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Sylvi shook her head. “But—” Kaj could see the moment that she understood. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh.”
He slid the photos back into the folder and set it aside. “She didn’t know that Van did this,” he murmured.
Molly grabbed the folder, scanning each photo, her face growing more and more upset with each one. “Of course she didn’t know,” she snapped. “Goddammit.” She closed her eyes for a moment and when she looked up again, she was back in control. “She told her brother?”
Kaj was startled until he remembered that Molly was one of the only other people who Val had told. And then she trusted me with this, too.
“Yes, but no one else in her family.” He glanced at Sylvi. “She didn’t want to worry your parents.”
“Oh, Ingrid,” Sylvi said sadly.
Antoine shoved the photos into his computer bag. “I don’t want to know, and Val doesn’t need to know. Agreed?” He stared at each of them until they nodded. “Fine. What’s next?”
“We keep looking for a deed to the bayou property,” Kaj said grimly. He took the rest of the papers from his box and set them on the floor. “Oh.”
At the bottom of the box were two thumb drives.
From one of his bags, Antoine pulled a fourth computer, a no-frills model.
“Four laptops, Antoine?” Molly asked. “Really?”
“This is my junk machine,” he explained. “It’s not hooked up to the net and can’t be hacked.” He plugged in the first thumb drive and scanned the list of files. “All spreadsheets.” He clicked on each one and shook his head. “Lots of information about his cash flow along with account numbers, but that isn’t what we’re looking for right now.” He tried the second, a smile spreading across his face.
Kaj felt hope for the first time since he’d discovered Val had been taken. “What?”
Antoine grinned. “A list of his shell corporations. I’m betting that his properties weren’t bought under the aliases, although we could have connected them had we continued to dig. The aliases we searched for are all ‘officers’ in said corporations.” He recited the names of four of the corporations and they each looked one up in the St. Charles Parish property records.
The first ten corporations owned no property in the bayou. All owned homes in the New Orleans suburbs. “I wonder if he was making or dealing his drugs out of these places,” Kaj said.
“Yes to at least one,” Sylvi said. She turned her tablet so that they could see the pin on the map. “This address is the café where Van was killed.”
“Got it,” Molly crowed. “A parcel west of Lake Cataouatche.”
Kaj nearly doubled over in relief. “We found it.”
But the relief was gone seconds later when his phone rang. “It says ‘Private number,’ ” he said, regarding his phone like a snake ready to strike.
“Put it on speaker,” Molly said.
Kaj activated his phone’s recorder, then put it on speaker. “Cardozo.”
“We have her.”
Kaj’s blood ran cold as he recognized Corey Gates’s voice. “Where?” he asked, abject terror threatening to steal his breath. He knew he sounded scared, because he was scared. Even though they might know where Corey was hiding, it didn’t mean they’d get to Val in time.
“Someplace you can’t find,” Corey said. “I want Bella Butler.”
It was as Kaj had suspected. “I don’t know where she is. She didn’t tell me.”
“Then you’d best find out,” he said. “You have two hours until I call you again and at that time, you’ll give me Bella’s coordinates. If you don’t, we’ll start in on your girlfriend. It’s real simple, Cardozo. Give us Bella or you’ll get your woman back in pieces.”
Kaj froze as panic spread through him from the inside out.
Molly mouthed, “Stall him.”
Kaj’s breath stuttered. “I... can’t. I only communicate with Miss Butler once a day. She contacts me to tell me that she’s okay. I don’t know where she is.”
“You’ve got your little team of super friends,” Corey said mockingly. “Have that computer nerd brother of André Holmes trace her calls.”
