Page 34 of Better the Devil

Logan felt an eye twitch. His brain started trying to run the numbers, but almost immediately gave up again.

‘But that’s…’

‘A hundred and thirty million dollars,’ Eleanor said.

Logan couldn’t contain himself. ‘Fuck me!’

Eleanor smiled. ‘All legal, all above board. I’ve got eleven accountants and six lawyers who make damn well sure of it.’

Her expression darkened, the curve of her mouth edging downward.

‘I suppose I do have Victor and his brothers to thank for it, in a way.’

‘How’s that?’ Logan pressed.

‘They use crypto in their business. It was through listening to Mikhail that I got to thinking about it all again. I asked him about it, and he offered to help me track down the wallets Jason and I had set up. I said no, obviously, because I don’t trust him. Any of them. But I hired someone to help me dig and, well, here we are.’

‘Well, I’m very happy for you,’ Logan said. ‘Although, I’m sure a hundred and thirty million dollars doesn’t make up for your loss.’

Her smile returned. Tight. Polite. Fake.

‘It takes the edge off it,’ she said. ‘And, to be honest, I learned early on not to get too bogged down in emotion. I know where that gets you. I’m mostly just sad that he never knew. Jason. He never knew what he’d done for me. For us.’

‘I meant the loss of Victor,’ Logan told her.

‘Oh. Him. Yes.’ Eleanor waved a hand, almost like she was ushering the thought of him out of the room. ‘Like I say, that’s more complicated.’

She clasped her hands and tapped her thumbs together. The red-painted nailsclickedin the silence.

‘But then, I’m guessing that’s what brings you here…’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

This was hell.Hamza was sure of it.

He’d posed for pictures for the Press & Journal, the Highland News, the Lochaber Times, three local blogs, and alongside a woman whose dog had died saving her husband from drowning.

Or maybe it had been the husband who had died saving the dog. Hamza had been too overwhelmed by the whole thing to pay all that much attention.

One of the councillors had shaken his hand for far too long. The other had tried to table a meeting in the coming few days about graffiti in the town centre, litter in the graveyard, and someone repeatedly shiteing in the doorway of M&S.

Hamza had been about to point out that none of that was really his department when Ben Forde had stepped in, agreed with the councillor that it was a terrible state of affairs, and offered to pass it on to the relevant departments.

Through it all, the specially invited audience had sat patiently waiting in the rows of fold-out chairs. They were all members of the Highland Area Watch Keepers Society—an organisation that Hamza had vaguely heard of now and then over the past couple of years.

It was a police initiative, devised by some High Heid Yin in a fancy office somewhere, who couldn’t care less about the additional workload it might bring about.

Basically, from what Hamza knew of it, it pulled together Neighbourhood Watches from across the Highlands, bringing them all under the HAWKS banner so they could better communicate and share information.

The Highlands was unique in the way its communities were so spread out. A burglar on the lookout for large houses with lax security might only have one or two potential targets in any given town or village, but they’d have dozens more in similar communities half an hour north, or sixty miles west.

Your average scally in the Highlands was well-travelled, if nothing else.

By and large, the membership was what you’d expect. Mostly retired folk with time on their hands. Largely men, though not exclusively.

There were maybe half a dozen guys in their thirties and forties dotted around the audience. They had the look of survival nuts about them, all beards, and baseball caps, and heavy jackets with lots of pocket space.

And they all sat there, quiet and attentive. Waiting.