Will there be Answers?

Sinead felt like an idiot.

Well, maybe not that bad, but she still felt kind of gross for stepping out of line like she was. She’d been kicking herself since leaving Marc Fornier's place, and Jules had asked her three times the next day what the problem was and she’d had to play it off.

Asking Marc to do what she did was totally inappropriate. Going to a top suspect’s house, even if he was cleared, was super inappropriate. Promising him a date if he looked through what should have been confidential financial records?

She could get busted down to a street cop again if anyone found out.

So she felt like an idiot.

To be fair, she was also a little concerned about the other thing going on in her head. Marc was smart. Almost too smart to be trusted. He’d known what she was doing, and she felt like she’d been a step behind in the whole conversation. She wasn’t usually so… malleable. Sinead was the one who was supposed to be in charge of situations. He hadn’t bitten at her flirting at all. She hadn’t caught him staring at her cleavage once, and all of his comments were totally in-bounds for polite conversation. Even asking her to dinner had been…

“Fuck,” she grunted.

“Are you going to tell me what your fucking problem is or not?” Jules asked. They were in the car headed to a petty robbery scene.

“I’m just off today,” Sinead said. “That’s all.”

“More like this month,” Jules said.

“Oh, I haven’t been that bad,” Sinead said.

“Really? Where are we heading right now?”

“Um…” Sinead hesitated. “3rd street, for the robbery scene.”

“Wrong,” Jules said. “We’re going up to Parkwoods for a home burglary.”

“Shit,” Sinead grunted. “Sorry.”

“Just get your head out of your ass, or the clouds, or wherever it is,” Jules said. “I need my partner back.”

“I will, I promise,” Sinead said.

Jules drove them the rest of the way, pulling into a decent little suburb where the housing prices meant even the average family home was worth well over a million, maybe a million and a half despite the same thing going for a quarter of the price anywhere else in the province. Well, maybe half - Sinead had been looking for a new place anywhere inside the Greater Toronto Area and hadn’t found anything that felt reasonably priced.

Just as they pulled into the driveway of the residence Sinead’s phone started buzzing, and she fished it out of her pocket before following Jules out of the car. It was an unknown number, but the message was clear.

“Found what you need. Come by tonight.”

Sinead almost yelped in excitement but managed to keep her eagerness in check. She wanted to jump into the driver’s seat and find Marc Fornier wherever he was, but there was work to do and for all that Jules had been forgiving of her obsession with the Le Français case, she wouldn’t put up with that.

So Sinead bit her tongue and got out of the car, trying her best to bury that text message in the back of her mind where it wouldn’t distract her.

Marc Fornier was, despite Sinead’s best attempts at remaining at arm’s distance from the matter, unfortunately attractive. He was tall, with a thick head of black hair just starting to silver at the temples, and had those piercing green eyes that she’d found so infuriating in the interrogation room and confounding sitting in his kitchen. She felt like they were speaking to her, but in a language she didn’t understand.

He was also fit in that way that someone who was very active but didn’t work out was. He had useable muscles and hadn’t gone and gotten fat with his office job.

To be frank, if she’d met him at a bar and not on the job, Sinead may have considered a one-night stand with him. A flash in the pan, ghost him afterwards, wonder what she was thinking with sleeping with a guy a decade older than her one night stand. But that’s not how they met, and even as she waited for Marc to open his God damned front door she felt a nervous energy at what was going to happen now. He had what she needed, and he had an expectation.

Marc opened the door with that smile of his. God, Sinead found it smug. Not that he seemed to be trying to antagonise her, but there was just something about the way he held himself that wasn’t at all intimidated by her badge that set her off. The only other people she’d met like that were criminals who were either insane or so powerful in their own little worlds that even when she had been part of taking them down they’d felt untouchable and sure that the lawyers would do their work.

“Sinead, thank you for coming by,” Marc said to her.

“You said you had it already?” Sinead asked. “That was fast.” God, she felt like a junky here trying to get her fix.

“Well, when you know where to look,” Marc smiled. “Please, come in.”

At least this time he wasn’t dressed in that fucking robe. He was wearing a pair of dressy slacks with a perfect crease in them, along with a knit sweater that she guessed would have cost more than her entire outfit by itself, underwear included.

