Suspicious

POV: Adrian

Leah was comfortable around Martin, sometimes a bit too comfortable. I decided to leave him in place of Hendrix for that reason. Leah needed to be under surveillance, but without knowing she was being watched.

He did meet Jenny, using his skills to *accidentally* bump into her on the street. He needed to get closer to them to protect Leah and he needed to fuck Jenny to keep his cover. Leah was already under the impression he was one of Jenny’s fuckboys.

Playing the part was how he was able to find out exactly how Cameron was able to get in and out of the building without being caught on the door camera. It was a brilliant plan, but he had slipped up. It helped that my team was better than some kid who thought he knew what he was doing.

He was posing as a local pizza delivery employee, complete with one of their t-shirts and pizza bags, which he must have stolen. No one will blink twice at a delivery man, no matter the time. The building had 45 stories, but only 33 had apartments, it totaled roughly 396 large-scale apartments.

There were a few vacant apartments that had water damage and were closed, he was seen going in and out of one of them. I sent Martin to scope it out but urged him to beware of any traps that may be set. If he was hiding something in there, I wanted to know what it was.

“Boss, we board in 25 minutes.”, Hendrix grabbed my attention.

“All right, make sure to set up a secure connection with the apartment. I want to know who enters Leah’s floor at all times.”, I ordered as I finished my bourbon.

Checking my email on the plane I was able to receive the documents I needed to take over the resort I had my eyes on. The young guy agreed to my terms and was going to settle for 16.5 million and he walked away without worrying about employees, insurance, or operations.

He was a fool for accepting my offer because I had paid for an appraisal. It cost me a complementary week-long trip for an appraiser and his wife to go check out the resort. The appraisal came back for 68 million and I was going to practically steal it from some kid who grew up on his father’s dime.

It was a shame really, that resort had been in the family for 3 generations. I just wanted to use the resort for its resources. Being one of the oldest resorts on the island meant that it came with a reputation and perks to anyone willing to collaborate.

Hendrix tapped me on the shoulder and leaned it, “Martin is going in on Friday night.”.

“What’s his plan?”, curious as to how it was going to go down.

“He is planning to pose as a drunk man coming home to get laid. He got Hannah to pose as his drunk date. She is unaware of the details, just that she is supposed to pick the lock while he presses her up against the door.”, he described.

Hannah was good at her job, but we had a fling one summer and haven’t been able to work together since. There was no need to reply, so I nodded in approval. Depending on her success in this mission, I might consider her joining the team.

The flight was uneventful and over quickly, we were boots to the ground by 10 pm. I had reserved us joining suites in our hotel. It wouldn’t look suspicious since I was always here in my free time.

I needed to head to the office anyway to draft up a contract to send to the young resort owner.

We didn’t need to take a taxi, as I had my driver meet us at the airport for pickup. It was nice feeling like a big deal around here but tiring to try and maintain my cover.

Once we got checked into our rooms, Hendrix set up two central lines of communication as well as 3 monitors to connect us to our traces back in New York. A quick check-in on Leah was the first thing that I did.

She was sitting at home alone, which eased my mind. That and the fact that I had followed Cameron to Mexico. I did a quick CCTV search on Cameron and his mother to see where they were going once, they left the airport.

They landed and ended up at a bank an hour away from the main strip. I ordered Hendrix to run a search on the bank to see what kind of account they had there, and I was surprised at what came up. These two seemed to be running some sort of con game.

His mother had been getting small cash deposits each month. There was a total of 10 accounts that were set up as donation accounts for nonprofits. The cash deposits themselves weren’t enough to flag authorities.

However, it was alarming if you looked at all the accounts as if they were one. The deposits added up to equal to over 500 thousand a month. The authorities wouldn’t care to track such small transactions because each account was filed under a different corporation name.

Donations to nonprofits aren’t a cause for audit until they start peaking at over 100 thousand, but they were smart enough to spread that amount over different organizations. Further digging uncovered the idea that she is potentially laundering money for someone.

The bank footage showed that she was the one doing all the talking, so Cameron may just be wrapped up in her con. I tried to trace back the deposits, but they were cash deposits split out over 3 ATMs. I had Hendrix pull the times of each deposit so that we could pull footage and find a pattern for the deposits.

Hopefully, that footage would give us a face we could run against the database. I also wanted to try and stake out an ATM to try and pull a fingerprint from the buttons. This information was vital in my investigation into Cameron.

Once they left the bank, they headed to an all-inclusive resort down the road from my hotel. It would be easy to monitor their movement from next door, but it was nearing midnight and we needed to get some sleep.

We sat on their tail for 5 days, but they didn’t leave the resort or have visitors. It was odd that they came this way for business but decided to stay and act like they took a simple vacation. The money they were spending was more than she made off her tax-paying job, so they had to be dipping into fraudulent funds.

They were on their phones most of their stay, but she was constantly changing her phone. This made tracing their calls nearly impossible. The only phone we had access to was Cameron’s phone which he used to message Leah.

He didn’t use that phone for anything or anyone else, which is odd.

Hendrix couldn’t find any credit card trails, so they must be paying for their stay in cash… using an alias. We searched through the rental reservations to find someone or a couple staying the length of time they had been there but came up empty. It seems they booked multiple reservations, each under a different name.

It would be impossible to find them.

Just when I thought my search had come up empty, we got a hit on the ATM footage. We pulled the face and ran it for identification. It would take a few hours to a few days to run the complete search.

Cameron had texted Leah here and there, but nothing that seems too interesting. He was planning on heading back to New York late tomorrow evening and he wanted to take her out Saturday. I don’t want her to go back to the club, so I decided to leave Mexico with him.

Hopefully, I will catch them on their flight, and I can get a close-up of the pair. I wanted to get back to Leah anyway, I had seen Jared over a few nights this week. Mainly just cuddling on the couch, but I could feel my fist searching for something to hit each time he caressed her.

Martin had messaged me that Leah passed along her number, but I hadn’t reached out to her. I wanted to and my body wanted to but being with her over the phone wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me. And then the thought of Jared holding her pissed me off.

He had a hold on her, and I was going to break it.

Right before we broke down the video surveillance setup, we got a hit on our facial recognition. Well, I will be damned, it was Richard Valenki. I can honestly say that I wasn’t expecting that to be pulled.

What the hell is this woman doing wrapped up with a thug like Richard?

I had watched dealings with him turn for the worst. He killed his clients and took the money without having to deliver any product. He was ruthless and this made Cameron even more mistrustful.

I had so many questions running through my mind as we traveled back to the airport. I had a jacket on Richard in my Bureau office that I would need to have someone grab for me. I needed to set up an evidence board in my apartment to connect the dots.

Something bigger than money laundering was going on and it found its way to Leah... but was it connected to my investigation?

I needed to get with Martin to see what was pulled from that room as soon as we land. I don’t like where this investigation is going, something is just not right… a lot of suspicious activity was following Cameron and his mother.