Her phone rang as she sat down at her desk. McAuliffe. She hit the green phone icon.
“Just finished with the girls,” she said.
“How’d it go?”
“Bored them to death.”
She heard a small chuckle. “Good. Let me know if you end up going to China. I need the sultan paperwork before you leave.”
“Yes, boss.” Finn disconnected and reached for the sultan’s file. She was two paragraphs into her report when there was a knock on her cubicle wall. She looked up to see Smoky Eyes.
“Yes?” Finn said with a frown. Outsiders, including kids of employees, weren’t allowed to roam unsupervised in SIA offices.
The girl twisted her fingers together as though she were knitting. “I... I’m looking for—”
“Bathroom? I’ll get someone to escort you.” Finn reached for the phone, impatient to finish her report.
“I want to hire you.” The words came out in a rush.
Finn sat back in her chair and regarded the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Amantha.”
“Your mom or dad works here, right?”
“My mom, Cecelia. She’s on the janitor crew.” There was a flicker of defiance in her eyes. “I came by myself today.”
“Okay. So, why do you want to hire me?”
“I need to find my dad.” The flicker again. “I can pay you.”
“Before we get to that, why don’t you tell me what you want me to do,” Finn said.
“Talk to my dad.”
“And you can’t because—”
“He doesn’t know who I am.”
“Let’s go someplace and talk.” Finn stood. “You like coffee?”
They sat at a comer table in Café. Amantha pushed her Coke around the tabletop, leaving wet trails on the scarred wood, while Finn sipped an espresso so unrelenting it swallowed milk Bermuda Triangle-style no matter how much she poured.
“So what’s the story?” Finn said when the Coke started its third circuit.
Amantha released the glass. “My dad’s a fútbol player,” she said, using the Spanish word for soccer. “He and my mom met, well, nineteen years ago. He was in L.A. for an exhibition game. It was right before he got famous.”
“Famous?”
Amantha looked at Finn. The smoky makeup around her gold-brown eyes had the odd effect of making her look younger, not older. A little girl playing with Mommy’s cosmetics.
“My dad’s Jandro Cruz.”
Even soccer-oblivious Finn knew who the biggest star in the world’s most popular sport was. Usually referred to by only his first name or El Rey — The King — he’d been on a tear the past year, leading his pro club in Spain to the Champions League and European Championship titles while upping his career-goal total to the mid 600s. And his national team — Brazil — was the favorite to win this year’s World Cup.
El Rey was a fiend online as well as on the field. His social-media posts generated a billion dollars of revenue every year for his sponsors.
“Were he and your mom together long?”
Amanda shook her head. “Just one night.” The Coke began another lap around the table. “He raped her.”
Finn took Amantha’s hands in hers. “I’m so sorry.”
Amanda pulled free. “Don’t be. My mom and I are just fine.” She bit her lower lip. “At least until now.”
Finn sat back and said nothing.
“My mom reported it. But the police couldn’t do anything because he was already back in Brazil. And then he signed that big contract and, well, the prosecutor told my mom even though he filed the papers, there was no way they were going to extradite him.”
Finn wasn’t surprised. Two decades ago the economy — and with it, the current government — in Jandro’s home country had been cratering. The powers that be weren’t about to ship out their citizens’ one ray of hope and distraction, especially for something like a rape charge.
“Why are you trying to talk to him now?”
“Because he’s here, in L.A. It’s the first time he’s come back to the United States since... since he was with my mom.”
Finn knew the U.S. had replaced Russia as the World Cup host country due to a doping scandal, and the final was scheduled for Los Angeles that weekend.
“Do you want him to go to jail? I’m afraid the statute of limitations has probably expired,” she said.
“No. I want him to help my mom. We don’t have a lot of money and she’s got cancer. It’s a weird kind. There’s a treatment they do in France that’s cured some people, but it costs a lot and Medicaid won’t cover it.” She raised her chin. “I just got accepted to Stanford. I told my mom I could wait a year to go, stay here and take care of her. She won’t let me.” Amantha’s eyes shimmered in the low light with unshed tears. “She says it would be pointless. If she doesn’t go to France and get the treatment, she’ll be dead in a year.”
“Have you tried to contact him?”
“I sent him an e-mail, but he never answered. I tried to call him in South America, but I couldn’t get his number. When I heard he was coming here to play, I thought I’d finally have a chance. I called the hotel where the team is staying. I lied and said I was with one of the TV stations and got through to his assistant. I told him who I really am, who my mom is. He called back yesterday and told me Jandro says he isn’t my dad and if I didn’t leave him alone, he’d call the police.”
“Amantha, I have to ask this. Are you sure?”
“Sure what? That I want to ask him for money? Yes! He’s got hundreds of millions. Hundreds. All I want is enough to pay for my mom to go to France and get the treatment. That’s it.” She folded her arms. “This isn’t about child support, or paying for school. It’s about my mom.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” Now it was Finn’s turn to push her cup and saucer across the table. “Are you sure he’s your dad?”
“Yes. My mom was a virgin when he... assaulted her. She never got married. She’s never been with anyone else.” The teen took out her phone, swiped across the screen a few times, then held it up. “Look. How can you say we’re not related?”
Finn studied the photo of the fútbol superstar, then looked at the girl across from her. The crooked cleft in the chin, the upward tilt of the eyes, the low hairline. It wasn’t DNA-test results, but it was good enough for Finn.
She gave Amantha back her phone. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to talk to him, explain why my mom needs money.”
“I don’t see how I can even get near him. Not this weekend.”
The tears that had been threatening for so long finally spilled. “People who work here know about you. My mom told me some of the stuff you’ve done. I thought you were some hotshot spy. You’re just a big fake.”
She stood, banging a hip against the table. Finn’s cold coffee sloshed over the rim of her cup.
“Thanks for nothing,” Amantha said, the acid in her tone corrosive enough to dissolve metal.
She slung her purse over her shoulder. A flash of light from the open door a moment later and she was gone.
Finn drummed her fingers against the wood. She knew how Amantha felt. Finn’s father had disappeared from her life when she was about Amantha’s age. Finn’s little sister’s anger toward him, if she’d ever been angry, had bent down over time. Finn’s fury still stood up straight, bristling, every day spiky.
She took out her phone and hit the first entry under Favorites.
“McAuliffe? Have you given anyone else the dirty-underwear gig?”
Finn spent the morning with Jason Croom, the head of SIA’s Anti-Terror unit, going over his security plan for the arena. Metal detectors, cameras everywhere, even snipers in the rafters.