistake even before her foot fully pressed the pedal.