Georgia fished out her key and unlocked the door to her apartment. She was greeted with deep silence. No coos or cries of an infant, or the sound of Vanna cooking, rocking, or feeding. All she heard was the occasional tick of the heating system. She stood beside the door for nearly a minute, then checked the spare room. The crib, diaper stand, and even the mobile were gone, along with Vanna and Charlie. The apartment no longer felt cramped, albeit in a cozy sort of way. Now it had never looked larger. Or lonelier. She blinked away something wet and forced her thoughts back to the Baldwin case.
If Dena Baldwin had been siphoning money away from the family foundation to finance the ResistanceUSA movement, Georgia would have to press Ruth Marriotti about it. Had Dena paid her a salary? Is that why Ruth was so hardworking and loyal? And what about Curt Dixon? Was he on the payroll too? Or did Dena dummy up the invoices without their knowledge?
Georgia sat down at her tiny kitchen table, trying to rationalize Dena’s behavior. Money was the best way to motivate people to do a job. And starting a political movement required a lot of people to handle a lot of tasks. But she couldn’t ignore the dark side: money could persuade people to act against their better instincts. And it could be used for bribes, threats, and kickbacks, which, in some hands, was another way of saying extortion.
Whatever her reasons, Dena was clearly more of a schemer than Georgia had expected. Like her father. Maybe she was more like him than she would have wanted to admit. By the same token, Jeff was looking more like the true prodigal son. She grabbed some cheese from the fridge, topped it on a cracker, and wolfed it down. She hadn’t eaten since last night at Mickey’s.
She was reaching for her laptop when she realized it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. She’d left it on her kitchen table. Now it was on the counter. She froze. Slowly she turned to gaze at her living room. The cushions on the sofa had been tampered with as well. She’d left them in disarray; now they were evenly plumped. She went into her bedroom. Her closet door was open. She knew she’d closed it. She always did. Someone had been inside her home.
She backtracked to her computer. It was on, but that wasn’t unusual. She opened the folder she’d created for the Baldwin case and scanned the dates and times the files had last been accessed. Sure enough, someone had been through most of her documents in the past half hour. Who? What did they want? How did they get into her apartment? She shivered. A sense of violation was worse when you didn’t know who was behind it. She called Jimmy and left him a voice mail to call ASAP.
As creepy and disturbing as the break-in was, Georgia had to admit that whoever was behind it would be disappointed. Her results so far were insignificant. As soon as she untangled one knot, a twist of the rope revealed another. Money, family feuds, and politics had coalesced into a sticky wad of uncertainty. Unless her skill as an investigator was slipping. Maybe she wasn’t up to the job. All she had done was retrace the FBI’s work. Break-in or not, she needed a new approach.
She went to the window in her kitchen and looked out. The single mother across the street, whose kids always left their trikes and toys strewn across the lawn, was dragging two garbage cans to the curb. Half a block away, the sanitation truck announced its arrival with its shrill belches of brakes and hoots. The mailman in his boxy truck would soon pass by. Everyone had their routines. A man came out of the house across the street to help the woman with the recycling bins. Did she have a new boyfriend? Or was he a relative, maybe a brother? Georgia straightened. She had an idea.
She met Erica Baldwin that afternoon at her Glencoe home and told her what she’d learned from Jeff. Erica was silent. Georgia wondered if Erica had always known—or suspected—in a dark corner of her mind, that Dena was as flawed as the rest of the family. She was about to ask Erica whether she was okay, when Erica said, “So Jeff had nothing to do with it?”
“I need to talk to Iris, but it doesn’t look like it.”
Georgia saw Erica’s relief, the loosening of tension. “And, Erica, I need a different approach to the case. I want to find out more about Jarvis.”
“Why?” Erica asked. “What do you hope to get?”
“Maybe a connection to Dena. Maybe not.”
“The FBI didn’t think there was one.”
“I know.” She took a breath. “He has a sister.”
“Right. I saw her on the news.”
“I’m sure the FBI has already talked to her, but I think it’s worth a shot.”
“But what about the forty thousand members of Dena’s group? Wouldn’t they be more important?”
“I have a team of computer geeks working on that. They’re doing criminal background checks. But it’s going to take a while to get the results.”
“Just background checks?” Erica fingered her necklace, a gold chain with a pear-shaped diamond at her throat. “What if it’s someone—I don’t know—crazy as a loon, but hasn’t got a record.”
“There’s always a chance that someone could slip through the cracks. But remember, we’ve been looking for a needle in a haystack since we started. In the meantime, maybe I’ll discover Jarvis was clearly acting alone. At this point we just don’t know.”
“Well, if you think it’s important . . .” Erica let her voice trail off, clearly indicating she wasn’t convinced.
“I do.” Georgia felt like a kid who crosses her fingers, hoping she’s telling the truth.
“By the way, I have to tell you something else.” She filled Erica in on the break-in at her apartment. And the guy on the motorcycle who’d tailed her.
“Do you think it’s connected to the case?”
Georgia shook her head. “I don’t know. But you can bet I plan to find out. In the meantime, be careful. If they’re breaking into my place, they’re likely stalking you too. Your husband and Jeffrey as well.”
Erica swallowed. “We’ve beefed up our security so much I don’t know what more we can do. Do you think we need bodyguards?”
“I can’t answer that. Ask Paul Kelly what he thinks.”
Erica squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh God. I wish this was over. I want my life back.”
“I get it.” Georgia gave her a sympathetic smile. Now was not the time to tell Erica that her life, even when she got it back, would never be the same.