Chương 13
Victoria did not tell her it was all right.
She simply remained at the table.
The description of the gray-haired man gave agents probable cause to place Owen Pike inside the stairwell at the time of the assault. A partial print from the recovered phone matched Pike.
Three hours later, Pike contacted Reyes.
He called from a prepaid phone and asked for Victoria.
Reyes refused.
Pike hung up.
He called again ten minutes later.
This time Victoria sat beside Reyes in a secure communications room, though she was still formally suspended.
Reyes answered.
“Mr. Pike.”
“I said Hale.”
“She is not handling the case.”
“She’s listening.”
Victoria glanced at Reyes.
Pike laughed softly. “There she is.”
His voice matched the office recording.
“What do you want?” Victoria asked.
“To correct your story.”
“Which part?”
“The part where I work for Richard.”
“You took his money.”
“I took his access.”
“You threatened a child in a stairwell.”
Silence.
“You told Lily she fell,” Victoria said.
“I kept Ethan from touching her again.”
“You took her phone.”
“Yes.”
“You destroyed school footage.”
“I disabled it.”
“You threw the phone into a storm drain.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Meredith.”
Victoria looked at Reyes.
Pike continued. “She thought the video would put Ethan in juvenile detention.”
“Why would Meredith help Richard?”
“She wasn’t helping Richard. She was protecting the boy.”
“By destroying evidence of his assault?”
“You think families separate crimes as neatly as your files do?”
“Where are you?”
“Not ready.”
“You left blood in your apartment.”
“Mine.”
“Who hurt you?”
“Richard’s driver.”
“Name.”
“You already have it.”
“We have twenty-three employees.”
“Then you don’t have it.”
Victoria pressed her hand flat on the table.
“Why did you take the office drive?”
“Insurance.”
“Why send it to us?”
“Because Richard planned to trade Ethan for the trust.”
“What does that mean?”
“The plea offer. He gives you school obstruction, blames the phone recovery on Ethan and Meredith, keeps the trust clean, and leaves the corruption buried.”
“Meredith is trustee if he is convicted.”
“She is also the only person Richard can still frighten without making a call from jail.”
“What does he have on her?”
Pike was silent.
Victoria lowered her voice.
“Owen, Elena opened the safe-deposit box.”
The line went completely quiet.
“She told us about her father,” Victoria said.
“You should not have involved her.”
“You involved her twenty-three years ago.”
“I tried to find Luis.”
“You closed his case.”
“Richard had photographs of Elena. She was nineteen.”
The answer came with enough force to sound like pain.
Victoria waited.
Pike breathed into the phone.
“Richard’s father had people remove tenants from those buildings. Luis photographed it. They caught him. I found the camera in evidence after another detective booked it under the wrong case number.”
“You buried it.”
“I copied the photographs.”
“And then?”
“I went to Richard. I thought I could trade the copies for Luis.”
“Could you?”
“No.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You worked for Richard for fifteen years and never learned?”
“I learned three versions. None came with a body.”
Reyes wrote a question on a pad and pushed it toward Victoria.
LOCATION OF ORIGINAL PHOTOS.
“Where are Luis’s photographs?” she asked.
“At the academy.”
“Where?”
“Richard built a records room behind the old theater foundation. No plans. No digital access.”
“Why keep evidence there?”
“Because every official he owned attended fundraisers above it.”
“What else is inside?”
“Enough to make his plea offer meaningless.”
“Then surrender and take us there.”
Pike laughed again, without humor.
“You still think your government is outside his system.”
“Someone leaked the arrest.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Ask Reyes why Calvin Dorsey reached Montreal without a passport alert.”
Reyes’s face did not change.
Victoria watched him.
Pike continued. “Ask Nora Bell who approved the delay.”
The call ended.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Victoria looked at Reyes.
“Why did Dorsey’s alert fail?”
“A clerical error.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It was entered under an expired passport number.”
“By whom?”
“A task force analyst.”
“Name.”
“Victoria.”
“Name.”
Reyes looked through the glass wall at the empty corridor.
“My brother.”
She stared at him.
“Gabriel Reyes?”
“He is a contract intelligence analyst.”
“You brought him onto the task force.”
“He had the qualifications.”
“Did he leak the arrest?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you investigate him?”
“Internal security is investigating everyone.”
“Did you tell them he is your brother?”
“It is in his disclosure.”
“That was not my question.”
Reyes stood.
“I found the passport error yesterday.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I reported it to internal security.”
“To Nora?”
“No.”
“To me?”
“You are suspended.”
Victoria rose.
“You let me question every decision I made while you hid your brother inside the leak inquiry.”
“I did not hide him.”
“You just did.”
“He made a data-entry error.”
“That allowed our witness to leave the country.”
“We don’t know whether it was intentional.”
“Would you accept that sentence from me?”
Reyes’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
The honesty did not repair anything.
Victoria moved toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You cannot discuss this.”
“With whom?”
“Anyone.”
She turned.
“You mean Lily? Mark? The people whose bathroom was photographed because someone inside our case gave Richard my life?”
“I mean anyone.”
“You should step off the investigation.”
“I offered.”
“To whom?”
“Internal security.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Before or after Pike mentioned your brother?”
“Before.”
Victoria looked at him for a long moment.
Then she left.
That evening, Mark found her sitting on the floor of the safe apartment bathroom, back against the tub. The light was off.
He did not ask why.
He sat in the doorway.
After a while, she said, “Daniel’s brother may be the leak.”
“Your boss?”
“Former partner.”
“Friend?”
“Yes.”
Mark leaned against the frame.
“Do you trust him?”
“I did.”
“That wasn’t past tense when you came in.”
Victoria picked at a loose thread in the bath mat.
“He reported his brother.”
May you like
“Then why are you angry?”
“Because he didn’t tell me.”
