One or two people may have inherited parental homes but half of management? Did Ursula’s used car salesman husband make that much money? If so, he was a crook.
The only thing that made sense was they were being paid under the table. So much for working for the feels.
He made a list of closing dates on the more suspicious loans and sent them to Ariel, asking if she could find large deposits in those accounts around that time. They hadn’t all bought houses at once but over a period of the last ten years.
He didn’t know why he was doing this instead of working on his father’s case. Maybe because the only way to stop phone scammers was to blow them up, and even that hadn’t stopped his da.
So, how did one stop a phone scam? His hometown police evidently weren’t concerned.
Now, if he was on the receiving end of his da’s calls... How could he arrange that?
Once he’d set Reuben to digging on Evie’s case, Roark researched phone scams. The videos of gangs in Jamaica and entire call centers selling investments in Israel, all built around ripping off Americans by the billions of dollars, set his teeth on edge. Having grown up poor, he could almost get with the program of robbing the rich and stupid but not when the stolen money was buying guns and drugs and Rolexes. And since there were far more working people than wealthy... It wasn’t the rich being robbed.
His father and his homeboys had the same excuses as these international gangs. They couldn’t find work, or minimum wage didn’t pay the bills. They had no money to feed their families... Why not skim a little fat off wealthier cows?
But people like Pris’s mother had worked hard for those dollars and didn’t have a lot to spare. Why should she lose the savings needed for eye surgery so Da could buy a Cadillac?
Watching these videos gave him ideas. His father’s operation was small. He had somehow obtained thousands of phone numbers, enough to keep a few local boys employed. But they needed a steady array of victims to keep the money flowing. If he could dam up the river of cash...
That might buy him some time to get his hack in place.
Lost in work, he forgot Ariel’s’ timetable—until the pocket door slid open, and she was there, looking as startled as he felt.
Damn, the woman looked good. Even when hunkered down where no one could see her she wore a fancy tailored white shirt and slim navy shorts that emphasized her lean length. She’d tied her long dark hair in a sleek ponytail looped off her neck. His mouth practically watered.
Refusing to flee, Roark pointed at the sandwich he’d made for her. “I have an idea. Listen while you eat. Tell me what you think.”
As if that were happening... But he needed to talk this out. He was used to lots of company—his huge family when he was a kid, his fraternities at school, his military units after graduation... He needed people.
Ariel’s crystal-gray, long-lashed eyes widened in alarm. Then, warily, she studied him, studied the food, then studied his laptop. Apparently deciding he wouldn’t bite, she gingerly settled into her usual chair and opened her paper notebook to take her game notes.
That didn’t stop him from talking.
By the time he’d lined up his plan, Ariel had covered her ears, and her eyes practically spun in their sockets—but she was listening.
* * *
Ariel pressedher forehead against her arms and let Roark’s river of sound sink into her fractured brain. She grasped his point easily—he wanted to stop his father’s villainous depredations.
The rest—relied on complications beyond her comprehension, other than that the smallness of his father’s operation made it possibly possible.
Her guest sat there in that damned tank top, looking all bronzed, muscled, and confident—so much so that her heart raced, and she didn’t dare look his way again. She had tothink.
How did normal women handle this rush of hormones? That’s what it must be. She’d never experienced this level of—lust? She’d read the books, understood hunger and sex were primitive human urges. She fed herself regularly so an empty stomach didn’t interfere with her work. But sex...
She was twenty-four and had never even had a date. Lust had never been on her spectrum.
Roark wanted a response. What could she say?
It took her a few minutes to process all his words and formulate a sentence. She’d rather divert a river of bitcoins. Numbers made sense. People didn’t. “Diverthow manyphones?”
He took time to slow down and explain again. “Probably two dozen to start with.”
She dared peer up at him again. She graspedtwo dozen. “How?” She hated sounding uncertain.
“We’ll need the cooperation of the victims, so not easily.” He waited for her to process that.
She nodded, understanding from the difficulty Pris had separating her mother from her phone. “Why?”