Bree glanced in the mirror and saw genuine relief in the young woman’s face and body posture as she got off her stool. The financier was getting up as well.
Bree turned to them. “Thank you for the recommendation.”
The billionaire’s personal assistant gave her an exhausted smile. Abelmar replied with warmth, “You are most welcome. Bon appétit, madame.”
“Bonsoir, monsieur,” she said cheerily. She pivoted away and watched in the mirror as they made their apologies to Henri and left.
Bree wanted to ask for a piece of paper and a pen so she could write down everything she could remember about the incident. Instead, she waited several long moments, then retrieved the phone Le Tour had given her, opened a note app, and began typing with her thumbs. She wrote that she’d gone to Canard hoping to see Abelmar in his element and that, to her surprise, she’d ended up interacting with him and his newest personal assistant.
They would remember her. Wouldn’t they?
Valentina seemed exhausted, so maybe not. But unless the financier had a facial-recognition problem, he would know Bree if he saw her again.
Was that good? Or bad?
Bree was still trying to decide when her dinner arrived. She set the phone down and ate. Abelmar was right. The duck — in a reduced shiitake mushroom, garlic, and white wine sauce — was fantastic, the sort of meal you’d come back for again and again.
She felt full and satisfied when she finished but succumbed to temptation and ordered the crème brûlée, which Carole the bartender also recommended. Bree glanced at her watch and saw it was close to ten, which was almost four p.m. in Washington, DC. She’d try calling Alex when she got back to her hotel room.
Scanning through her notes, Bree realized she hadn’t described the argument between Abelmar and his PA.
PA Valentina? Bree wrote. Australian? Complained tired. A.: listening, but cold. V.: she hadn’t had a day off in months. A. cited benefits of what V. was learning. V. grateful, but...
The crème brûlée arrived just as Bree started to feel like she’d missed something. She thanked the bartender, took a bite of the dessert, and barely registered how delicious it was because she realized just then what she’d missed.
After Valentina complained about not having had a day off in months, Abelmar had corrected her: A week shy of six months. That’s what he’d said. A week shy of—
Bree felt her stomach turn over. The majority of the women she’d read about in the files reported that Abelmar first drugged and raped them on camera shortly before or just after they’d been working for him for six months.
A week shy of six months. And poor, tired, beautiful Valentina has no idea.
Chapter 16
Say what you will about the FBI, there is no organization finer when it comes to putting together a team of crack investigators and getting them in the field fast and with purpose.
To my mind, there was no one at the Bureau who could orchestrate and deploy this kind of far-reaching investigation better than my former partner Special Agent in Charge Ned Mahoney. Ned’s ability to digest information and harness it to drive a probe was simply remarkable.
Indeed, after Sampson and I briefed him on our initial investigation and our conversation with Catherine Hingham’s husband, Mahoney quickly drafted twelve veteran agents, set up a war room, and organized the probe around four of the allegations in the signed testimony left with her body.
• Allegations of corruption in federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies by the Alejandro drug cartel
• Allegations of corruption of two U.S. congresspersons by the Alejandro cartel
• Allegations of corruption against specific named members of U.S. law enforcement by the Alejandro cartel
• Allegations of corruption by Catherine Hingham against herself
“What else?” Mahoney asked after these were written along the top of a large, long whiteboard he’d had hung on the wall of the space the FBI gave us.
Sampson said, “Links from Hingham to those other named law enforcement personnel. How did she know they were corrupt? What’s the connection?”
“I get it,” Mahoney said, writing that on the board. “Other people of interest?”
I said, “Dean Weaver, Hingham’s supervising field officer at the CIA.”
“And the rest of his team,” Sampson said. “They showed up at the crime scene and tried to take over. We still don’t understand how they knew she’d been killed before she had even been identified.”
“However they found out, they’re CIA and can’t operate in the United States.”
“Exactly what we told them,” Sampson said.
I said, “Put Marco Alejandro up there on the suspects list.”
“Marco’s out of the picture,” Mahoney said. “He’s been buried inside a supermax for the past eleven months. No communication whatsoever.”
“Then who’s running the cartel?”
“I’ll get the latest from DEA intel.”
“If that intel’s not tainted,” Sampson said. “Hingham said there was broad, interdepartmental corruption because of the cartel. So who do we trust?”
Ned said, “We trust the evidence and follow it. Especially the money trails, to wherever and whomever they lead.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I got it out, saw it was Bree, and answered. “I wondered when I’d hear from you,” I said, holding up a finger and exiting the war room for the hallway. “What time is it there?”
“Around eleven,” she said. “I’m tired but wired.”
“Sleep will find you. How’s the case?”
“I can’t give you the details, but I’d like your advice on something.”
“Go ahead.”
“What if you knew something really bad was about to happen to someone inside an investigation, but if you warned the person, you would lose the opportunity to potentially catch a really bad guy in the midst of a really bad act? Something not even money and power could make go away?”
“As Margaret Forester might say, that’s a doozy.”
“Margaret Forester?”
“The documents expert in the Metro lab?”
“Oh,” she said and yawned. “Of course. And, yes, this is a doozy.”
“What’s the time frame of the bad act going down?”
“Next two weeks?”
“How bad an act?”
“The kind that would violate and damage someone physically and mentally for years to come.”
“That’s a hard one. I mean, if your goal is to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.”
“You understand my predicament.”
“Any chance you could recruit the person in danger, tell them what you know and hope they come to your side of the fight?”
“I’ve thought of that,” Bree said. “The problem is, I can’t use everything I know, because most of it is under seal by corrupt judges.”
“Then lever the judges,” I said.
“That’s tomorrow,” Bree said. “How are you? The kids? Nana?”
“I’m fine. Working with Ned and Sampson on the Hingham case. Nana’s been sleeping in a lot. Jannie’s Jannie. Damon’s off on his backpacking trip with his college buddies. And Ali’s becoming obsessed with the arson case.”
“Okay.”
“It sounds like he’s investigating. Or wants to be.”
She fell silent after that and I knew why. We tried to shield our children from some of the difficult things we saw and did in the course of our police work. “Bree?”