“I just can’t be associated with this investigation.”
“Well, in that case, I might as well tell you.” Owen glared at her. He crossed his arms, ready for a confrontation.
“Tell me what?”
“Yael dug up another story two days ago. I told her to shelve it out of respect to you, but since you’re not a part of the team anymore, I guess we can run it.”
“What is it?”
“Your father-in-law hasn’t exactly been forthcoming on his tax returns. Turns out Papa Ellis has a cool thirty million stashed at Swiss United. Not in his name, of course. Under the creatively named shell company Offshore Properties.”
“No.” Marina shook her head. “That can’t be right. No way. James is a straight shooter. And he has so much money, it’s not like he needs more. I don’t believe he would cheat on his taxes.”
“Well, it’s not just about saving a few tax dollars. It’s about hiding money earned from illegal business transactions.”
“What illegal business transactions?”
“James Ellis has been doing big business with our old friend Assad.”
“That’s absurd,” Marina said sharply. “What business could James possibly have with Assad?”
“Back in 2007, Ellis went on a buying spree of high-end luxury hotels throughout Europe. He wanted to start his own brand, like Starwood or Hilton, and he leveraged himself to the hilt to do it. But then the financial crisis hit. Ellis was facing bankruptcy. At the last minute, a mysterious angel swooped in and, through a series of shell transactions, purchased the hotels from him practically overnight. He lost hundreds of millions, but not everything. In fact, after it was all said and done, he was still on the Forbes 400 list. He was lucky to walk away with the shirt on his back.”
“Someone would have noticed. There’s no way—”
“Oh, people noticed. For a while, there was buzz at the Wall Street Journal that Ellis had been bailed out by a big Middle Eastern family. But no one knew for sure who it was. All anyone could prove was that a shell corporation called Zara bought Ellis’s hotels. Turns out the person behind Zara Corp is none other than Bashar al-Assad. And since Assad is on sanctions lists, Ellis is going to be in big trouble when that story gets out. He will definitely be rethinking his run for the White House.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I make this up? You know I can prove it. I wouldn’t tell you about it if I couldn’t.”
Marina winced. She knew Owen was telling the truth. He had no reason to lie. And he had access to all the client files at Swiss United. She just couldn’t believe that James had been able to hide this secret for so long. Did he really think he could continue to while running for president? The world was watching him now. It seemed like a crazy risk. She sank back in her chair.
“He hired people to vet him,” she said slowly. “Why would they let him run for office if he’s hiding piles of dirty money in offshore accounts?”
“They probably don’t know. That’s the thing about offshore accounts. No one can find them. Unless you have an inside source who is willing to blow the whistle.”
“Oh my God,” she said, closing her eyes. “Out of everything, this is the biggest story you have.”
“It’s certainly one of them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was trying to protect you,” Owen snapped. “This is your family we’re talking about.”
“But now that I’m quitting the investigation, you’re comfortable destroying my family.”
“Give me a fucking break, Marina. I didn’t create this situation. James Ellis did.”
“You should have told me.”
“Maybe.” Owen sighed. “I was worried . . .”
“You were worried that what? You were going to ruin my life?”
“I was worried that you would think I was trying to break up your engagement.”
“Why would you do that?”
Owen widened his eyes in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Why—”
“Because I have feelings for you! Are you really unaware of that?”
Marina’s lips parted.
“I’m sorry,” Marina said. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect that.”
“That I have feelings for you? Or that your fiancé is a tax-evading criminal?”
“My future father-in-law, not my fiancé. And no, I didn’t expect any of it.”
“You’re not much of an investigative journalist, are you?” Owen said. They stared at each other for a moment. Then they both laughed, breaking the tension.
“I guess you’re lucky that I’m quitting, then,” Marina said, looking away. Inside, her heart was pounding. Owen’s feelings for her weren’t a surprise, she realized. Though she never would’ve admitted it before now, there had always been an undercurrent of electricity between them. What did surprise her was his willingness to admit it. His vulnerability disarmed her. In that moment, Owen seemed sweeter and more mature than she ever imagined he could be.
“Are you really doing this?” he said softly. “You’re really walking away from this story?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but my mind is made up. You can run it under your name, of course. It’s your story, too.”
“And what about Ellis and his ties to Assad? What about that part of the story?”
Marina’s jaw tensed. “That’s a choice you have to make.”
“The story will come out, sooner or later. It always does.”
“Maybe,” Marina said, meeting his gaze. She stood up and zipped up her coat. “But it doesn’t have to come from a friend.”
“He’s a bad guy, Marina. You deserve better.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong. Grant is the best guy I’ve ever met. Maybe his father has made mistakes. Maybe. But Grant doesn’t deserve to lose everything because of them. If you try to take him down, just know that I’ll be standing right next to him, holding his hand.”
Marina walked out. Owen called out her name, but she ignored him. She let the door slam behind her.
“Don’t you want to know who’s been following you for the past few days? You’re not going to like it,” Owen shouted. But she was already out of earshot.
