Annabel was sleeping when her phone rang. It jolted her upright, and for a moment, she sat very still, wondering if she was dreaming. She ran her hand over Matthew’s side of the bed. It was cold and empty. She picked up the phone just before it went to voicemail.
“I’m sorry for calling so late,” the voice on the other end said. “I wanted to catch you when you were alone.”
“Who is this?” Annabel stifled a yawn. The clock on her bedside table blinked the time: 11:45 p.m.
“Sorry, it’s Zoe. Can I come up?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m outside your building. I wanted to make sure you were by yourself before ringing the bell.”
“I’m alone. I’ll buzz you in.”
Annabel was fully awake when she opened the front door. She wore Matthew’s bathrobe over her nightgown, and in a moment of last-minute vanity, she’d run a brush through her hair. Even in the middle of the night, Zoe looked fresh-faced and chic in black jeans, high-top sneakers, and a fur vest. Her skin glowed in the dark hallway, the moonlight glinting off her high cheekbones. Annabel wished she hadn’t answered the phone.
At Zoe’s feet was a brown cardboard box, which she picked up. She followed Annabel into the living room and handed it to her.
“What is this?” Annabel asked.
“It’s Matthew’s laptop. From work. They’ve already taken his desktop. They will come looking for this. It has everything on it. All his clients. All their financial data. Everything.”
Annabel stared. “Why do you have it?”
“He gave it to me. Before the plane crash. He told me to hide it. It’s only a matter of time before they realize I have it.”
“Who are they?”
“The bank. The security people questioned me about it yesterday. I was hiding it in my apartment, but I can’t do it anymore. I need to leave, Annabel. Things are not safe for me.”
“Who at the bank? Why can’t they have Matthew’s files?”
“Because he was leaking them. And they know there’s a leak. They just don’t know who it is. Or was. If they find this—”
“Wait.” Annabel put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder. “What are you saying?”
Zoe sighed. “He really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
“Matthew was my husband,” she said, her voice curt. “He told me everything.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant he didn’t tell you anything about his work. That’s good. He was protecting you. The less you know, the safer you are.”
“The less I know about what?”
Zoe sighed. “It’s safer for you if you just turn over this laptop when they come looking for it. Just put it in his home office. Tell them you don’t know the password. Then leave. Go back to New York. Get away from here.”
“I don’t know the password.”
“Great, so then they’ll believe you.” Zoe couldn’t hide her exasperation. “If you don’t know anything, they won’t hurt you.”
“But you think they hurt Matthew?”
“I think someone did, yes. That plane crash was no accident.”
Annabel frowned. Zoe seemed so certain. The uncomfortable feeling that Matthew and Zoe had been closer than he had let on descended on her. It wasn’t the first time. “What do you know, Zoe?” Annabel said. “If you know what happened to my husband, you need to tell me. Now.”
Zoe got up, walked over to the window, scanned the street. She pulled the curtains closed and turned around.
“You’re sure you want to hear this?”
“Why don’t you sit,” Annabel said. She put the box down on the coffee table. “Would you like some coffee or tea? Or something to eat?”
“Perhaps some water. I can get it.”
Annabel waved her off. “Please. Sit. I’ll be right back. Then we’ll talk.”
In the kitchen, Annabel set the teakettle on the stove. A wave of light-headedness overtook her. She steadied herself on the counter, her hands gripping the cool marble. She shut her eyes and willed herself to breathe. For a moment, she considered her options. If Zoe was right—Matthew was involved in some dangerous or illegal bank dealings—did she really want to know? Would it put her at risk to know? Perhaps she ought to turn over his laptop to Swiss United and take the next plane back to New York. She could put this whole nightmare behind her.
But would she ever be able to start over? Or would she always wonder what really happened to Matthew? Would it haunt her, never knowing what he’d been willing to risk his life to reveal to the world? Would she revisit the facts as she knew them again and again, looking for signs and clues that she might have previously missed?
Zoe had information. At the very least, she ought to hear it. She would never forgive herself if she didn’t.
The teakettle began to whistle. Annabel lifted her head. She took a final, resolute breath before pouring the steaming water into two cups. She placed the cups on a tray, beside tea bags and a box of cookies sent the previous day by some vice president at Swiss United she had never met.
Zoe smiled gratefully when she saw the tray. She reached for the cookies the moment Annabel placed them on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” she said. “I haven’t been eating, really. I didn’t realize how hungry I am.”
Annabel nodded. “Me, either,” she admitted, and though she hadn’t planned to, she took a cookie for herself, too. “Help yourself.”
