Page 43 of Lethal Justice

Malco got to his feet to come to stand beside her. “What?”

“Look at the confirmation numbers for each of the deposits, what do you see?”

Silently, he did as she said, a frown on his face until his eyebrows shot up. “The numbers. The confirmation numbers are way too close together, considering the span of the deposits. Normally, that kind of sequence would be for transactions done the same day.”

That’s what she was seeing. “Can you check when Ward last accessed his account?”

Malco returned to the computer and typed a few more keys. “Three weeks ago. Same day as his regular pay was deposited in his account.”

“If you were promised that much money each time you delivered a kid, wouldn’t you check to make sure your employer held up his end of the bargain?”

Malco raked his dark hair before looking at her. “Ward isn’t the leak.”

“I don’t think so. And if I’m right, we still have a leak.”

“We can check Tycen and his mother. They’re the only ones we haven’t verified yet.”

“I’ll do a thorough check on them, but I don’t think they’re it. You need a specific background to have the skill to create pinged transactions. Tycen is from the street, and it’s not something a gang would typically know how to do.”

“You think it’s Kasten or Pool?”

“I always think about them. But knowing them, I don’t believe they’d get their hands dirty for something like that, thus the leak. I think there’s someone lower down doing the dirty work, one with computer skills and the capacity to easily access the network. We can try and see where the pings originated, that may give us a clue.”

“We need a hacker for that, and we don’t have one yet, but we can try, although it will take us some time. I’ll see if Alex is still around, he’s the best in that area.”

Frida shook her head. “I think he took Rina home. She’s worked non-stop, and I gave her the rest of the day off, so tomorrow we can start building our attack. Also, she’s hoping to get lucky. Rina’s had her eye on Alex from the beginning. I can ask her to start digging into the pings in the morning. She’s a wizard for finding those sorts of things.”

Malco nodded, but it was clear his mind was busy with something.

“What? What are you thinking?”

He didn’t answer at first and sat behind the screen and started typing. Malco closing down on her was so unusual, it irritated her.

Just as she was about to speak, the main screen flickered. Malco was doing another search, and when she saw the name, Frida couldn’t help but gape.

“Rina? You’re researching her? Why? I vetted her when I hired her. She’s been amazing, dedicated. I won’t have you smear her name because of a doubt.”

Despite her sudden explosion, Malco remained calm, which pissed her off even more. He continued to type, and several windows came into view: Rina’s bank account, her loans, her social media accounts.

“Don’t you think I already checked her out before I hired her? Do you think I’m that careless?”

Malco typed a little more, but she was now looking at him instead of the screen. Once he was done, he leaned back, his attention solely on her. “You’re not careless. You’re thorough but think. The game has changed, and our perspective too. What if you didn’t know Rina and had to hire her for this very case? Would you dig into her background the same way you did back then?”

Even if she hated it, Frida had to be honest with him. “No. What we know would color my background check for sure.”

When he extended his hand to her, she gave hers to him. The connection was soothing. With gentleness, he pulled her toward him and kissed the back of her hand. “I don’t doubt your abilities or expertise, but I’m just looking at things from a different point of view. I love your brain too much to insult you.”

She rolled her eyes at him but grinned. “Continue crawling. I like it.”

His face turned somber. “And I think I’ll need to do a bit more when you see this.”

Malco had run a facial recognition software on the web from Rina’s driver’s license photo, and there had been a couple of hits. However, the one that stood out like a glaring light was a picture of Rina with DA Clark Pool, and from what she could see, they were quite intimate. Kasten might hate the Hispanic community, but Pool certainly had no problem enjoying its beautiful women.

“Damn it.”

What else could she say? Frida felt like a fool and deeply betrayed. It meant that not only had she brought a traitor into the Agency, but for months, Rina had access to her most private cases and had probably been feeding Pool information on open cases and investigations.

“I have to contact Chief Randall and tell him what’s going on and the fact that Pool might very well have a hand in some of the proof I’ve gathered against him.”