The only other option, I force myself to admit, is that she’s angry she got caught lying.
I lower my voice so Chan can’t hear me. “You’re not gonna want to hear this—”
“Then don’t say it.”
“—But you worked for a huge liar for years. You helped Victoria create an entire identity that was a lie. You helped her lie to my friend Parker—”
“Because he screwed her and her entire family over! He ruined her life!” She throws her hands in the air. “Or so we thought! You know exactly what happened. Don’t turn it around on me!”
When I don’t respond, Tabby says bitterly, “Why don’t you just say it, Connor. Just say that you think I made up S?ren. That I made up everything. That I’m the one who pulled the studio job, and being here to watch the chaos is just a big ego stroke. That the blackmailer is really me.”
I say nothing. She turns her back on me and stands with her arms crossed over her chest, shaking.
Then Harry walks over and casually says, “Nice guy, your Professor Durand.”
Tabby turns her head, listening.
“Spoke very highly of you. Fondly, in fact. Says you were the most brilliant student he ever had.” Pause. “Aside from one S?ren Killgaard, that is.”
The breath I didn’t know I was holding leaves my chest in a gust.
Over her shoulder, Tabby says quietly, “You should send an agent to Durand’s house to verify it was him you spoke with. At some point, it will occur to someone on your team that phone numbers can be spoofed and rerouted, and we’ll be right back to square one. Go to his house and talk to him face-to-face, and then you can be sure.”
Harry looks at Chan, who says, “On it,” and leaves.
Then Harry says to Tabby’s back, “You ever think about joining the FBI?”
By the time the sun comes up, the COM center has been moved to another building on the studio campus, two agents from the Boston field office have interviewed Professor Durand at his home, and Harry has given me the rundown on the infamous Bank of America incident.
“Took Tabby weeks to convince the cops she was innocent,” he’d said. “Mainly by proving it wasn’t her who opened the bank account where the stolen money was deposited. Security footage showed an older woman, taller, different coloring. They weren’t able to identify her other than to rule Tabby out. The bank employee who opened the account couldn’t recall anything unusual about the woman that could’ve helped the investigation. That, added to the lack of any other evidence linking Tabby to the crime, made the DA decide not to pursue charges. And that was that. Subsequently, she dropped out of school, and Durand never heard from her again.”
“If there was no evidence,” I’d said, “that means the police searched her computers. Which means they searched her home. But you said there was no address on record for her that year.”
“She rented an apartment near the campus a few days before she got nabbed—”
“And before that?”
“She said she’d been living in her car.”
Harry and I had looked at each other then. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Either Tabby lied to us about living with S?ren, or she was protecting him by not giving the police his home address.
Neither option worked for me.
“Did the police interview S?ren? And why was it handled by the cops, anyway? A case like that, the FBI should’ve been involved.”
Harry had shrugged. “They went to the address the school had on file for him, but it was one of those UPS mail centers. And by that time, he’d stopped attending classes too. Because it had been a woman who opened the account, they assumed Tabby’s insistence it was S?ren who did the job was just a case of sour grapes.”
“What do you mean?”
His steady gaze had stayed on mine. “A lover’s quarrel.”
“Lovers,” I’d repeated, feeling sick.
“Apparently Professor Durand often observed S?ren sketching pictures of Tabby during class and saw them together around campus. He assumed they were an item.”
“Did he ever see them…”
He picked up on what I’m not able to speak aloud.
“He didn’t say. As for why the FBI wasn’t involved, a decision was made by someone high up at the bank to keep the incident as quiet as possible. Hacks are bad for business. The public gets skittish when they know their money is vulnerable. And for a seventeen-year-old to be accused of making off with millions right under their noses… I guess they decided the public relations shit storm wouldn’t be worth it. Besides, they recovered all the money very quickly. No harm, no foul.”
Something wasn’t making sense. “You said you couldn’t find S?ren’s name in any database.”
“Right.”
“What about his school records?”
“Disappeared, like he never existed.”
“But the police knew about him back then?”