Cruz set aside the documents he’d been perusing and took a look. He couldn’t believe what he saw. There was lots of information showing Dennis’s research on Logan Investors, including a background on the company, a list of their holdings across the country, and pages and pages of notes.
Not only that, there were photos, which looked like they had been taken from a distance. One man showed up in several of the photos and looked so much like Randall, Cruz had to assume that he was his son. But the most interesting photo was near the back of the stack. That contained a shot of Randall and Senator Sandoval holding rifles, as if they were on a hunting trip. There was a cluster of trees and a cabin in the back. Both men had their arms around each other and were grinning widely into the camera’s lens. They looked younger and more vibrant than their current age of men in their sixties. He guessed them to be in their late thirties or early forties in the shot.
“Wait a minute, does this mean what I think it means? Is the senator involved with Logan Investors?” Raheem said.
Cruz rubbed his jaw. “Maybe, but my question is, if he is—what exactly are they involved in? And did his niece know?”
“She probably didn’t know about the information her husband had collected on Logan.”
“Which means she wouldn’t know her uncle was implicated.” Cruz shook his head. “Their friendship obviously goes back a couple of decades.”
“One or both of them had a team go after Shanice. If you hadn’t been nearby…”
Cruz’s chest burned when he considered what those men would have done to her to get the information. If she didn’t talk, they would have tortured her the same way they did Dennis.
“We’re taking the whole box and sorting through the contents tonight.” Cruz replaced the lid.
“Think about the scandal if this gets out. Logan Investors is bribing and killing cops, and that’s only part of this puzzle. They’re covering something up. Why are they bribing them? If the senator is involved in this…” Raheem looked at Cruz.
Cruz finished the sentence. “He’ll do anything to keep it quiet.”
19
The box Raheem and Cruz had taken from the storage facility sat on the floor, but the contents were spread out on the desk like dinner plates.
They had removed everything related to Logan Investors and the investigation Dennis had launched against the company. All three of them scoured the files for details. Raheem sat at the desk, Shanice on the bed, and Cruz on the sofa, his long legs propped on the mattress beside her, feet crossed at the ankles.
“I’m more convinced than ever that Dennis didn’t kill himself,” Shanice said.
Cruz was convinced, too. He shifted through the sheets, studying all the clues her friend had left behind. The name Precise, LLC was circled on a piece of paper, and the rest of Dennis’s handwritten notes conveyed an alarming pattern. Whenever Logan couldn’t get control of a property in an up-and-coming neighborhood, he “worked” with the local police department, which increased police presence in the neighborhoods by ticketing and towing cars, arresting people for jaywalking, and conducting raids on the tenants—many of whom were on government assistance—after getting anonymous “tips.”
Raheem shook his head. “During those raids, they always found drugs, which is a violation of the lease agreements and gets the tenants kicked off government assistance.”
“Mass evictions, and then within months Logan buys the cash-strapped property and moves forward,” Shanice finished.
“Forced gentrification by cop,” Raheem said bitterly.
“Most of these tenants were older, disabled, or single moms,” Shanice said, her voice filled with horror as she reviewed the papers in her hands.
Anger burned through Cruz as he thought about what those people went through. “Not only did Dennis find a pattern connecting the raids to Logan’s properties, but there’s clearly some kind of relationship—or at least he suspected there was a relationship—between Logan and Senator Sandoval.”
“Just because Logan knew the senator doesn’t mean that he was involved,” Shanice countered.
Cruz closed the folder he was reviewing and set it on the cushion beside him. “The fact that Dennis had a photo of the two of them makes me think that’s what he suspected. And frankly, it’s very uncommon for there to be such a huge coincidence.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he let everything he knew turn around in his head.
“Do you think Karen Sandoval is involved?” Raheem asked.
“I believe she told the truth as she knew it. I don’t think she knew about her uncle, and if Dennis was smart, he didn’t mention what he found out to her. He knew he’d have to get proof. Without that, he’d jeopardize a reconciliation with his wife for no reason.”
“He said nothing and kept digging,” Raheem posited.
Cruz nodded. “They eventually found out what he knew, or maybe he went to Logan and threatened him. Who knows what he did, but somehow they found out what he was doing and had him arrested.”
“Planting drugs on him was easy since it’s what they often do in these raids,” Shanice said.
“Let’s think about what we have here,” Cruz said. “We have bribery, that’s no doubt. What we don’t have is a direct link showing Logan Investors actually paid these officers to conduct the raids. We have circumstantial evidence, and a good attorney could get this information dismissed, no matter how damaging we think it is. We need concrete proof that he paid these officers. We also need concrete proof that Senator Sandoval is involved.”
“How do we prove any of that? Dennis didn’t seem capable of putting together proof, even though he had connected the dots.” Raheem set aside his file.
“We’ll have to go to the source,” Cruz said.
“Logan?” Raheem asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me you have a plan.”
Cruz smiled crookedly. “I do. We need to get into Logan Towers.”
Raheem’s eyes lit up. “You’re thinking about doing a computer dump.”
“Exactly. But not his computer. Guys like Randall Logan don’t do their own dirty work, and whatever he does, he’ll want it to look legit, which means he’s probably got a company set up that will take care of the payments, which will look like regular old business expenses. We need to go to accounting.”
“I have the perfect program to take care of the dump,” Raheem said.
Cruz stretched an arm along the back of the sofa. “And I know how we’ll get inside the accounting office. We set off the fire alarm, then you and I go in and dump the computer files onto your external drive.”
He laid out the plan, with Raheem nodding his agreement at various points. When he finished, there was silence as both men turned the idea around in their heads, checking for flaws.
“I could help,” Shanice piped up from the bed.
They both looked at her.
“No,” Cruz said.
She looked crushed. “Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Raheem interjected, “Actually, her suggestion kind of makes sense. If she goes in ahead of us and hits the alarm, she could leave with the crowd and disappear, then you and I could go up.”