Page 33 of Craft Brew

Nic rolled closer, squinting at the screens. “How has he not been charged?” Aidan asked.

“It’s all hearsay,” Nic answered, catching on fast to the pattern of evidence before him. “No one’s caught him in the act.”

“He’s threatened you.”

“Me, an interested party. Just like every other person he’s pressured into not testifying or answering the feds’ questions.”

“But you’re not like all those other people, are you?” Mel tried and failed to hide her smile.

“No, I’m not, but I need more than this”—he pointed at the screens—“to charge him. Bowers will never move on Vaughn based on my word alone.”

Lauren spun in her chair, facing him. “You do realize who’s the prosecutor who stalls us out all the time, right?”

“Oh, I realize, but I need a paper trail Bowers—or the Deputy AG, if I go over his head—can’t refute.”

“We think we’ve found the start of one.” Mel waved him over to the metal desk running the length of the opposite wall. She spread a stack of bank statements out in front of him. “Your father’s assistant has been most helpful.” She tapped a French-tipped nail by the payor’s name on the first sheet. “This is the account that paid off his bank home loan.” She tapped at the second. “The same payor also paid off the subordinate lenders on your father’s building in Burlingame. One of Vaughn’s entities.”

Nic gestured at the other sheets. “And who do all these other accounts belong to?”

“Federal employees.”

Nic’s mouth went dry, and Aidan gasped behind him. “Vaughn’s got that many people on payroll?”

“Do any of them trace back to Bowers?” Nic asked.

“We isolated his accounts first, and no,” Lauren said, clearly disappointed. “We’re working on the others.”

Nic glanced at Aidan. “Only a handful of people have been on each case and would know where I was.”

Aidan nodded. “We’ll run the list as soon as we get it.”

It was a break, a better one than they’d had in months, but it still involved exerting pressure on pawns Vaughn already had under his control. Nic, however, had a direct path to Vaughn if he chose to play the queen on the board. “There might be another avenue open to us.”

Mel crossed one leg over the other, heel bouncing. “What’s that?”

“Vaughn approached me at the brewery Saturday night.”

Lauren slumped back in her chair, staring open-mouthed at the ceiling. “And y’all complain about me always hiding the ball.”

Nic would’ve laughed if Aidan didn’t look like he was about to spit nails.

At him. “That’s what you wouldn’t tell me last night.”

“I’m sorry,” Nic said. “Won’t happen again.”

“What did he say?” Mel asked, calm and assessing. This was a friendly team-up meeting and yet Nic still felt like she was interrogating him.

“He made certain . . .”

“Threats?” Aidan supplied.

“Overtures.”

“To what, come work for him?”

“Not exactly.” His cringe must have given him away, because Lauren’s blue eyes went round as saucers and her mouth fell open in a silent Oh.

“You want to use yourself as bait,” Mel likewise surmised.