"Ready?"
He was asking her, and Myka, realizing that she should be asking him, could only wearily nod. The smirk that had been on his face when she had last seen him was on it now. Maybe it had never left. Maybe he had sat in his cell or laid in his bed and imagined how he would use this call, this "favor" he had called it when the guard ushered him into the room, against her. If she had had another option of discovering whether Joshua Donovan was the link between the missing guns and the missing drugs from the Burdette deals gone bad and the whack-a-mole going on with Burdette's offshore holding companies, she would have taken it. Jumped at it. But there had been so little to work with: the spreadsheet and chart, Mark Winslow's claim that it wasn't just Helena from the old Wells gang who was working for the feds, Sam's self-righteous admission that Donovan was an informant (because who could trust Helena Wells), and the sole cross-reference between the files the FBI had on Burdette and DeWitt, the Banque de Commerce. She couldn't say now what had made her review every single piece of paper they had collected on DeWitt, thinking, hoping, almost praying that there was a connection. Only a few days had passed since she had followed that crazy flier of an idea, but she couldn't retrace its genesis. If she were Pete, she would attribute it to the workings of her gut and leave it at that. Who knows what goes on in the little minds of all those bacteria in there, Mykes? But once again she had to acknowledge – with envy – that she wasn't Pete.
It was as if, confronted with the horrifying possibility that Joshua Donovan was orchestrating the outcome of the Burdette investigation, she had simply conjured up a solution since no viable one existed. A nightmarish situation deserved no better than a nightmarish resolution, and Bryce DeWitt was it. She was gambling her career, Helena's freedom, and Christina's happiness on the willingness, not to mention the ability, of a con artist to manipulate an employee of an overseas bank, well-schooled in evading the legal and taxation authority of numberless countries, into revealing confidential client information. Even if her suspicions were confirmed, that Donovan was messing around with his employer's assets, she had what was a more insurmountable task, convincing someone to help her stop him. Not just any someone, a someone with Donovan's technical skills and a motivation for taking him one. There weren't many people who met those requirements; Myka could think of only one, Donovan's little sister, Claudia. She had been lucky, extremely lucky, that she had been able to use Claudia's residual guilt about Helena and her affection for both Christina and Irene Frederic to browbeat her into digging up information on Mark Winslow. She wouldn't be so lucky again. Without Claudia, who did she have? Fargo? That was ludicrous. Parker? He might be good enough to challenge Donovan – he had managed to penetrate Claudia's systems – but Parker would be hesitant to act outside the Bureau's chain of command. He would want everything authorized, twice over.
Myka could sympathize with that point of view. She had once held it, maybe she still did. It was confusing. She was sitting on the location of artworks that had been missing for over 20 years and representing one of the Bureau's oldest open cases. A few months ago she wouldn't have been able to imagine not trumpeting the discovery to the Bureau at large, but she couldn't shake the feeling that keeping the location of the stolen Bowdoin art was important. "Feeling" was the wrong word. "Feeling" didn't keep her ass in her chair and her thundering heart in her chest every time she had the impulse to tell Pete. Or Helena. On the other hand, the same "feeling" had led her to reach out to DeWitt when she saw the tiniest link between him, Joshua Donovan, and Burdette. It both drove her and soldered her mouth shut, leaving her no one to confide in, not even Leena, who, having set everything in motion by doing the inexcusable – pairing her with Helena again – might have gone along with this insanity. So here she was, having gone entirely rogue as DeWitt already knew, sitting across from him and encouraging him to run a con. For her.
Just in case her nod hadn't been confirmation enough, Myka said, "Ready."
They were sitting in a room used by the jail's staff and management. Its differences from the rooms in which she met with prisoners were both visible – better furniture, windows – and invisible, cell reception. DeWitt was wearing his jail uniform, but his posture in the chair across from hers was that of a CEO, not a man whose petitions for bail had been repeatedly denied. A guard was outside the door, but DeWitt wasn't going to run, not today. He was too curious about why she wanted confirmation of whether the two names she had given him, one the name of an LLC, the other Joshua Donovan, were connected. He was also too intent on using this favor he was granting her to his advantage, although he would be patient enough to wait for his opportunity to arrive. That knowledge and the possibility that what she was doing would get back to Pete had resulted in a sleepless night. Despite the hair that was in need of a trim and the stubble that was too pronounced to be fashionable, DeWitt was more put together this morning than she was, at least it was hard for her not to feel that way when he reached for the phone, a burner she had purchased, and said, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" with a feral grin. DeWitt was on the hunt, and Myka wasn't sure who was the prey, Oliver Duplessis, the Banque De Commerce employee, or her.
There had been the risk that calling cold like this, they would discover that Duplessis was sick, on vacation, or, worse, no longer working at the bank, but he answered after a nerve-shredding third ring. If he was surprised to hear DeWitt's voice, he didn't show it, saying with only mild inquiry, "Should I be talking to you, Bryce? Your law enforcement had us lock down your accounts. They said you've been very bad." He chuckled.
Myka couldn't place his accent. The last name was French, but the accent wasn't. German? Swedish? Polish? It was like watching those first episodes of Star Trek: Next Generation and listening to a character named Jean-Luc Picard speak with a Royal Shakespeare-trained British accent. Maybe the Banque de Commerce ensured that its staff spoke with a mélange of accents to provide the illusion to clients that they were talking to someone from home. "No one believes what the feds say anymore," DeWitt was saying breezily. "You read the American papers, don't you? Our president thinks that the FBI is worthless, and I can't disagree." He shot a malicious grin at Myka. "My attorneys and I plan to sue the Bureau out of existence – conspiracy, entrapment, the works. You'll see." His tone shifted, becoming warmer, more intimate. "The charges are nothing. They'll eventually be dropped, but I'm losing time, Oliver. I've heard rumors that some of my business partners, knowing that I'm temporarily at a disadvantage, are stealing from me, putting my assets in their names, transferring them to their own accounts. That's why I've called you. I need your help."
