“Maybe that was true once. Not anymore. Now I view you as a security risk.”
She folded her arms and squared her shoulders. “You’re the security risk. You want to know why I was in DC? I was cleaning up your mess.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The feds ambushed me and dragged me down to Main Justice, where Brooke Lee raked me over the coals. Were you aware that she’s now running the Public Integrity unit? No? I didn’t think so. You know what else you don’t know? Justin Greco flipped.”
The car swerved. So, she was right, then. They were in the dark about Greco. She could use that to her advantage.
“Greco? You serious?”
“Uh-huh. Now everyone he background-checked is at risk. Not just me. God knows how many others. I guarantee, Brooke Lee’s bringing in every single one and confronting them. Somebody will flip. If they haven’t already. Doug Kessler, for one.”
In the headlights from an oncoming car, he went a paler shade of white.
“Jesus, you think Lord Fuckleroy is snitching?”
That was his nickname for Doug back in the day, when they all worked together, and Doug and Kathryn were having that affair. Charlie had always been weirdly jealous of her romantic relationships. It bordered on the perverted. She wondered sometimes if his preoccupation with her played a role in what happened to Matthew. The thought was upsetting enough that she had to push it from her mind to focus on the matter at hand. Doug was a threat. Likely to flip. He had too much to lose, and he was constitutionally incapable of putting anyone ahead of himself. He was probably already talking. And that was bad for her because her life right now was a race against the clock.
“I don’t know whether he talked. I would if I were him,” she said.
“We need to find out. He was inside on the McCarthy thing.”
“Tell me about it. Too bad the feds aren’t sharing their witness list.”
The reflection of raindrops from the windshield made dark spots on his face. They looked like bullet holes.
“You said you’d flip if you were Kessler. What if you were you?” he said.
“You’re asking if I snitched? Don’t be an idiot. I went in to find out what they know, that’s all. And yes, I put someone in my house as a decoy, because I knew you’d try to stop me. Face it, you’re a blunt instrument, Charlie. Strategy is not your strong suit.”
“Enough with the insults. What did you find out?”
“They were cagey. But it seems like they’ve been at this for a while. I have a bad feeling.”
“Jesus. And you had to choose this moment to bring a stranger into the house?”
“Who cares? She’s just some intern who thinks she’s pet-sitting.”
“Wrong. This girl is a plant, like Olivia was.”
She turned to him, jaw dropping. “What are you talking about?”
“Madison Rivera is an informant. Or something. I don’t know yet.”
“Impossible. She’s a student from my class who applied for an internship. I recruited her, she didn’t come to me. If you have reason to believe she works for the feds, you need to tell me.”
“I have a reason. She’s the sister of Danny Rivera, the patsy in the Pe?a case.”
“Who?”
“Danny Rivera. Skinny doofus, took the weight for Ricky and his crew? He just pled out last week. He’s snitching to the feds, I’m convinced. That’s your intern’s brother.”
“You’re mistaken. Rivera is a common last name. Madison is an only child. She told me so.”
“She lied to you. I can prove it.”
They stopped at a light. He thrust a file at her.
“What’s this?”
“After what happened with Olivia, we thought it would be smart to vet your new intern. She filled out a background check form. I was tasked with verifying the information.”
“So you and Nancy cooked this up behind my back?”
“You should thank us. The girl’s prior address jumped out at me. I’m thinking, Where do I know that from? Turns out, it was from booking her lowlife brother. I pulled their birth certificates to make sure. The proof is there, Kathy.”
Kathryn squinted at the papers in the dimness of the car. The documents did indeed appear to show that Madison had a brother name Daniel.
She lied.
“How do you know this Daniel Rivera is the same one from the Pe?a case?”
“Look at the booking form. Same DOB and same Social as the Daniel Rivera on that birth certificate, who has the same parents as this girl who works for you. It’s all there in black and white.”
Oh, God. Her stomach hurt. Until that moment, Kathryn hadn’t realized how much she was depending on Madison to be her ally. She’d even started to feel an emotional connection. But if these documents were to be believed, the girl had played her. Lied to her face.
If the documents were real. They could be forgeries.
Think about it. Charlie knew that Madison was staying at the house, that Kathryn had used her as a decoy. He would view her as a threat if for no other reason than that she’d helped Kathryn fool him. She didn’t know Madison well enough to be certain that she was trustworthy. But she knew Charlie. He’d been a liar and a bully since childhood. You couldn’t take anything he said at face value. She’d be a fool to discard Madison on his say-so. She should do her own investigation and make her own decision.
“You’ve got a mole. I want you to fire her right away,” he said.
“Don’t tell me how to run my chambers.”
He laughed. Kathryn didn’t run her own chambers, and they both knew it. But what Charlie didn’t know was that she’d reached her limit. She was planning to get out, and fast. She needed help to do it. She couldn’t afford to follow his instructions, at least not until she knew if he was telling her the truth.
“You just admitted you don’t know if she’s an informant,” Kathryn said. “There are other reasons she might lie. Maybe her brother put her up to it, and it has nothing to do with the feds. Maybe she just wanted the job, and it’s a coincidence that he’s a drug dealer. Let’s figure out why she’s there and what she wants before we let her go. It’s valuable intelligence.”
He pulled into the alleyway behind the town house, face flushed with pique that she was talking back. He’d been in charge since they were kids. As far as he was concerned, he was the boss of her forever.
He waved toward the courtyard, where light spilled from the house.
“She’s in there right now. You have no idea what she’s doing. She could be going through your things.”
“She’s not.”
“You don’t know that. Kathy, I’m telling you, this kid is a threat. The longer you keep her around, the greater the risk. She needs to be eliminated quickly. Either you do it, or I will. And I won’t be nice.”
Part Three
Madison
18
A few hours earlier Something thumped against Madison’s chest. She gasped, opening her eyes to Lucy walking over her body. The cat turned a pirouette and settled at her feet.
“Good morning to you, too.”
It didn’t look like morning, though. When she finally went to sleep, the sun was fully up. Watery light now slanted through the dormer windows at the angle of late afternoon. She rubbed her temples, groaning as she sat up. Grabbing her phone off the bedside table, she saw it was after two, and there were five missed calls from Mom, the last one just minutes ago. Her phone had been on silent.
She tapped the number. Mom answered immediately. It sounded like she was crying.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
The reply was garbled.
“Slow down. I can’t understand.”
Her mother crying hit Madison in the gut. Suddenly, she was thirteen again, standing outside her parents’ bedroom while her father died inside.
“Mom, what happened? Tell me!”
“He’s—he’s gone.”
She went cold.
“Gone? Danny is dead? He’s dead?”
She started to hyperventilate.
“I don’t know. But he’s not there.”