Chapter 14

14

"So, Ellis Steele is on the receiving end of all of these payments?" Coy asked as he scanned the information Devyn was sharing with the group at the kitchen table.

"Yes. He's also the benefactor on all of these deals he's done –– hid it under phony corporations. We were finally able to follow the money trail, leaving all of Mama's various holdings, and they all went to another pile of shell companies, accounts, and so on. When we peeled back the layers there we were able to see multiple accounts are accepting small deposits from more businesses and individuals I care to count. Those receiving accounts tie to Steele. What's even more interesting, and perhaps where he made his first big mistake, is he then sends larger sums out of those accounts to half a dozen other accounts where the money seems to be accumulating."

"I don't understand." Nash questioned, "If all the money is going to him, why does he then send it back to himself in other accounts?"

"He's laundering money." Coy shared. "The first line of deposits he's accepting are from fake companies or companies who are cooking their books and depositing more than they actually make. The excess money they're filtering doesn't come from their business at all. It just appears as such."

"Then where is that money coming from?"

"Illegal operations. My guess, given the poppy fields and likely connection to the illegal drug trade… he's cleaning drug money." Coy went on. "There's a reason it's set up that way, several layers of cleaning, many fake companies, and it's to make it hard to trace."

"Which is why it took us so long to piece together." Devyn shared. "There are hundreds of accounts overall. The first layer has the most and where they run the money through in smaller amounts so it isn't flagged by a financial institution or reported to the IRS. Then, they send money that's a tad cleaner and harder to trace on to the next layer of fake business accounts, who then turn and send the money in bigger chunks yet to a smaller cluster of businesses where the money is now clean, and even harder to trace unless you know to go looking for it to begin with."

"You mean like when your mother takes out a large loan, buys land, and needs to hide the profit her new harvest is turning?" Nash asked.

"Exactly." Devyn nodded. "It's obviously much more complicated than we've laid out, and there are more records to go through, but you get the gist of it. This is… bad."

"So, the next question we need to answer is why Mama. Why did she do this?" Coy asked.

"The cancer? To pay medical bills?" Nash asked.

"I don't think it had anything to do with the cancer and medical bills." Coy started pacing, his hand instinctively moving to stroke his chin as he mulled over their dark and ominous question, searching for a viable answer amidst the uncertainty. "She could have taken out a loan and stopped there if she really needed the money for expenses, which she didn't, based on all of the financials we've unburied. She could afford it."

"So, she chose to do this?" Nash asked. "She knowingly got into the drug trade? She knows what you and Dillon do for a living, surely she thought twice about it."

"I think our mother was a victim of a scam. We know Ellis Steele is a dirty son of a bitch, and he targets a very specific group of people. Considering how he tried to appeal to Glen, I'd say he did the same thing to Mama."

"And what, she thought he was helping her with her investment portfolio?" Nash asked, still not convinced they had the entire story. "The ranch wasn't enough to leave behind or something?"

"My guess is that's the angle he took." Coy went on as he flipped through pages of documents. "I'm trying to nail down a timeline, but it appears she redid the will a few months into treatment. She might have known by then she was terminal and worried about the expenses she was accruing. Maybe… trying to leave us a profitable endeavor?"

"A drug farm is suddenly profitable?" Nash asked with a smirk, "You plowed mine up."

"I don't think she knew what the crop was. She'd never go for that." Coy said. "There were papers in Steele's office about land leases, crop shares, all sorts of random shit. He is the benefactor on several we've uncovered so far and cashed in on them."

"Cashed in? Meaning, someone died?" Nash asked.

Rip nodded, "We haven't made it through all of the files, but so far, we can confirm, that there are around half a dozen properties he's inherited in recent years."

"Years?" Nash questioned. "I thought this guy hadn't been around all that long."

"He hasn't been in Coyote Creek long, but he's been at this for some time," Devyn told the group as she passed out more documents.

Coy read the paper, shook his head, and tossed it into a pile on the table, "It's not hard to piece together what our mother fell for when you see all this shit."

"But the loan…" Nash scratched his head, "Doesn't that raise a red flag when the landowner passes away?"

"Maybe they didn't all have to take out a loan and used their savings or retirement funds. Or, perhaps, they didn't buy additional assets at all." Rip chimed in. "If they already had something substantial enough for Steele's liking to do whatever it is he's using it for, then maybe that was good enough. I don't think this is a one-size-fits-all crime ring. I do believe he exploited them as far as he could and didn't push as not to raise those red flags."

"As for the loans, he doesn't have anything to lose." Devyn shared. "In a worst-case scenario, the debts fall to the estate to pay. He has these deeds and land transactions buried so deep that by the time the lender calls a loan, he's managed to work over the land enough to make it all worth his while before the deed reverts back to the lien holder. Or, the estate pays the debts, not knowing they just paid off Steele's land."

Rip tossed his stack of papers on the table with Coy's, "I really don't think he has to worry about that much. He's completely off the hook either way. He's even smarter than we thought."

