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SING SING CORRECTIONAL Facility squatted uncomfortably on the east bank of the Hudson River about an hour's drive north of New York City. Nate parked in the visitor lot, dread settling in his stomach as he looked up at the guard towers overhead and imagined the rifles perched there. He took his driver's license and his keys. He'd left his wallet with Marisa at the Dunkin' Donuts a few miles away, where she waited with Garrison. He wasn't sure why they'd both insisted on making the trip. Marisa he could understand. As she'd explained to him rather loudly that morning, it was her daughter and her sister in danger. But Garrison?
Nate stepped out of Brady's blue pickup and surveyed the view of the Hudson River. The sun reflected off it, making the gunmetal gray waters shimmer. He turned back to the prison. Amazing the difference a hundred-eighty degrees could make. All concrete and barbed wire.
After the rigmarole of getting checked in and searched, Nate left his ID, his keys, and his hope with the guard. When the door closing him off from the free world slammed behind him, he had the sudden urge to turn and bang on it, beg them to let him out. The terrible fear rose in his stomach until his entire body trembled. He rubbed his wrists, felt the skin where ropes had once held him, fought the urge to scream. Finally, the next door clicked open, and he walked into a metal and concrete hell.
He was led to the visiting area, an overlarge room where he chose a table near the door and sat with his back to the wall. There were a lot of tables, which he figured were crammed on the weekends, considering Sing Sing's two thousand prisoners. Just a few other prisoners and visitors were there today, far from where Nate sat. The room wasn't bad, all things considered. No discernible scent apart from cleaning solution and coffee. Vending machines stood along one wall, and trash cans were scattered throughout. Though Nate didn't go to get a closer look, it seemed there were toys and playthings in one corner for children who visited.
Who would bring a child there? And what would it be like to visit your father in a place like this? To visit his own dad, the town lawyer and solid citizen? He couldn't comprehend such madness. Even though his mother had died when he was a teen, he'd still been dealt a good hand where his family was concerned.
Nate had visited a prison before—a minimum security federal institution that housed mostly white-collar criminals. That had been Nate's beat—financial markets, mortgage fraud, and SEC violations. This was so far out of his league, he felt like a little leaguer at Fenway Park.
Sing Sing had opened back in the early eighteen-hundreds, and though much of it had been updated and remodeled, there was still an air about the place, like it had known every kind of evil in its nearly two hundred years, and it wasn't impressed.
The door opened, and Charles Gray walked in. Nate had never met him, but he'd seen photographs of the man who'd once been a force on Wall Street, welcomed in the finest clubs. He'd been silver-haired and distinguished before. After nearly eight years in a maximum security prison, he was barely recognizable.
Charles scanned the room until his eyes rested on Nate, the only visitor without a prisoner. He shuffled toward him and stopped at the table. "You're the reporter, right?"
Nate stood and held out his hand. "Nate Boyle."
Charles shook his hand and sat, back straight, eyes piercing through his black-rimmed glasses. He exuded confidence, but the years in prison hadn't been good to him. Gray was no longer just his last name. The man's skin matched his hair as if one had seeped into the other. He looked far older than his sixty years, and for a moment Nate wondered if the prisoner needed a doctor.
"Bad ticker," Gray said, as if he'd read his mind. "And being surrounded by these people doesn't help."
"I can imagine. Are the doctors taking care of you?"
"They keep me alive. If I die in here, there's a mountain of paperwork."
"Good to know they care."
Charles nearly smiled, but it faded fast. "What can I do for you, Mr. Boyle?"
"Nate, please." Not that he wanted to make friends with this guy, but he did need his help, and he had nothing to offer in return. "I have a problem."
"Don't we all?"
"You remember Marisa Vega?"
Charles hunched slightly, as if a weight suddenly rested on his upper back. "Is she okay?"
Nate's question faltered on his lips. Was that genuine concern? "Last I heard, you wanted her dead."
"No." His head shook, seemed to shake his whole body, and Nate worried something was wrong. He was about to call the guard when Charles let out a strangled sob. "No. I never meant..."
Nate waited until the man regained control. After a moment, Charles continued.
"I never meant for any of it to happen. It was just... It seemed like such an easy way to make money. It didn't hurt anybody. At least, I didn't realize people were getting hurt. We were helping people get into houses."