Duplessis's tone became incrementally cooler, still friendly, still helpful, but as if he had pushed himself away from his desk. "Your accounts here are locked, Bryce. Nothing's gone into them and nothing's gone out." Another chuckle, more wary than the first. "I can tell you have me on speaker."
"An accountant." DeWitt arched an eyebrow at Myka. "She's compiling the proof, showing me where and how I'm being betrayed. I'm going to be a very busy man once I'm free, visiting my old friends." An edge had entered his voice, and Myka wasn't convinced that it was assumed. "You, however," the edge disappeared under the onrush of even greater warmth, "have always treated me well, and I've appreciated it."
"You've been kind to me also," Duplessis returned only slightly less warmly.
"I tried to be kinder," DeWitt complained.
"Ah, but the rules, Bryce. A very strict code we have at the bank."
Strict, but not so strict, Myka thought sarcastically, that you won't hide money for criminals and tax dodgers the world over.
"You know what they say about rules," DeWitt responded. His tone changed again, becoming brisker and more business-like. "The matter I'm calling you about isn't related to any of my existing accounts at the bank. I'm trying to find out whether one of my business partners has set up an account for one of our . . . mutual endeavors. He was supposed to include me as a joint account owner, but I suspect he hasn't. He'll be sole owner."
Duplessis gently reminded him, "Our privacy rules prevent me from disclosing information about other clients."
"Then let's make it easy. Black Diamond Properties, LLC. Can you confirm if it's in your records at all?"
Myka was impressed by the variety of chuckles at Duplessis's disposal. This one was indulgent, if mildly exasperated. "Bryce, I can neither confirm nor deny."
"Oliver," DeWitt moaned in mock anguish, "I thought we had such a wonderful partnership. 'Black Diamond' sounded like the name of a cheap cologne, but Joshua insisted on it. He's a great salesman, but he has a tin ear for names. I went along with it because I wanted this arrangement to work . . . ." For the next five minutes, Myka listened as DeWitt invented a story out of whole cloth about Joshua Donovan and Black Diamond Properties, LLC, the two names she had given him, nothing more. The tale emphasized DeWitt's astute business instincts. "AirBnb, it's opened up the market for buying up rental properties that have been underperforming and turning them into vacation and business rentals. I saw the opportunity immediately and began snapping up poor performers. Why put a ton of money into a place and sell it when you can repaint, clean the carpets, and rent it out at what 70% of what a hotel room costs?" The tale also underscored his trusting, perhaps too trusting, nature. A man falsely charged, deserted by his friends, dependent on the competence of hired guns, who, although they had gotten him bail ("any reports you've heard to the contrary, Oliver, are absolutely, 100% incorrect") had yet to show they were up to the challenge of defeating a "corrupt judiciary and setting me free," and wholly reliant on the loyalty of his business partners. They had promised to look after his interests or "at least not screw me over," but, apparently, that had been too much to hope for.
"I'm very sorry, Bryce," Oliver said smoothly, with a sincerity nearly as polished as DeWitt's self-pity, "if I were the president of this bank . . . but I'm not. I'm only an employee who keeps his job by following the rules, no matter how maddening they might be."
DeWitt exhaled a long sigh of surrender. "I understand the awkward position you're in, but I had to try. No option left unexplored, right?" As Myka gave him a look of disbelief, he held up a warning hand. "We'll talk again soon, after this mess I'm in is straightened out, and we'll see what my situation looks like then." As Duplessis made relieved good-bye noises, DeWitt said, with a return rush of the warmth with which he had started their conversation, "Despite those strict rules you mentioned, I'm glad to know that you went to Vegas for a weekend, after all. I admit I was surprised, but, like the commercial says, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?"
Duplessis's voice was suddenly sharp. "I spent no weekend in Las Vegas, Bryce. I don't accept gifts from the bank's customers."
"But the casino sent me the bills, Oliver, the suite for you and your wife, the dinners, the shows. I didn't think a thing about them, I just paid them, happy that, after all the care and attention you've paid to me as a client, you finally took me up on my offer of a getaway weekend." DeWitt sounded confused, more at Duplessis's alarm than at the prospect that someone, using Duplessis's name, had taken advantage of his generosity.
His supposed generosity. DeWitt would never willingly foot any bill, including his own. Myka began to see the teeth of the trap as he accommodatingly went over the charges he had received in the names of Oliver and Trudi Duplessis. The personal information – address, phone numbers, credit card numbers – that DeWitt repeated as if he had the statements in front of him was Duplessis's information. At no point did Duplessis indicate that the information was false. "There're even private golf lessons. They weren't covered in the package, but you've mentioned how much you like to play, so I thought nothing of the charge," DeWitt explained earnestly.
"I wasn't there," Duplessis said, initially in disbelief, but as he kept repeating the denial, his voice became monotone.
"Sure looks like you on paper, though," DeWitt said, his sympathy receding. "No one has to know. I mean, of course, you'll want to find out who acquired all your personal information, but the trip, the suite at the Bellagio, the spa treatments, your bosses don't have to know about any of that. I know how to keep my mouth shut, Oliver."
All Duplessis had to do was demand that DeWitt send him copies of the statements, proof that he had accepted the gift. It was the thinnest and most insubstantial of cons, yet the silence between the two men grew heavier. Myka could almost see it coalesce, like the clouds on the leading edge of a stormfront. Finally Duplessis spoke, the words traveling on one long surrendering sigh. "What was the name of the company, again?"
"Black Diamond Properties, LLC," DeWitt said crisply, "and, Oliver, I'll need the names of the account owners, all of them."
"Just a moment."