After Zoe had finished the cookie, she took another. Then she wiped her mouth and began to speak. “Matthew and I started at Swiss United the same month,” she said. “I liked him right away. He was kind to everyone, even the assistants. And he loved you so much. He talked about you all the time. He was one of the few men who had a picture of his wife on his desk, where everyone could see it. Not like some of the others, who stared at anything in a skirt that passed them.
“I knew he was being groomed by Jonas for a senior position at the bank. Everyone said so. Matthew was smart and hardworking. And Jonas trusted him. It takes Jonas a long time to trust anyone, but Matthew was different, I guess, because Jonas had such a close relationship with Matthew’s father.
“I was happy to be assigned to Matthew. I knew that he’d treat me well and that, if I was good enough, my star would rise along with his. Jonas’s assistant, Therese, has been with him for seventeen years. She makes more money than some of the senior bankers. I thought maybe I could be like that, if I worked hard enough for Matthew. I made sure I was always available to him and went out of my way to do everything he asked.
“Right away, Swiss United seemed like a dream to me. I was making so much more money than any of my friends from university. And the perks were good. When we traveled, we always stayed in the best hotels and ate in the nicest restaurants. I grew up in a small town in the South of France. No one ever goes anywhere. Most of my friends are still there. So for me, flying to Monaco and New York and Paris was exciting. That probably sounds silly to you, I know.”
“Not at all. I grew up in a small town, too. And part of the reason I agreed to come to Geneva with Matthew was the travel. It’s a romantic life. At least, it sounded romantic.”
Zoe nodded. She seemed relieved that Annabel wasn’t judging her. “The hours were terrible, of course. I worked all the time. You know. Matthew did, too. And no one in my position ever takes a vacation. We’re supposed to be on call whenever the bankers need us. Nights, weekends, anything. But I didn’t mind. I knew that’s why we got paid so much.
“A few months ago, I walked into Matthew’s office and Jonas was in there. And they were angry with each other. They stopped talking when I walked in, so I ran out as quickly as I could. But afterward, Matthew was upset. So I took him out for a drink after work. He got a little drunk, which wasn’t usual for him. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
Annabel shifted, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She didn’t like the idea of Matthew confiding in Zoe over drinks. But she nodded and said nothing.
“He told me he was worried about some of Jonas’s clients. Look, a lot of our clients aren’t exactly—how do you say this in English? I’m sorry, my English fails me when I’m tired. On the up-and-up? I mean, they come to us to hide their money. From the government, from spouses, whatever. That’s what we do. We hide money in numbered accounts so no one knows who it belongs to. You understand?”
“I think I do,” Annabel said slowly. “Do you mean to say that what you do is illegal?”
Zoe shrugged. “We’re not breaking Swiss law. If a US client comes to us, for example, and puts ten million into one of our numbered accounts and doesn’t pay taxes on that money, he’s the criminal, not us.”
“Okay. So you may be helping someone violate tax rules elsewhere, but here in Geneva, what you do is legal?”
“Technically, yes. But there are exceptions. And that’s where Matthew started disagreeing with Jonas.”
“What are the exceptions?”
“There are people that the bank isn’t supposed to do business with at all. People on sanctions lists. Terrorists. Arms dealers. Dictators. Swiss United can’t do business with these people. No bank can. There’s a whole Compliance wing of the firm that is supposed to make sure of it.”
“But Jonas would ignore those rules?”
“Yes. If it was lucrative enough to do so. Bashar al-Assad, for example.”
“The Syrian dictator?”
“Yes. Assad, everyone in his family, all his ministers and officials, they’re all on sanctions lists. Sanctions lists are one way the UN, the EU, the US crack down on people like this. They’re telling you: if you do business with anyone on this list, that will mean trouble for you.”
“And so if Swiss United does bank with them, they’re violating international law.”
“Yes. But Swiss United does it anyway. Not officially. Unofficially, Jonas is the Assad family’s personal banker.”
Annabel shuddered. The videos and photographs coming out of Syria were horrifying. Chemical attacks. Cities reduced to rubble. Heaps of bodies, starved and burned and hanged, piled up in prisons. How could anyone do business with a man like Assad? How could Jonas sleep at night?
“Did Matthew . . . ,” she started, but her voice faltered. “Was Matthew . . .”
Zoe shook her head. “No. They don’t give clients like that to junior bankers. But Jonas was grooming him. He was drawing him in. He wanted Matthew to take on Fatima Amir, a cousin of the Assads, first. She isn’t on the sanctions lists. She runs a legitimate business. But once Matthew knew who she was, he got uncomfortable. And he didn’t like the way Jonas was dealing with Compliance. It made Matthew nervous that Jonas was flouting the sanctions. It’s illegal and Jonas knows it.”
