“This is a job,” he told himself. “Just a job. Focus, Sean.”
Putting himself in his professional mindset, he skimmed the file that Tia had sent to Lucy. He felt a bit guilty about reading Lucy’s emails—Lucy had all her files copied over to her personal computer, which was networked with his office. If he’d asked, she would have said yes. She might have asked why, though, and he didn’t want to lie to Lucy.
He needed to know what the cops had on Mona Hill and why they hadn’t been able to arrest her. It was clear from Tia’s personal notes that she believed Mona Hill had someone high up in the criminal justice system in her pocket. She didn’t give details—but it didn’t take much imagination to read between the lines. Either she was blackmailing someone or bribing someone—or a combination of both. Maybe more than one person. No government agency was 100 percent clean, as evident from the DEA’s recent problem with Agent Nicole Rollins.
And truth be told, law enforcement didn’t concern themselves with the sex trade. They had stings here and there, but when facing serious problems like human trafficking, drug cartels, violent crimes—hookers were the least of their concerns. And a group like Mona Hill’s? Tia’s notes said that Hill kept her girls under tight control and didn’t beat or abuse them. She paid them fairly, but controlled their lives through where they lived and what jobs they took. A benevolent dictator.
But Tia’s notes were borderline hostile—she certainly didn’t like Mona Hill or find anything benevolent about her. There had to be something more that wasn’t in Tia’s notes, maybe personal. An old case? A cold case? History. He made a note to dig around. It would take talking to a contact at SAPD. Unfortunately, he hadn’t lived in San Antonio long enough to have cultivated sources who weren’t directly tied to Lucy.
Next he reviewed the information he’d retrieved last night while running a deeper background check on Mona Hill. He learned quickly that Mona Hill wasn’t her real name. Why Tia didn’t know that, Sean couldn’t figure out. The information had been buried, but not impossible to find. Mona Hill was born Ramona Jefferson to a prostitute by the name of Carla Jefferson. No father was listed on the birth certificate. While Mona was a common nickname for Ramona, why had Mona changed her last name? He couldn’t find any records that she’d legally changed her name or got married. But, she had a social security card, driver’s license, and bank accounts all under the name Mona Hill—going back to when she was eighteen. Relevant? Possibly. She could have changed her name legally in another state, but she hadn’t done so in the four states he had record of her living in.
He’d also pulled her credit report and a list of all the property she owned, and had started to run down her known associates. She owned the apartment building free and clear in her own name. A car—again, completely paid for—and a boat that was docked at Canyon Lake.
He ran businesses and other entities and almost shut down that avenue of approach. Then he ran businesses on Ramona Jefferson. The connection between Hill and Jefferson was extremely thin. Most people would assume they were different people. In fact, the chances anyone would connect the two were slim to none because—as a person—Ramona Jefferson had ceased to exist after the age of eighteen.
Ramona Jefferson existed on paper. It wasn’t easy to find, and Sean wondered if Mona Hill herself had created this paper trail, or if she had had someone do it for her. It was pretty damn good.
But he was better. Unfortunately, not all the records he wanted were online.
Still, he found an extensive trail of small entities that led him down a path to a company that held one property in Houston. The company was listed as a consulting company and had filed all the appropriate tax forms with a small income, but Sean immediately saw it for what it was.
Companies set up like this were generally laundering money. They took in reasonable fees, paid taxes, and reported properly, but would often have one large account that would buy property and other tangible items to hold and retain until the cash was needed. Then they’d liquidate, report, shut down the business, and have clean money.
But … there were no large accounts. The only large purchase was for a house in Houston that was worth just over half a million and bought eight years ago for less than half that.
The company paid a consulting fee to another paper company in the amount of five thousand dollars a month—almost identical to the fees the company took in. If Sean didn’t know better, he’d think that this was set up to keep a mistress. Buy her a house, give her an allowance, keep her beholden to her lover who was unwilling or unable to leave his wife.