She braced herself for another punch or a kick or the spray bottle, but instead, he did something far worse than she could have ever imagined.
He took off the hood.
Lydia closed her eyes against the blinding light. She turned her head away. She hissed fresh air in and out between her teeth.
Paul said, “You can’t keep your eyes closed forever.”
She squinted, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the light. The first thing she saw was her own hands clutching the green vinyl pads on the arms of the chair. Then the concrete floor. Wadded-up fast-food bags. A stained mattress.
Lydia looked up at Paul. He held out his hands like a magician finishing a trick.
She had been tricked.
The ambient sound was coming from a pair of computer speakers. The leaves under her feet were on the floor of the garage. The wall behind her was stained concrete block. They were not in an isolated cabin in the woods.
Paul had brought her back to the Fuller house.
SEVENTEEN
Fred Nolan said, “Tell me about your relationship with your husband.”
Claire looked away from his smug face. They were in a cramped interrogation room inside the downtown FBI field office. She had her legs crossed under a cheap plastic table. Her foot was shaking uncontrollably. There was no clock in the room. Hours had passed. Claire had no idea how many, but she knew her self-imposed deadline for telling Paul how to get back the thumbdrive had long passed.
Nolan asked, “Was he a nice guy? Romantic?”
Claire didn’t answer. She felt sick with fear. Paul wouldn’t be sending pictures of Lydia anymore. There was nothing to keep him in check. Would he be anxious? Angry? Did he know that Claire was talking to the police? Was he taking out his fury on Lydia?
Nolan said, “Me, I try to be romantic, but I always end up doing it wrong. Tulips instead of roses. Tickets to the wrong show.”
Claire tasted bile in her mouth. She had seen the violence that Paul was capable of. With Claire on radio silence, what would he do to her sister?
“Claire?”
Tears filled her eyes. Lydia. She had to help Lydia.
“Come on.” Nolan waited a full minute before letting out a long, disappointed sigh. “You’re just making this harder on yourself.”
Claire stared up at the ceiling so her tears would not fall. The clock on the Tesla had read 6:48 when she’d pulled into the parking deck under the FBI building. How long ago had that been? Claire didn’t even know whether or not it was still Sunday.
Nolan knocked on the table to get her attention. “You were married to the guy for almost nineteen years. Tell me about him.”
Claire blinked away the useless tears. None of this was going to get Lydia back. What could Claire do? Lydia had said it herself: She wasn’t a superhero. Neither of them were. She turned her gaze to the large mirror that took up one side of the wall. Her reflection showed an exhausted woman with a dark circle under her left eye. Paul had punched her in the face. He had knocked her out.
What was he doing to Lydia?
“All right.” Nolan tried again. “How about this: Was he a Falcons guy or a Braves guy? Did he like sugar in his coffee?”
Claire stared down at the table. She had to get herself under control. Panicking was not going to get her out of this room. Nolan was playing nice for now. He hadn’t arrested her for failing to appear at the scheduled meeting. He’d let her voluntarily follow the police officer to the FBI building. Once he had her inside, Nolan had reminded Claire of the terms of her parole, but he hadn’t handcuffed her or threatened her with anything more dangerous than calling her parole officer to drug-test her.
So did this mean that Nolan was clean, or that he was working with Paul?
Claire tried to push down her fear about what might be happening to Lydia and concentrate on what was happening in this airless room right now. Nolan wasn’t asking any questions about the USB drive or the Fuller house. He hadn’t stashed her in a dirty motel where he could beat the information out of her. He wasn’t pushing her about Captain Mayhew or Adam Quinn or talking about how much fun it was to watch movies on rainy nights. He was drilling her about her fucking relationship.
Claire asked, “What time is it?”
Nolan said, “Time is a flat circle.”
Claire gave an exaggerated groan. She was going to start screaming if she didn’t get out of this room. She had Lydia’s phone stashed down the front of her bra. Claire had turned it off after calling her mother. She couldn’t text or call Paul. She didn’t know her lawyer’s phone number. She couldn’t call Rick after telling him to take Dee and run as far as he could go.
In the last twenty-four years, Claire had never once asked Helen for anything. Why on earth had she thought that reaching out to her now was a good idea?
“Claire?”
She finally looked at Nolan. “This is the fifth time you’ve asked me a variation on that same question.”
“Humor me.”
“For how much longer?”
“You’re free to go.” He indicated the door, and they both knew he meant free to go to her parole officer, because Nolan knew there were drugs in her system. Maybe he even knew that there was a gun in Claire’s car. She had stashed the revolver in the driver’s-side door pocket because that was slightly less obvious than hiding it in the trunk.
She said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll get a female agent to escort you.”
Claire clenched her jaw. Three times, she had asked to use the bathroom. Three times, a female agent had taken her to the handicapped restroom and watched Claire use the toilet.
She asked Nolan, “Are you scared I’m going to flush myself?”
“Maybe you’ve got some drugs hidden in your clothes? You’ve been hanging around your sister a lot lately.”
He had played this card already. Claire did not rise to the bait.
