“‘A private banking institution’? That sounds like a bank.”
“I know, but there are lots of different financial institutions loosely called banks. The ones you probably think of whensomeone uses that word are the ones where you deposit your money to pay bills, write checks, Venmo money to friends,” Jagger said. “But there are private institutions too, institutions that pride themselves on discretion. Some of them are even invitation only.”
I studied him. “How do you know all of this?”
“I used to be a trader.”
“Like… a stock market trader?”
He laughed. “You sound so surprised.”
I looked at him, his tattoos snaking out of his T-shirt, climbing over his huge biceps and up his neck. “Well… yeah. It’s pretty much the last thing I would have expected you to do.”
“Me too,” he said. “Which is why I don’t do it anymore. But I did for a while, and I remember this firm. Specifically, I remember something about this firm.”
“What about it?” my heart was starting to beat faster, the possibility of discovery giving me a shot of euphoria.
“For one thing, they specialized in complex offshore structures.”
“In English,” I said.
“They knew how to hide money. Serious money. And there was something else.” I held my breath. “They were heavy on wealthy foreign clients and multi-currency holdings. Especially rubles.”
My mind was spinning as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. “Rubles as in…”
He nodded. “Keep going.”
And now I had it. “Russian currency.”
“Bingo.”
40
CASSIE
“What do we do now?”I asked Jagger as I locked up the coffee shop later that night.
He’d helped me close up so Kaylee and Drew could leave. Now Main Street was falling under the spell of dusk, that liminal space between day and night when everything turned lavender-gray.
“I’m going to dig into those transfers from Kensington,” he said. “But I don’t have high hopes.”
A few hours ago I wouldn’t have known what he meant, but after a crash course in secretive financial maneuvers I understood: Kensington traded on its commitment to discretion. It would be hard, if not impossible, to figure out which of their clients was behind the transfers.
It would be hard, if not impossible, to get our hands on a client list at all.
“Shit,” I said.
I felt my earlier hope — that we’d found something important, that we were on the verge of a breakthrough — fading.
Jagger took my hand. “Let’s take a walk.”
My heart stuttered when I looked up at him, and a knot of worry formed in my stomach. Because wanting to sleep with him — wanting to sleep with all the Hawks — was one thing, but getting a funny feeling in my heart when I looked at him was bad news.
I was a temporary houseguest, and while I’d managed to get Bram to agree to let me stay for ninety days, I couldn’t exactly see us all sitting around the Thanksgiving table together.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Field trip.”