“But?”
“But I told him I’d check you out instead.”
“You took a risk there.”
“Not as many as you’ve taken for me. I owed you. And I didn’t want anything to happen to you. Not because of me.”
Riggs spread his hands wide. “So why? Why the lottery fix? Did you give him some of your winnings?”
“All of it.” Riggs looked blankly at her. LuAnn said, “He had control of the money for ten years; that period just ended. He invested the money and paid me some of the income from those investments.”
“He had a hundred million to invest. How much did you earn each year?”
“Around forty million on the initial principal. He also invested any amounts I didn’t spend. I earned tens of millions more on that each year.”
Riggs gaped at her. “That’s a forty percent return on your lottery money alone.”
“I know. And Jackson made a lot more than that, I’m certain. He wasn’t in this out of the goodness of his heart. It was a business transaction, plain and simple.”
“So if you made forty percent, he probably made at least that and maybe more. That’s a minimum of eighty percent return on your money. He could only have done that through illegal channels.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“And at the end of ten years?”
“I got the hundred million back.”
Riggs rubbed at his brow. “And if there were twelve of you at, say, an average of seventy million dollars each, this guy had almost one billion dollars to invest.”
“He’s got a lot more than that now, I’m sure.” She looked at him, saw the worry lines. “What, what are you thinking?”
He looked at her steadily. “Another thing that’s had the FBI’s dander up.” She looked puzzled. Riggs started to explain. “I know for a fact that for years now the FBI, Interpol, and a few other foreign law enforcement agencies have been aware of something: Tremendous amounts of money have been funneled into lots of activities across the globe, some legit, others not. At first the Feds thought it was drug cartel money, either from South America or Asia, partly to launder it. That didn’t turn out to be the case. They picked up threads here and there, but the leads always fizzled. Someone with that much money can cover himself really well. Maybe that someone is Jackson.” Riggs fell silent.
“You’re sure the Feds don’t know about the lottery?”
Riggs looked uneasy. “I can tell you, if they do, they didn’t learn it from me. But they do know of my inquiries about you. There was no getting around that.”
“And if they’ve figured it out for themselves? Then we have Jackson and the federal government coming for us. Right?”
Riggs looked away for a moment and then stared her directly in the eye. “Right.”
“And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure which one frightens me more.”
They looked at each other, similar thoughts running through their minds. Two people against all of this.
“I need to go now,” LuAnn said.
“Go where?”
“I’m pretty certain that Jackson’s been following my movements closely. He’ll know we’ve seen each other several times. He may know I’ve met with Donovan. If I don’t report back to him right away”—here she took a painful swallow—“well, it won’t be pretty.”
Riggs gripped her shoulders tightly. “LuAnn, this guy is a psycho, but he must be brilliant as well. That makes him even more dangerous. You walk in there, the guy gets the least bit suspicious . . .”
She gently rubbed his arms with her hands. “Well, I just have to make sure he doesn’t get suspicious.”
“How in the hell are you going to do that? He already must be. I say we bring in the troops, set the guy up and take him.”
“And me, what about me?”
Riggs stared at her. “I’m sure you could probably work a deal with the authorities,” he said lamely.
“And the folks down in Georgia? You heard Donovan, they want to lynch me.”
“The Feds could talk to them, they . . .” Riggs broke off as he realized absolutely none of what he was saying could be guaranteed.