Page 41 of Jonas

I felt a headache coming on, the kind that started behind the eyes and felt like ice picks were stabbing your brain.

Too much information was rolling around in the upstairs filing cabinet, making it hard to concentrate on any one thought or problem. At least Daryl Barns was no longer an unknown issue.

I’d met Lou Peterson a few times. The guy was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He played the part of nice guy, but there was an underlying smarmy asshole under there—dishonest and underhanded was how I’d pegged him the first time I’d met him. My second encounter had solidified my opinion. I could totally see how he’d think Anson would have an affair with a much younger woman—because that’s what he would do. Further from that, I could see Lou being the type of man who would hire his mistress and put her up in a nice fuck pad.

Anson Sutton didn’t strike me as a cheater. Not that I thought the man didn’t have a side scoop of jerk in him. He was chairman of the board at Delcon; he had to have more than a little determination to get to the top. I also knew him to be a little arrogant; again not shocking with the position he held. Most highly motivated and successful people had those traits. But part of Anson’s conceit came from a place of righteousness, like he’d never allow himself the moral dilemmas people of a lower station had. That was the jerky side of him. But mostly he was a straight shooter.

Lou as the vice chair must’ve thought he’d hit the mother lode. A cheating scandal could land him in the top spot—either by blackmailing Anson to step down or by taking the evidence to the other board members and having him removed.

I didn’t know if I was relieved Daryl didn’t know who Seth was or worried we had another loose end to tie up.

And who the hell was Keith?

No Keith sat on the board.

The thoughts just kept scrolling through my head, bouncing from one idea to the next until I landed on one that nagged.

“I’m just gonna word vomit so you’ll have to keep up,” I told Jonas, not the slightest bit embarrassed by my poor choice of words.

“Okay,” he choked out, obviously trying not to laugh at my choice of words.

“Anson hired me to look into Kent’s concerns. Those being consistencies on resumes in the IT department as well as maintenance and security. Fifty applications were pulled. All the IT applications had two references that were the same. A phone company in Australia that doesn’t exist. Twenty of those IT applications also had CISSP certifications⁠—”

“What’s CISSP?”

“Certified Information Systems Security Professional.” Before Jonas could ask a follow-up question, I went on. “The CISSP certs were all from the same online program. The fifteen site security applications had matching references as well. And the five maintenance applications were exactly the same—schools, references, everything. The only thing that was different was the names. That’s suspicious enough. But Kent went farther and pulled upper management resumes. You mentioned Austin Wentworth.”

“What about him?”

“I think that’s the consistency on the management resumes Kent found. Anson didn’t give me the resumes, but I did see Kent’s handwritten notes. The initials AW were next to three names—a director of systems development, a senior networking engineer, a senior data scientist. You never finished telling me who Austin is.”

“Austin Wentworth went to college with Bolin Chen. They were roommates. We believe Austin helps Bolin clean his money.”

Was it money laundering or prostitution that was the oldest profession? If I remembered correctly it was prostitution but money laundering had to come in second—where there was illegal activity there was someone who had to clean the cash.

“And Austin was Bolin’s connection to Maddon Judd.”

“Yes.”

“The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned SimpCo which is owned by Bolin Chen. Bolin is a majority shareholder in a company called Davis Foods. Davis Foods⁠—”

“Wait,” Jonas interrupted me. “Back up, Bolin owns shares in Davis Foods?”

“Yes. It’s buried under two other corporations but OFAC found it. Bolin owns both the companies. Davis Foods uses Delcon to house their data. The Treasury department approached Anson; they wanted the Davis records on Delcon servers. Anson knew if he didn’t agree they’d get a warrant and get what they wanted so he cut a deal with them. The treasury agent was forthcoming about their interest in Bolin beyond the sanction. Anson was afraid there was something going on at Delcon that went beyond what he’d hired me to accomplish. Once the OFAC was involved, Anson had the funds available to hire Z Corps, but more than that, he’d have the government backing him if the other board members found out what he was doing. He could claim he’d been ordered not to discuss the investigation. Which wouldn’t’ve been a total lie, since Anson and I were both told to keep quiet. I would’ve mentioned it sooner but I figured Kira or Garrett already found the companies.”

“Delcon was targeted specifically. There’s too much of a connection for Delcon to be a random data center the Chinese picked out of a hat. There are sixteen other data storage facilities in a ten-mile radius of Delcon. What the hell makes them so special?”

My fingertips went to my temples.

“Mind if I close my eyes for a second?”

“Rest, Dee Dee. We have a long drive.”

I did more than rest, I fell asleep and I did it so deeply, when a hand landed on my shoulder and the shaking started my first instinct was to lash out. Unfortunately, when I did my fist connected with a hard surface.

There was a grunt followed by a “Christ.” Neither of which came from me but the groan of pain did as I felt my knuckles crack. I opened my eyes only to find Jonas standing in the open passenger door of the Escalade rubbing his jaw.

“Shit. Sorry.”