“Who is Zephyr?”
“I don’t know. I know very little about him.”
Lila leaned on the glass. “Did he tell you how to send money to Burgundy?”
Shaw’s eyes shot to the mirror, but he repeated the question.
Patrick followed his gaze. “Who do you have back there, Chief Shaw, feeding you all these lines?”
“Quite a few people. You’re very popular at the moment. There’s almost an entire shift of patrolmen conducting a sweep of your living quarters and offices. Your mother has even been brought in for questioning. I wonder what we’ll find out when we speak to her.”
Even after knowing Chief Shaw for her entire li
fe, it was still difficult for Lila to tell when he was bluffing. But it was there, his eyes just a little more intense than usual.
“My men are making short work of your logs and files. Your attempts at subterfuge were not nearly as good as you seem to believe. We’ve already found quite a few links between you and Burgundy. You aren’t going to tell us anything we don’t already know. So I will ask you again, Mr. Wilson, did this Zephyr tell you how to send money to Burgundy?”
“Yes.”
“Did he set up the auctions for his mother’s artwork?” Lila asked, considering Patrick’s face as Shaw related the question.
“Yes. We couldn’t have slipped the money out of the country if we hadn’t.”
“And did your mother know that you were sending the money to Burgundy?”
Patrick nodded.
“Who is Zephyr?”
“I told you. I don’t know. What does it even matter? He’s nothing more than a hacker. He has good business sense. He gives me tips that I can pass along to my mother, but that’s all I know of him.”
“Who approached whom?”
“He approached me,” Patrick admitted, eyes glassy as he thought back. “I’d already been using him for years to help me on certain projects. One day, he said that he could help me save my mother’s estate.”
“How?” Shaw asked before Lila could prompt him.
“After Alex lost her mark, I mentioned to Zephyr that my mother was having difficulty managing another heir and that the family’s business interests were suffering for it. Zephyr said he’d think about options.”
Dr. Adams sat forward in his chair. “Did he?”
“Yes. He said there was a company in Burgundy that would like to do business in Saxony. They just needed someone to represent their interests and get around the sanctions. They’d pay a premium for the privilege. We just needed to liquidate enough capital so that we could buy our way in.”
“Which company?”
“Sun Leasing.”
Lila fiddled absently with her headset. Zephyr had a company called Sun Leasing, but it was just a front. He never intended to do any business with them at all, just take a large chunk of their money and leave them bankrupt and destitute.
Patrick still didn’t understand that.
“When did he hand over the money?” Lila asked.
Patrick shifted in his chair at the question. “Sun wanted half up front. We’d pay the rest in installments. I was supposed to send the first after the plane took off.”
“How much did Patrick skim from his mother’s activities?”
Chief Shaw relayed her question with a disapproving grunt.