“I have a reason. She’s the sister of Danny Rivera, the patsy in the Pe?a case.”
“Who?”
“Danny Rivera. Skinny doofus, took the weight for Ricky and his crew? He just pled out last week. He’s snitching to the feds, I’m convinced. That’s your intern’s brother.”
“You’re mistaken. Rivera is a common last name. Madison is an only child. She told me so.”
“She lied to you. I can prove it.”
They stopped at a light. He thrust a file at her.
“What’s this?”
“After what happened with Olivia, we thought it would be smart to vet your new intern. She filled out a background check form. I was tasked with verifying the information.”
“So you and Nancy cooked this up behind my back?”
“You should thank us. The girl’s prior address jumped out at me. I’m thinking, Where do I know that from? Turns out, it was from booking her lowlife brother. I pulled their birth certificates to make sure. The proof is there, Kathy.”
Kathryn squinted at the papers in the dimness of the car. The documents did indeed appear to show that Madison had a brother name Daniel.
She lied.
“How do you know this Daniel Rivera is the same one from the Pe?a case?”
“Look at the booking form. Same DOB and same Social as the Daniel Rivera on that birth certificate, who has the same parents as this girl who works for you. It’s all there in black and white.”
Oh, God. Her stomach hurt. Until that moment, Kathryn hadn’t realized how much she was depending on Madison to be her ally. She’d even started to feel an emotional connection. But if these documents were to be believed, the girl had played her. Lied to her face.
If the documents were real. They could be forgeries.
Think about it. Charlie knew that Madison was staying at the house, that Kathryn had used her as a decoy. He would view her as a threat if for no other reason than that she’d helped Kathryn fool him. She didn’t know Madison well enough to be certain that she was trustworthy. But she knew Charlie. He’d been a liar and a bully since childhood. You couldn’t take anything he said at face value. She’d be a fool to discard Madison on his say-so. She should do her own investigation and make her own decision.
“You’ve got a mole. I want you to fire her right away,” he said.
“Don’t tell me how to run my chambers.”
He laughed. Kathryn didn’t run her own chambers, and they both knew it. But what Charlie didn’t know was that she’d reached her limit. She was planning to get out, and fast. She needed help to do it. She couldn’t afford to follow his instructions, at least not until she knew if he was telling her the truth.
“You just admitted you don’t know if she’s an informant,” Kathryn said. “There are other reasons she might lie. Maybe her brother put her up to it, and it has nothing to do with the feds. Maybe she just wanted the job, and it’s a coincidence that he’s a drug dealer. Let’s figure out why she’s there and what she wants before we let her go. It’s valuable intelligence.”
He pulled into the alleyway behind the town house, face flushed with pique that she was talking back. He’d been in charge since they were kids. As far as he was concerned, he was the boss of her forever.
He waved toward the courtyard, where light spilled from the house.
“She’s in there right now. You have no idea what she’s doing. She could be going through your things.”
“She’s not.”
“You don’t know that. Kathy, I’m telling you, this kid is a threat. The longer you keep her around, the greater the risk. She needs to be eliminated quickly. Either you do it, or I will. And I won’t be nice.”
Part Three
Madison
18
A few hours earlier Something thumped against Madison’s chest. She gasped, opening her eyes to Lucy walking over her body. The cat turned a pirouette and settled at her feet.
“Good morning to you, too.”
It didn’t look like morning, though. When she finally went to sleep, the sun was fully up. Watery light now slanted through the dormer windows at the angle of late afternoon. She rubbed her temples, groaning as she sat up. Grabbing her phone off the bedside table, she saw it was after two, and there were five missed calls from Mom, the last one just minutes ago. Her phone had been on silent.
She tapped the number. Mom answered immediately. It sounded like she was crying.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”