Chapter Forty-three

Carla Cartwright's house

Ardmore, Philadelphia Main Line

Saturday morning

"Rebel Navarro, Archer's brother. May I speak to you, Ms. Cartwright?"

He shook her hand. "And I'm Rebel."

She stepped back, waved him in. "Have you heard from Arch? Did he send you?"

"No, sorry, I don't know where he is. Have you heard from my brother?"

"Yes, Tash is fine. He'll be staying with me until this mess is cleared up and Archer is home, which will be soon since he's innocent."

He said from behind her, "Arch?"

"For what's happened? So you think Archer stole that money from his own firm, his own clients?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Then how can you possibly believe he'd steal from his own company?"

He nodded. "Yes, that's what I was told. Still, it doesn't make sense. Knowing Archer as I do, as you do, it's impossible."

She pushed off the mantelpiece and began pacing. She swiped her palm over her eyes again, smearing her mascara. "I told myself there'd be no more tears, no more wishing I had a gun to shoot him. Look, I've been the one fielding the calls from all our investors, since of course they can't reach Arch. Over and over I've begged them all to keep faith with us. I try to explain the inexplicable, tell them there's ongoing investigation about where their money went. The FBI Financial Crimes Team has frozen the piddling money that's left. I hope I can keep things afloat, but if I'm honest with myself there's little chance now. I'm very afraid they'll put us into receivership, start bankruptcy proceedings."

"You don't like Sasha? Didn't she once work for you?"

"Yes, I liked her. Fact is, she's a bit dim, but a good worker, just not good enough."

Rebel said, "Archer's passcodes. He once told me it was a foolproof system. Do you agree?"

"Yes, random passcode generators, two-step authentication, access limited to a defined workstation, and only Arch had those passcodes, no one else. They were accessed from his own workstation." She shook her head. "I remember Arch challenged hackers in a tweet to try to break into our workstations, offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward, but none of them could do it.

"I remember asking Arch once if Celia knew how to access his passcodes, and he laughed. She could care less, he said."

She stared at him, said nothing.

Carla slid her tongue over her bottom lips, stared at him. "There were flaws?"

Rebel wagged his finger at her. "Amateur, as I said. You should have practiced copying it a bit longer. The FBI is going to dig deeper now, not simply accept my brother is guilty. Expect a visit from them, Carla. I do believe they've got you in their crosshairs."

"Soon now, I can feel it—my brother will be coming home a free man."

"I told you to get out! I did nothing wrong, nothing. None of this is on me, whatever you say. It's all on your brother."

"Well, maybe at your trial," Rebel said. He gave her a salute, walked out the front door, and closed it quietly behind him.

He was smiling as he climbed into Elliott Jordan's Camaro. All in all, a good morning's work.

He'd already called Ethan earlier to tell him he was ready to come home, asked him to pick him up at Rafael Jordan's house. He couldn't wait to return his teenager's hot rod; he wanted no more people staring at him. He was going to give a copy of the recording to Rafael. He imagined Rafael wouldn't be pleased with his going off the range and facing down Carla Cartwright, but Rebel knew he'd listen to their conversation and act accordingly. Of course she hadn't admitted to anything, he hadn't expected her to, but she'd nearly exploded when he'd said his forged signature was an amateur job. She'd think the FBI would be looking at her closely now. Maybe she'd make another mistake, try to cover something else up they'd probably never have found.