Clawback: An Ali Reynolds Novel (Volume 11) (Ali Reynolds Series) - Softcover

Jance, J.A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501110799 ISBN 13: 9781501110795

Verlag: Pocket Books, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

In this thrilling installment in New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance’s Ali Reynolds series, Ali must investigate the murder of a man whose Ponzi scheme bankrupted hundreds of people, and left them seeking justice...or revenge.

When Ali’s parents lose their life savings to a Ponzi scheme, her father goes to confront his longtime friend and financial advisor, only to stumble upon the scene of a bloody double homicide. With her father suddenly a prime suspect, Ali and her husband work to clear his name and seek justice for her parents, as well as the rest of the scheme’s suddenly impoverished victims. But if Ali’s father is innocent, that can mean only one thing: one of the others is a stone cold killer.

Publishers Weekly promises “series fans will enjoy this highly personal case.” Provocative and gripping, Clawback is further proof that no one writes suspenseful thrillers quite like J.A. Jance.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J.A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the Ali Reynolds series, the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, and the Walker Family series. Born in South Dakota and raised in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington. Visit her online at JAJance.com. 

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Clawback 1
As the sun came up over the Mogollon Rim to the east, Haley Jackson lay in bed, still tossing and turning. The day before, her Sedona-based insurance agency where she was the office manager had been shut down by agents from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Her boss, Dan Frazier, had given her no advance warning that the raid was coming. In the hours since, she’d tried reaching out to him over and over—to no avail. He wasn’t taking her calls, and as far as she knew, he hadn’t tried calling her, either. Without hearing from Dan or having some kind of direction from him, she had no idea what she was supposed to do next. What was she was supposed to tell her employees, to say nothing of the firm’s anxious clients?

Try as she might, Haley still couldn’t make sense of what had happened. Late in the afternoon, a group of men in suits had walked into the Frazier Insurance Agency and paused in front of the receptionist’s desk. Although Haley didn’t recognize the new arrivals, at first nothing seemed amiss. She assumed they were new in town and in the market for some kind of insurance coverage. As they continued to speak to Carmen Rios, the receptionist, however, Haley noticed the young woman growing more and more agitated. Finally, sensing something out of the ordinary, Haley left her own desk toward the back of the room and walked up to Carmen’s.

“I’m the office manager here,” she said, focusing on the man who seemed to be in charge. “Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?”

“They claim they’re from the SEC,” Carmen whispered, sounding worried. “They say we have to close the office immediately.”

“The SEC?” Haley asked. “You want us to close the office? What’s this all about?”

The man standing directly in front of Carmen turned to Haley and extracted an ID wallet from his pocket. When he held it up for Haley’s examination, she saw that it belonged to one Donald Ferris, a senior agent with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“All right,” she said. “I see that you’re with the SEC, but I have no idea what that means or why you feel it’s necessary to shut down my office. What’s going on?”

“My understanding is that Daniel Frazier Jr. is the owner of this establishment. Correct?” the guy asked.

Haley nodded. “Yes, but he isn’t in right now. If you’d like to leave a card . . .”

Ignoring her objection, Agent Ferris continued. “Mr. Frazier is also a duly registered representative of a firm called Ocotillo Fund Management, right?”

“That’s true,” Haley began, “but . . .”

“Ocotillo Fund Management initiated bankruptcy proceedings earlier this afternoon. We’ve been directed to shut down this office and take custody of any and all applicable files. Since some of your insurance customers are also investment clients, we’ll be taking them all.”

“You’re taking our files?” Haley echoed. “As for Ocotillo Fund Management filing bankruptcy? This is the first I’ve heard anything about it. Besides, you can’t just walk in here like you own the place. Do you have a warrant?”

“Funny you should ask,” Agent Ferris said, producing a document from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and handing it over. “You and your employees are to clear the premises at once. You may take personal items—purses, cell phones, tablets, and such, but all company files and equipment are to remain here. If anyone attempts to remove files via something like a thumb drive or other device, they will be found and confiscated as you exit.”

When he said the words “thumb drive,” Haley remembered briefly that Millie Frazier, Dan’s wife, had stopped by the office on Friday morning. She had seemed exasperated and more than a little put out. “I had two appointments down in Paradise Valley later today, but Dan insisted that I cancel both of them and drive all the way up here to put this in the safe-deposit box,” she had grumbled, holding up a postage stamp–sized object.

“What is it?” Haley had asked.

“A kind of thumb drive,” Millie said. “I forget the real name—micro something or other. A memory card, maybe. Dan says he has an adapter here that’ll make it work in his dinosaur desktop. As for why he needed this little item to be in the bank this morning rather than later today or maybe even tomorrow morning? I have no idea. Anyway, you know how Dan is. Once he gets an idea in his head, it’s ‘my way or the highway.’ So that’s my next stop—the bank.”

“I didn’t know thumb drives could be that small,” Haley said, “but it must be important.”

“Something to do with work, I expect,” Millie allowed. “Something he doesn’t want falling into the wrong hands. How are things here?”

“Fine,” Haley had told her.

“Glad to hear it,” Millie had said, then she was gone.

Standing there facing down Agent Donald Ferris, Millie Frazier and her tiny memory card were the least of Haley’s worries.

“Before you or your people touch a thing,” she said, reaching for her cell, “I need to check with Mr. Frazier.”

“Sorry,” Agent Ferris insisted. “This warrant says otherwise. Now if you and your people will gather all your belongings and clear out, we’ll be able to get started.”

“This is outrageous. You can’t just shut us down.”

“Yes, we can.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes—maybe indefinitely. We’ll be sorting through the material tonight and deciding what’s to stay and what’s to go. We’ll send a truck here tomorrow to pick up what’s going. In the meantime, I’ve called a locksmith.”

“You’re changing the locks?”

“Yes, ma’am. Once you leave here, no one’s allowed back inside until we give the go-ahead. Presumably, you’re in charge, so I’ll need your contact information.”

With the phone pressed to one ear, Haley listened as her call to Dan’s cell phone again went unanswered. “Call me,” she said when the voice mail recording came on.

“It’s time,” Agent Ferris said. “We need to get started.”

It had taken only a couple of minutes for the eight office employees—Haley included—to gather up their goods and be herded into the parking lot, with all purses having been thoroughly inspected on the way out. Naturally everybody was upset, and a couple of the girls were crying. What was going on? Did they still have jobs? What were they going to do?

Haley had done her best to be reassuring to the others, but that was a tough act to maintain, especially when a locksmith showed up in a van and proceeded to change the locks on the doors, both front and back, rendering Haley’s prized master key useless.

While the locksmith worked, Haley had continued to try to reach Dan. There was still no answer at any of Dan’s numbers, but she finally left brief messages on all three. “Please call me. Agents from the SEC came by and shut down the office. I need to know what’s going on. Call me when you can. I’m worried.” As a last resort, she tried Millie’s cell phone, too. There was no answer there, either, and Haley...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pocket Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501110799
• ISBN 13: 9781501110795
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 464
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; AA Utrecht; 3584; Niederlande