Chapter 17: The Cayman Connection
For three weeks, Claire barely slept. She holed up in a cheap motel in Miami, Florida, surrounded by printouts, empty coffee cups, and her encrypted laptop.
Agent Reyes had been right. Eleanor Hale was a creature of habit and extreme vanity. The cartel could provide her with safe houses in the jungles of Colombia or the slums of Juarez, but Eleanor would rather die than live without air conditioning, Egyptian cotton sheets, and vintage wine.
Claire combed through the seized financial data, looking for the needle in the digital haystack. She traced shell companies, offshore holding accounts, and anonymous wire transfers. Most of the money had been frozen by the FBI, but Eleanor was cunning. She would have a stash the feds didn't know about.
At 3:00 AM on a Tuesday, Claire found it.
It was a recurring, anomalous charge buried deep in the expense reports of a Hale-owned subsidiary company that ostensibly dealt in "agricultural imports." Every month, for the past ten years, exactly fifteen thousand dollars was wired to a private property management firm in the Cayman Islands.
Claire hacked into the firm's unsecure client portal using a backdoor she found on an underground forum. Her graphic design background in UX/UI made navigating the sloppy code child's play.
The property was a sprawling, secluded villa on the North Sound of Grand Cayman. The owner on record was a "Mrs. E. Davies."
Davies. Helen’s maiden name. Eleanor’s ultimate insult—using the name of the woman she had bought and ruined.
Claire booked a commercial flight to Grand Cayman under the name Clara Vance. She packed light: a few high-end sundresses bought from a Miami boutique to fit the local wealthy aesthetic, the satellite phone, and a compact 9mm Glock pistol she had purchased for triple its value from one of Marcus’s old contacts.
The island was a paradise of turquoise water, white sand, and staggering wealth. Claire rented a modest car and drove out to the North Sound. The villa was situated at the end of a private road, surrounded by high white walls, wrought-iron gates, and a security system that looked military-grade.
She parked half a mile down the road and spent two days doing reconnaissance from the cover of the tropical foliage.
The cartel had definitely supplied her security. Four heavily armed men patrolled the perimeter in alternating shifts. They were professionals, not street thugs. But they were bored. Guarding an old woman in a tropical paradise wasn't exactly high-stakes action.
On the third day, a local catering truck pulled up to the gate. Claire watched through her binoculars as the guards inspected the vehicle and let it through. A few hours later, a van bearing the logo of a high-end string quartet arrived.
Eleanor wasn't just hiding. She was hosting a party.
May you like
Claire smiled, a cold, dangerous expression. Eleanor’s arrogance was her greatest weakness. She couldn't resist holding court, even as a fugitive.
Claire returned to her hotel room. Using her laptop and a portable printer she had brought with her, she meticulously forged a catering manifest and an ID badge. It was time to crash the party.
