The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)

“Did you see how far I rode?” Mason shouted from many feet away.

“I did. And it was so far you started to turn into a speck. And a speck of Mason is too small, so stay closer,” Jake said, drawing a circle with his index finger as Mason rode to him. “If you do, we’ll get the chocolate peanut-butter-cup scoop, ’K?”

“My favorite!”

“Mine, too, buddy. Mine, too,” he said, and Jake was already looking forward to an ice-cream cone. That’d be his reward for a potential new business deal. Ice cream—now that’d be an investment worth making. Ice cream never went out of style. Come to think of it, Jake might invest in some Ben & Jerry’s. Or Talenti. That was some seriously good stuff. Ice cream was his guilty pleasure, and since working out was his best friend, he never truly felt guilty.

“I’ll stay closer,” Mason said, the smile never leaving his face as he pedaled in the other direction.

Jake walked back to Andrew, returning his focus to the conversation as they leaned against the boardwalk fence. “How much money are we talking?”

“About ten million.” Andrew shook his head in disgust.

He whistled. “Damn. Skimming is a hot business these days. I made the wrong career choice for getting rich,” he joked.

“You and me both.”

Jake raised his chin, returning to his serious mode. “I need to ask—how did you have no idea this was happening? You and your brother, Aaron, are Eli’s right-hand men in the fund, you said. Was this all under your nose?” He aimed to be direct with clients. Going into work armed with facts was the only way to operate.

“Unfortunately, yes. But we all have different areas of expertise.” Andrew tapped his chest. “That’s how we split up the work, so we could make bets in different areas. Lots of those bets don’t pay off—that’s the nature of a hedge fund. But when the cocoa bean farm went belly-up at the same time Eli retired to the Caymans sooner than we expected him to, that’s when we started thinking there might be a pattern,” he offered, then heaved a deep sigh, flubbing his lips. “Wish I’d caught on to this sooner. Makes me feel stupid not to have checked before.”

“Hey now,” Jake said, trying to reassure the guy. “Don’t beat yourself up. Just give me the details.”

Mason wheeled to a stop by Jake’s side, the brakes braying loudly. “See! I’m going to be a cycling pro like my dad,” he said, then started up again, and Jake fixed on a smile for Mason, not wanting to breathe a negative word about the kid’s deadbeat dad, who was hardly a cycling pro. More like a bum—a cycling groupie who followed the pros around as they raced in Europe, spending more time with them than his own kid who he hadn’t seen in a year.

Mason took off in the other direction, and Jake locked eyes with Andrew once more. “My sister’s at a parent-teacher conference,” he said, explaining.

“Hey, no worries. I’ve got three of my own,” Andrew said.

“Anyway, so what did you find out? I want to understand as much as I can if I’m going to take this on.”

Andrew took a deep breath, then explained how Eli funneled a bit of dough each year into odd investments that didn’t pan out, pocketing the money, bit by bit so the other partners wouldn’t notice. “The most recent one was the cocoa bean farm. Once that went bust, he retired to the Caymans and opened a nightclub. Ergo . . .” Andrew let his voice trail off with the obvious.

“Ah, the Caymans. The haven of money fraud.” Jake crossed his arms. “OK, fine. So he supposedly embezzled all this money over the years from these little hidden investments.”

Another nod. “We believe that’s what happened.”

Jake blew out a long stream of air. “That’s a pretty serious allegation. Got any proof?”

Three simple words, but they meant everything right now. No way was Jake going into this situation without some hard evidence.

Andrew nodded and tapped the manila folder he’d brought with him. “We started digging into his files. His e-mails. Anything we could find from the servers. He was pretty thorough in covering his trail, but our IT forensics team was able to track down a few unusual e-mails. Some we’re still sorting through, but one of them includes a deleted e-mail from Eli to Constantine Trevino,” he said, and Jake’s eyebrows drew together.

Jake knew the name. Everyone in his line of work—recovering stolen goods—knew the name. Need art moved illegally? You called Constantine. Want blood diamonds? He was your guy. Hankering for some ivory tusks? Constantine was the middleman.