Making sure he found the culprits should have been sufficient motivation to put Samiah Brooks out of his head. His sole focus had to be on figuring out who at Trendsetters had given Hughes Hospitality the means to clean their dirty money.

Daniel closed out his secured email and rolled the chair back to the main computer. He logged into another secured site and downloaded from FinCEN’s cloud server the report he’d started working on last night. Hours of analysis lay in front of him. He settled his headphones over his ears, fired up his “East Coast Hip Hop” playlist, and got to work.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Samiah slipped off her sunglasses and tucked them in her purse as she hustled toward the peach-and-turquoise door of the Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin’s Market District. She was the one who’d suggested this place for tapas and margaritas, yet she was the one running late.

After giving a brief description of Taylor and London to the hostess, she was led to the bar area. She spotted London’s bouncy coils first, then saw Taylor, who’d taken out her braids and now wore her hair in a sleek bob, the tips a dark magenta.

“Sorry I’m late,” Samiah said, climbing onto one of two unoccupied stools at the pub table. She nodded her thanks to the hostess and accepted a menu. “I rarely lose track of time, but today has been one of those days. I can use this drink.” She looked up at the hostess. “A watermelon margarita, please.”

“I’ll let your waiter know,” she said before taking off in the direction of the entrance.

“Forgive us for starting without you.” London gestured to the frothy concoction in front of her. “I was ready for my celebratory drink the moment I got here.”

“You forgot to mention what we’re celebrating,” Taylor said, holding up her cup of water with lemon for a toast. Samiah picked up the glass of water that had been waiting for her on the table and raised it.

“I performed a successful Meckel diverticulum resection today,” London said, clinking her margarita glass to their water glasses. “And the baby boy’s very grateful grandmother has promised me homemade banana bread for the rest of my life. Shower me with applause and I may send you both a slice every now and then.”

Samiah tapped the side of her water glass with her fork. “Congratulations on your Meckel…thing. And I’m not saying that only because I want banana bread, which I do.”

“I want banana bread too, but you still deserve props,” Taylor said. She clinked London’s glass again. “That’s for saving a life today. You are one of the good ones, Doctor Kelley.”