"Which they couldn't afford."
"I know, I know. And when it all went sideways, most of those people lost everything. I didn't... Who knew the housing market was going to implode?"
"Some say you and people like you caused it."
"Maybe we did. We just wanted to make money."
Nate nodded but kept his mouth shut.
"I didn't pay William Buckley to kill Vinnie. I just wanted him to scare him, that's all. I never would have hurt that girl."
"Like every other guy in here, you're innocent?"
Charles's shoulders hunched even more. "I'm as guilty as any of these guys. It took me a couple years in here to realize that. At first, I was angry at the injustice of it all. But I got to thinking about Vinnie. He was a nice kid. Young and enthusiastic. And smart. You have no idea how smart that kid was. He hadn't had a lot of opportunities, not like I had. He was the third son of a single mother, went to college on a needs-based scholarship. But he made it worth something. Straight A's. I hired him right out of college.
"Vinnie saw me as a father-figure. Truth is, I wasn't a very good dad to my own kids, especially Richard. By the time he was a teen, I was... Well, I was busy with other stuff. And his mother was no better. And Richard... He wasn't like John and Andrew. They were like me, you know? Ivy League attitudes and brains. But Richard, I never knew how to connect with him. And he never seemed to like me very much. I love him. Love all my kids, though I never see them."
"They don't visit?"
He looked around. "Would you want to visit this place?" After a minute he said, "Doesn't matter. They have their own lives."
He looked down, seemed to slump a little more. "Doesn't matter."
Nate prompted, "But Vinnie...?"
Charles looked up. "I loved Vinnie. I taught him the business and helped him succeed. I never should have gotten him involved in the other stuff. Because Vinnie would have done anything I asked of him. He was desperate for somebody to tell him he mattered."
Charles wiped a tear. "He did matter. He trusted me, and I betrayed him."
"He was about to betray you."
"My fault," Charles said.
Of all scenarios Nate had prepared for on his drive down that morning, this one had never crossed his mind. "Did you have some sort of religious experience in here?"
Charles nodded. "You could say that, yeah. I can never undo what I did, but I'm sorry for it. I wish I could tell the girl that. I ruined a lot of lives, but what I did to Vinnie, to her—that still plagues me."
Nate wasn't sure if Charles was sincere or just a great actor. "If that's true, I might be able to help you get some redemption."
"Only God can offer redemption, but I'll do whatever I can."
It was unsettling how much the murdering felon suddenly sounded like Nate's father and step-mom. "After Marisa fled for her life, she ended up working in an orphanage in...a foreign country. A baby girl was left there, and Marisa fell in love. She adopted the girl."
"Good for her."
"That was four years ago. She stayed hidden and made a life for herself there. Three days ago, that little girl was kidnapped, along with Marisa's sister."
"Leslie?"
Charles remembered the cleaning lady's name? After everything that had happened? Nate made a note of that. "Leslie and Ana were snatched from a shopping center, and Marisa was given an ultimatum. Return the money stolen from you"—Nate nodded to Charles—"or her daughter and sister die."
Charles leaned forward. "Why doesn't she just return the money? Surely she hasn't spent it all. Unless she was living like a princess—"
"She doesn't have it."
"Bad investments?"
"Charles, she didn't steal your money."
He blinked, tilted his head to the side. "Of course she did. Nobody else could have done it."
"I'm here because I hoped you'd have some idea of who else might've stolen it."
Charles opened his mouth, snapped it shut. "But, if she didn't steal it, why did she run?"
"Weren't you going to kill her?"
"I just wanted my money back."
"She didn't steal your money."
"But nobody else—"
"We're talking in circles, Charles. It's irrelevant what you thought."
"Cops thought it, too."
"They were wrong. Marisa didn't take your money. She ran because she was afraid for her life, and because the feds thought she was guilty. She ran because she felt she had no other options. Frankly, I agreed with her on that."
"You helped her?"
"Just kept her hidden until she could make a plan. And gave her some traveling money."
Charles cleared his throat. "You're sure she doesn't have it?"
"They took her daughter. Don't you think she'd give them the money to get the girl back?"
