“I meant no offense,” Matt said. That wasn’t true. If Matt had learned one thing from his father, however, it was to never underestimate the power of an angry cop. When his dad gave talks about Danny’s case, he always warned parents to teach their children to treat police officers like a big dog they didn’t know. Most dogs were friendly, but you still wouldn’t just rush up to pet the creature; you’d use caution, make sure it didn’t bite. And you’d certainly never poke it with a stick. The same was true with cops. Most were hardworking, decent people. But the profession also attracted a certain breed. Like a rabid dog, you might not know the good from the bad until it was too late.

“So tell your children no matter how angry they are, no matter how unjust the situation,” Dad would say, “that they should be overly respectful, overly cautious, and not make any sudden moves—it could save their lives.”

Matt followed the advice. “It’s been a hard time,” Matt said. “I meant no disrespect. I’ve been up all night.”

“I know. Fraternizing with prostitutes.”

“What are you—”

Just then a woman burst into the room, the receptionist trailing after her. The woman wore a business suit, her face twisted in anger. In Spanish she started castigating Gutierrez.

Gutierrez said something in an equally harsh tone. Matt’s eyes went from one of them to the other, a tennis match of insults he couldn’t understand.

The woman finally pointed a stern finger at Gutierrez. She said something as if it were a dire warning.

To Matt’s surprise, Gutierrez, so amped up just moments ago, retreated.

The woman looked at Matt now. “Let’s go, Mr. Pine.”

Gutierrez didn’t try to stop them.

Outside, the woman handed Matt a business card. “I’m Carlita Escobar—no relation—from the consulate.”

“I thought Mr. Foster was assigned to—”

“He’s been reassigned. I’m taking care of your case.”

Matt didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t much care. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there. “The officer said my parents were released last night.”

“That’s right. Senior State Department officials insisted, and I had to go over Gutierrez’s head. You have some important friends, Mr. Pine.”

Matt didn’t know what she meant by that, but again he didn’t really care. The last twenty-four hours had been what his friend Ganesh would call “a dog’s breakfast.”

“Where did they send my family?”

Escobar retrieved her phone from her handbag, then tapped on it as if she were looking for the details.

“Nebraska,” she said. She pronounced the word Knee-Baraska, like she’d never heard of the place. “They went out on a flight last night.”

It made sense. The family plot was in Adair. Someone must’ve talked to his aunt.

“We have a car to take you to the airport.” She gestured to a town car parked nearby. “You’ll want to go now,” Escobar said, and glanced at the station house. “You should get out of Tulum.”

CHAPTER 30

SARAH KELLER

The bright morning sun reflected off the skyscrapers lining Michigan Avenue. Sarah Keller walked into the lobby of the office tower, her first visit to the Chicago branch of Marconi LLP. She’d analyzed the company for two years—talked to former employees, scrutinized bank records, studied bios of the executives—so it was strange to visit the place in person. Headquartered in New York with offices in nine other states, the entire firm wasn’t dirty—at least, Keller didn’t think so. Just the Chicago office.

A line had formed at the main reception desk of 875 North Michigan Avenue, men and women in stiff suits checking in for meetings at the law firms, telecom, and other companies housed in the impressive one-hundred-floor tower. Keller waited patiently, then displayed her badge to the security guard working the desk. Without hesitation or questions, the guard gave her a key card. He didn’t work for Marconi, and his job was just to make sure no one unauthorized made it to the elevator banks. He wasn’t about to give the FBI a hard time. No analysis paralysis for this guy.

Keller rode the elevator up with a throng of smartphone-staring executives. She smiled at the twentysomething in wrinkled slacks who held a cardboard tray filled with four coffees. Keller’s ears popped from the elevation.