"Meaning?" Devyn asked.

"Meaning he's sold the same plots of land over and over again. If someone's loan defaults and the property goes back to the bank, he's out nothing because he already sold it multiple times and inherited it multiple times, without a loan involved."

"Jesus. So, when his victims die, he inherits the land, then sells it again, knowing he's the one who will inherit it when they meet their maker, too?" Coy shook his head in disbelief. "Then sells it again…"

"It's all right there in the deed history for each property. Every single one of the sellers on there is one of his shell companies, and every buyer has a file and will established by… Ellis Steele. Your case has been made for this guy. I don't think I need to list the charges this guy faces."

"If it wasn't stupid and illegal, I'd think it was brilliant. The ultimate scheme. This guy must have brought in millions." Coy shared.

"He filters all the funds to a single account that I haven't unlocked just yet." Devyn told the group, "But it seems to be the final stop for the money once it's nice, clean, and hard to trace. If I can unbury that last shell corporation and prove Steele's attachment, he never gets out of jail once we put him there. It'll also tell us who he's been working for."

"Freeze the accounts," Coy said. "Can you do that?"

"I can, with a little help from your company genius, Killion." She snorted, "That guy is impressive."

"Good idea," Rip chimed in. "Tie up that money, and you'll flush out Steele and whoever he's working for."

"Working for ?" Devyn asked.

"That's how these things work. There's always a frontman. A cleaner. Someone who appears to be a legitimate professional who's the face of the whole operation, but they're working for someone else, who usually remains anonymous and the harder villain to find, unfortunately." Rip explained.

"I-I didn't see any other names anywhere." Devyn began to sort through papers, then pecked away at her laptop. "How? How the hell do I find this other party?"

"By freezing the accounts." Coy tried to explain as simply as possible. "When the assets are frozen, they'll come to Steele seeking penance for letting their shit get seized. That's how we find the mystery third party."

"So, like some drug lord or something?" Nash asked.

"Yes, but usually bigger. My guess is it's a rogue small cartel cell that regrouped after being dismantled at some point. Someone who didn't get put away saw an opportunity and ran with it."

"I might have something." Charlotte entered the kitchen, her expression tense with concern, holding a folder full of papers and something else in her hand as she scanned the room. "I just found this in your Mama's things while going through papers for Devyn. It's a… picture."

Charlotte turned the image around, revealing it to the group while handing Devyn the folder. They all leaned in, their curiosity piqued, to get a better look. Coy reached out and took the image, inspecting it closely, his brow furrowing with confusion as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

"That's… interesting. I wonder what this means." After studying it, Coy flipped the picture around and spoke up. "That's Mama and Pop. Glen and George. And…"

He glanced at Charlotte, noticing the concern etched in the way she bit her bottom lip. "And Owen Bridges."

Nash's gaze flickered between the picture and Charlotte, his expression reflecting his stunned disbelief. He reached out and grabbed the image, intent on studying it more closely. "Owen did know more than he led on."

"I knew it," Charlotte spoke quietly, her voice drowning with suppressed emotion. "He wasn't being honest. Not even with me."

Nash tossed the image on the table, "Look closer, this was during branding and look who's in the background."

"Tommy." Coy sighed.

"I-I can't even believe I'm about to say this." Charlotte continued, "But… we may have found Steele's partner. Given the position he held for so many years as Border Chief, it's not all that far-fetched. He worked the cartel cases, took down drug mules, you name it. I remember the stories. He had access and knowledge of the operations."

"He was in some of those pictures on Steele's office wall," Kenzie said, "And he behaved oddly at his ranch when it was broken into."

"Not to mention all of the extra security everywhere." Coy shared his thoughts with the group as they collectively pieced together a new theory. "And you're right, Charlotte. His position granted him access to all sorts of things."

"I think we all sort of suspected something was off that night at his ranch when he didn't seem that off put by a stranger in the house, breaking out of his den window." Charlotte said, "He is clearly involved in something, right? I mean, why keep all these secrets, like this picture and being here during branding, if he didn't have anything to hide."

"Do you think he knew about Tommy?" Nash asked. "Do you think he knew… what happened to him?"

Charlotte shrugged and shook her head in frustration. "Your guess is as good as mine. I didn't grow up here, always away at boarding school, so I don't have memories of those days like y'all do. I wish I did, though. Wish I… could help."

"Maybe this is why you went to boarding school," Nash suggested, "To keep you away from all the shit happening around here. Protect you from it all. And it certainly would explain why he wasn't a fan of me dating you if he knew what happened that night."

"I'm sorry, darlin'." Nash offered comfort by gently gripping her hand in his.

"Don't be sorry. If he's guilty of anything, well, it was his own doing, and he deserves whatever's coming to him. I'm just sorry that he may be responsible for…" Charlotte's emotions overwhelmed her, causing her to choke on her words as tears flowed freely down her cheeks, rendering her unable to finish her thought.