"Maybe she likes the money—"
"I saw where she's been living. Trust me, she doesn't have it."
He took a long breath. "What do you want from me?"
"How did you find out Vinnie was planning to cooperate with the FBI?"
Charles's gaze settled on the wall behind Nate. "I guess it doesn't matter now. I was careful to keep quiet before, because she begged me, but..."
Nate waited, fairly certain what he was about to hear.
"Leslie told me she'd overheard Vinnie telling his girlfriend about the stuff he'd been doing, the system we'd been working."
"Leslie knew about the fraud?" Nate clarified.
Charles shook his head. "No details. I think Leslie just... G&K was her first sizable contract, and she wanted to keep in my good graces. And I think she didn't want her sister to marry Vinnie, though I always believed they made a good match, and Marisa was loyal to him."
Nate's next words faltered as he considered that phrase. "What do you mean, Marisa was loyal?"
Charles shifted in the chair, focus downward. "Just that there were a lot of guys up there who'd have, you know, liked to get to know Marisa better. She's, you know." He looked back up. "She's gorgeous. Guys with a lot of money and influence made her a lot of offers. But she never strayed from Vinnie."
The information didn't surprise Nate. "Leslie told you Vinnie was considering going to the FBI?"
"She didn't know for sure. She said she overheard him say something about the FBI, but she didn't know exactly what he'd said. Anyway, I—"
"Just a second." Nate needed to process that. Maybe Leslie had had a bigger role to play in what had happened eight years earlier than Nate and Marisa had ever comprehended. "Sorry. Go on."
"Everything okay?"
Nate nodded. "You thought Vinnie was considering going to the FBI—"
"I wasn't sure what Leslie had heard, but the FBI's involvement—that scared me. On the other hand, Vinnie had always been loyal to me. I wasn't sure I even believed her. I figured he'd just confessed what he'd been doing to his girlfriend. That's what I'd hoped, anyway." Charles took off his glasses and cleaned them on his drab shirt.
He kept his gaze downward when he continued. "I hired Buckley to scare him into keeping quiet. He wasn't supposed to kill him."
"That's not what Buck says."
Charles looked up, met Nate's eyes. "He got a reduced sentence for turning against me. But he knows." Charles nodded and looked at the wall. "He knows."
"You have no idea who else could have stolen the money."
"I didn't tell anybody. I figured I could keep it quiet, protect Vinnie—"
"Protect him?"
"From Anderson."
"Russell Anderson?"
"Right. He'd taken over the operation at that point. Another smart guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but unlike Vinnie, Anderson hadn't always kept his nose clean. He'd been in some scrapes as a young guy. He was a little rough around the edges and still had contacts with... He's the one who introduced me to Buck."
"You told him Vinnie had confessed?"
"No, no. Just that I needed someone to do me an unpleasant favor. I gave him the impression it was a family matter. I didn't want Anderson anywhere near this. I didn't know what he'd do. I was trying to protect Vinnie."
Protect him? That seemed a stretch, considering Vinnie ended up dead.
"But maybe Buck told Anderson who he was really after," Nate said. "Maybe Anderson convinced Buck to kill him. Or, after the fact when Vinnie turned up dead, maybe Anderson put two-and-two together. Maybe Anderson's got the money."
Charles seemed to consider that. "I never have figured out how Marisa"—he nodded toward Nate, possibly in deference to Nate's opinion—"or whoever it was got access to my personal account. The business account, maybe. But mine? Made no sense."
"But somebody did. Anderson had access to the building, and he might've known something was going on."
Charles shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know anymore."
Okay, so maybe Anderson knew more than Charles gave him credit for. It was something.
"Your wife," Nate said. "She had had access to your bank account, right?"
"But why would she steal from me?"
"You still married to her?"
Charles's smile was sad. "She divorced me when I was convicted. Said she couldn't fathom visiting a place like this. I don't blame her. This isn't what she signed up for."
So much for for better or for worse.
"Maybe she got wind something was happening at your firm, and she took the money to safeguard it."
"My money, maybe. But the firm's? Why would she destroy the very company that financed her lifestyle?"
"If she knew what was going on—"
"She didn't."
"You didn't confide in her."
