“If you want to find Alice,” Carter ventured, “Tania Garrett is the person you should be asking.”
“That’s quite some accusation. You know who she is?”
Carter spoke carefully, picking his way across shaky ground. “I suspect none of us truly knows who she is, beyond being a pro-Russian lobbyist and political donor. This is only a small part of the picture.”
“You don’t know how this photo fits, do you?” Schneider said. “We’re gonna need far more than a snapshot if we’re going to drag a fine woman like that into this. Hand over the evidence and then we can talk.”
“‘A fine woman’? So you know her?”
Schneider rubbed his lips together. “You don’t get to ask the questions.”
“Find Alice, then we talk about the evidence. First step: get me my phone.”
“I’ll get you your phone, even if I have to fetch it myself,” Silvia said, glancing up at Schneider. “But Carter, you have to stop being so damn stubborn. A woman’s life is in danger, and I know that’s not something that sits easily with you. Work with me. I will give you my personal assurance that whatever information you have will be handled with the utmost security.”
“And what if it’s ‘above your pay grade’?”
“We’re obviously going around in circles,” Schneider said, snatching the photo and standing. “Let’s take a break. Meantime, I’ll get this photo urgently logged as evidence.”
“Hold on,” Silvia said, grabbing her phone. “Let me take a photo of it first.”
“No copies!”
Silvia raised her eyebrows at his sudden increase in volume.
He shrugged, and Carter got the sense he was grasping for a reason. “I don’t want this making the cover of tomorrow’sNew York Timesbefore we can verify it. Imagine the lawsuit we’ll be risking. Impugning Tania Garrett!”
“For God’s sake, Ben, I’m not going to give it to theNew York Times. We need to get a copy to our people in Moscow. They may be able to shed some light on who these men are, what this all means. I remind you that I have equal command here.”
“And this is exactly why the FBI is normally given sole jurisdiction in such matters.”
“You know,” Carter said to Schneider, leaning back in his chair and speaking slowly, “I’ve just figured out what you’re trying to hide here. You don’t want Ms. Thornton found because it would suit your purposes if all the witnesses just went away. Because you have more of a personal stake than you’re letting on. I know what that list really is, and I think you do too.”
“Carter?” Silvia said.
But Carter’s eyes were fixed on Schneider. It was sixty percent a stab in the dark, but the guy’s pissed expression told him it had found its target. Schneider, Tyler Wade, Leonard Poole—the thing they had in common? They were all eager to shut Carter down, one way or another. And Schneider hadn’t denied knowing Tania Garrett. Plus, there was the deputy director’s unusually close interest. Wade seemed to be impugned in Nika’s kompromat documents—maybe the others were too.
Finally, the pieces were starting to fit. Too damn late.
“I want a lawyer,” Carter said.
Silvia looked from him to Schneider. “Someone mind telling me what’s going on here?”
“We’ll talk about this outside,” Schneider said. “Interview terminated, 1:03 p.m.”
Chapter 33
Alice
“Alice, why don’t you back away from the ledge and join us in the living room?” the woman said calmly.
Alice slowly turned. The woman looked older than her voice suggested—maybe sixty—with a sharp gray bob. Not Tania Garrett. A gun was lowered by her side. Something about her mouth, the way the deep creases on either side gave it an elongated appearance…
“Omigod, you’re Carter’s mom?”
“For my sins.” She jerked her head in the direction of the living room, making it evident that Alice was to follow. “Florence Beck.”
Florence seemed to make a point of stepping over Alice’s barely-there underwear, which was strewn on the floor beside Carter’s backpack and the boxers that Alice had stripped off him last night—with her teeth. Not the classiest introduction to the woman whose son you were sleeping with.Had slept with—Alice guessed that pleasant interlude in her life was over.
