Casey snorted and shook her head. Marty’s cheeks flushed.

The news anchor looked at his cohost, a young redhead with green contact lenses who said, “Another notable man in the center of the controversy spoke with reporters this afternoon. Robert Graham, the well-known billionaire philanthropist and board member of the Freedom Project, had this to say.”

Graham’s face filled the screen, looking weary with grief.

“In our wildest dreams,” Graham said, “we at the Freedom Project never imagined that someone could take something so good and use it for evil, but that is what Casey Jordan has apparently done by turning loose a completely deranged individual into our society to satisfy her obvious craving for media attention and personal gain.”

Graham paused to shake his head.

“Our deepest sympathy goes out to the family of Sheila Leeds,” he said, his face contorting with disgust as he spit out his final words. “We never imagined or intended to have a hand in freeing someone so repulsive and so utterly sick.”

Graham glared out at his audience for a brief moment before the TV anchors reappeared, droning on about the great works of Robert Graham and how he’d been assured that neither his friendship with Brad Pitt nor that great man’s commitment to the Project would be harmed because of the unfortunate tragedy.

“Most people would be sick at this point,” Jake said, flicking off the TV and taking out his cell phone, “but I’m going to order some Chinese. Anyone else?”

Casey shook her head and Marty muttered something about fried rice.

“I’ll get you a little vegetable lo mein, in case you change your mind,” Jake said to her.

Casey forced her breathing to slow, then began going through the documents, racking her brain to recollect the fleeting knowledge of tax law she learned while studying for the Texas bar exam.

“I guess I should have gotten into natural gas,” Jake said, waving a piece of paper from his pile. “It looks like they made a shitload.”

“Looks,” Marty said under his breath, as if in deep thought as he ran a finger down the page in front of him.

Casey sighed and shook her head. It wasn’t until a knock on the door signaled the arrival of their food that Casey had an idea.

“Marty,” she said, snatching up the paper she was examining and pushing it in front of him while she averted her face from the delivery man, “look at this.”

Marty adjusted his glasses and brought the paper into focus by moving it away from his nose.

“That’s an income statement, right?” Casey asked.

Jake set the food down on the dresser and leaned over Marty’s shoulder. The hot smell of egg rolls, noodles, and cooked chicken filled the room. Her mouth watered and her stomach shifted.

“Yes,” Marty said, glancing at the food. “A K-1.”

“Isn’t there something about passive income and active losses?” Casey asked.

“Active losses you can write off against your losses of regular income,” Marty said, his eyes scanning the page.

“Like a tax write-off?” Casey said. “You make a hundred, you write off twenty-five, and you only have to pay taxes on seventy-five?”

“Sure,” Marty said, “it’d be the same as if you spent it on a new piece of equipment or a business trip.”

“What if it wasn’t?” Casey asked.

“Well, passive losses are just that,” Marty said, “losses on your investment. You don’t get to write those off.”

“But these are active losses this is talking about, right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do we have the gains they had anywhere?” she asked.

“I think I might,” Jake said, handing a small pile of pages to Marty. “Is this it?”

Marty examined them, slowly nodding. “This is what they got paid, yes. It’s a lot.”

Marty held up the paper Casey had handed to him and dug through Jake’s pile until he found what he was looking for.

“Holy shit,” Marty said. “Holy. Shit.”

WHAT’S HOLY AND what’s the shit?” Jake asked, putting a hand on Marty’s shoulder as he leaned even closer to the pages.

“Holy shit,” Marty said, looking over his shoulder at the door to the motel room like he expected someone to burst through it.

“You keep saying that,” Casey said.

“These guys are screwed,” Marty said.

“Graham?” Casey said.

Marty shook his head. “His partners.”

“Massimo D’Costa and John Napoli?” Jake asked.

“And all the rest of them,” Marty said.

“How screwed?” Jake asked.

“Like, going to jail for a long time screwed,” Marty said.

“Why?” Casey asked.

Marty looked up and blinked. “They owe the IRS about twenty million dollars.”

“All together?” Casey asked.

“No,” Marty said, “each.”

Jake let out a low whistle.

“Scary thing is,” Marty said, riffling through more of the pages from Casey’s pile, “they might not even know they did anything wrong.”

“Oh, honest crooks,” Jake said, patting Marty and returning to the bag of Chinese, placing it on the table between the piles of papers.

“Kind of,” Marty said.

“I was kidding,” Jake said.

“What do you mean, Marty?” Casey asked.

Marty shrugged and said, “These guys might not have even known. Graham sends the K-1s to their accountants, and active deductions for oil and gas leases are pretty commonplace, but you have be actively involved, actually working at the company to qualify, which these guys aren’t. They’ve just been cashing the checks and not worrying about the taxes. I’m sure their accountants never claimed a dime of income because Graham has been showing them losses equal to the income they’ve received. Everyone’s happy, except the IRS.”

“Why the hell would Graham do it?” Jake asked.

“It’s like a Ponzi scheme,” Marty said. “You get people to invest, start sending them money they think they don’t have to pay taxes on, they tell their friends, and next thing you know, they want in, too. You don’t even have to make money to make the thing work. If people keep investing, you just pay the original partners with the new investment. If no one pays any taxes, there’s a lot left over that you can do all kinds of things with.”

“Like fly around in a Citation X,” Casey said.

“Or give some away to get your face on TV,” Jake said.

“Or buy up other companies for cover,” Marty said. “For all we know, Graham is funding his whole empire on the money these guys are stealing from the IRS. He might be more of a con man than the brilliant businessman you read about in the Wall Street Journal.”

“Why would he keep this?” Casey said, resting her hand on the papers in front of her.

“Blackmail?” Marty said.

“But his partners,” Jake said, “they didn’t really do anything wrong. Graham gave them the statements.”

“Right, but the IRS doesn’t care about that,” Marty said. “I’ve seen it. You don’t pay taxes like this? It’s no one’s fault but your own. It’s your responsibility. These guys would go to jail in a heartbeat.”

“Like Al Capone,” Jake said. “Murder, bootlegging, extortion, but they got him on tax evasion. That’s how they put him away. If the FBI got wind of this gang, they’d be back on them like white on rice, which reminds me, breakthrough or no, I’ve got to eat before I pass out.”

Jake dug into a wax bag of egg rolls and passed them around.

“There’s something else,” Casey said, dipping the end of her roll into a little foam dish of duck sauce.

“Something else, what?” Jake asked.

“This is Graham’s Get Out of Jail Free card,” Casey said.

“How so?”

“You said the FBI is investigating him?” Casey said. “I promise you, whatever they have on him, this would get him out of it.”

“Whatever?”

“This would serve up a dozen or more people with ties to organized crime,” Casey said.

“They’re, like, retired, though, right?” Marty said. “These guys left the dark side.”