Charles looked at the table. When he looked back up, his eyes were sadder. "I was not a good husband. There were a lot of other women. My wife and I hadn't been close in a long time."
"Maybe she figured out about the other women—"
"She always knew," Charles said. "Didn't seem to care, as long as the money kept coming in."
"Let me just confirm. The kidnappers are asking for two million. Is that what was in your personal account?"
He looked toward the ceiling, paused a moment, and met Nate's eyes. "You have to understand, I knew something was up. I was planning to transfer it offshore first thing the next morning, try to shield it. So I gathered as much as I could, to protect it. Yes, it was about two million."
"But if your wife took the money in your personal account—and everything in the business's—she wouldn't need you anymore."
"Wasn't just the money. Being associated with me made her part of the top echelon of New York society."
"Not after you were arrested."
"But she can't have known that was going down."
"Okay." Nate made a mental note to check out Charles's ex-wife. "These other women... Did you confide in any of them?"
"Not everything, but I was pretty serious with a woman at the time. I was in love with her." He rolled his eyes. Nate wasn't sure if Charles considered himself a fool for falling for this woman, or if he thought love itself was foolish. "I was trying to figure out how to extricate myself from my marriage without making an enemy of my wife. Jessica was far too young for me, but she cared for me."
"Jessica what?"
Charles paused, seemed to weigh the pros and cons of answer. "English. Jessica English."
"You no longer believe she cared for you?"
"The fact that she's never come to visit tells me something."
"This is a pretty scary place, Charles. Maybe she's afraid. Maybe she has no idea how to handle it."
"She never answered when I called, either."
"Oh." How could Nate actually feel sorry for this guy? "Did she know what you were up to?"
"I told her a little bit. It's been a long time, though. I don't remember exactly how much."
"Do you think she might've had something to do with the money being stolen?"
Charles was shaking his head before Nate finished the question. "She'd never set foot in G&K's offices. She wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to go about something like that."
"Maybe she met somebody who did."
"I told her I was worried about Vinnie, but she didn't know there was anything illegal going on. I can't see how she could have been involved in any of it."
Nate wasn't convinced, but he didn't argue with the guy. He stood. "Thank you for your time. If I have any more questions, is it okay if I come back?"
Charles stood, too, and shook his hand. "Anytime. Not like I have anything better to do. You're in contact with Marisa Vega?"
Nate nodded.
"Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her... I know it's nothing, but I'm sorry for all I did to her. I wish I could do more to help."
Strangest thing was, Nate believed him.
* * *
NATE STEPPED INTO THE Dunkin' Donuts to see Marisa and Garrison huddled together on a bench with their backs to the window. Two half-empty cups sat on the table in front of them. They watched something on Garrison's cell phone and laughed.
The sight of her laughing warmed him.
She looked up and smiled.
He crossed the room. "What's so funny?"
"Could you hear us from there?" She nudged Garrison in the shoulder, and he moved to the chair across from her. "Garrison was showing me some funny videos."
Garrison lifted his smartphone. "We have access to all the information known to man on these phones..."
"And we use them to watch cat videos." Marisa laughed, and Garrison joined her.
Nate chuckled with them. "Did you two eat?"
"A while ago," Garrison said. "Grab something, and you can tell us how it went."
He ordered a bagel sandwich and returned to the table, where he slid into the booth beside Marisa.
"Well?" she prompted.
"A few possibilities. First, Charles wanted me to tell you how sorry he is." He relayed Charles's insistence that he'd never wanted Vinnie to die, and that he'd never had any intention of hurting her. "He just wanted his money back and thought you had it."
"Right," Garrison said. "Every guy in Sing Sing is innocent."
Between bites of his sandwich, Nate flipped through his notebook. He'd written down everything he could remember from the conversation as soon as he'd gotten to his truck. Now, he detailed the information Charles had given him. He left out the part about Leslie. Marisa knew, but Nate had a niggling idea that there was more to the story than they'd uncovered yet. He needed more information before he shared that. He'd tell Garrison in private later, see what the cop thought.
When he'd finished the report and his lunch, he said, "I think we should go see Anderson." He looked at Garrison. "You said you know where he works?"
Garrison took his thick file from the chair beside him. "I have it in here somewhere. But I don't think he stole the money."
