Stolen Prey

suggest that I, or the bank as an institution, were knowingly involved in any kind of illegal activity. Other than that, I need to get this figured out as badly as you do.”
    Shaffer: “You said you found something.”
    “I did,” Bone said. “We went through all of the accounts that Pruess helped sell, and I found one called Bois Brule Software. When I spoke to Agent O’Brien after I talked to Lucas, he said the name has some significance to the Brooks murders.”
    “Nothing direct,” O’Brien put in. “The Brookses had a cabin on the Bois Brule River up in northern Wisconsin. We saw it when we were going through their assets.”
    Lucas nodded, looked at Bone. “And?”
    Bone nodded to the man whom he’d introduced as Martin Brown, the account manager.
    Brown said, “I took the account apart. The notation on the account said that it was designed to hold monthly receipts from software sales, and that the money would be dispersed at the end of each month to Bois Brule’s creditors, with some of it going to a tax holding fund and other amounts going to investment accounts. There’s nothing unusual about any of that, except the amount flowing through the account. Some months as much as thirty million dollars would go through it.”
    “Holy shit,” O’Brien said. “I need to get my guys over here.”
    “What else?” Lucas asked.
    “A couple of things,” Brown said. “First, it doesn’t look to us, after we took a really close look, like any money was dispersed to creditors. All of it went to stock or bond mutual funds. The second thing is, while the money was always dispersed at the end of the month, with a few small exceptions, this month, and only this month, the money was moved almost as soon as it came in. There’s an additional problem here: when I tried to find out where it went, I couldn’t. When I try, I get a system error. The people down in Systems don’t know what’s going on, either. We can’t find out where the money went. Somehow, the wire numbers have been sequestered.”
    “What are the bond funds that it usually went to?” O’Brien asked.
    Brown picked up a yellow legal pad and rattled off a bunch of techie-sounding names. “I’m having my secretary type up a full list, with account numbers and so on. That would be the place for your guys to start,” he said, and passed the paper over to O’Brien.
    “How much did they get?” Lucas asked.
    “Twenty-two million,” Bone said. “Something else: the last withdrawals were the day before the murders. At first, I was thinking, well, they knew about them. But then I thought, maybe, maybe, what happened was that they heard about the murders on the morning news and bailed out. Didn’t come back for the rest.”
    Shaffer said, “Huh,” and Rivera said, “Is it possible that your Pruess was involved in this money movement, and now is running?”
    Bone spread his hands: “He had no direct access to the account. He was a salesman, not a manager. It’s more likely that, God help us…”
    “What?” Shaffer asked.
    “That the people who killed the Brookses knew about him, and have taken him away,” Bone said.
    Shaffer said, “They’ve taken him away because…”
    “Because they think he was involved in stealing that money,” Bone said. “He wasn’t, but because he sold the account, or he and Mrs. Brooks sold the account, they thought he was. They may not know the difference between the salesman and the account manager. But if they’ve got Pruess, they probably know now.”
    Lucas looked at Brown: “You got a wife and kids?”
    Brown’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he said, “Yeah.”
    “Get them out of town. Take them to a resort somewhere. Jim will pay your expenses,” Lucas said.
    “Absolutely,” Bone said. “Find a nice place.”
    “You don’t think they can find us?” Brown asked. His voice was shaky.
    “No. These guys are a bunch of hoodlums, not the FBI,” Lucas said. “Not even the FBI could find you, if you’re careful. Find a place where you can get back here in a hurry if you need to. A few hours…”
    “If it’s all right to fly…” Brown looked at Bone.
    Bone said, “Marty, you can go anywhere in the country. Go to a resort near a big airport with direct flights back. We’ll pick up every nickel.”
    Brown nodded, looked at the paper in front of him. “I will.”
    O’B RIEN LOOKED at Lucas, then Shaffer, and said, “You know what’s strange? We can’t find any sign of this