“Dirty in fact. He's on a regular retainer from a holding company called Pearl Lambert. Pearl Lambert is one of three entities I’ve been watching because their movements correlate to messages we had from Hargrove.”
Alistair lets go of my hand and drops his toast, glaring at Christopher, who looks shocked. “You're telling us the man who held Christopher's debt works for Hargrove.”
A pause. “Yes.”
“How long has Vellcottt been on the books?”
“At least eighteen months.”
“And Christopher has been at Burgundy's how long?”
Brodie clears his throat. “Just under a year.”
Christopher looks like he’s going to choke on his fig. It would serve him right.
“So… what you’re saying is that Christopher didn't accumulate a debt. He wasgivenone.”
“Yes, sir,” replies Brodie. “I think so. And when we extrapolate that data?—”
Alistair stands up. “Then the same people who placed the bomb in my house have ties to the people who’ve been across the table from my brother three nights a week for a year.”
“Yes, sir.”
The orange juice on the table goes blurry. I blink hard. My free hand has gone tight around the handle of the coffee cup, and I realize I am gripping it because some part of me wants to hurl it across the room.
That wall did not come down by accident. It came down because someone read a map. And the map was made of conversations my husband's brother had at a fucking card table. My mouth is so dry. I feel hot and cold. I want to be sick.
“Brodie,” says Ariana. “Who does Vellcottt report to?”
“Hargrove. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Not Hargrove. He’s too important. There will be a layer between them. Possibly two. Find the layer.”
A beat.
“Fair point,” Brodie says. “I haven't drilled into his communications yet. I've been chasing the bank flows. I'll prioritize it.”
Ariana crosses her arms. “This is not a debt operation,” she says. “It is a surveillance operation. The debt is the leash.”
Isobel nods, her face grim.
“Christopher has been at that table for almost a year. Drinking. Losing money. Talking. They won’t have asked direct questions, they won’t have needed to. What they will have built, drink by drink, is a picture. From the inside.”
She turns toward Christopher. “And then they used the picture and put a bomb in it.”
Christopher blanches and looks away.
Hargrove has had a map of this family for months. Christopher has been the cartographer.
Ariana’s in full ops mode. “Brodie. Listen carefully. The Vellcottt channel is one of three things at minimum. There will be at least one secondary surveillance line you have not yet found. Possibly people inside our circle that we do not know are inside our circle. You need to assume the bomb at the nursery was not the only device they have placed. If they had a year of access through Christopher, and they had Vellcottt on retainer for eighteen months, they will not have built only one capability. There will be at least one more device, somewhere, currently dormant. Either at Ascot Grange in a place we have not yet swept, or here, or in one of the cars, or in the offices, or somewhere that touches our movements. Sweep again. Sweep with the assumption that the first sweep was for Elena's people and the second sweep needs to be for Hargrove's.”
“Understood.”
She is still not looking at anyone.
“And, Brodie? They will know we have identified Vellcottt by now. He will be told to stop reporting and to disappear, or he will be cleaned up by the people above him. Either way you have a small window where his accounts might still be active. Take everything off them now.”
“Already in motion.”
