Once Upon a Friendship

But not before a nation had become aware of how easily a parent could be robbed of the right to raise his or her own child. For unfair and unproven cause.

Liam’s story was the opposite of the Boston case—here, the parents were being taken to court in an attempt to take away their right to seek the medical attention they thought pertinent to their son’s health.

Which brought him to yet another case. One of the most well-known, tragic cases in recent American history. A school shooter. One whose mother had allegedly not followed a doctor’s recommendation to medicate her son. With horrendous results.

Determining the right or wrong in any of these cases wasn’t Liam’s job. But knowing the ramifications of both sides was paramount for thorough but impartial reporting.

Finally, after years of slowly building a reputation with human interest travel pieces, he had a chance to write something substantial. For an editor who’d supported him for years and was finally breaking into the big time herself.

Eventually he had to get back to Connelly Investments. Gabi had called a couple of times since her Friday visit to drop off files before Marie brought up dinner and the two of them left together. The first time she’d called had been to ask him to tell her everything he knew about the Grayson project. And then another time to ask about some of the companies that were in Connelly holdings. The FBI had identified a shell company among those holdings. That was already clear. What Gabrielle was looking for, he didn’t know. But he wanted her to be free to follow her suppositions and theories wherever they took her.

As he was following his...

The ringing of his cell phone interrupted his concentration sometime after noon on Sunday.

“Yeah?” He picked up without looking at the caller ID.

“I think I stumbled on a smurfing pattern.” Gabrielle didn’t bother with a greeting, either. He recognized her voice immediately, of course.

What he didn’t recognize was the way it brought a flutter of life to his body.

Smurfing. She’d said smurfing—a practice of deliberately making deposits smaller than ten thousand dollars, which was the amount banks were required by law to report to the government.

Liam assumed if Gabrielle could find those transactions, the FBI already knew about them. But he asked, “What makes them stand out to you?”

“They don’t point to your father. They are the only piece of evidence I’ve seen so far that doesn’t lead clearly to him.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’m not sure yet. I just wondered what you knew about them.” She named companies. Investors. Money paid into Connelly Investments for services rendered. And he began to see what had caught her attention.

“These are all over the board,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair and realizing he hadn’t showered. “Money comes into a company in various ways, but when you’re looking at a Ponzi scheme, you’re usually only looking at investment income.”

“Right.”

“Someone really is using Connelly Investments to launder money.”

“It looks that way to me.”

Thanking Gabi, Liam went back to work with more energy, looking at the facts and figures a little differently, open to seeing a new angle. He paid particular attention to any monies being moved, deposited, billed, paid out, loaned, written off and even claimed on expense reports in dollar amounts just less than ten thousand.

His eyes were hurting when he realized it had grown dark outside and he hadn’t eaten since the cereal he’d had that morning. Looking at the pages of notes he’d compiled, the information collated in various ways, he sat back, discouraged. For all that he’d come up with, he’d wasted an entire afternoon.

And proven nothing. The FBI’s evidence was legitimate. Money had come into Connelly Investments, been put into a series of investments in a supposed development community—Grayson Communities, phase two. A bit of the money had actually gone to the purchase of a piece of land—an impossible-to-develop piece of swamp. The rest had been dispersed through what had turned out to be fake records. Invoicing. Balance sheets. All fraudulent.

Staring at the papers, he sat forward. He’d collected a series of deposit authorizations that held his father’s signature. They all pertained to deposits made into one particular offshore account. He found no record of any bills being paid out of that account.

So was the money still sitting there?

The FBI suspected there were more offshore accounts. Pieces of evidence that were still being sought. It was believed that information had been deleted from Connelly databases before the FBI’s warrant could be served.

A computer forensic team was working on copies of confiscated hard drives, attempting to get the information back.

Picking up his cell while he studied those deposits, all just under ten thousand dollars and made at regular intervals, he pushed speed dial number two—Marie was three—and waited for Gabrielle to answer.

“Can we get access to statements from this offshore account?”

“I’ve already put in a request,” Gabrielle told him. And Liam was glad he’d hired her. He also wished he could see her. Not her and Marie. Just her.