The Jumper (SF Mystery)

The Jumper 06: Alicia

"That's right. His estate was fully paid off–and he couldn't have lost that, even in a bankruptcy, but he wasn't in danger of bankruptcy, because he hadn't really lost that much actual money. He could have sold off his estate on the open market, and lived very comfortably indeed, for his remaining years."

She flipped some more papers around, "instead . . . well, this is interesting. According to this, he sold the entire estate for about a quarter of what it was worth, to an offshore company, for . . . yeah, for almost exactly what he owed on the lost investment. Except for some living expenses he used to set up his apartment, everything he received from the sale of the estate went to paying off the debt."

She frowned, and said, "I don't think I could come up with a faster and neater way to go from very rich to flat broke, if I tried."

"So, what laws were broken?"

"None that I can see. He paid fees and taxes on the transactions, and registered them, all above board and proper. We don't actually have laws against losing money."

"Dammit, I know that kid is dirty!"

"Calm down, Jeff." She placed a hand on his, smiled and opened her mouth, but his eyes widened, and he grabbed the piece of paper she had in her other hand.

"Alicia, wait. This company that bought the estate–do they have any connection to the company that went under?"

She paused a beat, sighed, and said, "I don't know. The banking laws are really tight over there, but I can probably run it down for you."

She got up, patted him on the hand, and went out.

Jeff spent the next couple of days trying to find out who the young man was. Probably long gone, he admitted to himself, but he kept looking.

It took Alicia those two days and a couple of overseas phone calls to get the answer, but yes. They were both subsidiaries of the same parent company. The owners of the parent company were unknown, and were protected by privacy laws.

"Thanks, Alicia," he said when she brought him the news. "I owe you, big time."

"Buy me dinner?" she said, smiling brightly.

He laughed, more easily this time. "I guess I need to start pretending to have a life, don't I? Sure, but I want to track this guy down first. Then we can, okay? Promise."

"Okay," she said, and glanced around before giving him a kiss on the cheek. "It's a date."

As Jeff watched her swaying out of the room, leaving flower scents behind her, he reflected that it really would be good to move on, even though it had only been a couple of weeks. Carol was right; she never had been able to take his mind off his work, and that would have driven her crazy, if they'd gotten married. I have to look her up and thank her for that, some day. She'll probably cry, but I still should.

He was still not ready to start anything serious, but the driving and depressing nature of his work kept him too wrapped up in himself and his work.

Alicia had called it a date. Maybe it was, at that, he thought, with a little smile. Then he shook his head and opened up the file folder on his desk. Get your head in the game, Jeff.

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