Annabel
Jonas Klauser. There he was, standing at Annabel’s door. He was impeccably, if casually, dressed in jeans and a purple cashmere sweater that zipped at the neck. His silver hair was neatly combed and impervious to the wind that had been rattling Annabel’s windows for the better part of the morning. Though it was snowing, Jonas wore a light suede jacket, no hat or scarf or gloves. He had on loafers, not snow boots. Jonas always dressed this way, as though he needn’t bother to dress for the elements. Indeed, with his fleet of drivers and private jets to transport him from place to place, Jonas’s feet hardly met the pavement unless he wanted them to. Annabel thought it was intentional. Everything about Jonas was intentional. He wanted you to know that he was above you. For God’s sake, he was above the weather.
“Jonas!” she exclaimed, unable to mask her surprise. She couldn’t avoid being pulled into an embrace. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Julian is on his way over,” Jonas said, after Annabel wriggled free. “He called me about the break-in. I was so worried about you. I didn’t like the thought of you here alone.”
“How did you get here so quickly?”
“I was in the neighborhood. You look pale. You should sit. Can I get you a drink? Some water, perhaps?”
Jonas swept past her, not waiting for an invitation. She followed him in. He rustled around the living room, picking up debris as he went as though it was his apartment, not hers. It is his apartment, Annabel thought, her stomach lurching uncomfortably. It belongs to Swiss United.
“My God,” Jonas said, st
ooping down to restore a stack of books on the coffee table. “What happened here? This place is a wreck.”
“I don’t know. I just got home from London and found it this way.”
“You didn’t need to go to London alone, Annabel. We could have sent someone for you. That must have been very trying.”
“I wanted to. I stayed with a friend. I met with Fares Amir. He was very welcoming. I’m glad I went. I needed the closure.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Fares is brokenhearted, too.”
“Yes, he seemed that way.”
“Have you called the authorities?”
“Yes,” Annabel said, even though she hadn’t. She wondered if Julian had bothered to, or if he’d just called Jonas instead. “They should be here soon.”
Jonas nodded. “Good. This is awful. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. It isn’t your fault.” She met his gaze, and he held it. If he felt guilt, he was doing a masterful job concealing it. If anything, he appeared sad. Concerned. Genuinely so.
Optics, Annabel reminded herself sternly. It’s all optics.
“Was anything taken?”
Annabel shook her head. “It’s the strangest thing. It doesn’t seem like anything’s missing. My jewelry’s there. Some of the art was destroyed but none of it’s gone. I even had an envelope filled with money in my top drawer and they left that, too. It’s like they were looking for something specific.”
“What about Matthew’s office?”
“It’s been trashed as well. I never went in there, so I wouldn’t be able to tell if something had been taken.”
“His computer, maybe? Or files?”
“I really don’t know. Wouldn’t his computer be at his office?”
“No, his laptop. The one he used for travel.”
Annabel shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, as casually as possible. “I assumed it was with him. On the plane, I mean.”
Jonas nodded. He turned away. Annabel thought she saw him blink back tears.
“Could you help me close the windows?” she said. “It’s so cold in here.”
“Of course.”
Silently, the two began to work. Jonas pushed his sweater up on his forearms and went about closing the windows until the sound of the street became muffled and the air in the apartment fell still. Annabel collected the papers that had blown off the coffee table and were scattered about the rug. She put the pillows, slit open and leaking feathers, back in their rightful positions on the sofa. She returned the books to the shelves. When they had finished in the living room, they moved to the dining room. There was less mess there and fewer windows. The kitchen was the most work. The cabinets had been emptied. The jars filled with sugar and coffee and flour had been dumped out onto the floor. Jonas asked where the laundry room was, and Annabel pointed to a door off the kitchen. He returned with a vacuum in one hand and a broom and dustpan in the other. Annabel watched as he went to work. When he was finished, he began on the countertops, spraying them down and wiping them up with wordless precision.
The office came next. Annabel tried not to stare as Jonas worked his way around Matthew’s desk, pushing in drawers, righting the lamp, straightening the chair. He moved quickly and efficiently. If he was looking for anything—scraps of information, loose papers, USBs—he didn’t show it. She felt almost guilty when he fell to his knees and began replacing shredded paper and old wrappers in the waste basket.
“You don’t need to do that,” Annabel said.
“Nonsense. If we work together it will be done in no time. Not that I want you staying here tonight. But at least we can tidy up.”
“Do you think we should wait? For the police, I mean. Is this a crime scene?”
Jonas shrugged. “If nothing was taken, I really don’t know if there’s anything to be done.”
“You’re right. I don’t think there’s really any point in them coming at all, now that I think of it. Thank you for helping me straighten up. I’ll pack up my things and leave, I think.”
“I’d like you to come stay with us, in Cologny, Annabel. That way I know you’ll be safe.”
“That’s very kind. I may do that, just for the night, if that’s all right.”
“You can stay as long as you’d like.”