"But if we can figure out who kidnapped Leslie and Ana," Marisa said, "maybe we can find them."
Her expression looked hopeful. Nate nodded. Whatever it took to keep that look on her face.
"It's been three days," Marisa said. "Why haven't they called back?"
Nate glanced at Garrison, who was still flipping through his file. "It's a good question."
"Maybe something terrible has happened." Her expression faded back to the look of terror she'd worn so often since the kidnapping.
Nate scooted closer and took her hand. "There's no reason to believe that."
"But why wouldn't they call back?"
Garrison looked up from his file. "They gave you a week."
"Still..."
Garrison nodded slowly. "Nobody knew you'd adopted Ana until Nate and Leslie got to Mexico, right?"
"She didn't tell us until we got there," Nate said.
Garrison looked back at Marisa. "So let's say these guys followed Nate and Leslie to Acapulco. I'm not sure how that happened, but it seems it did. Otherwise, they wouldn't know about your daughter. They see the girl, they see their opportunity, and they come up with a plan. They snatch Leslie and Ana. Then they call you and say they'll be in the States."
"Why wouldn't they just take me?" Marisa asked. "Ana and Leslie are innocent."
Nate had no answer. He looked at Garrison, who shrugged. "Maybe they thought you'd need to be free to get to the money. Maybe they didn't want to take on Nate."
That answer didn't satisfy Nate, but he didn't have a better one. Marisa didn't look convinced, either.
"Why do you think they wanted to return to the States?"
Garrison shook his head. "Because they're idiots. If you're going to kidnap someone, Mexico is a far better place to do it. Happens there all the time. The authorities don't have nearly enough resources to follow up on every disappearance."
"Exactly," Marisa said. "So why?"
Garrison shrugged. "They're not very smart. They didn't feel comfortable there, so they wanted to come home. The guy on the phone was American, right?"
"Sounded like a New Yorker. But the guy who grabbed me was Mexican."
"Probably a hired gun. The guys in charge are American. Whoever they are, they're arrogant and think they won't get caught. In any event," Garrison continued, "they put their plan together on the fly. They can't have had forged papers before they snatched Leslie and Ana, because they'd need good photographs. Did Leslie have her passport on her?"
"No." Marisa looked at Nate to confirm, and he nodded. "We found it in her stuff at the hotel."
"If the kidnappers planned to fly out of Mexico, they'd need to have gotten papers to do it. That would take time."
"Good point," Nate said. "How long would that take?"
"Maybe their Mexican accomplice could have gotten them papers to fly out. But they couldn't guarantee that you wouldn't go straight to the cops." Garrison leveled a gaze at Nate. "Which you should have."
Marisa said, "But they told us—"
"I know what they told you. Still, that would have been the right play. Because if you had, the authorities would have looked for them at the borders. If they were coming back to the States, they had to leave from somewhere and go in somewhere else. All those somewheres are crawling with cops."
Good logic. Nate wished he'd thought of it.
"My guess," Garrison continued, "was that they didn't want to risk all that. They found another way into the country. Either they drove and smuggled Leslie and Ana through, or they headed to the Gulf and secured passage on a ship."
"That makes sense," Marisa said. "How long would that take?"
Garrison shrugged. "Days. If I were you, I wouldn't worry. They're probably still traveling."
Nate studied Garrison's expression. He couldn't tell if the guy really believed it, or if he'd just wanted to make Marisa feel better. Either way, she seemed relieved, which left Nate thankful for the FBI agent.
* * *
NATE AND GARRISON LEFT Marisa in the pickup a few streets over from the auto body shop where Russell Anderson worked. She'd argued that she wanted to go with them, but Nate adamantly refused to take her to visit the former G&K employee. Even if Anderson'd had nothing to do with the kidnapping or the stolen money, there was a good chance he blamed Marisa for what had become of his life. No point in subjecting her to that.
When Garrison took Nate's side, Marisa agreed to hang back.
After the first block, Garrison said, "What'd you leave out?"
"What do you mean?"
"There was something else you learned from Charles Gray, right? Something you didn't want to tell Marisa?"
Nate glanced at the man beside him. "How did you know?"
Garrison shrugged "Instinct, maybe."
