Chapter 11 - The Getaway Bags
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The next two hours were a blur of nervous energy. I paced the hotel suite while Vivian aggressively coordinated with the bank fraud departments. Agent Hale and Detective Morales went to the precinct to oversee the booking.
When Hale finally returned to the hotel room, he looked exhausted, but his eyes were sharp.
"Brooke is at the station giving a full statement," Hale said, taking off his jacket. "Grant resisted arrest. It took three officers to put him in the cruiser. Diane is screaming about suing the city."
"And Ryan?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Silent. Asked for a lawyer immediately." Hale paused, pulling a plastic evidence bag from his briefcase. "But that's not the most interesting part of the raid."
He tossed the bag onto the table. Inside were four sleek, dark blue passports.
"We found four duffel bags packed and sitting by the front door," Hale explained. "They were leaving. Today."
"Where?" Vivian asked, inspecting the bag.
"We don't know exactly where, but they weren't planning on coming back. These passports are from Saint Kitts and Nevis. They offer a citizenship-by-investment program. The documents appear perfectly legitimate."
I stared at the passports. "Grant, Diane, Ryan... and Brooke?"
"Yes," Hale said. "Though Brooke claims she had no idea they existed until this morning when she found them in Grant's briefcase."
"What else was in the bags?" I asked, my voice flat.
Hale pulled out a notebook. "Approximately four hundred thousand dollars in banded cash. And a significant amount of high-end jewelry."
Morales, who had just walked in behind him, looked at me with deep sympathy. "Mrs. Bennett, you might want to do a full inventory of your personal safes when you go back to the penthouse. We recovered diamond earrings, a vintage Cartier watch, and several sapphire pieces."
I let out a breathless, mocking laugh. "My grandmother's earrings. And the watch I bought Ryan for our first anniversary."
They were going to flee the country with my money, wearing my family heirlooms, using passports bought with my stolen corporate funds. And yet, just last night, Grant had stood in my dining room and ordered me out of my own home, playing the righteous patriarch to the very end.
"They're monsters," Vivian said, shaking her head.
"They're professionals," Hale corrected her.
Then, Vivian’s cell phone rang. It was Jacob Lin, her top forensic accountant. Vivian put him on speaker.
"Vivian, I tracked the final three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar wire transfer," Jacob said, his voice tight.
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"The one to the Caymans?" Vivian asked. "Did you find the account owner?"
"No," Jacob replied. "But I found the purpose of the transfer. It was a lump-sum premium payment."
