Jake shot her his best smile. “I was thinking of something a little stronger.”
Aunt Maddy smiled back. She always did have a soft spot for Jake. “Wine or spirits? I’m out of beer.”
“Spirits,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got is fine.”
Jake and I didn’t speak while we waited for Aunt Maddy to return. He remained seated on the foot of his lounge chair and scrolled through messages on his phone while I silently fumed. When Aunt Maddy reappeared with a bottle of bourbon, a bucket of ice, and three glasses, Jake poured himself two fingers and downed it like a shot. Then he poured himself a second one. Aunt Maddy filled her own glass with ice and added a splash of bourbon. I left my glass untouched. I didn’t want to consume anything that might impair my abilities.
“You have to believe me,” Jake said.
“No,” I replied. “I don’t. You’ve severely impeached your own credibility, Jacob.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Don’t lawyer me.”
“Then stop lying to me,” I shot back.
“I’m not lying! We were trying to protect you.”
Now I rolled my eyes. “Yes, your all-purpose excuse. Anytime you don’t want to answer my question, you just tell me it’s for my own protection. I know you think that somehow gets you off the hook, but it doesn’t.”
“She’s right, Jake,” Aunt Maddy said, upholding and overruling objections like a judge. “Why don’t you start by telling us why you deceived us about leaving the FBI.”
Jake nodded at Aunt Maddy then turned his attention back to me. “It was Jonah’s idea.”
I snorted. “Blame the dead guy. Good strategy, Jake.”
He jumped up from the chair with his fists at his side. “It’s the truth! I actually wanted Jonah to tell you because I thought you’d talk him out of it.”
“Out of what?” Aunt Maddy asked.
“Out of helping me.” Jake said and sat back down. He dropped his head in his hands and it felt like minutes passed before he looked up again. “Don’t you see? I’m responsible. They died because of me.”
Chapter 43
“What do you mean they died because of you?” Aunt Maddy looked stricken at his confession, but I remained stony.
Jake downed his second bourbon and ran his fingers through his hair again. He looked distraught. If he was lying to me now, then it was an Oscar-worthy performance.
“He took a meeting for me.” Jake held up his index finger. “One meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?” I asked. “Who did he meet with?”
“The Russians,” he said. “Like your buddy Alex told you.”
“How did—”
“The night you were at my house,” Jake said.
“You mean the night you drugged me.”
“After you got me drunk and searched my things.”
I wanted to argue he drank that alcohol voluntarily whereas he had drugged me without my consent, but I wanted answers to my questions more than I wanted to be proven right. “Why would you ask Jonah to go to a meeting with Russian mobsters?”
“I didn’t,” Jake said. “I was totally against the idea. He insisted.” Jake poured himself more bourbon, but this time he only took a sip instead of swigging the entire glass. “He’d been helping me with my cover. I was posing as an accountant so I could infiltrate their organization.”
“An accountant?” I scoffed.
“You’ve heard the saying follow the money? Well, that’s what I was doing. I was trying to infiltrate their money-laundering operation.”
I had a sudden flash of memory of Jonah and Jake talking about the best ways to move money through shell corporations without leaving a paper trail. The only thing that stood out to me about the conversation was that they’d stopped talking when I’d walked into the room, which was odd. It’s not as if I didn’t know what my husband did for a living. I’d jokingly reminded Jonah that I couldn’t testify against him because I was his wife. He’d laughed and changed the subject.
“So you were working undercover as an accountant for the Russian mob and you decided it would be a good idea to have Jonah, a private citizen with no law enforcement training, fill in for you? What? Did you have a dentist appointment that day you couldn’t reschedule?”
Jake shot me an angry look. “It wasn’t like that. The head of the organization had a nephew, some hot shot who’d made a few bucks dabbling in crypto and thought that made him a financial genius. The nephew thought he, not me, should be running the financial side of the business. His uncle didn’t think he was ready yet, but the nephew was making things difficult for me, asking a lot of questions, things Jonah would know the answer to off the top of his head, but I didn’t. My boss was getting concerned and considered pulling me out.”
“So, you decided to risk my husband’s life instead?”
“No, Jonah decided. I told him I thought it was a bad idea. If things went south in the meeting, he wouldn’t know what to do. But he was convinced he could handle it. He said he met with clients all the time and knew how to close the deal. And I’d invested a year and a half of my life into this investigation. I didn’t want to just walk away. That’s a decision I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”
We waited for Jake to continue. When he didn’t, Aunt Maddy prodded him. “Something went wrong at the meeting?”
“No, it was a huge success. Jonah did exactly what he said he’d do. He gave them a big presentation like he did for his legitimate clients. Told them he could get their tax rate down to zero, and it was all one hundred percent legal.”
That I believed. I’d heard Jonah give that same speech over the phone when he’d taken work calls during his paternity leave.
“The head of the organization was so impressed,” Jake continued, “he turned everything over to Jonah, or me, thinking I was Jonah, who was supposed to be me.”
“Then what happened?” Aunt Maddy asked.
