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Cedar Creek, Nevada

Sunday, July 2, 1995 2 Days Prior . . .

PRESTON WAITED UNTIL NIGHTFALL TO GO TO THE OFFICES OF MARGOLIS Margolis. Hours earlier he’d watched the cleaning staff exit the building, pack up their vans, and pull from the parking lot after leaving the offices immaculate for Monday morning. He drank coffee to keep himself alert as he bided his time. When he was certain the building was empty, without even an eager junior associate remaining, he climbed from his car and entered through the rear door. It was close to midnight.

His office was on the third floor, and he quickly sat behind the desk and fired up his computer. The firm was on the cutting edge of technology and had digitized all its files over the last twenty-four months. Margolis Margolis had been using internal email for years, but had leaned fully into the new Internet age that was upon them. Preston was one of the young attorneys encouraging the transition to digitized files and electronic records, and was the point man for implementing the firm’s conversion into the technological era. Because of this, he was more than familiar with the inner workings of the firm’s digital files, and even without being a partner had easy access to everything.

It took just thirty minutes of sniffing to find the name Guy Menendez buried in the files. Once he was onto the scent, he never lost it. He spent hours digging through the firm’s files and diving deeply into the financial records. The tracks were covered well enough for the lazy snooper or casual observer to miss, but armed with the knowledge Sandy Stamos had provided, Preston knew what to look for, and found it easily. So obvious was the fraud and theft that Preston wondered how it had gone unnoticed for so long. Unless, he wondered, someone at the top was part of it.

He drank a pot of coffee and kept digging. He spent all night picking through the files and unraveling the web of corruption. At just past 4:00 a.m., with his desk cluttered by computer printouts that carefully detailed the financial fraud and the way it had been covered up, he hit pay dirt.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, staring at the computer screen with bloodshot eyes.

Despite the obnoxious hour, he picked up his desk phone and punched Sandy’s number into the keypad. Sandy answered on the first ring.

“Anything?”

“Everything,” Preston said. “I know who’s skimming the money.”