“So then why did Matthew agree to take Fatima on as a client?”
Zoe gave a tight smile. “If Jonas tells you to do something, you do it.”
“He could have quit.”
“Maybe. But it’s not that simple. Jonas has ways. He could make sure that Matthew never worked in the US again.”
“You can’t be serious. Jonas treated Matthew like a son.”
Zoe frowned. “Do you know how Matthew’s father died?”
“He had a heart attack,” Annabel said stiffly.
“He killed himself.”
“How do you know that?” Annabel snapped. Matthew had rarely spoken about his father. Until this moment, Annabel thought she was the only living person who knew that Tom Werner had committed suicide. To the outside world, Tom had been a highly successful, well-liked, philanthropic man. He had homes in Manhattan, Southampton, and Palm Beach. He sat on the boards of several corporations and had been, at one time, the president of the Knickerbocker Club in New York City. Only Matthew knew that his father had, in the end, run into financial troubles. The idea of dying penniless had, apparently, been too much for him to bear. And so he had hanged himself in his Fifth Avenue apartment. It was Matthew who found the body. He told Annabel what had happened, but to everyone else, Matthew claimed his father had died of a heart attack. It was a story that had been repeated so often that Annabel occasionally forgot it was a lie.
“Jonas told me.”
“Jonas?” Annabel said, stunned. “How does Jonas know?”
“Tom Werner was one of Jonas’s clients. He stole millions of dollars skimming off the top of his mutual fund. Then he gave it to Jonas to hide at Swiss United. He killed himself after the IRS investigated him for tax fraud.”
“Oh my God,” Annabel whispered. “I knew he had financial troubles, but nothing like that.”
“No one in the US ever found out. Everyone thought he died of a heart attack. Jonas made sure of that. Otherwise, Swiss United would have come under investigation. And Matthew’s family would have been horribly embarrassed. So Matthew was indebted to Jonas.”
“I just knew that Tom and Jonas were friends. That’s all.”
“When Matthew and Jonas argued about the Assad family, Jonas became enraged. I could hear them yelling at each other, even from the hall. Jonas said he could destroy Matthew and ruin his father’s legacy. He threatened to go public with details about Matthew’s father’s suicide.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes. But that’s the way Jonas works. He has a team of private detectives who dig up dirt on all the bankers who work for him. The detectives follow them everywhere at the beginning. Nothing they do is private. Jonas learns their secrets. He uses them as leverage. That way they stay loyal to him. And if there are no secrets . . .”
“If there are no secrets?”
“He sets his people up. He finds weaknesses and exploits them.”
“How do you mean?”
Zoe closed her eyes and winced. “He tempts them. He’s like the devil, Annabel. Truly.”
“You know this for sure?”
“I’ve helped him do it.”
“How?”
Zoe squirmed uncomfortably. Her eyes shifted to the floor. “I’m not proud of this. But when I started at the firm, Jonas brought some of us to Monte Carlo for a retreat. We all drank too much. Some of the bankers were doing coke, too. Jonas knew it. He provided it, I think. I was new and I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t having fun. The next thing I knew, I couldn’t see straight. I could barely stand. They drugged me. And Jonas insisted that one of the bankers help me upstairs. I remember only a little, but we ended up in bed together. He didn’t want to be there. He was married. But he was as out of it as I was. They drugged him, too, I think. I don’t really remember what happened. But someone was taking pictures—”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should have quit after that. I don’t know why I didn’t. It’s a horrible place.” Zoe blinked back tears.
“Do you know who was taking pictures of you?”
Zoe shook her head. “I don’t remember much. I just— I’ve always wanted to apologize to that man’s wife. I’ve never had the guts.”
Annabel nodded. “Maybe it’s best that you didn’t. It would hurt her. It would cast doubts.”
“Yes. And she shouldn’t have any. It meant nothing, to either of us. It was a situation that Jonas created. He used a lot of the assistants that way. Some of us were asked to sleep with clients, too.”
“I just can’t believe Matthew would work for someone like that. It’s not the Matthew I knew.”
“Well, he didn’t want to. I told him to go to the authorities, but he said that Jonas has the Swiss government in his back pocket. Which, I imagine, is true. Swiss United is the biggest bank in Switzerland, you know.”
Annabel shivered, thinking of Agents Bloch and Vogel and the speed with which they had closed the investigation. She thought about the photographs they had given her, and the explanation about the ice protection system. A cover-up, but until now she hadn’t been sure who they were covering up for.
