“A few weeks ago Morgan was living in a halfway house, without a penny to his name. Now he's living in a second-rate hotel in the Tenderloin, with new clothes in his closet. I wouldn't call it a windfall, but he seems to be doing okay. We checked, he has a car, he's paying his rent, he hasn't gotten into trouble since he got out, and he has a job. We don't know about his connection with Addison. They may have known each other before he went to prison, or Morgan may have met him more recently. But something about that connection doesn't feel right to me, and it didn't to Special Agent Holmquist either.
“The other thing I don't like is that Morgan got out of prison on the same day as a man named Carlton Waters. I don't know if that rings any bells for you. He's been in prison for murder since he was seventeen years old. He's written a number of articles about his innocence, he tried to get a pardon a few years ago, and didn't. He lost on appeal several times. He finally got out after serving twenty-four years. He and Morgan were both in Pelican Bay prison, at the same time, and got out on the same day. We haven't connected Addison to Waters, but Morgan had Waters's number in his room. There's a link between these people, maybe a very thin link, but it's there. We can't ignore it.”
“Isn't that the man you showed us the mug shot of, after the car bombing?” The name sounded familiar to her, and Ted nodded.
“That's the one. I went to see him in Modesto, where he's living in a halfway house. And it may not mean anything, but I don't like the fact that you're living on the same street where I think he put a bomb under Judge McIntyre's car. I have absolutely no evidence, but I have my gut. My gut tells me he did it. Why was he here? For the judge, or for you? Maybe he decided to kill two birds with one stone. Have you noticed anyone watching you, or following you, a face that has turned up more than once? A strange coincidence of someone you keep running into?” She shook her head, and he made a mental note to himself to show her Morgan's mug shots. “I'm not certain, but my instincts tell me you're part of this somehow. Morgan had your address on a scrap of paper in his hotel room. Addison was fascinated by your husband, and maybe with you. I'm worried about that file. Addison is linked to Morgan. And Morgan is linked to Waters. And Morgan had your address. These are bad people. Waters is as bad as it gets. He and his buddy killed two people, no matter what he says, for two hundred dollars and some small change. He's dangerous, Addison is desperate for money, and Morgan is a small-time crook, and possibly the link between the other two. We have a car bombing, no suspect we can nail it on, and I think Waters did it, although I can't prove it.” Listening to himself, his suspicions sounded far-fetched, even to him, and he was afraid he probably appeared totally insane to her. But he knew with his entire being that something was wrong, very wrong, and something bad was about to happen, and he wanted to convey the seriousness of that to her. “I think what clinches it for me here is that Addison needs money. A lot of it. Thirty million dollars in a very short time before his ship goes down. And I'm worried about what he and the others may do to get that money for him. I don't like the file on your husband, or the photograph of you and your children.”
“Why would he go after me, because he needs money?” she asked with a look of innocence that made Rick Holmquist smile. She was a pretty woman and he liked her, she seemed like a genuine and kind person, and she obviously felt comfortable with Ted, but she had been so protected all her life that she had no idea what kind of danger she could be in. It was impossible for her to imagine. She had never in her life been exposed to people like Waters, Addison, and Morgan.
“You're sitting here like a prize,” Ted explained. “For people as unscrupulous as this, you're a gold mine. Your husband left you a lot of money, you have no one to protect you. All they see you as, I think, is a cash box they can run off with to solve their problems. If they can get their hands on you, or your kids, they may figure that to you, thirty million dollars, or even fifty, would mean nothing. People like this get delusional, they believe their own fantasies and stories. They talk to each other in prison, they dream of things they think they can pull off. Who knows what Addison told them, or what they told each other? We can only imagine it. They may figure it's no big deal to you, or there's nothing wrong with it. All they know is violence, and if that's what they have to use to get what they want, they figure it's worth it. They don't think like you and me. Maybe Addison doesn't even know what they have in mind. Sometimes people like him get a ball rolling that gets out of control, and the next thing you know, people are hurt, or worse. I can't show you anything concrete to prove what I think, but I can tell you that something is wrong with this picture. Suddenly there is a lot of sky on the table, and I think there's a storm coming, maybe even a very bad one. I don't like what I'm seeing.” Even more than that, he didn't like what he was feeling.
“You're telling me that you think the children and I are in danger?” She wanted to get this straight and hear it clearly from him. It was so inconceivable to her that she needed a minute to absorb it, and sat there looking pensive as the two men watched her.
“Yes, I am,” Ted said simply. “I think one or all of these guys, and maybe even others, are after you. They may be watching you, and I think something ugly could happen. There's a lot of money at stake here, and they probably don't see why you should have all that, and they'd be more than happy to take it from you.” She had understood him.
She looked straight into Ted's eyes then, and spoke clearly. “There is none.”
“None what? No danger?” His heart sank as he realized that she didn't believe him. She obviously thought he was crazy.
“No money,” she said simply.
“I don't understand. What do you mean, no money?” She clearly had a lot of it. The others didn't. They all understood that much.
“I have no money. None. Zero. We've managed to keep everything out of the press, for my husband's sake, but we can't cover for him forever. He had lost everything he'd ever made, in fact, he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. He committed suicide, or let something happen to him in Mexico, we'll never know, because he couldn't face it. His whole world was about to implode, and it has. There's nothing left. I've been selling everything since he died, the plane, the boat, houses, co-ops, my jewelry, art. And I'm putting this house on the market in August. We have nothing. I don't even have enough in the bank to live on till the end of the year. I may have to take the kids out of their schools.” She looked at Ted dispassionately as she said it. She had lived with the shock of it all for so long, that after five months of constant panic over it, she was numb. This was just where her life was now. She was adjusting to it. It was the situation Allan had left her with, whether she liked it or not. And she would still rather have had him than all the money he had lost. She didn't care about the money, what she missed most was him. But in addition, he had certainly left her in dire circumstances, and Ted looked stunned.