“Still, might be worth calling in a female agent to search you.” He was silent long enough to make Claire sweat. She didn’t care if they found the gun inside the Tesla, but Lydia’s iPhone was her only lifeline to Paul.
There was no passcode on the phone. She could practically hear Paul lecturing her on the importance of using passcodes.
Nolan slapped his palms down on the table. “Ya know, Claire, you should really start answering my questions.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m with the FBI. My side always wins.”
“You keep saying that, but I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Rockin’ a little Inigo Montoya. I like it.”
She looked at the mirror, wondering which Great and Powerful Oz was watching them. Johnny Jackson was her first bet. Captain Jacob Mayhew. Maybe even Paul. She could very well see him having the balls to walk into an FBI field office just to watch her squirm. Maybe they had invited him.
Nolan asked, “Would you say that your relationship with Paul was good?”
Claire gave in a little, because stonewalling hadn’t worked the last five times. “Yes. I would say that my relationship with my husband was good.”
“Because?”
“Because he certainly knew how to fuck me.”
Nolan took the baser meaning. “I’ve always wondered what it’d feel like to climb behind the wheel of a Lamborghini.” He winked. “More of a Pinto man myself.”
Claire had never found self-deprecating men attractive. She stared at the two-way mirror. “Paul was good friends with Johnny Jackson. Do you know him?”
“The Congressman?” Nolan shifted in his chair. “Sure. Everybody’s heard of him.”
“He did a lot for Paul.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.” She kept her eyes on the mirror. “He gave Quinn + Scott billions in government contracts. Did you know that?”
“I did.”
Claire let her gaze travel back to Nolan. “Do you want me
to tell you about Congressman Jackson and his relationship with Paul?”
“Sure.” Nolan’s tone was even. “We could start there.”
Claire studied the man closely. She couldn’t get a read off him. Was he afraid? Was he eager? “Johnny was an FBI agent back in the early nineties.”
“That’s true.”
Claire waited for more. “And?”
“He was one of the shittiest agents this office has ever seen.”
“I don’t recall reading that in his official bio.”
Nolan shrugged. He didn’t seem afraid that Jackson would break through the mirror and strangle him.
Claire said, “He’s been all over the press conferences with the Kilpatrick family.”
“I said he was a shitty agent, not a shitty politician.”
Claire still couldn’t read the man’s expression. “You don’t sound like a fan.”
Nolan clasped his hands together on the table. “On the surface, it seems like we’re making progress, but when I think back on the last few minutes of our conversation, I get the feeling that you’re questioning me instead of the other way around.”
“You’ll make a great detective one day.”
“Fingers crossed.” He flashed a grin. “I want to tell you something about the FBI.”
“You always win?”
“Sure, there’s that, and terrorists, of course. Kidnappers, bank robbers, pedophiles—nasty fuckers—but nuts and bolts, what we at the ol’ FBI deal in day to day is curiosities. Did you know that?”
Claire didn’t respond. He’d clearly given this speech before.
Nolan continued, “Local cops, they find something curious they can’t figure out, and they bring it to us and we either agree that it’s curious or we don’t. And generally when we agree, it’s not just the one curious thing, it’s several curious things.” He held up his index finger. “Curious thing number one: Your husband embezzled three million dollars from his company. Only three million dollars. That’s curious, because you’re loaded, right?”
Claire nodded.
“Curious thing number two.” He added a second finger. “Paul went to college with Quinn. He shared a dorm room with the guy, and then when they were in grad school together, they shared an apartment, and then Quinn was best man at your wedding, and then they started the business together, right?”
Claire nodded again.
“They’ve been best friends for almost twenty-one years, and it seemed curious to me that after twenty-one years, Quinn figures out his best buddy is stealing from their company, the one they built together from the ground up, but instead of going to his buddy and saying, ‘Hey, what the fuck, buddy?’ Quinn goes straight to the FBI.”
The way he put it together did seem curious, but Claire only said, “Okay.”
Nolan held up a third finger. “Curious thing number three: Quinn didn’t go to the cops. He went to the FBI.”
“You have domain over financial crimes.”
“You’ve been reading our website.” Nolan seemed pleased. “But lemme ask you again: Is that what you’d do if your best friend of twenty-one years stole a small, almost negligible, amount of money from your zillion-dollar company—find the biggest, baddest stick to fuck him with?”
The question gave Claire a different answer: Adam had turned Paul in to the FBI, which meant that Adam and Paul were not getting along. Either Adam Quinn didn’t know about the movies or he knew about the movies and he was trying to screw over Paul.
Claire asked Nolan, “What did you do next?”
“How’s that?”
“You investigated Adam’s complaint about the money. You must have talked to the accountants. You traced the money back to Paul. And then what?”
“I arrested him.”
“Where?”
“Where?” Nolan repeated. “That’s a funny question.”
“Humor me.”
Nolan chuckled again. He was enjoying this. “I arrested him in his fancy office down the street. I put the handcuffs on him myself. Frogmarched him through the front lobby.”
“You surprised him.” Claire knew the kinds of things Paul left behind when he was surprised. “Did you check his computer?”
