The air in the Major Crimes unit crackled with a tense, focused energy. For seventy-two hours, it had been a whirlwind of silent, relentless activity. Davon, discharged from the hospital against strenuous medical advice, moved with a stiff, careful gait, his body a tapestry of pain beneath his clothes. The cracked rib was a constant, fiery reminder, and the fractured vertebrae sent jolts of protest with every wrong move. But he was here, parked at his desk, a live wire in a room buzzing with purpose. Claire had orchestrated it all with the precision of a field marshal.
The FBI forensic accountant, a severe woman named Dr. Aris, had delivered. The financial trail, once a tangled mess of shell corporations, was now a damning flowchart. Payments, elegantly disguised as consulting fees and of
