“Both, then,” Bree said.
Le Tour waved to a waiter, who hustled over to take her order: a basket of pastries heavy on the croissants and two double espressos. When he’d gone, the head of Bluestone Paris said, “Are you wondering why we are meeting here?”
“Best croissants and espresso in Paris?”
“That, yes. But the real reason is that two years ago, our office did some work for the Pegasus Group and Philippe Abelmar. I’m concerned there may be lingering loyalties that could prove problematic for your investigation.”
“What kind of work did Bluestone do for Pegasus?”
“We were asked to look into a data breach. Beyond that, I’m not at liberty to say, but I assure you it has nothing to do with the allegations at hand.”
“So what kind of support can I expect?”
“Very little at first and certainly not from our cyber experts,” Le Tour cautioned. “You can text me, of course, at any time and I can point you in the right direction.”
“And if I get in hot water?”
Le Tour smiled and slid what looked like a one-euro coin across the table to her. “It’s a beacon. Press the back once, hard, and I can track your location. If you press twice, it will send an SOS straight to my cell phone. At that point, secrecy and discretion be damned, and we will come to help you with everything we’ve got.”
“Do I need a weapon?”
“And a license to carry it,” Le Tour said, nodding to the Chanel shopping bag at her feet. She took a large envelope out of her purse and slid it across the table. “Here is your alias, and the license, passport, and papers supporting it. Under the cashmere sweater in the bag, you will find a small Beretta, a waist holster, and two full clips of nine-millimeter ammunition. Please use restraint. Any shooting attracts the anti-terror teams.”
“Only in an emergency,” Bree promised, opening the envelope and taking out the identity card. “‘Bree St. Lucie of Saint Martin,’” she read.
“You’ve worked there setting up shell corporations for offshore bank accounts. You’re here in Paris looking into opportunities.”
Bree was impressed. “How did you make this all happen so fast?”
“One of the top commanders at La Crim, Paris’s investigative police unit, cannot stand Philippe Abelmar. She wishes you the best of luck as you go hunting. So does a friend high up in the S?reté.”
“Could they help with a few other things?”
“What were you thinking?”
“Copies of past complaints against Abelmar.”
“They’re all sealed as far as I know.”
“I guess we need to know just how much your source in La Crim hates Abelmar.”
Le Tour’s dazzling smile returned. “I think I’m going to like you, Bree Stone. In fact, I already know I do.”
Chapter
11
The next afternoon, as Bree was changing to go out for a run along the Seine, her phone buzzed, alerting her to a text from Marianne Le Tour that told her to check her Bluestone e-mail account and to use a VPN to cover her tracks.
Bree did just that on her laptop, opening an app Ali had shown her called TunnelBear that would keep her location and the IP address of her laptop disguised. Then she signed into her Bluestone account and found an e-mail from Le Tour that included a forwarded message from an address she did not recognize.
You have until six a.m. tomorrow to read these files, which will destroy themselves at that time. None of this information may be referred to in your investigation or used in a court of law or in your final report to the board. Good luck. As you’ll see, he’s scum.
Bree glanced at her running shoes, told herself she’d run along the Seine tomorrow morning after the files self-destructed, got a Coke from the minibar, and clicked on the zip file at the bottom of the e-mail. After the file downloaded, she opened it to reveal twelve smaller files, each identified by a last name and a date. Anna Tuttle was there. So was Cassie Dane. But Bree started with the oldest file, from nearly twelve years before.
Three hours later, Bree finished screenshotting the file from the most recent complaint against Philippe Abelmar sealed by the French courts.
She felt dirtied by the overall experience and was appalled by the behavior described; her eyes burned from angry tears. If the statements contained in the complaints were true, Abelmar was as cunning, twisted, and repulsive a villain as any Alex had come across in his days with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
She also suspected that the billionaire was buying off judges inside the French courts to cover his actions. Three of the judges had sealed two or more of the complaints and subsequent settlements, all of which featured gag orders and payments of between two and four hundred thousand euros to the young women whom the chairman of Pegasus had allegedly abused at various locations throughout France.