“The day after I last saw her, lost my track on her car.”
“If you say so,” said Marty. “At that time, she asked me to transfer available cash to an account that was not in my control and provided an account number. I gave the transfer paperwork to the police.”
“Can I have a copy of that?”
Marty rose and went to his computer, did some tapping on the keyboard.
“I can give this to you but it won’t help you. This account is a Bitcoin address. It’s totally untraceable. There’s no way to source it back to a company or individual. In fact, that is the point of Bitcoin. It is the anarchist’s preferred form of currency.”
He came back with a piece of paper that had been spit from a printer near his desk. Just some numbers on a white page. Meaningless.
“Generally we discourage our clients from dealing in Bitcoin since as a firm we don’t invest in those funds. But we have to honor our clients’ wishes, of course. It’s their money. But this is part of the problem, and why the government doesn’t like it. That money is gone for good, except to the person who has the password to that account.”
Bitcoin. He didn’t know anything about it—what it was, how it worked. It brought to mind some hacker in a darkened room, hunched over a laptop screen.
“Did you talk to her again after that?”
“I have not heard from Ms. Greenwood. Even under normal circumstances, she’s very hard to reach. She told me, and I think a close friend of hers, according to police, that she needed time away. Time off from work, from the pressures of the modern world. That she’d be in touch, and that I could manage the rest of her money as I saw fit.”
“The rest of her money.”
“She asked for her available cash. Her long-term accounts that can’t be touched without penalty, remain intact.”
“Does anyone know she has more money?”
“Only I, Ms. Greenwood, and the people she’s told know how much she has.”
“And if she wants the rest of it?”
“She’ll have to call me.”
“Not email or text.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll need to hear her voice.”
“How did she sound when you talked to her?”
“Do you mean did she sound as though she were under duress?”
“Exactly.”
“She sounded as she always does—cool, calm, maybe a bit distant. I even asked her if there was a problem. Was she in trouble? And she said that she just needed some space and time. Not like her, admittedly. She’s never taken time off, as long as I’ve known her, never withdrawn anything but the expected sums for expenses.”
Bailey took a card from his wallet and slid it across the wood coffee table to Marty.
“If you hear from her again, will you call me?”
The older man looked at the card, but didn’t reach for it.
“I’ll tell her you were looking for her, Mr. Kirk.”
They sat watching each other for an uncomfortable moment. Was he hiding something? Or just protecting Wren’s privacy?
“You’re not concerned about her?” asked Bailey.
“I am,” said Marty. “But I’m not able to betray her confidence in me.”
“Four women all met the same man on a dating site. All four of those women have disappeared through some rabbit hole that closed up behind them. They walked away from their homes, their family and friends, their lives, and all their money is gone.”
Bailey took out his phone and opened the picture he had of the ghost, slid it over to Marty Friedman.
“Do you know this man?”
Marty leaned in and pushed up his glasses, squinting at the photo. Was there something, some glimmer of recognition?
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen him before.”
Marty leaned back and his phone issued a little chime. “I have another meeting. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Dismissed. Bailey rose, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket.
“I’ll see myself out,” he said.
“You know, you asked if she seemed off? I guess if I was going to say that anything was different, that she seemed happier, more relaxed than I’ve heard her before. Maybe you just have to accept that she’s gone because she wants to be. People walk away sometimes. They just get—tired of it all. Haven’t you ever felt that way, Mr. Kirk?”
Uh, yeah. Like right now.
The receptionist wasn’t at her desk. But outside, she stood near the corner of the building, smoking. She made it look good in her short black raincoat and high heels.