“Another funny question.”
“You have your curious things, I have my funny questions.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “Yes, I checked his computer.”
Claire nodded, but not for the reason Nolan would be thinking. If Adam had known about the movies, he would’ve made sure that they weren’t on Paul’s computer when the cops came. The first thing Paul would’ve done is point the finger back at his partner. Which meant that Fred Nolan had just handed Claire compelling proof that Adam was not involved in Paul’s side business after all.
“So, what do you say?” Nolan asked. “Quid pro quo, Clarice?”
They stared at each other again, this time with hope instead of hostility.
Could she trust Fred Nolan? He worked with the FBI. Then again, so had Johnny Jackson. Maybe Nolan’s trash talk about the Congressman was meant to draw her out. Give a little/get a little more. Or perhaps Nolan was being truthful. Paul was always telling Claire that she never trusted people, that she held back too much.
She asked, “What do you want to know?”
A smile broke across his face. “Did Paul slip you something before he died?”
The keytag. She almost laughed with relief. This entire dance had been to move them toward the keytag.
Claire chose to sound obtuse. “Are you making some kind of sexual innuendo because of what my husband and I were doing in the alley?”
“No.” The question clearly knocked him off his game. “Absolutely not. I just want to know if he slipped you—gave you—something. Anything. It could be small or big or—”
Claire stood up. “You’re disgusting.”
“Wait.” He stood up, too. “I’m not being an asshole.”
Claire employed one of Grandma Ginny’s quips. “If you have to say you’re not doing something, then you probably are.”
“I need you to sit down.” Nolan wasn’t playing around anymore. There was nothing flirty or silly about his tone. “Please.”
Claire sat back down, her spine straight in the chair. She could almost feel the power shifting back to her side. Nolan was going to lay all of his cards on the table, and she knew what the first card would be before he even showed his hand.
He said, “He’s alive.”
Claire asked, “Frankenstein?”
“No.” Nolan smoothed down his tie. “Paul. He’s not dead.”
Claire twisted her face into what she hoped was an expression of disbelief.
“Your husband is alive.”
“I am sick of your bullshit, Agent Nolan.” She forced some haughtiness into her voice. “I knew you were reprehensible, but I didn’t know you were cruel.”
“I’m sorry.” He held out his hands as if none of this was his fault. “I’m being straight with you. Your husband is alive.”
Claire tried to show surprise, but it felt too fake. She looked away. Coldness had always worked to her advantage. “I don’t believe you.”
“No more bullshit,” Nolan said. “We helped him fake his death.”
Claire kept her gaze turned away. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t supposed to know the extent of Paul’s crimes. “You’re telling me that the FBI helped my husband fake his death over three million dollars?”
“No, what I told you before is the truth. The embezzlement charges were dropped. That was settled between your husband and his partner. But we found some other things while we were investigating the initial complaint. Things that were a hell of a lot more curious than some missing cash.” Nolan didn’t elaborate. “We realized that Paul had information we needed. Volatile information. His life would’ve been in danger if it got out that he was talking, and we needed him alive to testify at the trial.”
Claire’s cheeks were wet.
She was crying. Why was she crying?
Nolan said, “He was mixed up in some things—bad things— with some bad people.”
She touched her fingers to her face. The tears were real. How could that be?
“He asked to go into witness protection.” Nolan waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “My bosses felt like he might be planning to run, so we moved up the day it was supposed to happen. We picked Paul up on his way to see you, taped him up with the squibs—that’s like a plastic balloon with fake blood—and told him it was going down in the alley.”
Claire stared at her wet fingertips in disbelief. She couldn’t be crying for Paul. She wasn’t that stupid. Was she crying for herself? For Lydia? For her mother who would never come?
Claire looked up at Nolan. He’d stopped talking. She should say something now, ask a question, make a comment.
She said, “Did you know Paul was going to meet me? That I would see it?”
“That was part of the agreement.” This time, Nolan looked away. “He wanted it to happen in front of you.”
Claire’s hands were shaking again. She longed for a time when nothing on her body shook with rage or fear or whatever mixture of hate and betrayal she was feeling right now. “The paramedics—”
“Were undercover agents. Detective Rayman was in on it, too.”
“The man at the funeral home?”
“It’s amazing what people will do for you when you threaten to sic the IRS on their financial records.”
“They asked me if I wanted to see the body.”
“Paul said that you wouldn’t.”
Claire clenched her fists. She hated that he knew her so well. “What if he was wrong and I asked to see it?”
“It’s not like on TV. We show you the image on a screen. The body’s usually in another room with a camera pointed on it.”
Claire shook her head. She couldn’t fathom the level of deceit at play. All to help Paul. All to give him a new life without Claire.
“I’m sorry.” Nolan reached into his jacket. He handed Claire a handkerchief. She stared at the neatly folded white cloth. His initials were embroidered in the corner.
She said the things she had wanted to say to Paul. “I watched him die. He was in my arms. I felt his skin go cold.”
Pretty Girls: A Novel Page 34