Devyn raised a stack of documents she had extracted from the folder handed to her by Charlotte. "You found these in Mama's things too? They look like invoices for… pharmaceuticals?"

Charlotte swiftly brushed away her tears, grateful for the distraction and the shift in conversation. "Um, yes. I, uh, found those in that random folder, and the picture was in it, too, oddly. I wasn't sure if you were looking for anything like that or if it meant anything. The top one says it's for morphine, which was used during hospice for Delilah. I didn't want to dig if those were private and related to her final days."

"Yeah," Devyn went on, "The top one is morphine. So are the next few, but these… these are different."

Frowning with concern, Charlotte was uncertain about what Devyn had just discovered. She took the documents from Devyn to review them herself, determined to understand the situation. "Oh my gosh. These are for…"

She flipped through the pages rapidly, scanning each one multiple times as if unable to believe the contents she was reading. She shook her head in disbelief. "These… these are large amounts of insulin, various heart medications, and some of these…"

"Charlotte?" Coy asked.

"I-I don't even want to say it. What if…"

"What if what, Charlotte?" Coy pressed again, hoping to coax her into sharing her thoughts, his own concern growing as her evident worry began to infect the group.

She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply as she sought to collect her thoughts and quell the nagging anxiety that accompanied the realization she had stumbled upon a crucial clue—one they may not have wanted to find but needed.

"These are the kinds of drugs you would use to advance someone's life to the final stages if you know what I mean. If someone is already ill, these would… end their lives. The others, well, they just don't have much place in common medical practice and they're often used just the same. To end a life, and they're hard to trace as they are undetectable in some cases unless you're looking for it specifically, and some just leave the body so quickly that they don't come up in a basic tox report either."

"Are you saying…"

"I'm saying your mother had no need for these unless it's to do harm," Charlotte said. "To commit murder."

"Murder?" Devyn was stunned, "There's just no way. She would never."

"But she did," Nash said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's why I'm here… Tommy, remember?"

"She didn't kill him." Devyn defended.

"No, but she was an accessory if you want to get technical. They all were." Coy confirmed. "We need to find out where those are from and who bought them. See if we can line up the cost on those receipts with her bank account records. Anything. We need anything that will prove she wasn't a part of this scheme and taking lives."

"That could be tough on a couple of these," Rip said, sorting through the receipts. "They're old. Handwritten and faded."

"Wait, let me see that." Devyn reached for the documents and scanned them once more then handed each to Coy and Kenzie. "Do you see what I see? Look at the dates."

"You've got to be kidding me." Coy shook his head in disbelief as he struggled to comprehend the gravity of the situation unfolding before them. His mind raced, grappling with the implications of what they had just discovered, and he couldn't shake the sense of unease settling in the pit of his stomach.

"Coy, these dates…" Kenzie's breaths grew heavier, the weight of awareness settling upon her like a heavy blanket, intensifying the anxiety building within her. With each passing moment, the magnitude of their discovery loomed larger in her mind, stirring a whirlwind of apprehension and uncertainty. She struggled to steady her racing heartbeat, her thoughts racing as she tried to make sense of the implications, her mind churning with a mix of dread and determination. "I need to sit down."

"You are sitting," Devyn said.

"Then I need to stand," Kenzie fired back, rising to her feet and immediately starting to pace, her movements driven by a surge of restless energy. "That's the year your father died on one and the other…"

"The year your father died." Coy finished. "You said you always thought it odd that your father died of heart complications when he'd always been a healthy man. I think we know why now."

"You don't think…" Kenzie began.

"We have a serial killer on our hands?" Coy posed the question that surely had been racing through all their minds. "We need to look at land deeds versus death records."

"It's all adding up, falling into place," Rip began, "But still not as clear a picture as we need to move forward and shut this whole damn thing down. All the players."

"Glen. We need to get to him." Kenzie interrupted, a sudden surge of nervousness gripping her as she considered the possibility that her uncle could be in danger and the next victim they investigate. "Steele wanted the ranch. He needs protection until we know more and eliminate all the threats."

Coy nodded, "Especially since Steele is on to him and in the wind."

"Shit," Rip muttered under his breath as he read a message on his phone, his expression going blank and his eyes darkening as if he'd seen a ghost resurrected from the grave to haunt them—one of them in particular. "I just got the file on Lucy Stone."

"And?" Nash questioned urgently, his anxiety evident as he sought to uncover the truth about his identity. "What the hell does it say, Rip?"

Rip looked up from his phone, rendered speechless by the weight of the question. Unsure how to delicately navigate the complexity of the situation, he knew the answer he was about to deliver would be deeply painful, particularly for one among them who was the most unsuspecting of them all. Devyn must have sensed his hesitation and the weight of what he was reluctant to convey, for she reached out to grasp his hand in a comforting gesture. With a reassuring glance, she silently urged him to share whatever information he was privy to.

Rip turned to her, locked in her gaze, "It says she had a baby… girl."