Myka expected DeWitt to flash her a look of triumph, but he remained hunched over the phone. No savoring the kill until he had actually captured the prey, she supposed. She felt guilty and, worse, soiled. She didn't know anything about Oliver Duplessis except that she had conspired to blackmail him. A burr that might have been static was sharp and loud in the room, then Duplessis's voice cut through it, sounding tired and older than when the call had started. "The initial accountholders were Nate Burdette and Joshua Donovan. Now the only accountholder is Mr. Donovan." Hearing Burdette's name, DeWitt suddenly straightened in his chair and stared, with an unpleasantly surprised expression, at Myka. "Is this all you needed, Mr. DeWitt?" Duplessis asked.
Myka interjected smoothly, "If you could give us the current balance of the account, please?" As Duplessis relayed the amount, DeWitt continued to stare at her. She tried to ignore the malevolence in the stare. "Is that the account's usual balance?"
"No," Duplessis said, "there have been significant transfers out of the account in recent weeks."
"Would you be able to tell us where the money is going? Account numbers would be very helpful."
There was no response from Duplessis, and Myka feared she had pushed him for too much. When you had succeeded in persuading a suspect to confess, sometimes you were lucky and heard everything. Sometimes you weren't that lucky, and you had only minutes before that sweet spot, when information flowed like water, suddenly dried up. You had asked something that upset him or the consequences of the confession had become real to him, or maybe it was something that you were never able to figure out that had shut him down. The silence stretched and then Duplessis spoke, in a hurry, as if to get the information out before he could think better of it – the numbers of one, two, no, three accounts. "Not ours. I can't tell you anymore," Duplessis said. "Are we finished, Mr. DeWitt?"
When DeWitt didn't immediately respond, Duplessis asked, "Is this something you think we should inform Mr. Burdette about? Shall I or one of my colleagues contact him and let him know that you were inquiring about the account?" The needling was almost imperceptible, Duplessis's voice still sounding defeated, resigned, but Myka could hear it, pricking at DeWitt, the quick, safe jabbing of one who realized that he might, despite his surrender, score a tiny victory. "Mr. DeWitt," Duplessis repeated, "should I inform Mr. Burdette of your concern?"
"No, Oliver, I have what I need." DeWitt's eyes, after a momentary drop to the phone, refocused on Myka. "Informing Nate of our conversation is unnecessary."
"If you think Mr. Donovan is acting fraudulently," Duplessis persisted with exaggerated concern, "then we should inform Mr. Burdette."
"It's unnecessary," DeWitt said firmly, thumbing a button on the phone with force, cutting off Duplessis's "Mr. DeWitt –-." He spun the phone toward Myka in disgust. "I had that in my back pocket, that Vegas weekend, statements, receipts, everything. Even a thank-you from his personal email account. I groomed him for months, wormed every little bit of information out of him that I could. He had done something or someone had accused him of doing something, probably not at that bank, but elsewhere. I could smell it." His smile was twisted, sour. "And I used it for you. What did I get out of it? Him hanging Nate Burdette over my head. Know of Nate Burdette, sure, know him, no. I don't want to know him, and I really don't want him to know that I've been asking about him. Wouldn't matter to him that I was coerced into doing it." DeWitt shook his head. "You keep surprising me, Myka, and I can't say that about many people." As though she might have missed his meaning, he said softly, "I don't like being surprised. It's bad for business." He began to lean across the table but checked himself, throwing a cautious glance at the door.
Myka hadn't felt that she was in physical danger, but she also couldn't deny the spurt of relief she felt as DeWitt relaxed back into his chair. This room didn't have the security features of the rooms in which she had met with DeWitt before because a staff meeting didn't usually require restraints or guards. Although there was a guard outside the door, he couldn't guarantee her safety. She had accepted the risks of sitting alone with DeWitt, just as she had accepted the risk that DeWitt would refuse to make the call or fail to manipulate Duplessis or double cross her in some way she hadn't expected. Of course, he could still do the latter, might well do the latter, when his fears about Burdette subsided. But for right now they were stamped on his face and in his voice. "Don't come see me again, Myka. If I had known this was about Burdette . . . . You try to see me again, and I'll have my lawyer charge you with harassment or intimidation. Now get the fucking guard in here and get the hell out of my sight."
The view outside the window had been no distraction, clouds low and heavy with rain. It had been overcast during the call with Duplessis, and the meager success she had wrung out of endangering her career, not to mention her life – the fact that Joshua Donovan was the sole accountholder of a company that Burdette had set up and that most of the account's funds had been withdrawn—was no reason for the clouds to part and the sun to shine. She was still a very long way from proving that Donovan was engineering Burdette's recent spate of failed business transactions and, correspondingly, transferring Burdette's assets into his own accounts, but she had a clue, a key, something that someone more skilled than she was could use to discover whether Donovan, under the pretense of providing information on Burdette, was using his access to hollow out his boss's empire from within. She had what she needed for now, all but Claudia's willingness to help.
Myka felt the first drops of a cold rain begin to spatter her jacket, her hair. She hadn't brought an umbrella. If she didn't make a decision soon, she would be drenched and conflicted about what to do next. Making another personal appeal, if she could even get into Claudia's house without a battering ram and warrant, was sure to fail. To use Helena to work on Claudia would necessitate telling Helena of her suspicions about Donovan and about what she had just done with DeWitt. More than that, she would have to place all her faith on the belief that Helena wasn't colluding with Burdette to flee the country with him, her daughter, and a cache of millions. Myka wasn't sure she was ready to do it. Six months of seeing a more burdened Helena struggle with her remorse didn't outweigh the betrayal and the eight painful years that had followed it. Not yet. But she couldn't keep going it alone, she needed help. Sam, Pete, Steve, Leena, Helena – she couldn't turn to any of them.
The rain pelted her, but she didn't move, not until she heard an inner voice, too dry and ironic to be her own, telling her to have the common sense to get out of the rain. You took refuge where you could find it, and you didn't ask questions. Tried not to, anyway, but she was who she was. Myka didn't make the call until she was on the train, and as she had expected, there was neither surprise nor curiosity on the other end, only the assurance that a visit from Agent Bering was always welcome. If the voice offering the assurance had a blandness that invited doubt about how welcome her visits actually were, Myka chose not to hear it.
