Page 42 of Gator
“Morning, pretty girl,” he cooed at her, and she preened.
“Trixie is a pretty girl.”
I shook my head. “Silly bird. Come on, let’s get you out for a while so you can stretch your wings.”
I opened the door and put my hand in. She stepped off her perch onto my wrist.
“Going up. Going up.” She spread her wings wide as I lifted her to the top of the cage.
“Does she always say that when you take her out?” he asked.
“She does. Normally, it makes sense because I can barely reach the top of her enclosure, so she really is going up, but this cage isn’t as high.”
He studied her for a minute. “Is she okay in a cage that size?”
“For short amounts of time, yes, but not really. If we don’t figure this out soon, I’ll have to do something different. For now, I’m just trying to give her as much time out of the cage as possible.”
“You can’t just leave her out?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “Trixie’s a genius with wings and no impulse control. Leaving her out alone is like opening the front door for a toddler and hoping they don’t go play in the street.”
“So not a good idea then?”
“Not even a little. I don’t even leave her out unsupervised at my house. I’d have to remodel the whole damn place to make it safe for her to roam. And even then, she’d probably find a way to set it on fire.”
“Gotcha. I’m going to head up and take a quick shower. I want to check in with Kat before we leave, so meet me down on theeighth floor when you’re ready to go.” He gave me a quick kiss and then left the apartment.
Gator
I made short work of a shower and hurried down to the ops center. It was still early, but I knew Kat would already be there. What I didn’t expect was to find Chance sitting at the computers with her, and if the look on his face was any indication, he was less than thrilled about what she’d found.
“Hey, Gator. I was just about to call you. I was hoping you would have time to stop by before you and Julius left this morning.” Kat motioned at the monitor in front of her. “I have news for you.”
I looked at Chance. “I take it it isn’t the good kind.”
He shook his head. “Not even close.”
“So remember the car that tailed Julius? It was registered to a shell company—Marawood Holdings. Nothing on the surface, just a PO box and a business license out of Nevada. But I dug deeper.”
“Of course you did.” I knew if anyone could find out who was behind the company, it would be Kat.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and two different pictures came up on the screen. “This is Merrick Sloan.” She pointed at a slick-looking businessman in the first picture. “He’s a piece of work. He owns Sloan Capital, a venture capital firm. They’re known for buying out small mom-and-pop businesses, stripping them bare, and selling what’s left. He’s loaded, ruthless, and known for doing whatever it takes to get the deal closed.”
“Okay, so how does that connect to the car that tailed Julius?”
“I’m getting there. Marawood was formed three years ago using a corporate formation service out of Vegas. Same agent’s been used for thousands of companies—completely clean. But here’s the thing. That agent also registered another company five years ago. Sin City investment group, which just happened to be folded into Sloan Capital two years later during a quiet restructuring deal. And guess what?” She went back to work on the keyboard and her second monitor flared to life, showing line after line of data. “Same virtual office address. Same tax filing schedule. Same damn CPA.”
“So Marawood Holdings and Sloan Capitol are connected?” I asked, trying to follow her.
“Oh, I’m saying more than that. The bank account that pays the insurance on that sedan? It’s a corporate account out of the Caymans. But the routing goes through a domestic subsidiary of Red Coral Trust, which is one of Sloan Capital’s known financial entities. Shell inside a shell. Like a Russian nesting doll of bullshit.”
“So what you’re saying is Sloan Capital is financing the guys who trailed Julius.”
“What I’m saying is Marawood Holdings is Merrick Sloan,” Kat said confidently.
Chance leaned forward in his seat and looked closer at the screen. “Merrick Sloan has been our top suspect in this trafficking ring for years. We were never able to find an actual connection, but I knew it was him.”
“I sent the screenshots and the paperwork trail to your office, Chance.”