She’d just spent two hours with a team from the Chicago field office, getting them up to speed. As Stan had warned, the Chicago SAC was a bit of a bull in a china shop, and more than willing to bust into Marconi swinging his dick. She’d convinced them to exercise restraint. She’d send a signal—the single click of a pen that was actually a transmitter—if they should storm the offices. She didn’t want to do that. She’d prefer to continue building the case. But she supposed they already had the goods. Payments from various cartel-controlled accounts. The intricate web of investments and shell companies to wash the funds. The return of the money, less a hefty commission. But they didn’t have a single witness who could put the story together for a jury. R. Stanton Jones, their original inside man and the tipster who’d gotten them started with the investigation, had vanished. It was possible he’d been rammed through a wood chipper or dissolved in a barrel of acid, favorites of the Sinaloa Cartel. Or maybe he’d just decided to change his identity and start anew. The taps on Marconi phones revealed no clues about what had happened to the middle-aged accountant. The Marconi executives seemed as baffled as everyone else at Jones’s disappearance.

Keller’s team had approached other former employees and gotten some good intel, but no one who knew the nitty-gritty, as Keller did after spending nearly two years tracking and analyzing the records. She’d intended to talk to Evan Pine because fired employees were always the most prone to turn on their companies, but he’d died before she got to it. Was he murdered, as the filmmakers speculated? Or was it a murder-suicide? Based on an analysis of internet history artifacts, the Bureau’s computer forensics team believed that Evan, not Liv, had made the searches suggesting he was planning to off himself. Maybe he was. But murder his wife and kids? Everything she’d learned about the man said he wouldn’t kill his family. Most of his internet searches related to caring for them when he was gone.

She stepped off the elevator and into the Marconi complex. It was as she’d expected: not too sleek, not too extravagant. Understated elegance. No one wanted someone flashy handling their money.

Correct that, the receptionist was showy—strikingly pretty, with a model’s symmetrical features. Keller watched the woman closely as she approached. Much could be learned in these initial encounters. The receptionists of companies—particularly smaller branch offices like Marconi Chicago—usually knew where the bodies were buried. They saw who came and went, were tapped into the secretarial gossip circles, and needed something to make the boring job bearable. Would the woman look worried? Scared? Nonchalant? Or excited at the break in her routine?

“Hi,” Keller said, friendly enough. “I’m Special Agent Keller. I’m here to see Devin Milbank.” Keller showed her badge, watched the woman’s face.

“One moment, please,” she said. The woman smiled, but Keller saw a twitch. A barely discernible flash in the eyes.

The receptionist tapped on the keyboard, and in her headset mic said, “Sheryl, I have a Special Agent Keller from the FBI here to see Mr. Milbank.” A long silence followed as she listened on the other end. “No, she didn’t say.” The woman’s glance returned to Keller. “If you’d like to have a seat, Agent Keller, someone will be right with you.”

“I prefer to stand,” Keller said, if only to see the woman’s reaction. Another smile, a nervous twist of her hair.

Keller waited patiently, gazing out at the spectacular view, the tops of other skyscrapers and the green water of Lake Michigan spanning out to the horizon. It was nearly ten minutes before another woman, pretty again, appeared in the lobby. The delay meant the executives were having a pre-meeting. Probably a panicked one. The woman escorted Keller to the door of a glass-walled conference room. The glass was frosted so Keller couldn’t see inside.

The woman held the door open. Two men stood when Keller entered.

The first man was taller than she’d expected. She’d seen him only in photos and media appearances. The head of Marconi Chicago, Devin Milbank. If the office was dirty—and it was—so was he.

“Special Agent Keller,” he said in his deep baritone. He shook her hand, a tight squeeze with lots of eye contact. He motioned to the other man, who was almost a foot shorter than Milbank, rotund in a pinstripe suit. “This is Mel Bradford, our general counsel.” The man stuck out his sausage-finger hands and gave Keller a vise of a shake.

“Are we waiting on anyone else?” Milbank said.

“Just me,” Keller said.

He nodded as if he were impressed by that. Or maybe relieved: the meeting couldn’t be anything serious if they’d sent a woman all by her lonesome.

They sat near the end of the long glossy table.

Milbank began. “It’s not every day we get a visit from the FBI. How can we help you, Agent Keller?”

“I’m here about Evan Pine.”

The lawyer next to Milbank seemed to relax immediately. He sat more naturally, less stiff in the leather chair.

Milbank said, “We couldn’t believe it. What a tragedy.”