“I thought we should go to the press. But Matthew said that was too risky. Journalists can’t protect you from people like Assad. That’s what he thought, anyway.”
“Did he change his mind? Someone killed him, Zoe. I’m sure of it.”
Zoe shook her head. “A few weeks later, he told me that someone at the US Department of Justice contacted him. I think his name was Morse. He had been investigating Swiss United for years, looking for a way into the bank. Matthew met him in New York. He never told me so, but I think he agreed to cooperate with him.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because when he came back from New York, he was like a different person. He apologized to Jonas. He started working twice as hard. Suddenly, he was in meetings with the Assad family. Jonas was happy. He seemed to think Matthew had come around to see things from his point of view. But I had my doubts. He refused to talk to me about anything. He was so tight-lipped, doing all his work himself. He just didn’t seem like Matthew anymore.”
“I know what you mean,” Annabel said. “He hardly spoke to me anymore, either. He worked all the time, never told me what he was doing. Honestly, I started wondering if he was having an affair.”
Zoe shook her head. “No. He loved you so much. You must believe that.”
Annabel nodded but didn’t respond.
“Sometimes I worried that you might think we were having an affair. I was so scared of you when we first met.”
Annabel glanced up, surprised. “No, no,” she began, but stopped herself. “Well, all right. Yes. The thought did cross my mind. But not because of anything you did. It’s just hard—maybe one day you’ll understand this—to see your husband work with someone who is beautiful, and younger—”
“I understand.”
“Matthew said you were in a relationship with someone, though.”
“I am. A lawyer in Luxembourg. We met through Swiss United, actually. He is the love of my life.”
“Matthew told me he’s married.”
Zoe’s face crumpled. Annabel filled with regret. “I’m sorry,” she said, placing a hand on Zoe’s. “I don’t know why I said that. It doesn’t matter.”
“He’s separated. He was before I met him.”
“Really, it doesn’t matter.”
“He hates the work we do, too. We both want to get out of it, to get away from this whole world. I was tempted by the money at first, but now I can’t stand money. It makes people do terrible things. It makes people terrible people.”
“And you think Matthew was the same? That he wanted out?”
Zoe nodded. “Sometimes I’d find him at the office late at night, after he had told me to go home. He would shut his door, pretend he hadn’t seen me. And he was always using this laptop, even at his desk. He was working on something. I think he was gathering evidence for Agent Morse.”
“So why don’t you contact Agent Morse? Give this laptop to him?”
“Because I don’t want to end up like Matthew.”
Annabel inhaled sharply. “Where will you go?”
Zoe didn’t answer. “Annabel, you need to leave, too. It’s dangerous for us both here. If the bank thinks either of us knows anything, I promise you, they will kill us.”
“What do I do?”
“Someone from the bank will come looking for Matthew’s laptop. Give it to them. Pretend you know nothing, you heard nothing, you saw nothing. Make them believe that you are not a risk. You don’t need to be involved in this. Matthew didn’t want you to be involved. Go to New York and never look back.”
“And you?”
“I’ll take care of myself. But do me a favor. If anyone asks about me, tell them we spoke after the funeral. Tell them that my mother is sick, and I was returning home to France to care for her. Hopefully they won’t come looking for me. If they do . . . well, I can’t think about that.”
“All right. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they know. You can trust me.”
“I should go.”
They both stood and embraced.
“Zoe, are you sure you’ll be safe?” Annabel said, as they headed toward the door.
Zoe stopped and gave Annabel a wan smile. “No,” she said. “I’m not sure I will ever be safe. You, either. So take care of yourself, Annabel. We both have powerful enemies now.”
Annabel lingered at the door, reluctant to let Zoe go. But Zoe needed to leave Geneva, and the sooner, the better. She had taken a risk by coming here, Annabel knew, and she was grateful for it. Before tonight, Annabel felt as though she was staring at a large jumble of puzzle pieces, none of which fit together.
After Zoe left, Annabel went out onto the veranda. She peered out over the balcony at the street below. She saw Zoe emerge from the building’s lobby and hurry down the block. She was dressed all in black, and her slender form was barely visible as it slipped in and out of the shadows.
Zoe darted across the street and then alighted into a dark SUV parked just at the corner. A moment later, its headlights went on and it pulled away from the curb. Annabel was about to turn away, when she noticed the lights of a second car, a hundred meters back, turn on its lights and pull into the street. She watched as it followed the SUV, creeping slowly down the emptied street like a predator stalking its prey.