I’m reminded of the plush seats on the Rivard Luxe plane we took to and from Wichita, and I feel angry and sick that I fell for it. I keep chewing on it. I can see it all now, every step. Ballantine Rivard has gone out of his way to mislead us, misdirect us, threaten Gwen, sow doubt and fear to split us up.
I’d lay heavy bets that Rivard’s son was never hounded to his death by Absalom. Not the way his father described to us, anyway.
“Rivard’s never going to talk to us,” Mike says. “I don’t have a hope in hell of getting a warrant based on a supposition and a wild-ass guess.”
“I know you don’t.” I sound bitter and angry, and I am, because I’ve been a damn fool. I’ve left the idea that Gwen’s guilty in the rearview. I don’t know why I ever fell for it in the first place, except that I was already conditioned to believe it. She’s only ever been straight with me. I’m the one who lied. I’m the one who came into her life intending to tear it apart.
And now I’ve done that, and I need to find her and help her put it back together. It’s the only way I can even start to make up for what I’ve just done to her.
“How do you feel about helping me out without that badge?” I ask Mike, and he sighs.
“I’m not too likely to be carrying one, anyway, once this is all done; the Bureau doesn’t much like agents going rogue, and brother, I am as rogue right now as it gets. But I’ll stand with you.” He’s silent for a second, maybe just contemplating the breathtaking mistake we’ve both made to get us here, and then he asks, “You think Rivard’s behind his son’s death?”
“Has to be,” I say. “That tower is his fortress, and if I had to guess, the stores are nothing but an elaborate money-laundering operation. Absalom’s dark web is his real business, and he wasn’t about to let anybody kill his golden goose. If his son got too close, maybe grew a conscience, that explains his ‘suicide.’” I air-quote. I’m basing a lot on an eighteen-wheeler and a guess, but it all rings true. It all, finally, makes sense to me.
I knew something was off about that slick old man. I’d felt it from the beginning—the effortless way he’d conned us into the tower, then gotten us to do his bidding in Wichita. He wanted a plausible way for the second false video about Gwen to be discovered, and maybe Suffolk had been getting a little difficult. Two birds, one stone.
This goes deeper and darker than I ever imagined. Melvin Royal, vile as he is, is just another tool for Absalom—fulfilling his own sick fantasies, and there was Rivard, ready to pay him to do it. I feel dizzy and sick with the scope of it, and the cruelty.
“I don’t care what we have to do,” I tell Mike in a low, dead-quiet voice. “I want Rivard to tell us where Gwen is. Whatever it takes.”
“Whatever it takes,” Mike says. “But you need to gear down a little, son. Save that edge for when you need it.”
I sit in impatient, jittering silence as the plane is deiced, as we wait for our turn for a runway, and finally, we launch upward toward Atlanta.
We land at three o’clock. The weather is crisp and clear and barely qualifies as fall, much less the winter we just left. We rent another SUV, this one on Mike’s personal credit card, and he takes all the damage insurance. “Screw it,” he says. “I’m not worrying about the paint job.”
We get to Rivard Luxe and park in the visitor’s area in the garage. We sit for a moment, and Mike says, “You got even the vaguest idea what we’re going to do now?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m just trying to think of a better one, because this tactic is liable to get us adjoining cells. Mike . . . I’m talking federal offense.”
“You’re selling this plan hard. Well, I said I’m in, so let’s get on with it. Don’t spell it out for me. I don’t want to know.” I know he feels every tick of the clock, just like I do. Gwen’s out there, and in the back of my mind, I can’t help imagining what might be happening to her already. I have to keep that locked up. If I don’t, I’m going to rush, make bad decisions, and all this will be for nothing.
“Okay,” I say. “I need you to go across the street to that convenience store we saw on the corner. Buy a ball cap, a clipboard, a manila folder, bottled water, sunglasses, and a pen. If they have any hoodies, get two—one for me, one for you. By the way, do you have evidence gloves on you?”
“Sure,” he says, then reaches into his coat pocket. He pulls out a set and hands them to me. “I’m guessing what you’re asking me to get is a disguise. Anything else?”
“Baby powder.”
“What kind of party are we starting, here?”
“Just shut up and get it.”
“Where are you going while I’m off doing the shopping?”
“Copy shop down the block,” I tell him. “Meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later I’m standing by the SUV with a thick cardboard documents envelope in my hand. Mike comes walking down the ramp with a plastic sack stuffed with items. He’s got everything, even the hoodies.
As we get back in the rental and shut the doors, I take the papers I’ve printed out of the envelope. “Here. Put that on the clipboard.”
“Sure,” Mike says. He slips the paper under the spring clip. “Sign-off sheet. I assume we’re doing a delivery. That only gets us to the front desk.”
“We need to make them evacuate the tower,” I tell him. “In a building like this, the fire alarms are zoned, so only certain floors get evacuated first. Keeps the whole place from being shut down at once, and makes evacuations easier. But to trigger the fire alarm for his floor, we’d have to be in his penthouse, or the security center.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“No. Which is why we need the whole building out at once. We need Rivard to come to us.” I hold out my hand. I see him register that I’ve got on the latex gloves he gave me earlier. “Baby powder.”
“Oh shit,” he says, even as he hands over the small container. “You’re not serious, Sam. Shit. You get any prints on that envelope?”
“No,” I tell him. I pour a generous amount of powder into the manila envelope and use the bottled water to wet the flap and seal it. Then I slide everything in to the thicker cardboard envelope, turn it over, and press on the printed label I created at the copy shop. It has a bogus but official-looking address from a local legal firm, and it says PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL: BALLANTINE RIVARD, and on a separate line, URGENT: OPEN IMMEDIATELY. “Trust me, I don’t want adjoining cells.”
“Okay. So what do I do?” Mike asks.
“You wait here. Only one of us needs to be on that camera.” I zip up the hoodie, put on the ball cap and sunglasses. I secure the cardboard envelope under the sign-off sheet so all I have to handle is the clipboard, then strip off the latex gloves. I have to be careful now with what I touch. Clipboard’s okay. I can’t put my fingers on the paper, or the package.