The rain had stopped by the time Myka arrived at Irene Frederic's house, but her navy jacket was black, her pants clung to her legs, and her hair – the less said about it the better. After taking her to the kitchen, Mrs. Frederic gave her a clean towel and pointed her to the bathroom off the hall. Once she was able to finger comb her hair into place, sort of, Myka let her nose lead her back to the kitchen, the aroma of coffee and the scent of something sweeter making her realize that she was hungry. She had been so wound up about the call to the Banque de Commerce she hadn't even tried to choke down a banana, her usual mix of exhaustion and nervous energy serving as her not-so-smooth morning smoothie. A mug and a plate of cookies were waiting for her on the island. The cookies were thick and had the graininess of stone-ground wheat, but Myka liked the texture and the honey that lightened the taste. Sweet but not too sweet.
"You're my guinea pig," Mrs. Frederic said, leaning against the opposite counter, her hand locked around a matching mug. "I tried out a recipe for 'digestive biscuits.' Claudia's having a difficult time keeping food down, and she says everything tastes like broccoli. These travel well, they're filling, and, most importantly, bland."
"They're good," Myka said truthfully, carefully brushing crumbs that had dropped on the island and her suit jacket onto the plate. The island's countertop was immaculate, like Mrs. Frederic, who was dressed impeccably, but improbably for baking, in patterned dark brown slacks and a mustard-colored cashmere sweater that matched the accent color of her slacks. The magic word, Claudia, had been spoken, but Myka couldn't make herself make the request of Mrs. Frederic. Remnants of the digestive biscuits had adhered to the roof of her mouth. She needed to wash them down with coffee before she begged a favor of this woman who had never ceased to unsettle her. It wasn't just the awkwardness and, frankly, the attendant shame of asking for help that held her back. It was also the image of Claudia putting her toddler's pudgy fingers on a computer keyboard and saying, "This is how you take over the world." There was asking for help and then there was entering into a Faustian pact. It was hard to predict when one would end and the other begin.
"Claudia is dropping by in a little while to pick up the biscuits." Mrs. Frederic nodded toward a large Tupperware container. "I hope that won't interfere with the purpose of your visit." A look that was part amusement, part predatory assessment flashed in her eyes. "You're not one to drop by, Agent Bering, though I welcome the opportunity to get to know you better."
"I think you know me pretty well already. I don't believe anything escapes you." Myka savored the aroma of coffee, allowing that if it were a lure, along with Mrs. Frederic's phenomenal cooking, it was an effective one. "Says the fly to the spider." She was being bold, confrontational, attitudes she generally didn't strike unless she was trying to rattle a suspect, but she had departed so far from the rules she followed as an agent and the even older set that governed her as Warren Bering's child, risking the willingness of the one woman remaining who might be able to help with the feral Donovans was a natural consequence. The being disciplined, logical, methodical, cautious, quiet, everything that had helped her to live with and eventually leave an irrationally angry father and that had then molded her into the most rigorous, and rigid, of agents, all of it was gone.
Mrs. Frederic wasn't offended. "So I've trapped you in my web, have I?" She smiled down at the mug in her hands before casting an appreciative look around her kitchen. "I spin a mean web." She chuckled. "Says the spider to the fly."
Myka broke a biscuit in half. "I've never been able to figure out – why Helena?"
"Claudia told me a friend of hers could use my help."
"We had places for Helena to stay."
"That wasn't the help Claudia wanted."
As Myka's gaze sharpened, Mrs. Frederic said, with an off-handedness that suggested what she was disclosing had little significance to her regardless of how others took it, "My Uncle Marcus started out as a numbers runner. Before long you couldn't bet on which way the wind was blowing without him taking a cut. He ran one of the largest gambling organizations in the city, not just Harlem, and there wasn't a crime boss he hadn't cut a deal with. My father wouldn't let him in the house, but he was my mother's favorite brother. Unbeknownst to my father, Uncle Marcus would slip me money while I was at Columbia." Her expression saddened. "It helped pay my rent, and it allowed me to take my friends out to dinner every once in a while. He was generous, but it was other people's money he was being generous with, and his victims were among the first people I tried to help when I came back from the Peace Corps." She met Myka's gaze frankly and unapologetically. "Claudia thought I might be able to spirit Helena and Christina away using the remnants of Marcus's old network. Claudia has her own issues with law enforcement, and she was convinced that the whole alphabet soup of you would end up throwing Helena into a worse place than she had gotten out of." Mrs. Frederic shook her head, her expression turning wry. "Marcus died in the early '90s, and his 'network,' the ones who survived, are old men in wheelchairs or hobbled by diabetes. Helena wasn't going to go anywhere that they couldn't get to without a walker." Mrs. Frederic meditatively sipped her coffee, giving Myka another frank and unapologetic look. "I won't deny that I have connections, and I've used them when it's necessary. 'We're all equal before the law' – too many times, pieties like that are no different than lies to Black folks, Agent Bering. It was always a sore point between me and Lawrence. 'We've got to work within the law, not go around it, Irene. Otherwise we're no better than they are.'" She fell silent. Finally she said, "In the end, it didn't matter. I could tell the minute I saw Helena with you that she wasn't going to go anywhere."
"Somehow," Myka said dryly, "I don't think you're going to say that it's because I'm so formidable an agent."
"I respect your powers very much," Mrs. Frederic swiftly replied, and Myka all but shuffled her feet in embarrassment. "But I suspect that if Helena wanted to elude you, she could, for a time. She may have reformed, but I don't make the mistake of underestimating her, either."
"Do you think she's reformed?" While a third party opinion was a good thing to have on occasion, Myka hadn't intended to ask Mrs. Frederic for her thoughts. If she herself didn't believe that Helena was reformed, then why had she done all this? "This" including sitting on the location of the Bowdoin art, conspiring with DeWitt to extort information from a bank officer, and contemplating, no, more than contemplating, planning to badger, blackmail, coerce, bribe, whatever it took to compel Claudia's cooperation in yet another unauthorized scheme, this time to electronically plumb Joshua Donovan's secrets. Not to mention that she had abetted the use of stolen information to frighten off Mark Winslow from pursuing his lawsuit against Helena and Jemma. She hadn't just risked her job for Helena, she had broken the rules she had lived by – all to prove that Helena was, if only this once, capable of keeping a promise.