Instinct indeed.
"Well?"
Nate told Garrison what Charles had said about Leslie.
"Marisa's theory is correct," Garrison said. "Leslie set the whole thing in motion."
"The question is, why?"
"Any guesses?"
He thought about the woman he'd spent so much time with. "Leslie's a bit of an enigma. She's rough around the edges, very argumentative. She admitted she'd always been jealous of her sister. But she seemed legitimately sorry for that now. I didn't get the impression that she'd want to hurt her, but then I didn't know her back then. Maybe she was trying to protect Marisa from Vinnie, from marrying someone involved in that kind of thing."
"Maybe," Garrison said. "But why not tell the truth when the FBI stepped in? Like I said to Marisa, it would have helped us a lot if we'd known."
"It's possible she was afraid Marisa wouldn't forgive her. Even if it had been inadvertent, she got Vinnie killed."
"You believe that?"
Nate couldn't seem to force words past the niggling suspicion in his gut.
"It's possible."
Garrison didn't sound convinced, and Nate wasn't either. Leslie might have helped clear her sister's name, if she'd been honest. She hadn't done anything illegal, and surely putting up with her sister's anger would have been better than never seeing her again. Even if she hadn't come forward at first, when suspicion turned to Marisa, Leslie could have given the cops more information, kept her sister out of their crosshairs. But she hadn't. Nate couldn't help but think they were missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Nate waited for the former FBI guy to at least hazard another guess. Instead, Garrison remained silent for the rest of their walk.
The body shop wasn't far from the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Hell's Kitchen was like a plumber at a cocktail party. Manhattan might need its goods and services, but she hoped her guests wouldn't get a glimpse of the crack in their sophisticated facade. Although they were just a handful of city blocks from the New York Times building and Times Square, this corner might have been in a different city all together. A warehouse on one side, a couple of unmarked brick buildings on the other, and in front of a backdrop of skyscrapers, a one-story brick building with a blue-and-white sign above that read Acme Auto Body.
"Whenever I hear the word Acme," Garrison said, "I think of Wile E. Coyote."
Nate could picture the coyote beside an Acme invention—and the explosion that often followed. "Not the image you want of the place fixing your car."
"No kidding." Garrison stopped in front of the door. "Look, let me do the talking, okay?"
"Why?"
"Like you said, I have an instinct for people."
"You said that. I think you just got lucky. And I have an instinct, too. I interview people for a living."
"I've been collaring criminals for nearly twenty years. Trust me, okay?"
Nate started to argue, but this wasn't a competition. "Fine. What's your strategy?"
"Ask a bunch of questions, hope for the best."
Some strategy.
They pushed through the door of the Acme Auto Body.
Nate was surprised at the interior. He'd expected to see a bunch of bays with cars suspended in midair. Instead, they stepped into a nice lobby area with upholstered chairs and magazines on the tables. Two men sat in the chairs, both wearing business clothes. One was typing on a laptop, the other scrolling on his phone. A faint scent of paint mingled with air freshener coming from one of those plug-in things on the wall between the two men. A receptionist looked up from her desk behind a glass-fronted partition.
"Can I help you?"
Garrison stepped forward. "Looking for Russell Anderson."
"Sure thing." She picked up a phone, spoke into it, and hung up. "He'll be out in a sec. Have a seat. You need something to drink? There's coffee in the corner and sodas in the mini fridge."
"Great. Thanks."
Garrison chose a water bottle out of the fridge. "Want something?"
Nate sat in one of the chairs. "I'm good."
Garrison unscrewed his water and sipped it. He'd barely gotten it re-screwed when a man opened the door that separated the lobby from the area beyond. He wore a pair of khakis and a blue golf shirt. His hair was neat and cut short, and his face was clean-shaven. Nate had assumed the guy worked on cars. Obviously not. The man stepped out and looked around. His gaze landed on Garrison.
Garrison stood. "Russell Anderson. You remember me?"
"Unfortunately."
Nate stood. "I'm Nate Boyle."
"We'd like a few minutes of your time." Garrison stepped toward the man. "It won't take long at all."
Anderson looked at the other men in the waiting area, who were watching the exchange. "Fine. Come on back." He turned and led the way.
