Page 85 of Armed ’N’ Ready

“That you do.” In his years on the job, he’d seen every order of addiction, gambling being just one of them.

“A few days later,” Myer continued, “I got a call from a woman with a Scottish accent—Mary—saying she’d pay off my debt if I did something for her.”

Meera Devine.

“I didn’t believe her at first. I thought it was some kind of con. She said she understood my hesitancy and offered me a show of good faith. The next thing I knew, there was a deposit for ten grand in my checking account. A down payment for wiring some funds out of the country.”

“For Brian Argyle,” Nick said, rather than asked.

Myer nodded. “For Brian Argyle and Argyle Enterprises. She said it was a one-time thing, but once turned into twice, and before I knew it a year had gone by and I’d wired nearly a million dollars to multiple foreign accounts. Scotland, the Caymans, Switzerland, Belize. And you’re right. I guess I always knew the money was dirty, and eventually, I told her I wanted out.”

“And what did she say?” Bennett asked.

“She laughed. She said no one ever”—he hooked his fingers into quotation marks—“gets out. Then she said that if I didn’t want to help her, she could always call the boys at the casino and have them pay me a late-night visit and rough me up.”

“Do you know Meera Devine?” Nick figured he might have run into her at the DPC.

“Sure, I’ve met her a couple of times.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

Nick glanced at Bennett, who nodded that he should continue with this line of questioning. “Could the woman over the phone have been Meera Devine?”

“No way.” He shook his head. “Mary has a heavy Scottish accent. Meera doesn’t have an accent.”

Not that any of them had detected. That didn’t mean she didn’t have one.

“Is your laptop in there?” Nick pointed to the backpack on the table.

“Yes.” He unzipped the bag and pulled a silver laptop from the center compartment. After flipping up the cover and hitting the power button, he pushed it in front of Andi so that Nick could view the screen.

Nick edged closer, gratified that this gave Myer something else to do with his hands besides holding Andi’s. He couldn’t type on the keypad and be all touchy-feely at the same time.

In an effort to give him some space—or get away from him, he didn’t know which—Andi leaned back in her chair, but not enough that his shoulder didn’t brush up against hers. Or the clean scent of her shampoo didn’t invade his senses like a pillaging army marching him right up the fucking wall.

“Here.” Myer clicked on a folder marked Cayman accounts.

Nick tallied the line items. “Seven wire transfers to the Caymans in the name of Argyle Enterprises over the last twelve months for a total of two hundred thousand. There are three different account numbers.”

Cox continued taking notes, as did Bennett. Andi stared straight ahead at the screen, gripping the armrests of her chair so tightly her knuckles were white. Good to know his nearness was affecting her as much as hers was jumbling his brain cells.

“Keep going,” he urged, and Myer opened another folder, this one marked Credit Suisse.

“Ten more transfers to Switzerland for one hundred thousand. Two accounts there.”

Myer clicked on a third folder—Royal Bank of Scotland. This folder contained the most recent wire transfers, executed over the last three months. “Three more to Scotland for another two hundred. Three accounts.”

“Why all the different accounts?” Andi asked. “Doesn’t that make it harder to keep track of?”

“That’s exactly the point.” Nick turned to her, secretly admiring her astute question. “The more accounts, the less activity associated with any one of them, and the easier it is to close one if anyone gets suspicious. It also provides spare locations if money ever has to be moved in a hurry.” He tapped his fingers on the table, staring at Myer. “Did you set these accounts up?”

“No.” Myer shook his head. “I assume Argyle did. The woman gave me the account numbers over the phone.”

The woman. Again, Meera.

“That’s five hundred thousand dollars,” Cox said.

“I’m only getting started.” Myer moved the cursor to close out the Scotland folder. “Wait until I show you the Belize account.”

“Hold on.” Nick pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of the screen, making sure to get a clear image of the Scottish account numbers.