"That's something that tends to be in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Is she reformed if she's never caught breaking the law again, or does it mean something else? What would a reformed Helena look like to you, Agent Bering?" Mrs. Frederic brought the coffee pot over to the island and refilled Myka's mug. This close Myka found the intentness of the brown eyes more than a little unnerving. It wasn't the clarity of her gaze that parted Myka's defenses, leaving her inner jumble of desires, fears, and the odd piece of trivia exposed for mockery like a teenager's diary, it was the coolness, which as much said that the jumble wasn't even worth mocking. Myka had the eerie feeling that the coolness, the distance wasn't the product of a lifetime of working with, and for, people disadvantaged by more than she had experienced, but an eternity of having seen human foibles constantly on display. That ageless face was an old, old face and the eyes even older.
Still, Myka heard herself answering, "Helena's reformed if she's learned that her father isn't the judge of her."
"Like you've learned?" The derision Myka wouldn't have been surprised to hear, would have heard if she had asked the question of herself, was absent. Mrs. Frederic's eyes, so clear, so cool, so . . . nonjudgmental.
"Not completely. Continuing to learn. I didn't say it was easy." Myka essayed a smile, which Mrs. Frederic returned with a nod before she returned the coffeepot to the burner.
"I haven't helped Helena the way Claudia hoped because you're the last person Helena wants to be rescued from."
A peremptory ring of the doorbell, then the sound of a door being pushed open. "Mrs. F? It's me, I'm letting myself in."
"In the kitchen, Claudia." Mrs. Frederic hadn't raised her voice, but Myka didn't doubt that Claudia had heard her. Mrs. Frederic was someone who could speak loudly without saying a word.
There was the sound of boots clomping in the hallway, and then Claudia entered the kitchen, swallowed in a lined jean jacket that was made for someone larger than her and Todd combined. Catching sight of Myka, she stopped, turned to Mrs. Frederic, and said plaintively, "I thought you said you had something that would calm my stomach down, not make me puke on your shiny floor."
"Claudia," Mrs. Frederic said warningly. She gestured for Claudia to take a seat at the island, but Claudia instead stomped over to the table in the nook and roughly claimed a chair, its legs unsteady and protesting on the stone. "Take off your jacket and put on your manners." Claudia unzipped her jacket and draped it over the back of the chair next to her, the scowl suggesting that she would comply only with the first part.
"Why are you here?" She demanded of Myka.
"To talk to you." While Claudia's disbelief was unmistakable, even Mrs. Frederic was surprised enough to raise an eyebrow. "And, with any luck, to enlist Mrs. Frederic's help. I'm not crazy enough to think that I have any influence with you, but I know you respect her and listen to her." Myka had swiveled her chair away from the island to face Claudia, and she met Claudia's glare with a look she hoped was both open and steady.
"I love Mrs. F., and I'd do just about anything for her. But I'm not going to help you. You can't guilt trip me. I don't owe anyone anything, not even Helena, not anymore," she paused, then added with sarcastic sweetness, "Agent Fargo-Sent-Me-Your-Entire-Credit-History, so don't fuck with me."
Reminding herself that she had successfully negotiated with far more hardened criminals than Claudia Donovan wasn't a comfort, Myka hadn't wanted their cooperation as desperately. "Maybe it's not a matter of you owing someone, maybe someone owes you, only you either don't know it or don't want to admit it."
"What the fuck do you mean?" As if she thought Claudia might lunge from her chair at Myka, Mrs. Frederic glided over to the nook with a calming plate of biscuits and a glass of chocolate milk.
"You know someone tipped off the FBI that Advantage Financial was a scam. You were at Helena's trial, you heard the testimony. Who would've been close enough to you and Todd, other than Helena, to know that it was a con? Who would've been so resentful as to turn you in?"
"I don't know, but you seem anxious to tell me." Claudia gave her a tight, small smile. "Please enlighten me."
"Helena's said that after the Marston Gallery theft, Joshua refused to work with her, blaming her for almost torpedoing the heist. He must not have liked how you became her new pet Donovan." At that, Claudia audibly growled. Myka relentlessly pressed on. "Can't imagine that he was happy about Todd either. Your brother must have been so frustrated, his little sister associating herself with losers. He had practically raised you, and this was how you showed your gratitude. Maybe he thought prison was the kick in the ass you needed."
Claudia chewed a biscuit. Her eyes, which had drifted away from Myka, were concentrated on a nonexistent spot on the floor. "You don't know anything about Joshua and me. Advantage Financial was a long time ago, and he's out of my life, anyway. I haven't spoken to him in a year."
Myka would have preferred more growling to the detachment with which she had spoken about Joshua. Her contempt would have meant she was engaged, but this, this Myka couldn't work with. She felt a strange, momentary tenderness as she watched Claudia greedily attack another biscuit and wash it down with long swallows of chocolate milk. Claudia's sweatshirt was ratty and, like the jean jacket, too big for her. The thin neck, emphasized by the sweatshirt's drooping collar, reminded Myka of a stem bowed down by the weight of its flower. Claudia might dress like a waif and present the kind of aggrieved face to the world that announced no one cared about her, but Myka had seen where she lived and how Todd doted on her. All the same, however, there was a sincerity to her anger. She had been orphaned and left to the care of an older brother whose view of the world, as Myka had glimpsed it during their pre-Marston conversation in the coffee shop, was of a place ruled by a superior being who held absolute power. There were no contests between predators and prey in Joshua Donovan's world since all bowed down to him. How lonely Claudia must have felt and how cold it must have been, that home, that childhood, that brother.
