California Fire And Life

69

The parking lot's a rough place today.

Jack's walking into the building when he sees Sandra Hansen heading toward him.

"Sandra," Jack says.

"Jack."

Jack knows this conversation can only be trouble, because Sandra Hansen is the So-Cal head of Cal Fire and Life's SIU. SIU stands for Special Investigative Unit, which means it's the fraud unit. Every big insurance carrier has one, a unit that specializes in handling potentially fraudulent claims. Cal Fire's SIU functions as more of an intelligence organization – it doesn't bother with the small shit; its major job is to track fraud rings, the specialized rip-off operations that suck millions of bucks a year in phony claims.

As a former cop, Jack would have been a perfect candidate for SIU, except Jack doesn't want to be a cop of any kind anymore, even a pseudo-cop.

Another reason he's not interested is because SIU also functions as the company's internal affairs unit. You got a Claims guy taking kickbacks for recommending a contractor, or an auto adjuster splitting overcharges with a body shop, or, say, an underwriter taking money from an agent to write bad book, that's SIU's turf.

And Jack would rather be a dog than a rat.

"Were you staking me out, Sandra?" Jack asks her.

"As a matter of fact I was," Hansen says. "Jack, you have a file we're interested in."

"Olivia Hathaway?" Jack asks.

Hansen doesn't think it's funny. She gives Jack her professional SIU hard look and says, "The Vale file."

Surprise, surprise, Jack thinks.

"What about it?"

"We want you to back off it."

"Who's we?"