Annabel smiled. “I won’t stay long. It’s time for me to go back to New York. It’s hard for me to be here in Geneva.”
“I understand. I’ll make any arrangements you need.”
They went into the bedroom last. There was something disarmingly intimate, Annabel thought, about making another person’s bed. Jonas did it with remarkable care. He pulled the duvet up and smoothed the wrinkles out with his hand. He fluffed the pillows. The tangled mess of sheets was restored to pristine arrangement within minutes.
“You’re quite good at that,” Annabel said. She couldn’t help herself—she smiled. “Do you make your own bed at home?”
Jonas laughed. “It’s been a few years. You can take the man out of military school, but you can’t take the military school out of the man.”
“I didn’t know you went to military school.”
“Yes. At eleven. My parents died, and they shipped me off. A formative experience, to be sure.”
“My parents died then, too. When I was eleven.”
“Who cared for you?”
“My aunt. She sent me to boarding school as well. Though not at eleven. That’s terribly young.”
Jonas shrugged. “I grew up quickly that year.”
“And you learned to make an excellent bed.”
“Indeed. Elsa is a lucky woman.” Jonas chuckled. He sat on the floor, leaning up against the bed. “You and I have a lot in common, Annabel.”
“Do we?”
“Yes, I think so. Why we came to Geneva, for example.”
Annabel raised her eyebrows. “Why did you come here?” she said. It was hard to picture Jonas living anywhere else but here. Of course, he must have come from somewhere. He hadn’t always been the king of offshore banks.
“I came here to start over. After losing Charlotte. My first wife.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Annabel took a seat on the floor beside Jonas without even thinking.
“Matthew never mentioned her to you?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“I told Matthew about Charlotte just once. When I offered him this job. I don’t talk about her a lot. It’s still hard for me to say her name, after all these years.”
“I’m sure.” Annabel felt her heart rising in her throat. Would she ever be able to speak of Matthew again, she wondered, without feeling as gutted as she felt right now?
“She was my college sweetheart. She went to Radcliffe and I was at Harvard. We met at the Harvard-Yale game, our sophomore year. The day we graduated, I proposed in Harvard Yard. We got married that August, at her parents’ house in Maine. We settled in Boston. Charlotte grew up in Milton and she felt comfortable there, and a professor of mine got me a job in private banking. We lived in a little house in Beacon Hill. There was no air-conditioning and it was hot as hell in the summer, but we were very happy there. I wanted a backyard, but Charlotte didn’t want me to have to commute. She liked having me home for dinner. There were these little blue window boxes and Charlotte filled them with flowers in the spring. She called them our gardens. I think it was the happiest time of my life.”
Annabel nodded. She found herself interested to hear more.
“Back then, I traveled a lot for work. I was building my business. Meeting clients. Expanding my book. Charlotte’s parents never liked me. They didn’t think I was good enough for her. Her father was from an old New England family, a real Boston Brahmin. He thought I was a nobody, and even though he was right—I really was a nobody—I was desperate to prove him wrong. I went about it in the only way I
knew how: making money. I thought if I grew rich enough, they would have to accept me. So that was my goal. I wanted to take over the bank. Anything less would have been a failure in my eyes.
“For the first year, I did quite well. Charlotte handled it all wonderfully. She never complained. Even when she got pregnant, she was always cheerful. Never said a word about all the missed dinners and the vacations that never happened. When she was physically uncomfortable—and I knew she was, as the pregnancy wore on—she never said so. Didn’t want me to worry about her. She accepted everything with such grace.”
Annabel felt tears welling up in her eyes. She knew the trauma of a pregnancy gone wrong. It had been so long since she’d thought about her own. She’d tried to bury that loss in the darkest recesses of her mind. Every now and then, it bobbed back up to the surface, sharp and painful as ever. Now was one of those times.
“I was in Chicago when she died. Charlotte was about to enter her third trimester. She had been having fainting spells and her doctor put her on bed rest. It was supposed to be my last overnight trip. After that, I promised her I’d come home every night. Even if it meant leaving at the crack of dawn and returning that same day, I would do it. I wanted to sleep beside her. I knew she wasn’t listening to her doctors. She would call me after she’d been out shopping or to the market. She was still gardening. She was never one to sit still. It wasn’t in her nature. Frankly, it was one of the things I loved most about her.
“Her mother called when I was leaving for the airport. I’ll never forget it. I remember everything about that day: what I was wearing, where I was standing, what the weather looked like outside. It was afternoon but the sky outside the hotel window was dark. I was worried I would miss my flight home. I ended up making the flight, but it didn’t matter. Charlotte was already dead. She bled to death. A placental abruption, do you know what that is? The placenta separates from the uterus. Completely, in Charlotte’s case. The baby didn’t make it. They were both gone by the time I got home.”
“Oh, Jonas,” Annabel whispered. “I can’t imagine.”
Jonas patted her knee. “I think you can, actually. Every loss is different, of course, but grief, I’ve found, is universal. We speak that language, you and me. We always will.”
The Banker’s Wife Page 18