"Are you sure he's out of your life?" Myka asked softly. "I've seen what he can do. How do you know he's not surveilling you? Are you so sure he's not watching you, listening to you, using every device you have against you? You're all he has in the world, and you're still in need of his guidance, even if you're too stubborn to admit it. Now there's a baby, a new Donovan. Maybe he can succeed with your child where he didn't succeed with you."
It was the equivalent of a buzzer-beating throw at the hoop at the end of a game. Myka had never been skilled at sports except for fencing, and not even that, really. Yet she saw the ball go in and heard the crowd go wild. . . .in a sense. She saw the fear leap in Claudia's eyes as her face contorted itself into a snarl that heralded a string of Agent Fuckface and Fucking Bureau of Idiots curses, but the snarl disappeared as quickly as it had formed. Claudia said quietly but emphatically, "I let you push my buttons about Helena, but I'm not going to spy on Joshua or whatever it is you want me to do." She uttered an almost regretful little laugh. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy the challenge, but I know the people he works for, and they scare me more than Mark Winslow." Claudia would never look kindly on her, Myka knew, but there was something uncomfortably and embarrassingly close to pity in face. "It's taken me awhile to believe it, because you're just so . . .," she expressed her distaste in a wriggle that nearly sent her off the chair, "but you really do love her. I know you want to help her, but not me, not this time."
The ball had started to swish through the net when, due to a sudden gust of wind or some heretofore unknown quirk of physics, fate pushed it back out. The buzzer was sounding, and she had lost. Myka idly poked the crumbs on her plate into a pile. Neither Helena, revenge, nor fear was a tool she could use effectively on Claudia.
"You should let Agent Bering finish before you make up your mind," Mrs. Frederic said admonishingly to Claudia. "Hear her out." She put a pause between each of the last three words.
Myka couldn't divine any signs of the future in her pile of biscuit crumbs, no matter how hard she stared at them. She couldn't pick out in them the secret message that would tell her how to appeal to Claudia's sense of . . . whatever . . . either. So she fell back on her usual approach when she had to make case before a skeptical, jaundiced audience, namely, Pete and his bosses, which was to lay out the facts as she knew them. Pushing the plate and its unhelpful crumbs away from her, she swiveled her chair back to its 180-degree position away from the island and faced Claudia once more. "Your brother's been working for Nate Burdette."
"He works for a lot of people," Claudia said dismissively, "and none of them are nice."
Myka plowed on. "Recently some of Burdette's deals have gone bust – shipments have been lost, 'merchandise' has been stolen. It's gotten our attention. It's sloppy, and Burdette's not sloppy." Claudia was making an ostentatious study of her fingernails, and Myka resisted looking over her shoulder at Mrs. Frederic in a silent plea for her to intercede. "At the same time, we've seen activity in Burdette's accounts, funds being transferred to brand new accounts. The people I work with believe they're signs that Burdette is getting ready to get out, leave his organization behind and enjoy life in a country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S."
Claudia looked up from her fingernails long enough to say, "How does Helena figure into this? I mean, that's why you're interested."
"Because they think he's taking Helena with him." Myka tried to fix Claudia's bored gaze, but Claudia's eyes drifted into a lazy survey of Mrs. Frederic's kitchen.
"If only," she drawled sarcastically. "I begged her not to do this again, to work for you assholes. You'd find some way of screwing her over, making her pay for making fools out of you way back when." Myka almost reminded her that way back when was only eight years ago, but she thought better of it. Eight years ago, Claudia had barely been out of middle school. It was probably ancient history to her. "She didn't go into it with any scheme. Well, no scheme other than to be with Christina and get forgiveness from your sorry ass," Claudia finished witheringly.
"Your brother is the one with the scheme," Myka said it with a bluntness that had been the only tool, sometimes the only weapon she had had when it came to surviving those first few years after Marston. Contempt, derision, disgust, they had greeted her when she passed her coworkers' cubes, entered a conference room, heated her lunch in the microwave. They followed her when she went home for the night. Rarely explicitly expressed, the condemnation had been in the looks that flicked away from her as if she were so much garbage, the voices that were so carefully neutral when they were directed at her, the maneuverings to avoid being assigned with her. The only method she had for cutting through it was providing her assessments and conclusions frankly, unsparingly. It could have backfired, increasing the other agents' antipathy, but she was usually right and that, at least, they had to respect. "He's embezzling from Burdette."
"That's a stupid thing to do, and my brother's not stupid," Claudia said after a long pause.
"He must think he has a foolproof plan."
"Not if you've figured it out, and that doesn't sound like Joshua." The swipe was half-hearted, and Claudia's eyebrows pulled together as she tried to think through the possibility. "What kind of evidence do you have?"
Anticipating the gust of disbelief, anger, and scorn that Claudia would release, Myka admitted, "Not much. Your brother's name as an accountholder for a company that Burdette set up. It used to hold a lot of money. Not so much, anymore."
Claudia didn't react, except for her eyebrows, which collided, retreated, and collided again. She was thinking, and Myka didn't think it was entirely a trick of her imagination that the kitchen felt several degrees warmer. It could be that Claudia was only powering up for a nuclear blast of scathing criticism, but Myka decided to wait the silence out. Even Mrs. Frederic was giving Claudia a curious look as she busied herself with putting most of the digestive biscuits in a tin. One, however, she put on Myka's plate, and Myka began to eat it, calculating how long and how intense her workout would need to be to burn off the extra calories. She nearly choked when Claudia started speaking. She had heard Claudia in many, albeit similar, moods but never a reflective one.