Through the door, the scene changed. The left-hand side of the long hallway was lined with windows showing men working on cars in various states of disrepair. The scent of paint and the sounds of pounding and drilling and shouting drifted through the glass. On the right, past the receptionist's office, Anderson stepped into a small, cluttered room that held a big wooden desk. He sat in a leather chair on the far side. Garrison took the chair that faced the desk. With no other seats, Nate closed the door behind them and leaned against it.
"Whatever it is you think I did," Anderson said, "you're wrong."
"That's what I hear," Garrison said. "And you should know, I'm no longer with the FBI."
"Oh. What's this about?"
"Marisa Vega."
Anderson's perplexed expression turned to a scowl. "What about her? They find her yet?"
"Somebody found her," Garrison said. "Any idea who it might have been?"
"How would I know?"
Garrison didn't answer. Instead, he took in the windowless office. Posters of muscle cars had been tacked to the walls. A few awards Nate couldn't read hung behind Anderson's head. Files were stacked on the desk, and a black computer monitor sat on the far corner, angled toward the chair.
"What is it you do here?" Garrison asked.
"I'm the manager. I keep the books, make sure the customers are getting what they want, and deal with the employees."
"That must be a challenge," Garrison said.
"They're good guys. The ones who aren't don't last very long."
Garrison nodded. "Far cry from Wall Street."
"What's going on here? What do you think I did?"
"Nothing." Garrison settled his long frame back in his chair, which creaked. "Ever talk to any of your old friends?"
"You mean from G&K?"
Garrison shrugged.
"You think they want me around? I'm a felon."
"You're doing okay, though."
Anderson looked beyond Garrison for a moment. "There was a guy who worked in the same building as me back then, a stockbroker a few floors down from G&K. We used to get drinks together, hit on women. Played golf a few times. We were friends. He brought his car in a couple months ago. A BMW or some such thing. He looked right at me and acted like he'd never seen me before."
"That must've made you mad," Garrison said.
"What are you, my therapist? Yeah, I was mad. But geez.” He slowed his speech as if talking to a dimwit. "I'm a felon. I wouldn't want to be friends with me, either."
"So nobody else?"
"I don't keep in contact with any of them. Charles is in prison. Vinnie...well, you know what happened to Vinnie. Burns got off with a slap on the wrist. He's still working on Wall Street. I haven't tried to contact him."
"Lot of people lost their jobs. You don't hear from any of them?"
Anderson seemed about to snap. He blew out a long breath. "I don't see anybody. I don't want to. Look, I've got a life now, okay? My wife left me, and I was pretty ticked off for a long time. Now, I've got a good job. I help people with their taxes on the side for extra money. I bought a place in New Jersey. I got a woman who lives with me. My daughter comes over on weekends. We're doing good."
"Glad to hear it," Garrison said.
"I never belonged on Wall Street. I think Charles brought me on because he knew about the trouble I'd gotten into as a kid. Figured I had...questionable morals."
"And he was right."
"That's in the past."
A cell phone rang. Garrison reached into his pocket and pulled his out. He swore and stood. "I have to take this."
"Go ahead," Nate said.
Garrison passed him on his way out. Nate slid into the chair and pulled out his notebook.
Anderson seemed to relax when Garrison was gone. "What's going on?"
"Marisa Vega."
"So he said. What about her? They find her?"
"They who?"
"Whoever. The feds. Weren't they looking for her?"
"Why would they be?"
"'Cause of the money, of course." He threw up his hands. "She stole millions of dollars."
"Why are you so sure Marisa did it?"
"She disappeared, didn't she?"
"She thought your friend Buck was going to kill her, like he killed Vinnie."
Anderson narrowed his eyes. "What's this about?"
"Did you know Buck was going after Vinnie?"
Anderson lifted his hands, palms out. "I knew nothing about that. Charles said he needed a guy to do him a favor. He told me his kid was getting in with the wrong crowd."
"You believed that?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Buck was your friend. He didn't tell you the truth?"
Anderson stood abruptly, and his wheeled chair hit the wall behind him. "This is... Buck was not my friend. He was a guy I knew, that's all. A guy from my neighborhood."
"He never told you who his target was?"
"I went over all this before. I never talked to Buck. I just gave Charles his number. That's it."