Fuck, why did she wear lingerie today? She’d thought it would help her feel confident that morning, but now it was just making her feel slutty.

Sinead followed him into the apartment and to the kitchen island where he had a laptop out, along with a couple of files with papers. “Is this it?” she asked.

“Not all of it,” he said, closing his laptop and then pushing one of the files to her. “One of the accounts you included didn’t seem to have any connections to the others. The other three, however, have an interesting correlation between when money is moved and what shell companies they are filtering through. I did some checking and it seems you’ve uncovered a nice little shell game, Detective.”

“Is any of this illegal?” Sinead asked. “I need something I can use to get warrants.”

“On the surface, no,” Marc said. “I thought you might appreciate a little extra initiative though and I expanded the scope of my search. This,” he moved the other file folder over to her, “Should get you the warrants you need. The accounts you brought me are numbered holding companies masquerading as small businesses. There are likely storefronts attached to them somewhere, though they will either be empty or have some cash-only business where the owner says their relatives pay the rent for them. More importantly, the funds that move through them electronically all filter through the same five shell companies, all at the same times of day and in amounts that sit just under certain thresholds that would automatically flag with financial institutions. If I were a betting man, I would say someone is washing money from a regular stream of income through this network. That should get you the warrants you need to dig for more accounts and pull in some accountants and business owners. With the amount of money moving around, one would expect to be able to find purchase orders for goods or services. If you can’t find them, or employees to offer those services, you’ve found a criminal enterprise.”

Sinead was left feeling… unfulfilled. “That’s it?” she asked.

Marc raised an eyebrow. “Were you expecting something else?”

“I- I guess it was too much to hope for some payment labelled ‘For ****’ or something,” she sighed.

Marc snorted a little and shook his head. “No, that’s unlikely to happen. Whoever is orchestrating this little shell game is too advanced to make a mistake like that.”

“How advanced are we talking?” Sinead asked.

He pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “Sneakier than most, not quite at the level of a Fortune 500 accounting wiz,” he said. “Unless this is all just a facade for an even bigger operation, which isn’t out of the question. It was just difficult enough to dig out that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a red herring to warn the mastermind someone is looking.”

“So I’m either dealing with an above-average criminal or fucking Moriarty?” Sinead grunted.

Marc smiled, taking the USB stick out of his laptop and placing it on top of the file folders in front of her. “I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes at dinner,” he said. “Saturday, 8 PM. I’ve made reservations at George.”

Sinead gulped and hoped he didn’t hear it. George was one of the nicest fine-dining restaurants in the city. The only reason she even knew about it was that she’d done a little undercover sting in Secrette, the attached speakeasy bar. The place had a fucking Michelin star, and he was planning to bring her there?

“I probably won’t be able to tell you about an ongoing investigation,” she said instead of what she was thinking.

“Well, I look forward to hearing any other interesting stories you can tell me,” Marc said. “Now, can I offer you a glass of wine?”

“No,” Sinead said, grabbing the files and the USB stick and standing from the kitchen island. “I, ah, should get right on top of this. Thank you very much for the help, Mr Fornier.”

Marc raised an eyebrow at the use of his name. “It was my pleasure, Detective Connors,” he replied, standing and escorting her to the door.

Sinead stopped with her hand on the door handle and turned, tucking the folder under her arm and offering him her hand. “If this works, it really is important,” she said. “And… sorry, for the way things went.”

Marc nodded and shook her hand with a firm grip, which somehow just made her feel worse since he wasn’t a limp-wristed jackoff. “Again, my pleasure, Detective. I look forward to Saturday.”

“Mhmm, thanks,” she replied, heading out the door. She didn’t look back until she was down the hallway at the elevator, and when she did glance back she saw Marc lingering in his doorway with his arms crossed, smiling warmly at her. “Fucking weirdo,” she muttered to herself under her breath. He must have been watching her ass as she walked away. She glanced back at him again, making eye contact as the elevator arrived, and gave him a terse little smile and a nod.

God, why did she have to wear the lingerie today?

Breakthebar erotica is powered by Patreon, where early chapters are released ahead for all of my series. Le Francais is a Commissioned Work. PM if interested in helping fund the series, or if you are looking to commission a story of your own!