"Our parents died when I was little. Joshua was a teenager, and he became a father, mother, and older brother all rolled into one. He tried, but he's not cut out to look after others. I interested him and got his approval only when I was like him, showed the same abilities. The other stuff I was interested in, he didn't understand. He would talk about our dad sometimes. He said our dad was really smart, a computer genius back when computers took up an entire room to run a simple process, but he let people push him around, take the credit he should've gotten and the promotions that should've been his." Claudia finished her chocolate milk and scrubbed at her upper lip with a sweatshirt sleeve. Myka pictured Joshua doing that for her when she was a young child. It would be nice to think he did it out of affection, but Myka could all too easily imagine him wiping his sister's face in revulsion at her messiness. "Joshua always told me that if you can't figure out how to become the boss of the people you work for, you deserve to be a drone. For him, the worst thing was to be like Dad, smart but too weak to screw over the guy ahead of him." When she met Myka's eyes, her own were clear and confident. "If you're right, Joshua's not embezzling from Burdette because of the money, it's because he can get away with it. He thinks he's out-badassing the bad ass."
"But the money has to be going somewhere," Mrs. Frederic said, handing Claudia the tin as she lowered herself with a gratified sigh onto a chair on the other side of the table from her. "The money that Joshua's stealing." Her gaze, as clear as Claudia's but far more merciless, also locked onto Myka, and Myka felt like the unwariest of rabbits suddenly trapped between two foxes. "How much are we talking about, Agent Bering?"
"Millions," Myka said simply. She saw the direction that Mrs. Frederic was taking them, but she wasn't going to resist. After all, she was sitting on hundreds of millions herself. Who was she to draw the line at what could be used to persuade . . . bribe Claudia to turn on her brother? She had resorted to threatening her that Joshua would take her baby from her. Fear was poor reward for the risk Claudia would be taking. Maybe Mrs. Frederic should be the FBI agent.
Claudia tipped her head and speculatively regarded Myka. "Joshua wouldn't take pity on me just because I'm his sister. As you said, he was willing to send me to prison. If I go poking around and he catches me," she shrugs, "who knows what'll happen to me?" She paused, then added, "I love him, but Todd, he's helpless without me."
"Helena says you're better than Joshua."
Claudia grinned. "I am," but then she just as quickly sobered, "but he's meaner." It wasn't only greed that Myka saw in her face but what seemed, unmistakably, to be professional pride. "I know your junior G man busted my network, but I need to be challenged to do my best."
"Like Fargo," Myka said softly. "There's no getting help from your friends, Claudia."
"Wouldn't think of it." She got up from her chair, clutching the tin. "If Joshua's stealing from Burdette, I'll get you the proof. My condition is that you'll take it without questions."
Myka smiled wearily and shook her head. "That won't be all I want, Claudia, not if you're able to get in that deep. We'll be talking soon, you and I, because this can't be a smash and grab. It'll take planning."
Claudia looked to Mrs. Frederic for help. "She's an idiot, Mrs. F. She thinks I'm going to hack Joshua's gmail account. She can't go where I need to go. She wouldn't even know how to get there. Why am I listening to her?"
"Millions," Mrs. Frederic said, "or not. Your choice." She turned to Myka. "She gives you what you ask for, and what she finds that you don't ask for . . . is hers to keep. Do we have a deal, ladies?"
Like the other deals Myka had struck, it lodged itself partway down her throat, like a wad of half-chewed bread. It didn't quite have her gagging, but she was close. Claudia must have had similar feelings because she stomped out of the kitchen without even a good-bye to Mrs. Frederic. Myka leaned back against her chair, surrendering to the exhaustion of a morning that had ended little more than a half-hour ago but had lasted for a thousand years. She had surrendered everything she had prized about being an agent, her loyalty to her fellow agents and the Bureau itself, her duty to obey its rules, written and unwritten, and her adherence, above all, to the laws it had been established to uphold. She had come close before, she couldn't deny that, but she had always clung to something that would prevent her from being swept away, even if it was only the belief that the Bureau would understand should she ever have to defend her actions. Steve wouldn't understand what she had done this morning, Pete wouldn't understand it either, Leena would but she wouldn't condone it. They understood, didn't like, even feared, but understood the power of what she felt for Helena. They would understand why she would sacrifice her own integrity but not the Bureau's. Run off with Helena if you have to but don't use the Bureau to vindicate her – or save her.
"Are you prepared for the answer you don't want?" Mrs. Frederic asked, not unkindly. "The Helena Wells I know wouldn't betray you again, but you have a fuller picture of her than I do. What are you going to do if Claudia tells you that what you hope is true isn't?"
"It's not as though what I hope is true is much better," Myka said wryly, "but I take your point." She all but stared through Mrs. Frederic, seeing Anthony Williams and hearing him ask, "Are you afraid of what you'll do if you catch her?" At the time, forgiving Helena had seemed terrifying. Who would she be if she could forgive her? Hating Helena had given her purpose when she had needed more than an animal impulse to get out of bed, take a shower, eat, but somehow, somewhere along the way, she had forgiven her or, if not that, exactly, had absolved her, transferring the sin and its attendant burdens from Helena to her own back. It wasn't Helena's fault that she couldn't be more that what her father had made her, but she, Myka Ophelia Bering, had been more than what her father made her, and yet she had failed her biggest test. She had told Helena that first day after she and Steve had brought her to this brownstone that forgiving herself was the greater impossibility. She didn't know if that was still true either. Maybe somehow, somewhere along the way she had forgiven herself, too, because being the sum of the experiences that had made her wasn't the only or best judgment of her. You made the best choice you could in any given situation and, if the best wasn't available . . .
"I'll do whatever I have to." She didn't know what that was yet, couldn't, not before she knew what Claudia would find, but it might not be pursuing Burdette and Helena to the ends of the earth. She wasn't sure she could survive another resetting of the cycle, the prey made predator, hunting the ones who had hunted her.
They had gone to the Vineyard for an extended weekend. Helena had gotten restless, their cases in their own summertime lull, either closed, forwarded to Justice, referred back to the states, or stalled for lack of new information. She had taken some short-term consultation jobs that required her to leave the city, rarely for as long as a week, but Myka felt that she had spent more weekends in the office than in Helena's loft. It wasn't literally true. Helena was usually back by Friday night, which meant they had Saturday and Sunday morning together – and Myka had the sore clit and stretched muscles to prove it – but it seemed like she all but showered in the office during June and July. The four-day vacation on the Vineyard in August, courtesy of one of Helena's grateful clients who was spending his summer yachting among the Greek islands, was Helena's attempt to make up for her absences.
