card.”
She’d put this off as long as she could. “My friend is Linette Tassone, and we attended the Ecole d’Ascension in Carcassonne, France, at the same time. We shared a dorm room and common study interests. Like me, she had a knack for computers.” Gabrielle noticed Gotthard typing. Taking her statement? “When I graduated, I went on to receive a degree in computer science in the UK, then I decided to search for Linette. That’s when I found out about her…death, but I always questioned the story of her disappearance and now I feel justified.”
“What story?” Carlos asked.
“Linette’s father said she’d run away and had taken up with a bunch of degenerates. He said her stupid actions got her killed, but he didn’t tell me more. I was shocked and eighteen when I made the trip to see her family, too young to press her father for details.”
“Why don’t you believe him?” Rae asked.
Gabrielle waved her hands in exasperation. “First of all, Linette would never have defied her father because she was terrified of him and an obedient child. Second, she was so shy it took us three months of seeing each other every day to finally speak, and I spoke first. Third, Linette was far from stupid. She was brilliant. And, fourth, she would never have just disappeared without saying a word to me.”
“So what do you think happened?” Carlos watched her as though he judged every word, trying to come up with a verdict.
“I don’t know,” Gabrielle admitted quietly. “I didn’t so much accept what her father had said as I finally accepted that Linette was gone forever after years of searching for her. But now I believe something happened to her she couldn’t avoid, like she was kidnapped or coerced to go somewhere. I just can’t figure out the grave in the family plot with her headstone or her father’s story. If Linette isn’t dead, then who did he bury?” She sent that last question to Carlos, who didn’t show any reaction, so Gabrielle went on.
“Anyhow, I had planned to work somewhere until-” She took a deep breath; the strain of the last few days and now having people pry into her private life weighed her down emotionally. “Until I married Roberto. After our divorce, I was attacked and decided to work from my home.” Hiding like a criminal after he’d first terrified her with his fists. She’d been ready to divorce and then imprison him until he explained how he’d publicly smear her and her family’s name, which would have destroyed her father, who was at the time in a tight campaign for his new position. Roberto had secretly filmed her the few times she’d shared his bed and manipulated the video to something so degrading she got nauseous just thinking about the copy he’d given her.
Her father’s career would be destroyed and her stepsisters would live under a cloud of shame by association to her. So she’d agreed to Roberto’s terms, which painted him as the victim of a loveless marriage who divorced her.
If only conceding her pride had ended it all. She suspected the enormous insurance policy Roberto carried on her listing him as the beneficiary was the motivation for the attacks, but if she went after him, he’d turn on her family.
As it was, he was content to either wait on her to die or only make attempts that appeared as accidents and could not be traced to him.
“I picked up on an odd posting on a Web site message board and realized it had to be some sort of code,” she continued, explaining why she was in hiding beyond fear of Roberto. “I was shocked at what I learned when I broke the code. I watched the posts for a couple weeks, trying to decide if it was someone playing or seriously planning an attack on a flight from Heathrow to Wales-”
“The prime minister’s flight that was diverted in ’99?” Gotthard had stopped typing.
She slowly nodded her head.
“MI5 picked up posts from the terrorists that tipped them off-” Gotthard’s words died when she shook her head.
“I figured no one would believe me if I just called up to tell them, and I didn’t want to become the target of terrorists. So I set up a network to send e-mails with enough markers to alert MI5. If I have to, I can quote the text in each e-mail. I began using an alias to protect myself after that.”
She paused, hoping for some words of understanding. None. “I started looking for information then since the Internet was such an easy place for criminals to maintain contact and pass plans. When I found things that might affect a country’s security, I then had to find a way to get this information to worthy intelligence groups.” She gave Carlos a peeved glance. “Someone who would have shown more respect to an informant.”
Carlos lifted an eyebrow in a don’t-get-snippy look.
She shrugged. “I didn’t want the information to land in the wrong hands. If you believe I’m Mirage, then you should know how much I’ve helped in the Middle East.”
Guarded looks passed around the room.
“Why do you think Linette didn’t include her return address?” Gotthard asked Gabrielle.
“She’s probably worried that I might try to find her and land in the same place she’s in or get into some kind of trouble hunting her down.” Which was exactly what Gabrielle had been contemplating, but these people didn’t need that information. “I think she’s a prisoner somewhere and it has something to do with that fratelli reference.” She didn’t want these people thinking Linette was a criminal.
Carlos paused his tapping fingers. “What about your resources in South America. How did you find them?”
“In a chat room for an underground operation in South America that is part of an organized watchdog group, for lack of a better description. They want to rid their country of the drug lords, which may not be a realistic goal, but at least they are doing something. I created a communication path with someone there in a way that would not lead anyone to me in case it was a trap.”
Gabrielle would share all she could, but not a word about how the Anguis were responsible for her mother’s death. She’d kept the secret safe for the first few years in deference to her father’s demand. But now she had to keep it secret to protect her own life.
Who knew where the information from this room would go after this meeting? If Durand Anguis learned the whole story and couldn’t find her, he’d go after her family.
She rubbed her tired eyes, thinking. “I don’t know what to say that will convince you, but I’ve risked my neck to help intelligence agencies and now you, even though I don’t know who or what you are. I’d never heard of Mandy before getting the postcard.”
“Guest arriving,” the mechanical voice announced again.
All eyes turned to the flat screen where a silver Lamborghini entered the gate.
“Who’s that?” Gabrielle asked, nibbling on her fingernail.
“The boss.” Rae tapped her pen on the table. “You said Linette disappeared while you were at school. What did everyone say about her missing?”
“Nothing really. It wasn’t that unusual.” Gabrielle stopped fidgeting with her fingernail, swiped a hand over her hair, and explained, “Linette wasn’t in class one day. When I went to our room to check on her, all her possessions were gone. I asked questions, but no one would tell me anything, not even her family’s address so I could write her. The school is very strict. They don’t tolerate being questioned.”
“Wait,” Carlos said, staring over her head in concentration. “You said nothing really happened when Linette went missing and that it wasn’t that unusual? Did you mean it wasn’t unusual for Linette or for others to go missing?”
Footsteps approached from the top of the stairs.
“Others,” Gabrielle answered, keeping her eyes on the stairwell. “Students dropped out all the time without notice.”
When another towering hunk in a leather motorcycle jacket entered, the room came to attention. He was maybe late thirties and wore jeans in a way any woman would appreciate. Just as imposing as the rest of this bunch with his dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and blue eyes so intense she felt as though he expected her to give up her secrets with a look.
Carlos took a seat beside Gotthard.
“Gabrielle, I’m Joe,” the new man said politely, before he addressed the others in the room. “Hell of a jump you made. Good job. Gotthard has kept me posted on this morning’s conversation and running a deep profile on Gabrielle, cross-checking her story.”
She glanced at Gotthard, who had leaned an elbow on the table and propped his head with a meaty hand. He nodded at Joe. “Everything she said checks out.”
