Home Free - Fern Michaels [69]
Abner Tookus, soon to be Dr. Abner Tookus, was in love.
Abner looked at his housemates, at the two Dobermans, who were watching him, and the Yorkie, who was clamoring to be picked up, at the cat, who was already in his lap, and said, “Holy shit, guys, I’m in love!”
Chapter 19
Ten minutes later, Abner was back in his other world, the world he’d lived in for so many years, a world that hadn’t included Isabelle Flanders and love. He was like a whirlwind as he moved from computer to printer, back to computer and on to another printer. The room hummed with sounds as he sifted and collated the papers, separating them into neat piles according to each government agency. Now all he had to do was sit down and read what he had in front of him. No small task, to be sure. He thought then about how much he was going to charge for this assignment. Satisfied that it would be enough to finish his cabin without his touching any other money, he let loose with a sigh so loud, Dolly, the big white Persian cat, leaped off his lap and hissed at him before she stalked her way out of the room.
Abner decided to go with the big gun first and pulled out the stack of CIA printouts. Adam Daniels’s, the money guy. He read through the file as it related to Daniel’s tenure at the CIA. A career guy with a paunch and a bad hairpiece. He studied the picture that accompanied his file from all angles. Married thirty years, two kids, a boy and a girl, who lived in New York. Three grandchildren. Lived in Old Town Alexandria, in a rather nice Federal-looking house complete with blue door. Beach house on the eastern seaboard, nothing elaborate. A five-year-old Boston Whaler that he kept in dry dock. No traffic tickets. Mr. Upstanding Citizen. Wife, Arlene, was a retired fifth-grade schoolteacher. Either Mrs. Daniels didn’t like to cook or wouldn’t cook, because credit-card receipts said they dined out seven nights a week. He wondered what the couple did for the other two meals of the day.
Abner continued to flip pages, scanning each intently before turning it over. He wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a thing. Not good for his image. Gold’s Gym. Two visits in the last five years. He’d played squash at the indoor cage at CIA headquarters with . . . Matthew Logan from the Department of Justice. Once a week Daniels went to the shooting range without fail. Excellent shot, won two awards from the NRA. He liked to shoot skeet with . . . Henry Maris from Homeland Security.
Daniels had put in twenty years at the Treasury Department before going over to the CIA. Abner sucked on his lower lip as he tried to figure out if he was missing something. Adam Daniels was just Mr. Ordinary. “Ahhhh, what have we here?” Abner turned over another page. Best friends with ex-Director Span of the CIA before the latter’s forced retirement. Span was best buddies with Hank Jellicoe, now rotting away in a federal prison.
Abner tapped at his chin with a pencil. Span and Jellicoe. All those lucrative government contracts he’d approved for Jellicoe back in the day. So much money one person couldn’t count it all. He plopped a paperweight on the papers, rolled across the floor to a computer against the far wall, and tapped furiously. Then he made two phone calls, waited, checked his e-mails, and tapped some more.
Ten minutes later, sheets of paper started piling up in the trays of three different printers. He tapped some more. Another printer went crazy as even more papers spewed out. Now he finally had what he needed. At least he hoped so. Director Span had okayed lucrative contracts to Hank Jellicoe for years and years, but if he remembered correctly, the amounts of money paid to Global Securities never added up when he snooped in Jellicoe’s bank records. If he remembered correctly, there was way too much money unaccounted for, with no trail to follow, and there were no