Myka managed to garner only a hazily assembled picture of the Vineyard because she and Helena spent the majority of their time inside the "cottage" (a 5,000+ square foot mansion) in bed. They weren't having sex all the time. In fact, Helena seemed more interested in just being next to her, having some part of their skin in constant touch. They watched movies, read, picked up takeout, and when they did make love, Helena took it at the pace of a nature film capturing every infinitesimal unfolding of a flower in bloom. There was none of the frenetic quality that usually marked their intimacy when Helena had returned from a consultation and very little of the playful sparring for dominance that marked it when she was home for a while. Helena seemed determined to catalog every blemish and skin tag on her body, Myka thought, and inhale and savor every odor. It would have felt clinical except for the need that Myka sensed in her, and the not-quite-relinquished impulse Helena had to bring her to the verge of orgasm and then let her hang there. All Myka wanted was just that extra pressure on her clit, that extra thrust, but Helena would dive down at that moment to inspect her ankles or kiss her heels. It drove her crazy, but that was what Helena was counting on, of course, and when the extra pressure or thrust did happen, the resulting climax was so intense that Myka wept. She paid Helena back in full measure, but Helena didn't weep, didn't cry out. Instead she would lift up from the mattress with such a frightened, lost look in her eyes as she came that Myka would move to hold her, and Helena would lie in her arms for a long time afterward.
She didn't remember them talking during that weekend, though they must have. The only conversation she remembered was on their ride back to the city. Helena was driving because, although they had only gone to a beach a couple of times that weekend, Myka had succeeded in getting a sunburn Sunday afternoon. Her upper back was far more painful on Monday than it had been the night before, and she had thought the wiser course of action was to let the one with more mobility drive. She had been popping ibuprofen most of the day, and an ice pack was between her shoulders and the back of the passenger seat. Dozing off and off, she had sleepily attributed the sound of someone talking during one of her periods of semi-wakefulness to the radio until she realized the voice was Helena's.
"What happens after this, Myka?"
"We get up tomorrow morning and go to work," she said, smiling a little at Helena's exasperated huff.
"Don't be dense. What happens another six months from now, a year, when we've been seeing and shagging each other and only each other? What do we do once we've become thoroughly bored with each other?"
"I don't think we have to worry about our 'spark' dying out. It's closer to a five-alarm fire. Is monogamy making you feel hemmed in?" Myka drowsily tried to raise an eyebrow.
Her eyes weren't so close to shutting that she missed the blush crawling up Helena's cheeks. "No, on the contrary. I like what we have, but I've never been involved with anyone this long before. A month or two in, I'm usually wanting to slit my throat or theirs."
"Maybe you've finally met your match." Myka couldn't deny the satisfaction she felt when she heard Helena's laugh, which bound together amusement, concession, and, oddly, a note of relief. "As for what happens a month or six months from now, we'll know what to do when we get there."
Helena was breathing evenly beside her. Myka envied how quickly she had fallen asleep. She was wide awake at – she reached over for her phone – 11:45 p.m., which was just as well, really, she needed to drive back to her own place. Helena had asked her where she had been most of the day, and she hadn't believed the limp explanation she had been offered. Not that "conspiring with your landlady and Claudia" sounded any better, if more truthful, than "running down some leads Pete gave me." Helena hadn't pressed her for more, settling for straddling her on the kitchen chair and in a pathetically short amount of time teasing her so successfully that they had all but taken each other in the hallway outside Helena's bedroom. More than eight years later and it was still a five-alarm fire between them.
The bedsheet rustled, and, after a murmur and more rustling, Helena's hand was on her stomach, stroking lightly. "You were thinking so loud it woke me up."
"Sorry. I should be going, anyway."
"You'd tell if you were doing something dangerous, wouldn't you? Like trying to see Nate on your own."
"You know me better than that. Of course, I wouldn't."
"If you won't tell me what you were really thinking about –"
"I was thinking about the weekend on the Vineyard."
Helena sucked in a breath and her hand stopped moving. "I was so close to chucking it all then. I had been meeting the Marstons in various cities, an expensive and ultimately futile attempt to keep our 'partnership' a secret, and when I wasn't trying to reassure them that everything would go off without a hitch, I was trying to reassure Jim. I knew none of it was worth losing you, and I wanted to consume you whole that weekend." Her hand resumed it slow circling on Myka's stomach. "I couldn't see a way out of the box I was in. Either way I was going to lose you."
"There's never a way out if you see it as a box."
"That's too enigmatic for this late at night," Helena said plaintively.
"I was thinking about our last night. Remember my sunburn? We put some spray on it, I took some Advil, and I was good to go."
"I was the one flat on my back," Helena half-laughed, the memory roughening her voice. "No letting the sheets touch your shoulders. I enjoyed jockey Myka very much." Her hand slipped lower. "Sure you don't have time for one more ride before you go?"
"You actually made that sound sexy, not cheesy."
"It's one of my very few talents that isn't illegal."
Myka lifted herself over Helena and settled back, but not all the way back, on her haunches, her ass just skimming Helena's abdomen. It should be illegal, how wet Helena could make her with just a touch and a smoky laugh. She straightened up as Helena worked her fingers into her and grabbed the top of the bedframe. "We'll find a way out this time, Helena."
As she began to work her hips, Helena more hissed than spoke, "How do you know that?"
"Because we're working together."
Helena didn't have a response, her breaths coming more rapidly, her fingers curling and uncurling. Or maybe that was her response, her striving to bring her lover to orgasm her own version of assent. It didn't matter, Myka told herself as she felt her climax beginning to build. She might be on top but Helena held the reins. She would have to trust that she would know what to do once they got there.