The last thing in the world he felt was free. There was something deeper going on here, but he had no idea who was setting up his team.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

After the inquisition yesterday at the DEA, Hunter had explained to Layla why he hadn’t been included in the meeting—that he had been tasked to work on the theft. He’d been worried she would be upset, but she’d taken it in stride, saying she understood completely why he couldn’t tell her.

He wasn’t any closer to finding the traitor at DEA, but he had stumbled on something else that was giving him major anxiety. There was no reason to keep his findings from Layla now that the cat was out of the bag regarding the cash and she’d been officially cleared by the investigators after her interrogation yesterday.

He watched her stare intently at her laptop as she typed. He wondered if her mind was really in the game or if it was somewhere else.

“Layla.”

She stopped typing. “Yeah?”

“We need to talk.”

Those words got her attention, and she set her laptop on the coffee table. “What is it?”

“As I told you, I’ve been working on this money angle for a while now, and after I exhausted all the regular routes, I started going down some other paths to find answers.”

She frowned. “This doesn’t sound good. What did you find?”

He hated telling her this. “There are some weird things going on with Cass’s money.”

She groaned. “No. There has to be an innocent explanation.”

Hunter moved closer to her. “How well do you really know this woman?” Before she could answer, he kept talking. “Let me show you what I found.”

“Fair enough.”

“First, it appears Cass has had some major financial struggles. She took out three loans from two different banks and cleared out her savings account.”

“How much are we talking?”

“So far, from what I’ve been able to document, it totals over four hundred grand.”

Layla’s shoulders slumped. “Okay. But it’s not a crime to have money problems.”

“True, but that’s not all.”

“What else?”

This was where things started to get dicey. “Those transactions occurred a few months ago. But within the last month, there’s been an influx of cash. Not in her regular accounts, though.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then where?”

“It wasn’t easy, but I was finally able to track her financial activity to an offshore account.”

“How much of an influx of cash are we talking?” Layla bit her bottom lip.

He knew exactly why she seemed distressed. “About five hundred thousand.”

She sucked in a breath. “That’s the amount they’re claiming was taken from the cartel money.”

“Bingo.”

Layla shook her head. “You’re telling me that Cass was able to steal five hundred thousand dollars right out from under all of us?”