“Where the hell are you going?” Vero hissed as I slid the sunglasses on my face and got out.
“To find out what Theresa’s doing with Feliks Zhirov.” And where the hell she was the night I was at The Lush. I crossed the parking lot and slipped through the vestibule before I could change my mind. The receptionist looked up as I approached the desk.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I pushed the glasses down the bridge of my nose just far enough to look down at her over the frames. “I’m Mr. Zhirov’s personal assistant. He just met with Ms. Hall and he forgot something very important in her office. He asked me to fetch it.” I put my glasses back in place.
The woman reached for the phone. “She just left. Let me call her cell and catch her—”
“No!” I said too quickly. I took a second to compose myself. “That’s not necessary, and Mr. Zhirov does not have time to wait. I can get it myself.”
I started toward the glass doors at the end of the hall, throwing my hips with a purpose that dared her to stop me. “Which is her office?” I called over my shoulder as I pulled them open.
“Last on the left,” the woman sputtered. “Are you sure I can’t—”
The glass door swished closed behind me. Head down, I walked past rows of cubicles, pausing when I reached the corner office at the back. I turned the knob, praying it wasn’t locked. The door cracked open. Through it, I could make out four desks—a shared office. Three of the desks stood empty. Only one agent was working, her back toward me and a phone pressed to her ear. I slipped inside, careful not to make any noise.
Theresa’s desk wasn’t hard to find. It was as spotless as her town house, the surface adorned with framed engagement photos. No day planner or desk calendar. Just a computer and some file drawers. I glanced over my shoulder, checking to make sure the woman’s back was still turned as I wiggled the mouse. The screen prompted me for a password.
Shit. I had no idea what Theresa’s password might be, and I didn’t have time to guess. The only thing I knew for certain about Theresa was that she never kept her dirty laundry out in the open where people could see it. I slid open her desk drawer. Half-opened packs of gum, chewed-up pens, loose paper clips, some change, and crumpled sticky notes … I rummaged under them, finding a thin stack of folders and a yellow legal pad. The pages of the notepad were filled with barely legible notes. I thumbed through the files, grabbing the one with Zhirov’s name on the tab and putting the others back. I flipped quickly through the contents—real estate listings, maps, and handwritten notes. All the listings inside had been printed two weeks ago—the same day Harris Mickler went missing.
I pressed the file and notepad to my chest and shut the drawer. If I could find proof Theresa had been showing properties the night Harris went missing, I could tell Nick she was with a client and get him off her back.
I was just about to turn and leave when a photo on her desk made me pause. I don’t know why it drew my attention. Maybe because it was the only picture that wasn’t of Steven. Or maybe because the girl in the photo seemed vaguely familiar in a distant and hazy sort of way. Her arm was slung around Theresa’s shoulders, both of them young and tan and blond, wearing sorority sweatshirts with Greek letters across the front. The inscription on the frame read BFFS 4EVR.
This had to have been the Aunt Amy I’d heard so much about—the woman who’d taught my daughter to apply eye makeup and spent Saturdays with my kids, the woman who would probably help raise them if I ended up in prison—and I’d never even met her before.
“Oh, hey, Theresa. Did you forget something?” I stiffened, so lost in the photo, I hadn’t heard the agent behind me hang up her phone. My wig-scarf itched and I resisted the urge to turn around.
“Yes,” I coughed into my hand.
“Did you find what you needed?”
For Theresa’s sake, I sure as hell hoped so.
I held up Feliks Zhirov’s file, using it to obscure my face, praying the answers I needed were inside it as I rushed past her out the door.
* * *
Vero and I sat on the floor of my office while the children napped, Feliks’s files and Theresa’s notes spread across the carpet between us. All I needed was an alibi to get Nick off her back, some clue about where Theresa might have been that Tuesday night, and more important, why she didn’t want anyone to know about it. With a notorious client like Feliks Zhirov, maybe she was only trying to maintain a low profile. But that didn’t fit the Theresa I knew. Theresa was all about social cachet and prestige. If there was a chance to flaunt a high-profile client like Feliks by sticking her head out of the roof of his slick black limousine and shouting it to the moon, she wouldn’t miss a chance to do it. Whatever her relationship with Feliks Zhirov, I definitely didn’t want the Fairfax County PD to know about it—at least not yet. Sniffing down that lead would bring them far too close to Andrei. Which would inevitably bring them close to Vero and me.