Brody turned to them. His hair looked messier than usual and there was a large stain on the front of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt.
“What have I got? Man, I have got gold is what I’ve got.”
Satisfaction filled Ink. “You found something to threaten him with?”
“Not just him, but his father as well.”
“The dad is crooked?” Duke asked. “What did you find?”
“Evidence that both of them are into guns, drugs and human trafficking.”
“Are you serious?” Duke barked. “How did we not know that? They fucking hid it well.”
“Looks like they used third parties to manage the criminal transactions to keep themselves removed. I saw mentions of people but never names, more like initials. Like Mr. X and Mrs. K.”
“The senator and Forrest were only half-brothers,” Ink said. “They had little to do with one another. At least on the surface.”
“The old man, Jonathan Senior, owns a shipping company, which could be where the women are brought through,” Brody said. “No doubt they pay off officials to turn the other cheek. They got business interests in Chicago, Seattle, Florida and Texas. I’ve found information about drug cartels, gun running, not much about the trafficking. But there’s a few mentions of shipments in emails that never say what the shipments are.”
“Fuck. Me.” Ink ran his fingers through his hair. “Both look respectable on the outside and are rotten on the inside.”
“Mostly what I’ve got here are cryptic emails between Forrest and business associates,” Brody said. “But he’s not as circumspect as he thinks he is. There
’s enough clues in the emails to pick up what he’s talking about. But the jackpot is this file here. It was encrypted and locked. But I managed to get into it about half an hour ago. My guess is the relationship between Senior and Forrest isn’t that robust.”
Ink looked at the photos revealed. “Jesus Christ. He’s keeping a file of incriminating evidence against his own father?”
“Yep, in here are various photos of his father with what looks to be very young girls. But here’s a very interesting photo.” It showed Senior with another man. Both of them were dressed casually and had rifles over their shoulders.
“Who is it?” Duke asked.
“Miguel Hernandez. Head of the Hernandez cartel.”
“He wouldn’t want that coming out. Not with his place in society,” Duke mused.
“Between that and the photos of him with those young girls, he’d be fucked,” Ink said.
“There’s another photo.” Brody brought up another photo of Senior with a fat, balding man. Both smiled at the camera while enjoying a glass of bourbon. “Mob boss from New York city.”
Duke met his gaze. “Maybe you can use this to keep Forrest away from Betsy.”
Ink nodded. “Nothing to do with Baron and Rex?”
Brody shook his head with a sigh. “If he’s keeping evidence it wasn’t on here.”
Damn it. Still, this was enough to keep Forrest from coming after Betsy.
Grabbing his phone, he placed a call. “Hey, Spike. Think you can get us a meeting with Forrest? Yeah, we found some stuff.”
Betsy tried to thread a bead onto the string to make a bracelet, but her hand shook too hard and it fell to the floor.
“Oh shoot.”
“It’s okay, I’ll get it.”
Sunny crouched down and grabbed the bead from under the coffee table then held it out to her.
“Thank you,” Betsy said in a near whisper.