Nate settled deeper in the chair. The way the office was configured, there was no way Anderson could get out without passing Nate, who purposely took up a lot of space, unless Anderson wanted to climb over his desk like a gorilla. "And you had no idea Vinnie was talking to the feds."
"Not a clue." Anderson looked at the door, glared at Nate, and sat back down. "Don't you think if I knew, I'd have sheltered some of my money? The feds confiscated everything. If I'd known, I would have emptied my accounts, stuck my money overseas like Charles did."
"So you think Charles took the money?"
"That's not what I meant. But he has other money, accounts the feds never found. You should see how his wife still lives. Obviously, there was more money."
"His wife's living large?"
"Like nothing changed."
Nate made a note of that. "Why do you think it was Marisa who stole the money?"
"Who else? She knew what was going on. She knew the feds were coming. She was ticked her boyfriend got killed. And I don't blame her. Except why not just steal Charles's money? Why destroy the whole business? Why make it so everybody loses their jobs?"
"One thing I don't understand," Nate said. "Marisa was just the cleaning lady. I can see how she might have been able to dig through paperwork, get access to the business accounts. But how do people figure she stole Charles's money, too?"
"You don't get it? That's the easiest part of all. Obviously, she was sleeping with him."
"As in...you mean Vinnie right? But how would he—?"
"Charles."
The very thought of Marisa with that gray man. Nate couldn't imagine. "You think Marisa and Charles—?"
"Obviously. How else would she have gotten the money?"
"You assume they were sleeping together because she stole the money. And you assume she stole the money because they were sleeping together. And at the same time, you assume she stole the money because she was mad her fiancé was killed, all while she was sleeping with his boss, the guy who had him killed. That doesn't make sense."
"Why, because you can't screw one person and love another?" He looked at Nate like he felt sorry for him.
"You don't have any other evidence for this supposed affair between Charles and Marisa? Because Charles told me the name of his mistress."
"Jessica English. Yeah, everybody knew about her. She shot her mouth off all over town about her relationship with Charles. But you have to understand Charles... I don't want to say anything bad about the guy. I mean, I hate that we got caught, but I was right there with him. I don't blame him for what happened. Not anymore. But the guy was like a horny rabbit. He cheated on his wife, cheated on his mistresses, cheated on the girls he cheated with. Any willing woman, Charles was there. Call it an addiction if you want. I think he just liked sex."
Nate tried to put together the image of the man he'd met in prison with Anderson's information. Of course, when Charles was in his heyday, making boatloads of money and throwing it around like confetti, there'd probably been plenty of willing women.
But had Marisa been one of them?
"You don't believe it," Anderson said.
"I spent a lot of time with her. I never got that impression."
"Like she'd have told you. She was grieving her dead fiancé."
"The thing is, Marisa Vega didn't steal the money. So your theory is flawed."
"Not just my theory. Everybody assumed she was screwing him."
Nate's temper was rising like the tide. He needed it to roll back. "Let's just assume everybody was wrong. Because Marisa didn't steal the money. But somebody thinks she did. That somebody kidnapped her four-year-old daughter. Now she has to figure out who took it, or the kidnappers are going to kill her child."
Anderson's jaw dropped. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. “It's never going to be over, is it?"
"Any other bright ideas?"
He opened his eyes and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I have no idea. Is Marisa around, then?"
"She's hiding."
"You're sure she didn't take the money."
"Positive. And Garrison Kopp agrees. The feds stopped looking at her a long time ago."
Anderson swallowed. "Man, I had no idea. I wish I could help, I really do. My daughter's a lot older than that, but... Sheesh, four years old. Who would do that?"
Nate wondered the same thing. He stood, and Anderson did, too. "If I have any more questions, do you mind if I come back?"
Anderson handed him a business card. "Just call, if you want. I'm happy to help. Even if Marisa did steal the money, nobody deserves to have their kid snatched."
Nate was halfway to the door when Anderson said, "You know what I never understood?"
Nate turned. "What's that?"
"The money was stolen from two accounts and sent to two different accounts. I always figured maybe the person was hedging his bets—maybe the feds would get to one, but he'd always have the other, too. But maybe... Maybe two different people did it."