Another lie, or at least a partial one. Vess wasn’t in this for justice—he wanted containment, to keep his drug enterprise from being exposed, which was all too likely when Zion suddenly brought it this much attention. Still, that explained why the Reds turned their attention to Zig . . . and presumably anyone else sniffing where they weren’t supposed to. But it still didn’t make sense.
The Reds were pros. When they went to see Zion, they wouldn’t have left without asking the most vital question. “This is your femoral artery,” Nola said, digging the barrel of her gun into his thigh. “If you bleed out, you’re gonna ruin these nice floors. So tell me, Mr. Vess: Who hired Zion to kill Mint?”
82
Vess’s hands were shaking, still struggling to knot the belt around his calf. As he fought to pull it tight, blood was already soaking the cuff of his pants. “Did you really have to shoot me?”
Nola started to squeeze the trigger.
“O-On my desk! There’s photos! The iPad! That’s what they sent me! Hand to God, that’s what I was—that’s what I wanted to show you!”
“Stop talking,” Nola said, heading for his desk. As she grabbed the iPad, she couldn’t help but steal another quick glance at his paintings.
“The pass code is all zeroes,” Vess called out.
Nola rolled her eyes.
A few clicks later, she was staring at a text from a 215 number: Philadelphia. No written message, just two photos—the first of Mint and Rashida sitting at a table in what looked like a nice restaurant. This wasn’t the steak house; it was somewhere else. It had a hidden-camera feel, both of them smiling and leaning toward each other in a way that former coworkers weren’t supposed to lean toward each other.
From the crow’s-feet at Mint’s eyes, this wasn’t an old photo. This was recent.
“You see it, right? Like a dog in heat. At Mint’s funeral . . . they filled a gymnasium . . . Pennsylvania’s local hero and golden Boy Scout. But he was just another cheater, sleeping around on his wife with some Black piece of—”
With a violent kick, Nola pounded her heel into Vess’s wound.
“FUUUUUH!” he screamed, rolling sideways, hugging his knee toward his chin.
“Who sent these?” Nola asked, swiping to the iPad’s next photo. It was a screenshot, literally—someone had held up their phone to snap a picture of a computer screen. The image was pixelated and harder to read, but it looked like an online bank statement.
On the far right were deposits—dozens of them, at least one a day—$8,500, $9,500, $9,200—always just below $10,000, the amount that Nola knew triggered banks to send a report to the IRS. Whoever this money belonged to, they were working hard not to be seen.
In the last month alone, total deposits were over $242,000.
Account Name: Mint, Archibald C.
A sharp pain stabbed Nola’s throat, like she’d swallowed a needle that sliced her as it descended toward her stomach. Mint was in the reserves, making sixty thousand dollars a year. Where was he suddenly getting this cash?
“You said the Reds found these photos?” she asked.
“On Zion’s phone,” Vess explained, still clenching his leg in pain.
Nola closed her eyes, the iPad feeling like an anvil in her hand. Mongol . . . Faber . . . Staedtler . . .
“Salty Trebbiano,” Nola announced. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
Vess glanced upward, clearly lost.
Nola swiped back to the first photo, of Mint and Rashida eating at the restaurant. Slowly . . . finally . . . the walls of the maze were starting to crumble.