“That’s the date of her twin nieces’ birthday,” Elodie says. “That’s when the party is, so no. Why? What’s up?”
Thankfully, part of being a skilled liar is that I can cover up stress quite well. “Waylen and I had a little something that night, I think, but I’ll see about changing it.”
“Great!” Elodie clasps her hands together. “I really think this will get the ball rolling on things. Bertram has been infuriating to crack. Have you had any progress on your end?”
“Not yet…” I trail off, considering. “I’ve just had an idea. Annie disappeared while she was dating Bertram. Erin knew about this, despite how badly Bertram tried to hide it. So, if Bertram was seeing Skylar on the side, maybe Erin will also have some insights about that. Maybe she can tell us more about her personality, some ways we can get her to open up to you even more.”
“Oooh, good idea!” Elodie is already grabbing her phone and scrolling through her contacts.
“Oh, and I meant to tell you,” Elodie goes on. “Finnegan is really looking forward to having Collette tutor her this weekend.”
I give Elodie my best smile. “I think our girls can be great friends.” It’s the biggest lie I’ve told all week.
The phone rings. Elodie puts it on speaker, and we both huddle together.
“Hello?” Erin’s voice is soft, almost dazed, as though we’ve just woken her up. Mr. X’s policy is to call the client at least once during a mission without warning. When you interrupt people being themselves, you can learn something new about them. Even the people who are hiring you to do the work.
Erin, much like Bertram, has been an enigma. Something is odd about each of them, in a tandem way. Something is similar about their mannerisms and their secrecy.
But I don’t express this. I continue to observe her, taking a similar approach to Bertram.
“Erin, hi!” Elodie takes the lead. I’m happy to observe how Erin will handle the news. “I’m here with my colleague. Listen, we have a little update for you. I’ve managed to track down one of Bertram’s girlfriends.”
“Girlfriends?” Erin sounds more awake now. “You mean Annie? You’ve found her?”
“Skylar,” Elodie says. “Bertram was seeing her at the same time—”
“No,” Erin interrupts. “That must be a mistake.”
This activates the gossip quadrant of Elodie’s brain, and she launches into an excited explanation of how, according to Skylar, it was a loveless relationship with Annie by the end. So Bertram promised Skylar the moon and stars. Butthen Bertram abruptly ended things with no explanation and left her heartbroken.
I’m tempted to tell Elodie to stop sharing so much. Tact is key in cases like this. But Erin is so hard to read that I decide it’s better to see how this plays out.
There’s “good cop, bad cop” and then there’s “hyperexcitable cop, silently-nodding-along cop.” If Elodie overshares and this puts Erin off, I can step in and speak in a softer tone, isolating her and leading her to trust me.
Once Elodie stops speaking, the line is so silent that for a second, I think we’ve been disconnected.
“Hello?” Elodie says.
“I didn’t hire you to snoop into his love life,” Erin finally says, in a cool, almost emotionless tone. “I hired you to prove that he stole billions of dollars in investments and funding that should rightfully be going to me.”
“This is all connected,” Elodie says, clearly flummoxed. “It speaks to his character—”
“Call me back when you have something about that app,” Erin says curtly, and then the line goes dead.
Elodie stares at the screen as though it’s just committed some grave atrocity against her entire family. “I don’t get it.Allof this information is relevant, isn’t it? She asked us to look into Annie’s disappearance!”
I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “We may not be able to get Bertram on stealing the app. And even if we do, he’s got the best lawyers that money can buy. He can tie Erin up in legal fees until she’s bankrupt. Finding out what happened to Annie and getting him on her possible disappearance is the best place to start. Once he’s in prison forthat, he’ll bewaymore likely to negotiate with us if we can offer him a lighter sentence.”
“Exactly,” Elodie says. “It’s not like in the movies where the bad guy is justfoundguilty. They play dirty, so we have to play dirtier.”
“We should get some vinyl decals made up,” I say. “That’s a great sales pitch.”
Elodie gives me a wan smile, but clearly, she’s unsettled by the exchange. She’s new to this line of work, and she doesn’t understand that charm can only get you so far with these sorts of clients. They have their eye on revenge. It isn’t about whether they like us—in fact, most of the time they won’t.
But Elodie surprises me by doing something I wouldn’t have expected of her. She asks me for advice. “What should we do? This could be a very long process. If she thinks the way we’re going about it is all wrong, she’s less likely to help us.”
Because Erin isn’t the subject of our investigation, I haven’t had the time to research much about her. And Mr. X, incapacitated as he is, has grudgingly had to put his workload on hold.
